Philippine E-Journals

Memory and Mass Killings: How Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing Engages with Indonesia’s Collective Memory of the 1965 Tragedy

Alex Melnik

 

Abstract:

In the early morning of October 1, 1965, six Indonesian generals were slain, their bodies later found in Lubang Buaya (Crocodile Pit). Shortly after, the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was officially blamed for the murders and the supposed coup attempt, and General Suharto seized power. Over the proceeding months, a wave of violence emerged, and nearly one million Indonesians, including PKI members as well as those deemed disloyal to the state ideology Pancasila, were executed, and hundreds of thousands more were jailed or exiled. Throughout the next 31 years, Suharto’s New Order regime constructed a collective memory of the 1965 Tragedy which portrayed the PKI as the orchestrators of an attempted coup and as a threat to Pancasila. This narrative was reinforced by various lieux de mémoire (sites of memory), with perhaps the most notable example being the 1984 state-sponsored film Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI (The Treason of the 30 September Movement). Recently, the documentary The Act of Killing (2012) has brought new attention to the Tragedy, re-examining it through the eyes of some of its killers. This paper seeks to explore how Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing engages with the collective memory of the Tragedy, arguing that his work adds to the memory by establishing new lieux de mémoire which may facilitate reconciliation while also forcing us to transcend the “good and evil” dichotomy through which we usually view the Tragedy.