My cultural artifact for this month is a documentary titled The Act of Killing which centers on the Indonesian genocide in the 1960s. I actually watched this documentary for my global studies senior seminar class, though I found it coincidental that Julie and I have discussed this topic (from a different perspective) in one of our meetings.
The documentary is fully in Bahasa Indonesia with English subtitles. I could understand what they were saying for the most part, even without subtitles, though it was part of the documentary and could not be turned off. The director employed an approach that I have never seen in another documentary, which is essentially tricking the subjects. This documentary focuses on a man who actually participated in the mass killings in the ‘60s and he details his actions as well as expresses his view of the events. The director tricked him by saying that the documentary was actually for the purpose of creating a Hollywood-style cinematic recreation of the mass killings. To give context, the genocide was carried out by the Indonesian Army against those their accused of being part of the Communist Party, though it later extended to entire ethnic groups such as Chinese-Indonesians, since they associated the ethnic Chinese with the Communist party. The fact that the subject was okay with filming a (fake) recreation shows how much he believed in the cause. The perpetrators of this mass killing genuinely believed their actions were justified and decades later were still proud of what they had done. By the end of the documentary, the main subject eventually showed remorse for what he had done, only after filming the recreation. In the recreation, he played the role of one of the victims and through that he finally realized how atrocious his actions were.
While watching this documentary, I realized that I had talked about this topic with my language partner in one of our meetings. We read an article on G30S, the Thirtieth of September Movement, which was an attempted coup against the Indonesian Army. We did not get through the whole article, though I do remember reading about how the media outlets in Indonesia were taken over before several generals were kidnapped and assassinated. I did not know at the time, but this attempted coup was the main reason why the mass killings took place. Communists were blamed for the coup, which resulted in the purging committed by the Army.
An interesting aspect of this genocide is how well the Indonesian government is able to cover it up. As a result, this documentary had very negative reception in Indonesia and I imagine there is heavy censorship related to the topic. My language partner, Julie, also stressed how many Indonesians are unaware that this genocide actually took place, or they view it as something other than a mass killing. She encouraged me to ask my parents and other family members about this topic and see if they know about it, which is something I plan to do when I see them again.
Comments
Kianti,
It is very interesting and refreshing to hear that the director used a different storytelling approach. I am not knowledgeable of any Indonesian culture or history, so I did not know that there were genocides that took place. Although the Rwanda genocides have gotten massive media attention and awareness, it is sad to see that other genocides like the one you talked about are not well known throughout the world and taught in secondary education. I am very interested in also watching this documentary!