The Act of Killing

A CAS Roundtable

The editors of Critical Asian Studiesinvited thirteen noted scholars and

activists to share their thoughts on

the award-winning, controversial film

by director Joshua Oppenheimer on

the killings in Indonesia in 196566:

The Act of Killing. Contributors areRobert Cribb, Jacqui Baker, Adam

Tyson, Ariel Heryanto, Galuh Wan-

dita, Vannessa Hearman, Gerry van

Klinken, John Roosa, Leslie Dwyer,

Katharine McGregor, Saskia Wieringa,

Sylvia Tiwon, and Laurie Sears.

Anwar Congo and his friends have been dancing their way through musical

numbers, twisting arms in film noir gangster scenes, and galloping across prai-

ries as yodeling cowboys. Their foray into filmmaking is being celebrated in the

media and debated on television, even though Anwar Congo and his friends are

mass murderers.

Medan, Indonesia.When the government of Indonesia was overthrown by the

military in 1965, Anwar and his friends were promoted from small-time gang-

sters who sold movie theater tickets on the black market to death squad leaders.

They helped the army kill an estimated 1 million alleged communists, ethnic

Chinese, and intellectuals in less than a year. As the executioner for the most no-

torious death squad in his city, Anwar himself killed hundreds of people with his

own hands. Today, Anwar is revered as a founding father of a right-wing paramil-

itary organization that grew out of the death squads. The organization is so

powerful that its leaders include government ministers who happily boast

about everything from corruption and election rigging to acts of genocide. TheAct of Killing is about killers who have won, and the sort of society they havebuilt. Unlike aging Nazis or Rwandan gnocidaires, Anwar and his friends have

not been forced by history to admit they participated in crimes against human-

ity. Instead, they have written their own triumphant history, becoming role

models for millions of young paramilitaries. The Act of Killing is a journey into

Critical Asian Studies

46:1 (2014), 145146

ISSN 1467-2715 print/1472-6033 online / 01 / 00014502 2014 BCAS, Inc. DOI:10.1080/14672715.2014.863601

the memories and imaginations of the perpetrators, offering insight into the

minds of mass killers. And The Act of Killing is a nightmarish vision of a frighten-ingly banal culture of impunity in which killers can joke about crimes against

humanity on television chat shows and celebrate moral disaster with the ease

and grace of a soft-shoe dance number.

A Love of Cinema. In their youth, Anwar and his friends spent their lives at the

movies, for they were movie theater gangsters: they controlled a black market

in tickets, while using the cinema as a base of operations for more serious

crimes. In 1965, the army recruited them to form death squads because they

had a proven capacity for violence and they hated the communists for boycott-

ing American filmsthe most popular (and profitable) in the cinemas. Anwar

and his friends were devoted fans of James Dean, John Wayne, and Victor Ma-

ture. They explicitly fashioned themselves and their methods of murder after

their Hollywood idols. Coming out of the midnight show, they felt just like

gangsters who stepped off the screen. In this heady mood, they strolled across

the boulevard to their office and killed their nightly quota of prisoners. Borrow-

ing his technique from a mafia movie, Anwar preferred to strangle his victims

with wire.

In The Act of Killing, Anwar and his friends agree to tell viewers the story ofthe killings. But their idea of being in a movie is not to provide testimony for a

documentary: they want to star in the kind of films they most love from their

days scalping tickets at the cinemas. The filmmakers seize this opportunity to

expose how a regime that was founded on crimes against humanity, yet has

never been held accountable, would project itself into history. And so they chal-

lenge Anwar and his friends to develop fiction scenes about their experience of

the killings, adapted to their favorite film genres: gangster, western, musical.

They write the scripts. They play themselves. And they play their victims. Their

fiction filmmaking process provides the films dramatic arc, and their film sets

become safe spaces to challenge them about what they did. Some of Anwars

friends realize that the killings were wrong. Others worry about the conse-

quence of the filmed story on their public image. Younger members of the

paramilitary movement argue that they should boast about the horror of themassacres, because their terrifying and threatening force is the basis of their

power today. As opinions diverge, the atmosphere on set grows tense. The edi-

fice of genocide as a patriotic struggle, with Anwar and his friends as its

heroes, begins to sway and crack. Most dramatically, the filmmaking process cat-

alyzes an unexpected emotional journey for Anwar, from arrogance to apparent

regret as he confronts, for the first time in his life, the full implications of what

hes done. As Anwars fragile conscience is threatened by the pressure to remain

a hero, The Act of Killing presents a gripping conflict between moral imagina-tion and moral catastrophe.

146 Critical Asian Studies 46:1 (2014)

The synopsis above is taken from the official website of The Act of Killing: www.theactofkilling.com. See the website for comments by the directors, critical evaluations, releasedates and venues, and distributor contact information.

Cribb / The Act of Killing

Robert Cribb, Australian National University

Filmed over several years in the North Sumatra capital, Medan, The Act of Kill-ing (TAOK) is a sprawling work that encompasses three distinct, though related,stories. The core of the film consists of the reminiscences of an elderly gangster

who took part in the massacres of Communists in 196566. Anwar Congo ap-

pears early on in the film as a genial old man, but his subdued charm evaporates

as he begins to recount, and then to reenact, the killings that he carried out. He

takes the film crew to the rooftop where he garroted his victims with wire to

avoid making a mess with blood. Using an associate as a stand-in, he demon-

strates the technique of slipping a wire noose over the victims head and

twisting it tight for as long as was needed to bring death. One of Congos friends

describes killing his girlfriends father, while another recalls his rape of four-

teen-year-old girls, exulting in the cruelty of the act.

Pleasure in Killing

The pleasure that Congo and his friends take in the memory of cruelty makes

TAOK a difficult film to watch. Not surprisingly, audiences have viewed it as acourageous revelation of the darkest secrets in Indonesias recent past. Yet the

films depiction of the terrible months from October 1965 to March 1966 is

deeply misleading. Although the opening text tells viewers that the killings were

carried out under the auspices of the Indonesian army, the military is invisible in

the films subsequent representation of the massacres.

The killings are presented as the work of civilian criminal psychopaths, not as

a campaign of extermination, authorised and encouraged by the rising Suharto

group within the Indonesian army and supported by broader social forces

frightened by the possibility that the Indonesian communist party might come

to power. At a time when a growing body of detailed research on the killings has

made clear that the army played a pivotal role in the massacres, TAOK puts backon the agenda the Orientalist notion that Indonesians slaughtered each other

with casual self-indulgence because they did not value human life.

Bravado, Memory, and Manipulation

The film makes no attempt to evaluate the truth of Congos confessions. Despite

persistent indications that he is mentally disturbed, and that he and his friends

are boasting for the sake of creating shock, the film presents their claims with-

out critique. There is no reason to doubt that Congo and his friends took part in

the violence of 1965-66, and that the experience left deep mental scars, but did

they kill as many as they claim? At times they sound like a group of teenage boys

trying to outbid each other in tales of bravado.

There is no voice-over in the film. The protagonists seem to speak un-

prompted and undirected. Toward its end, however, the film portrays an

Robert Cribb Critical Asian Studies 46:1 (2014), 147149. ISSN 1467-2715 print /1472-6033 online / 01 / 0014703 / 2014 Inside Indonesia. DOI:10.1080/14672715.2014.867621

incident that, to my mind, casts doubt on its apparent claim to present an unme-

diated portrait of the aged killer. Returning to the rooftop scene of the murders,

Congo seems to experience remorse. Twice, he vomits discreetly into a conve-

nient trough on the edge of the rooftop, before walking slowly and sadly

downstairs. By this time in the film, Oppenheimer has made clear that Congo

regarded him as a friend. Did Oppenheimer really just keep the cameras run-

ning and maintain his distance while his friend was in distress? Did Congo really

think nothing of vomiting in front of the camera, under studio lights, and walk-

ing away as if the camera were not there? The incident seems staged.

The sense of manipulation is all the stronger in those scenes that present the

second story. Congo and his friends plan a film about their exploits in 196566,

and TAOK is interspersed with both excerpts from the finished film and scenesof prior discussion and preparation for the filming. Neither the plot nor the

structure of this film-within-a-film is ever made clear. Instead we see extracts

that are alternately vicious (torture scenes and the burning of a village) and bi-

zarre. A fat gangster called Herman Koto appears repeatedly in drag, sometimes

in a tight pink dress, sometimes in a costume recalling an extravagant Brazilian

Mardi Gras. Some scenes resemble the American gangster films that Congo tells

us he used to watch; some are more like the modern Indonesian horror-fantasy

genre, complete with supernatural beings.

The apparently finished scenes that we see from this film-within-a-film are

slick. The cinematography is expert, the costumes and sets are professional. It

seems too much to imagine that a retired gangster like Congo or a cross-dress-

ing thug like Koto could have produced something of this quality on his own.

Nor did they need to, with a professional film-maker like Oppenheimer in

house. Yet the film is presented as the work of Congo and his friends. It is hard

not to sense a betrayal here. Congo and his associates seem to have been lured

into working with Oppenheimer, only to have their bizarre and tasteless fanta-

sies exposed to the world to no real purpose other than ridicule.

The Politics of Gangsterism

In the third major element in the film, Oppenheimer takes us beyond the con-

fessional and the studio into the sordid world of the Medan underworld.

Actually, it is hardly an underworld. Gangsters hold high government office,

members of the paramilitary Pemuda Pancasila (Pancasila Youth, PP) strut

through the streets, a gangster called Safit Pardede openly extorts protection

money from Chinese traders in the Medan market, and the nations Jusuf Kalla,

attends a PP convention to congratulate the gangsters on their entrepreneurial

spirit. The title of the film-within-a-film, Born Free, deliberately echoes the iden-tity claimed by the PP for itself as preman, or free men.

Oppenheimer films the PP leader, Yapto, as an accomplished capo who can

be suave or coarse as required. Another PP leader proudly shows off his collec-

tion of expensive European kitsch. Very limited, he grunts, self-satisfied, as he

paws piece after piece. The condescension that Oppenheimer shows to the In-

donesian criminal nouveau riche is unfortunate because it trivializes the films

148 Critical Asian Studies 46:1 (2014)

powerful portrayal of the shamelessness of the Medan gangster establishment

and its close connections with political power.

Whatever might be criticized in the rest of the film, anyone interested in mod-

ern Indonesia will want to watch the scenes in which Safit Pardede prowls

through the Medan market collecting cash from his small-trader victims. Manip-

ulative and misleading TAOK may be; it is nonetheless an extraordinarilypowerful film that we should not ignore.

Reprinted with permission from Inside Indonesia 112: AprilJune 2013. www.insidein-donesia.org.

Cribb / The Act of Killing 149

A scene from the documentary The Act of Killing. Anwar Congo is seated in the center.(Photo credit by Anonymous. Courtesy of Drafthouse Films, 2013)

Baker / Remembering to Forget

REMEMBERING TO FORGET

Jacqui Baker, Australian National University

Once upon a time, not so long ago, I guess, I lived in a ramshackle house

perched perilously on a bank of the Malang River. By day, I trekked to the citys

outskirts to interview members of Laskar Jihad, the earliest and most notorious

of the Islamic militias that burgeoned like wildflowers after the fall of Suharto.

The young men wore white robes and cultivated patchy beards and waved their

machetes to shrieks of jihad. Malang nights, by contrast, were quiet, and I

would slip out to the local internet caf, which stayed open as long as there were

glassy-eyed customers to patronize it. So I often found myself in the wee hours

of the morning, tracing a potted path home along the accordion shutters of the

citys Chinese shop-fronts. I would pick my way over the sleeping sex workers

and rickshaw [becak] drivers and street children, whose tender bodies curled inslumber like the green tips of budding ferns. Then it would be a short dash

across a bridge swallowed in darkness before I found my ragged purple door

and darted in.

One night, sometime after 3:00 A.M., after a long Yahoo bender, I leapt into

this darkness and came suddenly upon a young bearded man, wearing white

robes and jackboots and carrying a knife. The details are fuzzy. I cant quite sort

between what actually happened and what might have happened and the sto-

ries I have since told about what happened. I cant stop my mind from churning

out scripted chunks of image and detail heavy with drama that link one feeble

memory to another. Why do I see him in my minds eye, emerging from a thick

mist? Did he brandish a knife or a machete? When I tell the story I say that he

stared long and hard at me. I say that I remember how his body trembled with

anger and anticipation. Did his hands really tighten on the handle of the blade?

Did he angle the blade as if to strike? Did we really stand on that bridge, machete

cocked and eyes fixed upon each other, at the juncture of two civilizations

locked in terror and fascination?

A greeting, punctuated by an honorific, saved my life, or so I like to recount in

the limelight of dinner parties. Good evening, Pak, I chirped. (Or was it morn-ing?) He started for a second and something seemed to relax. (Did he exhale?

Did I?) He nodded and then stormed on toward Malang central. I remember in-

structing my arms and legs to move casually lest the stiff dread in my limbs

provoke him anew. Theres no doubting that something spooky happened that

night. Something that teetered on the edge of violence. Yet the memory comes

to me now in a disorderly jangle of fragmented pictures and pricked skin and

night-air smells so shot through with fear, adrenalin, and bravado that it seems

as if the whole incident happened in a dream. Or, perhaps, a film.

This is, of course, not by chance. David McDougall has discerned the parallels

between film and memory. Film and memory share an otherworldliness, simi-

larly cast from an eerie miscellany of visual, sensory, oneiric, and aural media. Of

Jacqui Baker Critical Asian Studies 46:1 (2014), 150156ISSN 1467-2715 print/1472-6033 online / 01 / 0015007 2014 BCAS, Inc. DOI:10.1080/14672715.2014.863582

all the modern media, only film can adeptly capture the aura of insubstantiality

and dreaming that remembering invokes.1

Indeed memories of state-orches-

trated violence in particular seem to attract the kind of surplus of empty

signifiers that Levi Strauss argued defined pathological thought. In pathologi-

cal thought an overflow of emotional interpretations and overtones

[supplements] an otherwise deficient reality.2And yet, as McDougall observes,

films of memory, documentaries that interrogate historical events, have largelyignored film and memorys analogous qualities. Instead, films of memory string

together objectified truths into historical accounts apparently made authentic

by referents to memorycrackled sounds of newsreel, sepia photographs, and

dusty objects. Few have successfully managed what McDougall identifies as

memory films ultimate problem, namely, how to represent the minds land-

scape, whose images and sequential logic are always hidden from view.3

The parallels and slippages of film and memory in acts of grotesque violence

are the subject of Joshua Oppenheimers masterful film The Act of Killing(TAOK). Anwar Congo, the films hapless star, has materially profited from hisrole in killing suspected communists, in the form of teak furniture and slick

shiny suits, but unlike his peers, Anwar is too guileless to have parlayed his role

in the executions into any real political capital. Even his sidekick Adi, whose ter-

rifying honesty renders him the films truly psychopathic jester, has stopped

returning his calls. In the twilight of Anwars life, shadowed by his corpulent

and devoted sidekick Herman Koto, his ducks, and wide-eyed twin grandsons,

Anwar embarks on the film with Oppenheimer as a commemorative project,

one crafted with all the political and simulative intent of the commemoration;

to reinvigorate the community and social hierarchy of Medans anticommunist

elite through mimesis and enactment.4

By filming simulations of his remem-

bered executions of suspected PKI sympathizers, Anwar is making a political

claim, reasoned in the authenticity of performance, to a higher perch inMedans social order. That Anwar hopes to milk Oppenheimers camera for per-

sonal gain does not obstruct or divert the films aims. Nor would sieving truth

from Anwars bluster strengthen TAOK. On the contrary, Anwars ambitions areintegral to Oppenheimers vision of film as radical intervention into the wider

Indonesian social memory.

Erik Mueggler observes that studies of social memory generally employ a

well-worn conceptual vocabulary: inscription and erasure, commemoration

and transmission, repression and the return of the repressed.5

Yet in Yunnan

Province, where Mueggler conducts his ethnography, he notes that a psychoan-

alytic vocabulary, dominated by the old familiar round of state repression and

personalized returns of the repressed hardly seems adequate to deal with imagi-

native accounts of social memory and forgetting around the Cultural

Baker / Remembering to Forget 151

1. MacDougall 1992, 29.2. Levi-Strauss in Mueggler 1998.3. MacDougall 1992, 29.4. George 1996, 16.5. Mueggler 1998, 167.

Revolution. Rather, he argues, [they seem] to emerge from another logic alto-

gether.6

What might a culturally and historically nuanced understanding of

social memory and forgetting look like? What divergent idioms, what referential

regime might be revealed? Might repression, remembering, realization, and re-

demption be part of an Indonesian social memory or would they be

sequenced into new, perverse formulations? TAOK is a remarkable response tothese questions.

TAOK is not intended as a conventional film of memory wherein historicalnarrative as a mediation of a pastcan be made coherently and fully present,

7a

neglect for which the film has been criticized.8But the absence of explicit histor-

ical narrative in TAOK should not be misunderstood as neglect of the regimeand its institutions that organized, mobilized, and proceeded to justify the kill-

ings. Beyond history, Oppenheimer is interested in the effects of historicalnarrative as performance.

9Performance is the culturally and historically spe-

cific idiom through which social memory and forgetting are enacted in

Indonesia. Across the country, in classrooms and national parades, paramilitary

rallies and labor structures, these performances reference and reinforce an un-

derlying apparatus of terror at work, through indirect but generic spectral

references to 1965. These state-scripted simulations find their apotheosis in the

propaganda film The Treachery of G30S/PKI, which restages the alleged Com-munist coup in all its slasher glory. In TAOK, Oppenheimer excerpts a scenefrom this film in which we witness a young Ade Irma shrieking wildly, slathered

in the blood of father Nasution. For all of the propaganda films violent excess,

The Treachery of G30S/PKI stops short at simulations of the anticommunist mas-sacres and their victims. Oppenheimer claims that it is precisely this absence

that lends the simulations their spectral power.10

If reenactment and its absence are critical to the architecture of power in In-

donesia, then, reasons Oppenheimer, filmic reenactment can render the

spectral explicit and in so doing, restore performance and films role in a criti-

cal and interventionist historiography.11

Through the idiom of performance,

Oppenheimer seeks to construct a different logic of memory and forgetting. By

filming Anwars simulations Oppenheimer renders legible the scripts of such

performances, describing their mise-en-scnes and revealing the ways in which

the operations of the genocide were genericthat is, both routine and condi-

tioned by genre.12

John Roosa complains that the study of 1965 killings has too

readily focused on localized, individualized accounts of face-to-face killing of

the PKI by their algojo [civilian executioners], which has the effect of obscuringthe structural forces that incited, mobilized, and organized the killings.

13But

152 Critical Asian Studies 46:1 (2014)

6. Ibid., 168.7. Oppenheimer and Uwemedimo 2009, 87.8. Cribb 2013; Lane 2013.9. Oppenheimer and Uwemedimo 2009, 87.10. Ibid.11. Ibid., 93.12. Ibid.13. Roosa 2013.

Oppenheimer suggests just the opposite. He argues that it is precisely in the

stilted and depersonalized simulations of individual perpetrators killing, pre-

cisely in the studious, routinized practice, and then the immediate relaxed face,

thumbs-up you-got-it-right, that the military imprint is laid bare. The generic na-

ture of the acts of killing, absolved of any personhood or genuine individual mem-

ory, is suggestive of a kind of standard operating procedure that only the military,

1965s true perpetrators, could have promoted. And yet Anwars studious refusal to

reference the military officials that mobilized and guided the killings indicates a

broader fetish of state power and yearning to claim this power as his own.

The films theoretical and methodological approaches are insightful and ex-

citing. But they are not apparent in remarks Oppenheimer makes in media and

press statements released to promote the film. In these the filmmaker presents

TOAK with lumpen references to Arendts banality of evil and the capacity ofthe individual to narrate away their sins of genocide. Oppenheimer proclaims,

I think this film wants us to say: Theres no good guys, theres no bad guys,

theres just people. Thats its deepest message.14

In the letter read aloud before

the screening of the directors cut, Oppenheimer dutifully intones, in reality

every act of killing has been committed by human beings like us. The moment

you identify, however fleetingly, with Anwar, you will feel, viscerally, that the

world is not divided into good guys and bad guysand, more troublingly, that

we are all much closer to perpetrators than we like to believe.15

Why has

Oppenheimer abandoned his novel thinking in the press surrounding the film?

The banality of evil repertoire dulls the cultural sensitivity and the theoretical

originality of Oppenheimers work and understandably invites criticism, how-

ever mistaken, accusing the film of contextual and historical apathy.

With each simulation, we see Anwar invoking two opposing forcesa

wooden faithfulness to what really happened and hyper-stylized histrionics,

much the way my memory did in the tale at the start of this essay. The tension be-

tween the real and the embellished creates a slippage in the regime of signs,

bringing forth a convulsion of surreal but empty signifiers. We are about a third

of the way through the film when we find out that Anwar has nightmares. We

watch him sleep to the soundtrack of a reverberating drone, pitched low for

maximum creepiness. He is troubled by memories of a decapitation he exe-

cuted and the lone head whose eyes he regrets not closing. As the movie moves

tensely forward, Anwar devises increasingly bizarre scenes that confuse his ear-

lier positionality as executioner and perpetrator. A giggling Koto eats his penis

next to Anwars own blinking decapitated head. Macaques scurry down to pol-

ish off his bloodied remains. With each reenactment, Anwar appears to

physically and mentally decay. Midway through a garroting scene in the office,

Anwar chokes on Kotos wire, I feel as though I lost myself for a minute. Dont

get too into it, soothes Koto, rubbing him with fatherly concern.

Oppenheimer amplifies the slippage by re-screening the scenes, a simulation

Baker / Remembering to Forget 153

14. Applebaum 2013.15. Oppenheimer 2013.

of a simulation, for Anwar to chew over, correct, and criticize. This process al-

lows the simulations to be critically reframed[opening] onto the potentially

redemptive and retributive possibilities.16

At home, Anwar asks Joshua to re-

play the scene. At first he huddles with his grandsons and giggles. Later, he is

bewildered, Did the people I tortured feel the same as I do here? Is it all com-

ing back to me? he asks Oppenheimer in tears. In the final scene devised by

Anwar, we see him before a waterfallthat symbolizes emotion Anwar later

tells usarms outstretched in humility as his victims thank him for his benevo-

lent murdering. We get Oppenheimers point. Beneath the braggadocio, Anwar

has repressed his guilt and the slippages of mimesis scratch his conscience

anew. In the final scene, we watch Anwars re-reenactment of garroting PKI sym-

pathizers on the office roof and this time he hasnt made the mistake of wearing

his cha-cha pants. He starts, he lurches, and retches. Bile seems to weigh him

down. He staggers downstairs, the simulation abandoned. The suggestion is that

Anwar has come to the ghastly realization of the true gravity of his crimes.

If Oppenheimer successfully constructed grammar for the workings of a truly

Indonesian social memory about the 1965 killings, then by the films end we

are fully back on Freudian turf. Oppenheimers filmic intervention through the

rigors of enactment, critical reframing, and reenactment has prompted a psy-

choanalytic circuit in Anwarfrom repression to empathy, confrontation, and

finally, true consciousness. The films end offers its audience some resolution,

the punishment and liberation of true awareness and the glimmering hope of

enlightenment, recantation, and redemption. But the films suggestion of a psy-

choanalytic trajectory for 1965s perpetrators troubles me. Anwar himself has

subsequently rejected the film, saying he was misled and that he thought

Oppenheimer work was merely for a doctoral thesis.17

Moreover, in interviews

Oppenheimer argues that the film has precipitated a broad process of confes-

sion and discussion within Indonesia.18

This is sadly, but also patently, untrue.

The film has provoked some serious responses from the countrys writers and

journalists but, tellingly, the film is not available for general screening. A news

office in Bandung that reviewed the film was attacked.19

After a promising burst

of remembering, Indonesians are silent once again.

I started this essay with an anecdote. I will end with one, too. Not so long ago,

earlier this year, we broadcast our own intervention into Indonesias social

memory in Eat Pray Mourn, a radio documentary that unearths the 198384Petrus massacresthat short, sharp, shock of time in which thousands of crimi-

nals were executed.20

This period of time has been masterfully documented by

scholarship, but like TAOK, Eat Pray Mourn is not a historical documentary. Its

154 Critical Asian Studies 46:1 (2014)

16. Oppenheimer and Uwemedimo 2009, 93.17. Gunawan and Kurniasari 2012; Tertipu Sutradara Film PKI. 2012.18. Reese (no date).19. Many of the original links to this story from Radar Bogor are no longer active. Radar Bogor

didtemo, Wapemred dipukul. 9 October 2012. Accessible at us.video.news.viva.co.id/read/21288-radar-bogor-didemowapemred-dipukul (accessed 11 October 2013). See also, TheAct of Killing Facebook Page, accessible at www.facebook.com/actofkilling. The post dated 9October 2012 has a full account of the attack.

20. Baker and McHugh 2013.

about now. My research shows that Petrus never ended. Indeed, every day inthis freshly democratic archipelago, the Indonesian police disappear and exe-

cute young men of the lower classes accused of petty crimes. It is a kind of

ongoing genocide, so routine and normalized that even the targeted

criminalized classes reassure me of the legitimacy of their own extrajudicial exe-

cution.

Initially, the radio documentary was well received by our select Indonesian

audience in the early test broadcasts. In my notes dated January this year, I doc-

ument one woman who turned to me suddenly, and I have underlined the

words, as if waking from a dream. Memories rushed out of her.Mum brought me up middle class, but really we lived in a poor kampung[village] like everyone else. It was a tough neighborhood, with thugs and

street urchins on every corner. I wasnt allowed outside. I wasnt allowed

to play with the neighbors. But I remember the yellow flags. It seemed as if

the young men died all the time. I never thought to ask why. Once, one of

the boys harassed me. Mum drew me close and said, dont worry, hell get

shot one day [ditembak nanti].She looked at me, in horror. These were not memories repressed and revealed,

but reframed and sequenced anew.

Slowly, however, the radical possibilities of the Eat Pray Mourn documentarywithered away. Talks were abruptly canceled. There followed a wave of threats,

accusations, and denunciations. My young Indonesian collaborators suddenly

rejected the piece, arguing that I was unethical and had misled my interviewees.

One of my friends even independently apologized to the police for his role in

voicing a bit part.

These are not responses one can understand readily by a conceptual psycho-

analytic circuit where confrontation and acceptance follow consciousness. But

having outlined the necessity of social memory and forgetting to Indonesias

political and social institutions, Oppenheimer and I forgot to ask, what are the

stakes for individuals who have been forced through creative intervention to

critically reframe their memories? Whether it be the mass killings of 1965, or

Petrus, or the slow disappearance of hoods in the kampung, memory is a bur-

den and a dangerous one at that. Who wouldnt rebuild those memorial

devices? Documentary may make its momentary intervention, but Indonesians

seem to devise anew the mechanisms to remember and forget. The fact is Indo-

nesia is neither ready to remember its acts of killings from long ago, nor those

that continue today.

ReferencesApplebaum, Steven. 2013. Indonesias killing fields revisited in Joshua Oppenheimers documen-

tary. 13 April. Available at www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/the-killing-fields-revisited-in-joshua-oppenheimers-documentary/story-fn9n8gph-1226617607946 (accessed online 11October 2013).

Baker, Jacqui, and Siobhan McHugh. 2013. Eat pray mourn: Crime and punishment in Jakarta.ABC Radio National 360 Documentaries, Sydney, 7 April. Available at www.abc.net.au/radio na-tional/programs/360/eat-pray-mourn/4598026 (accessed 13 September 2013).

Cribb, Robert. 2013. Review: An Act of Manipulation? Inside Indonesia 112. AprilJune 2013. Avail-able at www.insideindonesia.org/feature-editions/review-an-act-of-manipulation (accessed 11October 2013).

Baker / Remembering to Forget 155

George, Kenneth. 1996. Showing signs of violence: The cultural politics of a twentieth-centuryheadhunting ritual. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Gunawan, Apriadi, and Triwik Kurniasari. 2012. Actors may sue director of lauded film on PKI kill-ings. 15 September. Available at www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/09/15/actors-may-sue-director-lauded-film-pki-killings.html (accessed 11 October 2013).

Lane, Anthony. 2013. Grim Tidings. 22 July. Available at www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cin-ema/2013/07/22/130722crci_cinema_lane?currentPage=all (accessed 11 October 2013).

MacDougall, David. 1992. Films of memory. Visual Anthropology Review 8 (1): 2937.Mueggler, Erik. 1998. A carceral regime: Violence and social memory in southwest China. Cultural

Anthropology 13 (2): 16792.Oppenheimer, Joshua. 2013. Letter to audience: The Act of Killing. National Film and Sound Archive

of Australia. 3 August 2013. Available at www.landmarktheatres.com/letters/actofkilling. htm(accessed 13 September 2013).

Oppenheimer, Joshua, and Michael Uwemedimo. 2009. Show of force: A cinema-sance of powerand violence in Sumatras plantation belt. Critical Quarterly 51 (1): 84110.

Reese, Nathan. (no date) Joshua Oppenheimer and the atrocity exhibitionists. Available at www.in-terview magazine.com/film/joshua-oppenheimer-the-act-of-killing# (accessed 11 October2013).

Roosa, John. 2013. Who knows? Oral history methods in the study of the massacres of 196566 in In-donesia. Oral History Forum Dhistoire Orale 33. Special issue: Confronting Mass Atrocities.128.

Tertipu Sutradara Film PKI. 2012. Tertipu sutradara film PKI. 27 September Accessible at harianan-dalas.com/Berita-Utama/Tertipu-Sutradara-Film-PKI (accessed 11 October 2013).

156 Critical Asian Studies 46:1 (2014)

Tyson / Multiple Acts of Killing

MULTIPLE ACTS OF KILLING

Adam Tyson, University of Leeds

The Act of Killing (TAOK) is a fascinating episodic film that documents the per-sonal consequences of self-confessed executioner Anwar Congos attempt to

tell the tale of his murderous exploits in the 1960s.1 Ini lah kita! (This is who we

are!). Anwar celebrates his innovative killing techniques in the opening scenes

of TAOK, before gradually falling into despair. One mans nightmare helps bringto the fore wider social and political conflicts in Indonesia today, making this a

unique cinematic achievement. There are limitations and flaws, however, and I

agree with Jess Melvin that we should look beyond the film itself, asking in

what sort of society is boasting about participating in crimes against humanity

something that is considered to be tolerable and even status enhancing?2While

there is no straightforward answer to this question, the seventy-page liputankhusus (special report) published by Tempo magazine in fall 2012 is a usefulstarting point, filling in some of the historical gaps in Oppenheimers film.

The Film and the Fallout

A spokesperson from the Indonesian Embassy in London referred to TAOK as atontonan sepihak (one-sided spectacle), lacking historical merit and any senseof proportion.

3Acting alongside Safit Pardede and the much younger Herman

Koko, Anwar Congo claims to have consented only to the making of Arsan danAminah, a wartime adventure romance, not Oppenheimers feature film as wesee it today.

4Former executioner Adi Zulkadry withdrew entirely from the pro-

ject, warning of the violent fallout that would occur if the case of the 196566

communist purges was reopened. Bukan PKI yang kejam tetapi tidaksemua kejujuran yang dapat menjadi konsumsi publik (It was not the PKIwho were cruelbut not all truths are suitable for public consumption). Foot-

age selected by Oppenheimer from a Televisi Republik Indonesia (TVRI)

regional broadcast in Medan speaks to Adis concerns, raising important ques-

tions about justice and retribution.

Menurut Jendral Sarwo Edhie ada sekitar 2.5 juta orang komunis yang dibunuh.

Kenapa keturunan dan keluarga PKI yang dibunuh tidak pernah melakukan

balas dendam pak? Sampai saat sekarang mereka bukan tidak mau membalas

dendam, belum ada kesempatan mereka untuk itu.

1. I refer to the theatrical version of the film (run time 1 hour and 57 minutes) throughout. TAOKwas filmed as part of a 400,000 British Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) projectcalled Genre and Genocide, led by Joram ten Brink (as principle investigator).

2. Melvin 2013.3. Personal communication, 22 August 2013. See also Yosef Djakababas review: Djakababa 2012.4. Gunawan 2012. A poster of Arsan dan Aminah was on display during the TVRI special dia-

logue program broadcast in Medan on 28 October 2007 (see TAOK 01:24:38).

Adam Tyson Critical Asian Studies 46:1 (2014), 157161ISSN 1467-2715 print/1472-6033 online / 01 / 0015705 2014 BCAS, Inc. DOI:10.1080/14672715.2014.863583

[Question from Citra, TVRI host]: According to General Sarwo Edhie some

2.5 million communists were killed. Why are the descendents and family

members of those who were killed not seeking revenge?

[Response from Anwar Congo]: It is not that they do not wish for revenge, but

rather that they have not yet had the opportunity to take revenge.5

The TVRI producers are filmed behind the scenes making sardonic remarks

about Pemuda Pancasila members who were involved in the 196566 purges.

For instance, they remarked that many of the killers went mad, and even more

of them became wealthy criminals, and yet the TVRI producers did not voice any

concerns about impunity. Perhaps, as Tom Pepinsky suggests, this is because

memories of the killings and perceptions of victimization have been so heavily

conditioned by half a century of Indonesian history, commemoration, and pro-

paganda, exemplified by Arifin C. Noers 1984 film Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI(Treachery of the Thirtieth September Movement/PKI).

6Ibrahim Sinik, owner of

the daily newspaper Medan Pos, played his part in the propaganda campaign.During a two-and-a-half-minute appearance in TAOK, Sinik revealed the interro-gation methods he used against suspected communists.

Apa jawabnya sedikit sedikit kita tambah. Sesuai kepentingan kita menghan-

tam komunis, karena sebagai orang koran kita membangun perasaan

masyarakat benci kepada dia.

Whatever answers they [the communists] gave, we changed them. All that

mattered was that we, as newspapermen, crushed the communists by

spreading feelings of public hate toward them.

Ibrahim Sinik addedrather indifferentlythat it took just one wink from him

to have suspects taken away and killed by the likes of Anwar Congo.

In a ninety-second cameo appearance the governor of North Sumatra, Syam-

sul Arifin, reflected on his youthwhen Anwar Congo used to look after him

and commented on the living legacy of communism and the indispensible role

of Indonesias preman (thugs, gangsters).7

Hari ini anak cucu mereka bangun. Yang mencoba memutar balikan sejarah.

Ada yang tulis aku bangga jadi anak PKI. Saya pikir ini tidak akan lama, kare-

na juga nanti rakyat akan bangkit. Ajaran komunis itu tidak bisa diterima di

158 Critical Asian Studies 46:1 (2014)

5. The film subtitles here are incorrect, stating that they cant take revenge (see TAOK01:24:56).

6. Pepinsky 2013. Tempo 2012 (Dari) finds that the New Order way of thinking about the killingsbelum sepenuhnya pupus di masyarakat (has not yet vanished from peoples minds).

7. Syamsul Arifin was elected to serve as governor of North Sumatra from 2008 to 2013, but histerm was cut short when he was found guilty of corruption on 3 May 2012 (see Supreme CourtDecision No. 472/K/Pid.Sus/2012).

Indonesia, karena disini banyak istilah orang preman. Saya banyak dia nilai

positif juga dari preman. Preman ini kan bahasa Inggris, free men, lelaki bebas.

Orang muda itu ingin bebas, ingin berbuat walaupun dia salah. Tapi kalau kita

sudah tahu genetik dia, kita tahu jiwa dia, kita tahu semangatnya. Tinggal

ngarahinnya aja.

Today the descendents [of communists] are waking up. They are attempt-

ing to reverse history. Some have written that they are proud to be

children of the PKI. But I do not think this will last long because the people

will rise up [against them]. The communist doctrine will not be accepted

in Indonesia because we have so many gangsters. These free men have

many positive attributes. Young people desire to be free even if their ac-

tions are wrong. As long as we know their genetics, their soul and spirit,

we can guide them.

Representations of preman as free men, repeated throughout the film, are

incredibly inane. The actions of unencumbered and highly encourageable free

mensupposedly doing their duty for the nationare in fact directly commis-

sioned or quietly condoned by state security forces. Politically well-connected

Pemuda Pancasila members are positioned as defenders of the nation against de-

liberately vague and open-ended threats, when in fact it is the preman themselves

who use violence, extortion, and intimidation against ordinary Indonesians on

a regular basis. Safit Pardedes brutish encounters with Chinese-Indonesian

traders in Medan is one example.8

Provincial parliamentarian Haji Marzuki re-

sponds to a direct question from Oppenheimer by listing Pemuda Pancasilas

illegal activities, while, as indicated below, landowning elite Haji Anif casually

reflects on Pemuda Pancasilas method of land acquisition.9

Pemuda Pancasila ini kalau mau dikatakan jujur sangat ditakuti. Umpamanya

ada pengusaha, dia mau bebaskan satu area, di sana ada masyarakat kalau

langsung, pengusaha itu dia akan membayar sangat tinggi, jadi Pemuda

Pancasila ini dipakai, dianggap bisa menyelesaikan masalah pengusahan itu.

Jadi biar masyarakat itu takut, dia ada Pemuda Pancasila di sana kuat-kuat

dia bilang dengan kita terserah lah bagimana itu katanya.

To be honest, [everyone] is terrified of Pemuda Pancasila. For instance if a

businessperson acting alone wants to clear land [for an investment pro-

ject], it will be very costly, so Pemuda Pancasila is recruited and then [the

case] can be resolved. Since the public fears Pemuda Pancasila, any force-

ful demand will be accepted by the people, they will just leave it up to us.

Tyson / Multiple Acts of Killing 159

8. See TAOK 00:31:20. This scene draws parallels with Anwar Congos extortion techniques fromthe 1960s.

9. The dialogue with Haji Marzuki begins at TAOK 01:05:43, while Haji Anif s cameo starts atTAOK 01:17:58.

A general wariness about communism still exists in Indonesia today, al-

though the public has come to view preman with equal measures of fear and

loathing, undermining the pahlawan (hero) narrative surrounding groupssuch as Pemuda Pancasila. One of the main messages contained in the Tempo re-port detailed below is that the spectral threat of communism has vanished,

meaning that Indonesians can now move on and focus on more pressing con-

cerns. Tak selayaknya kita alergi terhadap komunisme. Sudah lama ideologiitu bangkrut (There is no reason for us to be allergic to communism. The ide-ology has long been bankrupt).

10

The Tempo Files

Prior to the premier of TAOK at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2012, anumber of private screenings were held in Indonesia. Screenings took place on

university campuses throughout the country, as well as in private venues such as

the Salihara Theatre and Teater Utan Kayu in Jakarta, where journalists were for-

mally invited. One of the outcomes was the comprehensive special report

published by Tempo in October 2012.11 Inspired by Oppenheimers film, Tempostrove to see the events of 1965 from the perspective of the executioners them-

selves, taking care to verify the stories they were told by corroborating evidence

and crosschecking sources in all cases. With Cambodia, Germany, and Russia in

mind, journalists revisited Indonesias ladang-ladang pembantaian (killingfields), kamp konsentrasi (concentration camps), and gulags, where tragedystill hangs in the air.

Hundreds of confessional reports were gathered from across the Indonesian

archipelago, directly implicating the military in the communist purges, along

with the mass-membership Islamic organization Nahdlatul Ulama and their af-

filiated pesantren (boarding schools) and youth movements (Ansor being themost notable).

12While many stories featured the city of Kediri, East Java, the

most terrible and sadistic massacre of PKI members and sympathizers is be-

lieved to have taken place in the village of Mlancu, in East Javas Jombang

district. The acts of killing in Mlancu were prompted by long-standing conflicts

linked to the implementation of the Agrarian Law of 1960, which called for

pro-poor land redistribution, but in practice often led to unrestrained peram-pasan tanah (land grabbing).13 PKI administrators and cadres disrupted localpower relations by rapidly recruiting new members, drawing attention to labor

grievances and the exploitation of sugarcane farmers. They staged theatrical

performances in order to cast doubt on the moral and spiritual authority of kiaiand tuan guru (religious leaders, teachers).14

160 Critical Asian Studies 46:1 (2014)

10. Tempo 2012 (Dari).11. I refer to the Bahasa Indonesia report throughout. The English-language version is missing a

number of vignettes, as well as stories focusing on the military, columns by M. Imam Aziz, Rob-ert Cribb, Ariel Heryanto, Yosep Adi Prasetyo, and Hermawan Sulistyo, and articles featuringBenedict Anderson and Poncke Princen.

12. Tempo 2012 (Tentara).13. Tempo 2012 (Setelah).14. Ibid. One of the more controversial PKI performances was entitled Tuhan Sudah Mati (God is

Oppenheimer makes little effort to link the homicidal fantasies of the actors

in his film to the actual historical events surrounding the massacres of 1965. The

Tempo report helps in this sense by addressing many of the films ambiguitiesand oversights. In addition, we learn that the main protagonist was actually

born Anwar Matulessy and received the nickname Congo while assisting Indo-

nesian soldiers who were being deployed to the Democratic Republic of Congo

for peacekeeping purposes.15

In September 2012 Tempo journalists met withAnwar and his wife Salmah at their house in Lingkungan (Area) 17 Medan. When

TAOK was mentioned Anwar became agitated and was clearly very uneasy abouthis newfound celebrity status. Salmah hails from Banten, Java, and while she is

aware of Anwars preman activities, she insists that her husband of twenty years

is really just a hopeless romantic. Suaminya itu sejak muda suka bunga.Enggak peduli berapa harganya, dia beli (Since he was young my husbandliked flowers. He would insist on buying them no matter how much they cost).

16

As a senior member of Pemuda Pancasila North Sumatra chapter, moreover, we

are told that Anwar is highly sought after by thesis students and scholars inter-

ested in history. In light of the forthcoming release of Oppenheimers follow-up

film, The Look of Silence, which focuses on the victims of violence (past andpresent) rather than the perpetrators, the interest in Anwar and his accomplices

is unlikely to subside.

ReferencesDjakababa, Yosef. 2012. Why the documentary The Act of Killing or Jagal is equally impressive and

troubling. 9 December. Available at history-indonesia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/image-from-act-of-killing-taken-during.html (accessed 2 September 2013).

Gunawan, Apriadi. 2012. Anwar Congo: An overnight celebrity from The Act of Killing. The Ja-karta Post. 5 October.

Melvin, Jess. 2013. Review: When perpetrators speak. Inside Indonesia 112 (AprilJune). Availableat insideindonesia.org/current-edition/review-when-perpetrators-speak (accessed 27 August2013).

Pepinsky, Tom. 2013. The Act of Killing: A review. 14 August. Available at tompepinsky.com/2013/08/14/the-act-of-killing-a-review/ (accessed 1 September 2013).

Tempo. 2012 (Algojo). Algojo dan narasumber skripsi [Executioner and source for academic the-ses]. Tempo 4131. 17 October.

. 2012 (Dari). Dari pengakuan algojo 1965 [Requiem for the massacre of 1965]. Tempo. 4131.17 October.

. 2012 (Setelah). Setalah tuhan mati di Mlancu [The day god died in Mlancu]. Tempo. 4131.17.

. 2012 (Tentara). Tentara, santri, dan tragedi Kediri [The military, students, and the Kediri trag-edy]. Tempo. 4131. 17 October.

Tyson / Multiple Acts of Killing 161

Dead).15. Tempo 2012 (Algojo).16. Ibid.

Heryanto / Great and Misplaced Expectations

GREAT AND MISPLACED EXPECTATIONS

Ariel Heryanto, Australian National University

Around the world, The Act of Killing (TAOK) has deeply affected its viewers, es-pecially non-Indonesians, and has the potential to make a greater impact on

Indonesias historiography. However, it has also raised ill-fitting expectations

and generated several misplaced criticisms. While some criticize the film for

what it does not show, or does not show enough, others have raised high expec-

tations for what the film will do to alter the status quo in Indonesia. I will

respond briefly to a few examples of the former, but will discuss at greater

length, the problematics of the latter.

Misplaced Criticisms

Several Indonesians and scholars of Indonesia criticize the film for not showing,

or inadequately showing, certain aspects of the 1965 massacres in Indonesia, in-

cluding the role of the military, the complicity of foreign governments, and the

voice of the victims. Such criticisms are misplaced. It is unfair to expect films on

the 1965 massacre to be an encyclopedic reference source; the medium of film

imposes stringent limitations.

Any storytellingin film or otherwiseabout the complex and highly con-

tentious issue of the 1965 massacre for an audience in the 2000s will be

required to focus on particular fragments and privilege particular perspectives

at the expense of others. Narrators would most likely face three dilemmas. First,

the need to provide adequate historical background to the 1965 events (itself a

contentious and complicated area) is challenged by the need to present the

events in compelling ways to a present-day audience. This is a daunting task, as

the majority of the audience will either possess little knowledge of, or interest

in, the issue. Alternatively, viewers come to the film with preconceived ideas and

great expectations. Second, there is a need to address the question of what re-

ally happened among the political elite in Jakarta in SeptemberOctober 1965,

and the need to address the brutal killings that raged in various regions away

from the capital city in the ensuing months, particularly where there was little or

no knowledge of the struggle for state power among the political elite. The third

inevitable dilemmaand perhaps more problematic to filmmakers or stage

performers than to other kinds of narratorsconcerns the tension between the

need to show the somewhat abstract global and structural context (the cold

war) that created the conditions for the series of events in 1965 and the need to

show the concrete lived experience of individuals within their immediate so-

cial environment and relationships.

All those elements are equally important in any story about the 1965 violence

and its aftermath. Yet, no act of narration can include all of these elements in

equal proportion. Narrators of the topic have to focus on certain selected as-

pects, while leaving other issues un-addressed, sidelined, or in the background,

Ariel Heryanto Critical Asian Studies 46:1 (2014), 162166ISSN 1467-2715 print/1472-6033 online / 01 / 0016205 2014 BCAS, Inc. DOI:10.1080/14672715.2014.863584

thus risking imperfect communication with their contemporary audiences.

TAOK is not intended to be a documentary about what happened in Indone-sia in 1965. In fact, it has attracted a wide range of accolades from film critics for

precisely the opposite and for doing the unexpected: boldly and creatively

transgressing the familiar boundary between filming an objectivist documen-

tary and composing a poetic fiction about the subject. Significantly, no archived

footage of the past period is used in TAOK. Rather, it focuses on the disturbingcontradictory elements of a present history, replete with all its current ironies.

One can question the chosen focus and it can be useful to be mindful of what is

not shown in the film. However, it is unreasonable to expect this film, or any

other title, to show all the issues deemed important in a discussion in the

twenty-first century about the 1965 massacre.

Toward Truth and Justice

Despite the great expectations of many (including this author soon after the

films release), TAOK has not caused a major public controversy in Indonesia.Even as the film becomes more widely available to broader segments of the pop-

ulation, I doubt it will radically alter political life in Indonesia or radically shift

perspectives on Indonesias violent past.

Many viewers with a strong and long-standing attachment to Indonesia have

considered the film to be primarily the revelation of a serious political scandal,

providing a new weapon for those seeking justice for the victims of 1965, both

past and present. Such a view is not wrong, but rather, incomplete. The same

film also demonstrates precisely the opposite: an obscene testimony to the ab-

solute impunity enjoyed by politicos-cum-gangsters, who continue to run the

country, nearly half a century later.

Because TAOK focuses on the flamboyant killer Anwar Congo, it is conve-nient for many to reference him as an icon for all the other killers appearing

both on screen and off screen. Anwar Congo is the forty-first executioner inter-

viewed during the making of the film. He does not represent his fellow

on-screen killers, let alone the thousands roaming off screen. Just before the

film ends, Anwar is shown critically reflecting on his crimes, demonstrating his

moral and physical suffering. Such scenes serve two contradictory, but equally

important purposes. They humanize the star killer, provoking a degree of sym-

pathy in the viewers. These scenes also comfort the viewers who are relieved to

see that Anwar Congo is unsuccessful in becoming the self-appointed hero of

the story. However, it would be seriously remiss to pay less attention to the

many other executioners in the film, who show no remorse, suffer nothing, and

remain at large.

The film should be a wake-up call, in stark contradistinction to the many al-

ready familiar stories, sermons, and moral convictions about 1965 or other

cases of gross injustice. Truth and justice do not always prevail, and they do not

necessarily arrive in the form or at a time desired by those who struggle in ear-

nest for them. Indeed, they may never arrive at all. This is not to devalue the

struggle for truth and justice. It is important for those who participate in the

commendable struggle to resist the seductive myth about the power of informa-

Heryanto / Great and Misplaced Expectations 163

tion, or the familiar assumptions about moral attributes of human beings in

abstract and ideal termsas if a truthful revelation about a massacre will galva-

nize a critical mass of people into action to demand justice.

Underlying many discussions and reviews of TAOK is the assumption that acomplete fear of the perpetrators, or complete ignorance of the gross violence

that occurred in 1965, or both, has been responsible for the enduring power of

the New Order government (19661998) and the ideological propaganda that

has outlived it. While fear and ignorance have played an important role in main-

taining the status quo, there are other explanations for the general publics

lukewarm reaction to TAOK thus far in Indonesia, in comparison to the re-sponse of audiences abroad.

In a critique of the work of Noam Chomsky, who argues that those in power

manipulate the mass media in order to deceive the population and manufacture

their consent, Joshua Cohen and Joel Roger note that

[e]ven individuals who know the ugly truth may consent for reasons of, for

example, material self-interest, cynicism, fatigue, or simple lack of con-

cern, and much evidence suggests that many do consent for some

combination of these reasons. Survey data in the USregularly confirm a

very widespreadpublic conviction that public officials are corrupt, that

the country is run in an undemocratic fashion, and that many public poli-

cies are immoral. But this confirmation is provided in a context of

profound political stability. This suggests that something other than illu-

sion and ignorance are producing that stability.1

Cohen and Rogers observation is confirmed by the cases of whistle-blowers

Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

During his trial, Manning explained the motive for his action to the court: I be-

lieved if the publichad access to the information this could spark a debate

about foreign policy in relation to Iraq and Afghanistan.2

While Manning,

Snowden, and Assange have all attracted sympathy, there have been many more

news items and public debates about their personalities and fugitive status than

about U.S. foreign policy! These cases serve as a reminder that the issue at hand

is not unique to Indonesia. There is no easy linear progression toward self-ex-

pression or resolute demands for justicelet alone success in achieving

itthat correlates with a greater freedom of speech, or increased diffusion of

digital media technologies.

Signs of the Time

In a review of TAOK for Tempo magazine,3 I compared the release of the film tothe publication of the first two titles of Pramoedya Ananta Toers tetralogy from

Buru, three decades earlier.4Toers novels trace the making of the Indonesian

nation, while TAOK points to the debris following the destruction of the nations

164 Critical Asian Studies 46:1 (2014)

1. Cohen and Rogers 1991, 24.2. The Age 2013.3. Heryanto 2012 (Kesaksian).4. Toer 1980 (Bumi); 1980 (Semua); 1985 (Jejak); 1985 (Sang); 1988.

foundations. In both cases, I anticipated a heated controversy and an official

ban from the government. In each instance, I was fortunate to have access to a

copy of these extraordinary works years prior to their official release. Such privi-

lege allowed ample time for me to prepare a laudatory review of each work. I

had these reviews ready for dispatch to a publisher as soon as the work under re-

view was released, but before the anticipated banning.5

No media published my review of Toers novels out of fear, despite the fact

that the books had yet to receive an official ban. Instead of publishing my review,

the editors contacted me to passionately enquire about getting a copy of the

novels as bookshops were too scared to sell them and most mass media de-

clined to publish any advertisements promoting the novels. The banning of

Toers novels provoked a flurry of debate.

Months before the release of TAOK, I proposed to Indonesias most presti-gious newsmagazine, Tempo, that they prepare a special cover story about thefilm. They agreed and I introduced them to the film director, Joshua Oppen-

heimer. Tempo published a special double edition more comprehensive than Ihad expected.

6The issue provoked stronger public reactions than the film TAOK

itself did in Indonesia. Various Indonesian media have published news and re-

views of TAOK. Diverse and occasionally conflicting views about TAOK werepublished online and in print; however, the anticipated great controversy and

ban never materialized.

More surprisingly, I received reports from reliable sources from several cities

in Indonesia about viewers who decided to stop their private screenings of the

film due to a lack of interest or because viewers walked out as the screening was

in progress. Others had mistaken it for a film celebrating the 1965 killers! Such

reactions may represent a small minority of Indonesian viewers, and they have

been unheard of in screenings of the film outside Indonesia. That they occurred

at all has intrigued me.

Time has changed Indonesia. The Attorney Generals Office no longer has

the power to ban books or artwork without trial. The political elite has been pre-

occupied with intra-elite rivalry. Indonesia also has a new generation of young

adults who have little or no knowledge of the 1965 massacres, and to many of

them it is not immediately obvious why they should. By no means is this unique

to Indonesia. Ann Kaplan and Ban Wang observe elsewhere, [f]ewer and fewer

young people know much about the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the Rape of Nan-

king or the Chinese Cultural Revolution.7

The list should include the more

recent past of the Vietnam War and Tiananmen.

Despite these changes, a couple of things remain the same. First, criminals

boasting about their past experience in gangsterism and in killing communists

prevails, as they continue to enjoy impunity. If Indonesian viewers do not react

to TAOK with the same emotion as their international counterparts, it is not sim-ply because they fear to express their horror. Rather, news reports about

Heryanto / Great and Misplaced Expectations 165

5. My earliest review of TAOK is Heryanto 2012 (The 19656).6. Tempo 2012.7. Kaplan and Wang 2008.

gangsterism, vigilante behavior, and their boasting and impunity are common

daily fare, passed through private conversations and the mass media.

Second, no long-lasting authoritarianism, state terrorism, or high-level gang-

sterism operates entirely on the basis of violence, fear, and deadly boring

propaganda. Those coercive elements coexist alongside, and in juxtaposition

with, convivial entertainment, festive activities, and the spectacle of fun, humor,

and laughter. In Indonesia and its neighboring countries, cold war au-

thoritarian repression ran in tandem with sustained economic growth,

industrialization, and an expanding desire for global consumerism. Such jar-

ring cognitive dissonance and irony is illustrated abundantly in the film TAOK,and I have discussed it at length in my earlier work on state terrorism.

8

Barely a year after TAOK stunned the world, foreigners were puzzled by newsabout the popularity of Nazi chic trends in Indonesia and Thailand. In Bandung,

a Nazi-themed restaurant, established in April 2011, was forced to temporarily

close in July 2013 in response to mass outrage from foreigners and some locals.

This controversy only took place after an English newspaper publicized the

cafs existence.

In light of the above, I admire immensely those who continue to demonstrate

resilience in their persistent struggle for truth and justice against past violence

in Indonesia. TAOK may or may not radically change the status quo in Indonesiaor win the battle for collective memory or history. That is perfectly OK. The film

is a brilliant masterpiece because (not in spite) of its many paradoxes and iro-

nies that complicate the vision and agenda of many human rights activists

whose project often requires a clear demarcation between perpetrator and vic-

tim, good and evil, hero and villain.

ReferencesThe Age. 2013. I did it to make the world a better place: Manning. 1 March. Available at

www.theage.com.au/world/I-did-it-to-make-the-world-a-better-place-manning-20130301-2f9y3.html (accessed 1 March 2013).

Cohen, Joshua, and Joel Rogers. 1991. Knowledge, morality and hope: The social thought of NoamChomsky. New Left Review 187 (May/June): 527.

Heryanto, Ariel. 2006. State terrorism and political identity in Indonesia: Fatally belonging. Lon-don: Routledge.

. 2012 (Kesaksian). Kesaksian Binal-Bugil dari Negeri Preman [Obscene testimony from athuggish state]. Tempo 41 (31): 11415. 17 October.

. 2012 (The 19656). The 19656 killings: Facts and fictions in dangerous liaisons. IIAS News-letter 61 (Autumn): 1617.

Kaplan, Ann, and Ban Wang. 2008. From traumatic paralysis to the force field of modernity. In AnnKaplan and Ban Wang, eds. Trauma and cinema: Cross-cultural explorations. Hong Kong:Hong Kong University Press. 122.

Tempo. 2012. Pengakuan Algojo 1965 [1965 executioners admission ]. Special edition. Tempo 41(31): 51125. 17.

Toer, Pramoedya A. 1980 (Bumi). Bumi Manusia [This earth of mankind]. Jakarta: Hasta Mitra.. 1980 (Semua). Anak Semua Bangsa [Child of all nations]. Jakarta: Hasta Mitra.. 1985 (Jejak). Jejak langkah [Footsteps]. Jakarta: Hasta Mitra.. 1985 (Sang). Sang Pemula [The pioneer]. Jakarta: Hasta Mitra.. 1988. Rumah Kaca [The glass house]. Jakarta: Hasta Mitra.

166 Critical Asian Studies 46:1 (2014)

8. Heryanto 2006.

Wandita / Preman Nation

PREMAN NATION: Watching The Act of Killing in Indonesia

Galuh Wandita, Asia Justice and Rights (AJAR)

On a balmy night in November 2012, I watched The Act of Killing (TAOK) withabout fifty survivors of the 1965 killings gathered from all over Sulawesi in the

dusty town of Palu, Central Sulawesi. The morning before, these survivors, now

aged 70 and above, boarded two rickety buses to visit some thirteen sites

around the town where the detainees were forced to work on various projects,

from building a dam, doing road work, and erecting the provinces first TV

broadcasting tower. Lucky for us, we had a poor copy of Jagal (the Indonesiantitle of TAOK; lit. Butcher) that resulted in a lot of interruptions. In those mo-ments, with lights back on to fiddle with the DVD player, the spectators took

time to look at each other and reassure themselves that they had not been trans-

ported back into time.

For victims and civil society groups long engaged in efforts to grasp some

truth and justice, watching the film is an act of self-flagellation. With every scene,

the untreated wounds deepen and fester. And yet, our eyes are riveted, as we

watch a truthful parody of our own nations history. At the end of the film, one of

the survivors, Asman Yodjodolo, detained, tortured, and forced to do hard labor

for thirteen years, commented: This is the truth according to the perpetrator.

One reason why the film is difficult to watch for survivors and their advocates

in Indonesia may be because the perpetrators truth is already the dominant

view. With the fall of Soeharto in 1998, there was a short-lived political will to ac-

knowledge our bloody past. In 1999, the Upper House of Parliament (MPR)

issued a decree regretting the fractured protection and promotion of human

rights, demonstrated by various human rights violations, in forms that include

violence, discrimination, and abuse of power during the New Order. A year

later, the MPR called for the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commis-

sion. Fast-forward thirteen years, a law to establish a truth commission was

passed in 2004, then annulled in 2006.1Efforts to rewrite school curriculum to

reflect different views of the events around 1965 were stopped by the attorney

general in 2006, who then conducted a criminal investigation against the au-

thors of the textbooks.2

The most recent slap in the face was a statement by a

senior minister and head of the military denying any wrongdoing, in response

to a four-year investigation by the National Human Rights Commission that con-

1. Law 27/2004 on the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission contained prob-lematic sections requiring victims to forgive their perpetrators in order to qualify forreparations. The Constitutional Court found this stipulation unconstitutional, but instead ofstriking down those specific articles the judges struck down the whole law. The absence of anational truth commission is also blocking the establishment of local truth commissions legis-lated under special autonomy laws for Papua (2000) and Aceh (2006).

2. Available at www.thejakartapost.com/news/2006/09/18/pki-reinstated-1965-tragedy-culprit-school-textbooks.html (no longer accessible).

Galuh Wandita Critical Asian Studies 46:1 (2014), 167170ISSN 1467-2715 print/1472-6033 online / 01 / 0016704 2014 BCAS, Inc. DOI:10.1080/14672715.2014.863585

cluded that gross human rights violations took place during this time.3

For survivors of 1965, TAOK is an important window to remind the Indone-sian public, the younger generation, and the international community about

what took place. But it is a bitter pill to swallow, served in a context of a steady

diet of discriminatory hemlock. In a video clip uploaded by a civil society co-

alition working to push for official acknowledgment, Asman asks, Is it not

appropriate for me to speak about my truth?

Command Responsibility or a Country Full of Psychos?

An important, but easy to miss, moment in the film is when Medan newspaper-

man and Pemuda Pancasila elder Ibrahim Sinik is questioned by a voice behind

the camera about the relationship between the killings and the military. He says,

Kodim [the local military command] and us, there was no relationonly when

we have abducted the members of Pemuda Rakyat that we have beaten up

when we tried to hand them over to Kodim, they didnt want them. What did

they say? Just throw them into the river.

It is a sliver of a connection, a throwaway sentence in the midst of boasting

about the men underneath his control, how a wink from him could decide the

fate of a detainee. For those already sensitive to the relationship, seeking for evi-

dence of command responsibility, it is a critical piece of the puzzle. As Kaha-

rudin Yondose, another survivor who was imprisoned for sixteen years, said: I

like this film because it has revealed history: who was right and who was wrong.

The Pancasila Youth were cruel. Those preman were used by the military.For many viewers, however, this moment passes too quickly. The film in its

mad-romp depiction of mass murder from the eyes of its perpetrators befriends

Anwar Congo and his genocidal sidekicks. It makes for interesting cinema, an

artistic inside-the-mind view of a genocidere. But what about the people who satdown and made decisions, planned and ordered the killings, resourced and

commanded the killers. We catch a glimpse of the broken political system that is

oiled and fueled by corruption, but little effort is made to pose the question of

the militarys responsibility. Without this, the film is in danger of depicting the

mass killings (and remember that it is estimated that another 1 million were de-

tained and tortured for a decade) as if it were the spontaneous work of mad

men, the version of history that the Indonesian military promotes.

The filmmakers were able to capture, in its gory and pathetic details, Indone-

sias upside-down reality: killers remain triumphant (and in power), basking in

the glory of their kill, celebrating their acts of terror with wanton abandon. An

embedded camera (and microphone) follows a rally and meeting of the

Pancasila Youth and their not-so-youthful and foul-mouthed leaders. That such

an organization can still exist, fifteen years into Indonesias reformation is evi-

dence that, indeed, Indonesia is still a preman nation.

The film covers all the elements of our preman nation: (1) extortion and cor-

168 Critical Asian Studies 46:1 (2014)

3. Available at www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/10/02/govt-denies-1965-rights-abuses-hap-pened.html (accessed 7 November 2013).

ruption from the market stalls to the halls of power; (2) elections determined by

purchase power (remember Hermans failed venture into politics: if small fry

thugs can find their way into local elections, imagine the big fish!); (3) women ex-

ist for the sole purpose of sexual gratification and/or servicing men; (4) leaders

busy lining their own pockets and not too concerned with peoples welfare; (5)

when you have a difference in opinion, use violence to silence your opponent;

and (6) total impunity from the most ordinary crimes to crimes against humanity.

There are dozens or even hundreds of people like him. Ever the communi-

cator, newspaperman Ibrahim Sinik succinctly explains an important detail.

The mass killing was carried out by thousands of Anwar Congos all over Indone-

sia. And unfortunately, this was not the only bloody chapter in our history. From

the farthest corners of the countryfrom Aceh and East Timor to Papua, the Ja-

karta riots of 1998 and the murder of human rights defender Munirthugs are

used to quell dissent. I personally have met some younger, beefier versions of

Anwar Congo in Indonesias newer conflict zones. Befriending Anwar, albeit

cinematically, brings up traumatic memories of more recent unaccounted vio-

lence. However much on-film soul-searching and gut-retching we endure from

Anwar, I dont buy it.

Genocidal Glee

Weli, a woman survivor, who was detained in a womens prison for three

months, was quite blunt, I dont understand this film. The story goes in circles.

Perhaps from a Western eye, the ever-presence of Herman Koto in his various

states of dress (or undress) is a way to sell a story about a forgotten genocide. It

is effective, as the audience violently flip-flops between disgust and amusement.

However, the scenes at the lake and waterfall, with inexplicable dancing women

and Anwar in black (and later Herman in drag) are more problematic. Anwars

demented dream of victims coming down from the heavens to thank him for

murdering them is offensive. I realize this may be the aim of the filmmaker, to

make us squirm in our seats. But in a country where the dominant version of his-

tory blames the victims of genocide, an Indonesian audience may miss the irony.

Putu Oka Sukanta, former political prisoner and renowned poet, who was

also at the Palu viewing, thought that the film accurately depicts the character

of the New Order and those in power, but he added that when he participated

in a showing of the film on campus in Bali, many of the young students laughed

at the wrong places. The not-so-subtle irony lost in a mind-frame overfed by de-

cades of propaganda. The film never addresses the key pretext, that the evil

(and atheist) communists were planning an overthrow of the status quo and

thus the people rose up to fight back. By not mentioning the survivors (of kill-

ings and decades of detention) a big part of the picture is blacked out.

For the survivors not much has changed. Public acknowledgment of the suf-

fering of victims is almost nonexistent. The two dozen discriminatory laws and

regulations against ex-political detainees and their families enacted by the New

Order are still in intact. Despite the fact that many of the survivors are now

speaking and writing about their experience, the dominant narrative is still the

one of the perpetrators. And yet, some attention is better than none. Thus, an-

Wandita / Preman Nation 169

other survivor, Rafin Pariuwa, who endured forced labor and illegal detention

for twelve years, echoed the feelings of others: People now know what actually

happened. We were innocent. Like the victims in the film. Fortunately we have

this film. The perpetrators have spoken.

The problem with TAOK is that it simply knocks you out. Working on account-ability in Indonesia is a balancing act, trying to keep some embers of hope alive

while being realistic about the political context. The findings of an investigation

by the National Human Rights Commission, announced in 2012, is an important

official breakthrough. The commission found that the crimes that took place in

the mid sixties constitute a systematic pattern of abuse, reaching the threshold of

crimes against humanity. The commission referred its findings to the attorney

general, who promptly rejected them. Without domestic and international pres-

sure, the Indonesian government prefers to keep things as they are.

When horrific stories are not given space in our public consciousness, they

fester. They grow, spill into the next generation, and find expression in surprising

ways. TAOK is one such surprise: a young American filmmaker finds his way to In-donesias unrepentant killers and reminds the world about a distant genocide.

In Indonesia there is a growing civil society movement, with survivors

playing a key role, to fight forgetting. We are, piece by piece, collecting the thou-

sands of stories of repression that have been denied. This year a national network

made up of more than forty-five organizations, the Coalition for Truth and Justice

(kkkp.org), which has been working for more than six years, is conducting its

own truth-seeking process, organizing public hearings across Indonesia, gather-

ing testimonies into one database, and producing a final reportin the absence

of an official truth commission. A small boat in an ocean of impunity.

After The Act of Killing

For capturing this reality in Indonesia and broadcasting it to the world, I am very

grateful to the filmmakers. But watching this film is like rubbing salt into a fester-

ing wound. In the absence of the needed antibiotics (and major reconstruction),

we are hoping against hope that all this salt rubbing will come to some good. The

question is: can this film be a catalyst for real change? Can the film lead to a so-

cial media campaign inside and outside of Indonesia that can turn the tide?

Victims, civil society, and academic researchers in Indonesia continue to work

on small bits of truth and solidarity with survivors. But without any interna-

tional push, the government is unlikely to move. (More recently, several UN

mechanisms, including the Universal Periodic Review process and the Cedaw

Committee, have pressed the Indonesian government on its commitment to es-

tablish a truth commission and to follow up on the National Human Rights

Commissions referral to the attorney general for prosecuting those responsi-

ble for the crimes of 196566.

Stripped naked, we look into the mirror and see our blemished selves, every

ugly scar and pore. From an insiders view, there is little room for hope. That is

the devastating impact of this film. Perhaps the filmmakers should have added a

caution: Hope-depriving scenes. Viewer discretion advised.

170 Critical Asian Studies 46:1 (2014)

Hearman / Missing Victims

MISSING VICTIMS OF THE 196566 VIOLENCE IN INDONESIA:Representing Impunity On-screen in The Act of Killing

Vannessa Hearman, University of Sydney

My first viewing of The Act of Killing (TAOK) led me to believe that the film suf-fered by neglecting the voices and experiences of victims of the violence.

1The

196566 killings claimed some half a million lives.2Despite the number of vic-

tims and the survivors of imprisonment throughout Indonesia who could have

been interviewed, filmmakers Joshua Oppenheimer et al. did not include

them.3It was as if the violence carried out by Anwar Congo, the films chief pro-

tagonist, and his friends had no victims to speak of. The phantasmagorical

aspects of TAOK and the reenactments of crimes through Anwars acting in filmsranging in genre from Westerns to romance might prevent viewers from under-

standing the magnitude of the crimes and the continuing impact of these

crimes. Yet following a second viewing of the film and seeing again Anwars

neighbor Suryonos disclosure that he had lost a family member in the killings, I

realized that through the relative absence of victims and the dominance of per-

petrators, TAOKs greatest contribution to advocacy for the victims is in showingus a highly realistic picture of Indonesian society and the impunity of the perpe-

trators. In spite of the passing of the regime, the perpetrators version continues

to dominate the narrative about the September 30th Movement and its after-

math. The victims may be missing, but the larger point the filmmakers make

about impunity is thereby emphasized even more.

Since the fall of the Suharto regime in May 1998, victims of human rights

abuses committed under the regime have established campaign groups to press

for state accountability. These include groups that campaign about the legacies

of the 196566 violence.4The role of victims and victim groups has been under-

stood in the universal discourse of international human rights with

expectations that they would undertake advocacy on the issue.5

As a result, in

Indonesia, the experiences of several former political prisoners who have spo-

ken publicly have come to represent the experiences of the majority, in spite of

1. I viewed the long version of the film on 11 February (with English subtitles) and on 6 Septem-ber 2013 (the Indonesian version, which is titled Jagal [Butcher]).

2. On estimates of the numbers killed, see Cribb 2001, 233.3. North Sumatra survivor Astaman Hasibuan told the Jakarta Post that he was interviewed by

Oppenheimer, but did not appear in the film. Gunawan 2012.4. National groups include Yayasan Penelitian Korban Pembunuhan 196566 (YPKP 196566,

Foundation for the Investigation of Victims of the 196566 Killings), a component of whichsplit to create Lembaga Penelitian Korban Pembunuhan 1965 (LPKP, Institute for the Researchon Victims of the 196566 Killings), as well as Lembaga Perjuangan Korban Rezim Orde Baru(LP-KROB, Institute for the Struggle of Victims of the New Order Regime) and PaguyubanKorban Rezim Orde Baru (Pakorba, Association of Victims of the New Order). Examples of lo-cal groups include the Solo-based Forum Komunikasi Korban G30S (FKKGS, CommunicationForum of Victims of the Thirtieth September Movement) and Sekretariat Bersama 65 (Joint65 Secretariat).

5. See for example Kontras 2012, a report by human rights organization Kontras.

Vannessa Hearman Critical Asian Studies 46:1 (2014), 171175ISSN 1467-2715 print/1472-6033 online / 01 / 0017105 2014 BCAS, Inc. DOI:10.1080/14672715.2014.863586

the vast complexity of the repression. They include Bedjo Untung, Lestari,

Putmainah, Hersri Setiawan, and Putu Oka Sukanta, who have all become well

known through their writings and campaign activities.6

This phenomenon is

partly driven by the need to document the abuses they suffered in order, for ex-

ample, to conduct legal proceedings against the Indonesian government.7The

needs of advocacy have influenced the shaping of victim narratives, as well as

the kinds of films produced about the 196566 violence.

My expectations about the visibility of victims and the kinds of roles they

would perform in TAOK were therefore molded by these advocacy intentionsand by films produced earlier about the violence in 196566.

8In the earlier doc-

umentaries, victims participated primarily by providing testimony to camera.

The audiovisual testimonial scene is one of the most common and geo-

politically significant venues for the attestation, mitigation and reception of

social suffering, according to Bhaskar Sarkar and Janet Walker.9The presence

of the talking head suggests authenticity and at the same time enables us, the

audience, to respond to this suffering.

As well as the precedence laid down by earlier films dealing with the topic, an

additional problem is posed by the form of the documentary and the expecta-

tions that the form carries. The documentary is itself a difficult term to define,

particularly in what John Corner terms the post-documentary world in audiovi-

sual media such as television.10

A post-documentary world is one in which

documentary elements have been combined with components from fictional,

light entertainment and popular factual formats to produce a wide range of tex-

tual hybrids.11

Certainly TAOK is no conventional documentary. For example,reenactments of the violence are embedded within the (fictional) making of sev-

eral feature films starring Anwar Congo and his friends. Taking at face value its

label as a documentary, we tend to come with a set of expectations, including

expecting to see victims provide testimony to camera.

Many victims in Indonesia are, however, unable to speak about their expe-

riences. D