.jpg) |
| Wiki Info - Image: Wiki |
By Nadia Bulkin
A new documentary is inventive, but will not help Indonesia get to the truth of the 1965 killings.
The Act of Killing, a new documentary on Indonesia’s anti-Communist mass killings, is making the rounds globally and earning praise for its innovative cinematography. Innovative it may be, but the film has a flaw: it sends the wrong message about what happened in Indonesia in 1965, and fails to explain why the killers were never brought to justice. Gangsters and paramilitaries didn’t engineer this military coup; the entire political system was complicit. In Indonesia’s national mythology, the killings were necessary, even heroic – the Communists had to die to protect national unity. Until this understanding changes, truth and reconciliation are near impossible.
Beginning in October 1965, up to 2.5 million suspected Communists were slaughtered across Indonesia. The Cold War meant their deaths received very little international attention. For many non-Indonesians, The Act of Killing is their first exposure to the purge. But the movie’s focus on gangsters and paramilitaries is far too narrow: these amateurs alone could not have killed so many. They were part of a pyramid, with former President Suharto at the top and civilians – driven to save the country, avenge slights, or having been told it was “kill or be killed” – at the bottom. Each level delegated the “dirty work” to those below, so young under-employed men like Anwar Kongo and Adi Zulkadry ended up executing the most.
Suharto and the military mobilized the population against suspected Communists, spread violent propaganda, and supplied weapons and guidance. Yet the closest anyone comes to implicating the military in the film is an Army order to “just dump the bodies in the river.” This blind spot has led one surviving victim to protest the movie, because, it is argued, “soldiers carried out the massacres.”
Read the full 2 page story at The Diplomat