Earlier this week, Indonesia held a two day symposium on the mass killings that took place here from 1965-1966. It was the first government sponsored public discussion of the dark chapter in Indonesian history in which an estimated 500,000-1,000,000 people were killed under the pretext of a communist purge, and many Indonesians still believe the killings were justified to save the country from the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).
Due to years of government propaganda, communism and any leftist ideas even slightly associated with communism remain taboo in Indonesia, and attacks against leftist groups are rarely stopped by the authorities. A perfect example of this dynamic plays out in the following video, which was shared by Putri Ketonggo on April 19 and has already been shared over 9,000 times:
In the video, which seems to take place in Jakarta based upon the visible license plates, a motorcyclist seems to have been forcibly stopped by some stereotypical preman (thugs) because he is wearing a tiny pin featuring the Soviet hammer and sickle symbol commonly associated with communism.
One of the thugs is wearing a jacket with the symbol LSM KPK, which is a civil society organization that borrows the latter half of its name from the KPK (Corruption Eradication Committee).
The thugs question the driver about the pin, yelling thing like, “THIS IS INDONESIA YOU HEAR? ARE YOU PKI? THEN WHY ARE YOU WEARING THIS PIN?” They periodically smack him, grab him and call him “anjing”.
One of the thugs claims to be the son of a soldier. You can hear “This is NKRI (Unitary Nation the Republic of Indonesia) bro. You know my ‘babe’ (father) died for this country.”
At around the 2:20 mark, the police show up at the scene but do little to prevent the motorcyclist’s harassment after seeing the taboo pin.
At one point the abused motorcyclist says “Alright but don’t be so aggressive…” to which a thug replies “BUT IF YOU’RE PKI I’LL KILL YOU!”
Towards the end, the thugs make the motorcyclist sing “Indonesia Raya”, but smack his helmet again when he falters on the second line.
In the end, the police seem to have allowed the thugs to get away with their violent behaviour. Indeed, many of the people who shared the video praised the preman for their actions.
With so many Indonesians having so thoroughly been brainwashed by anti-communist propaganda growing up, we’re afraid it will be a long time before a rational discussion and understanding of what happened in 1965 can ever happen at a national level. Oh well, there’s always the next generation…
