Speaking Across the Lines: 1965, the Family, and Reconciliation in Indonesia

Abstract

In the aftermath of the 1965 killings, Suharto’s New Order regime in Indonesia initiated a series of policies and ideological programs that sought to turn the Southeast Asian nation into an “integral state.” The family unit then became institutionalized and idealized as an object providing the state with the necessary discursive language to maintain then-president Suharto’s three-decade long rule. His regime, however, continued to demonize hundreds of thousands of former political detainees, denying their families access to basic rights. Branded as having come from “unclean environments,” the descendants of the Suharto regime’s political detainees continue to face discrimination even after the New Order’s end in 1998. Nevertheless, in the years following reformasi (“reformation”), Indonesia’s increased democratic space provided an opportunity for the voices of former political detainees and their children to emerge. This paper will utilize biographies and oral historical records to understand how the family provided a cocoon-like environment, allowing alternative or discordant narratives to form and coalesce. The author aims to show how the New Order’s repressive policies affected these families with one generation passing onto the next its “tainted DNA.” The author posits that given the lack of a public sphere in discussing the most momentous event in Indonesia, it is the private sphere of the family instead that would serve as an outpost of memory, reminding Indonesia of its “original sin.” It is hoped that this paper would be able to showcase the ability of the narratives from below to sow the seeds of historical and generational reconciliation.