Whose Suffering? National Identity and the Contest to Define Victimhood in Indonesia’s Genocide

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article compares the ways in which different groups construct competing visions of Indonesian collective identity, based on their own definitions of victimhood in the mass violence of 1965–1966. The linkages between nationalism and the New Order’s virulent anti-communism have long been acknowledged. However, recent scholarship on the heterogeneity of narratives about the Indonesian genocide has largely overlooked what these ancillary or competing narratives imply about national identity. To fill this gap, this article examines the genealogies of and relationships between three major contemporary trauma narratives: the state’s official history, the Front Pembela Islam’s extension of the official narrative, and civil society discourses based on human rights. Through applying the sociological framework of cultural trauma, I argue that how each group draws the boundaries of victimhood is intricately tied to its particular assumptions about the essential characteristics of Indonesian society and its prescriptions for how to preserve the nation.