Tempo, 18 April 2016: Onward the women's movement
Tempo editorial note (18 Apr 2016), recalling a 1978 Kartini Day feature on the women's movement from Aceh 1614 to the 1970s. It describes Kowani's formation (1946), Perwari's protest over Sukarno's 1954 marriage to Hartini, Perwari being squeezed as Gerwani, 'affiliated with the PKI', gained influence, and Gerwani ste
Tempo.co, 25 May 2016: Former Gerwani chair dies; mourners watched by intelligence officers
Tempo.co obituary (25 May 2016, Abdul Djalil Hakim) of Putmainah, 90, former Blitar Gerwani chair and DPRD-GR member for the PKI faction, called the last Gerwani branch head. It covers her family background (father a Red Sarekat Islam leader killed at Madiun 1948), ties to Sukarno's family, and mourners including a Ban
Data and Facts on the Revival of the PKI (Audio Lectures, 2017)
Audio item (description only, no transcript): 'Data dan Fakta Kebangkitan PKI', a 3:12:35 recording of lectures by Alfian Tanjung, Rizieq Shihab and Kivlan Zen, tagged Aksi Bela Islam III (2017), hosted on archive.org. It argues for an alleged revival of the PKI; relevant as contemporary anti-communist propaganda. No G
Kivlan Zen Attacks Bedjo Untung (YPKP 1965) on Indonesia Lawyers Club, tvOne, 2017
12-minute clip of tvOne's Indonesia Lawyers Club (2017), episode 'PKI, Hantu atau Nyata?'. Split-screen debate between Bedjo Untung of YPKP 1965 and Kivlan Zen, who per the title attacks him. Shows contemporary anti-communist hostility toward 1965 survivors' advocacy. Description only.
Seven women political prisoners at Plantungan camp (Historia, 2017; preview)
Historia article (4 Oct 2017, preview only) on seven women political prisoners at Plantungan, the women's 'Pulau Buru' at the foot of Mount Prau, with historian Amurwani Lestariningsih on the inmates (Gerwani, CGMI, PKI sympathisers, some arrested by mistake). Partial text.
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book no. 607 (17 Oct 2017) presenting 39 declassified US Embassy Jakarta documents (1964-68) showing detailed US knowledge of and support for the army's mass killing of PKI members. Finding aid for the telegram series in this corpus.
Ariel Heryanto's essay (Indonesia at Melbourne, 16 Jan 2018) arguing the state's own story of the 30 September Movement, disseminated since 1966, is the 'primary hoax' behind later 'secondary' ones. Commentary on state disinformation.
Women's Day not commemorated under Suharto (Historia, 2018; preview)
Historia article (2018, preview only) on why 8 March was not commemorated under Suharto, noting that Gerwani pioneered Women's Day commemoration from the 1950s and made Clara Zetkin compulsory reading. Partial text, drawing on Martyn.
Tempo.co, 28 December 2018: A look inside the Gerwani book seized by the TNI as 'PKI'
Tempo.co report (28 Dec 2018) on the seizure by TNI and police in Kediri of 19 books from a bookshop owner, including Amurwani Dwi Lestariningsih's 'Gerwani: Kisah Tapol Wanita dari Kamp Plantungan' (Gramedia 2011), which describes torture and sexual violence against women prisoners. The owner says the books are mainst
The role of Gerwani in the liberation of West Irian 1950-1963 (Kurnia, 2019)
2019 history thesis (UNY) by Dimas Dwi Kurnia on Gerwani's role in the West Irian campaign 1950-63: 1951 and 1957 congress resolutions, the 1957 charter with the army-youth body BKSPM, 1960 statement for 710,000 members and the 1962 volunteer call. Key source on Gerwani and West Irian.
Wieringa and Katjasungkana's 2019 Routledge monograph, from the IPT 1965 prosecution report, arguing the 'real coup' was the ousting of Sukarno through about a million killings enabled by propaganda about Gerwani's alleged sexual perversion; chapter 6 treats two sexual moral panics. Key analysis.
Eid al-Adha at Plantungan camp (Historia, 2019)
Historia vignette (2019) on Eid al-Adha at Plantungan camp, drawing on Lestariningsih's book and Mia Bustam's memoir: prisoners allowed to pray with villagers, the camp's livestock unit, and Bustam giving away her meat. Camp daily life.
Women in the first election (Historia, 2019)
Historia article (2019) on women's wings of parties in the 1955 election (Perwamu, Parkiwa, Wanita Demokrat, Aisyiyah, Bhayangkari), noting the PKI grew close to Gerwani and that Mudigdio and Umi Sardjono entered the DPR for the PKI. Context on Gerwani and elections.
Zulbainar, a woman fighter for marginal communities as Gerwani activist (1961-1977)
Journal article (2020) by Agustina and Fatimah, a biography of Zulbainar (b. 1939, West Sumatra), who joined Gerwani c. 1954, became treasurer of Gerwani Padang Pariaman, lost her husband to a mob in 1965 and was held 12 years without trial until 1977. Regional Gerwani life history.
From Indonesia with Love: Political Prisoners and their Pen Pals (Hearman, 2020)
Hearman's 2020 article reconstructing the 1982-92 letters between ex-Gerwani militant Pudji Aswati, imprisoned for subversion, and English Quaker author Patricia Cleveland-Peck, showing how befriending became a transnational activist network. Rare transnational Gerwani prisoner correspondence.
Buried Histories: The Anticommunist Massacres of 1965-1966 in Indonesia (Roosa, 2020)
John Roosa's 2020 book, from nearly 400 interviews, arguing the typical 1965-66 killing was army execution of detainees (hence mass disappearance); dissects army propaganda including how Gen. Sugandhi sexualised Lubang Buaya from 9 Oct 1965. Key scholarship.
A Daughter's Memory: 1965 in Animation (Grace Leksana, 2020)
Grace Leksana's review (Archipel 99, 2020) of the animated documentary A Daughter's Memory (2019, dir. Kartika Pratiwi), based on Svetlana Dayani Njoto's memories of detention with her mother and siblings after her father Njoto's arrest. Film review.
Forty Years of Silence: The Insanity of Society (Marching, 2020)
Film review by Soe Tjen Marching (Archipel 99, 2020, pp. 35-40) of Robert Lemelson's documentary '40 Years of Silence' (2009), following four families in Bali and Central Java affected by 1965-66, with attention to trauma, stigma ('child of communists') and the New Order propaganda film. Gerwani and the sexual slander
The Treachery on YouTube: Politics of Memory on New Media in Indonesia (Parahita and Yulianto, 2020)
Journal article by Gilang Desti Parahita and Vissia Ita Yulianto (Archipel 99, 2020, pp. 47-73) on how YouTube reproduces the New Order's 'Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI' as monumental memory while alternative 1965 films circulate far less. Gerwani appears on p. 63: filmmaker Lexy Rambadetta, after meeting former Gerwani membe
Ummah Yet Proletariat: Islam and Marxism in the Netherlands East Indies and Indonesia, 1915-1959 (Lin, 2020)
PhD dissertation (History, University of Washington, 2020) by Hongxuan Lin tracing the confluence of Islam and Marxism in the Netherlands East Indies and Indonesia, 1915-1959, through vernacular print culture; it genealogises Sukarno's NASAKOM. Gerwani appears only briefly: citing Blackburn, it says millions joined for
Years of Dressing Dangerously: Modern Women, National Identity and Moral Crisis in Sukarno's Indonesia (Sullivan, 2020)
Charles P. Sullivan's PhD dissertation (History, University of Michigan, 2020) reads Indonesian women's magazines (Wanita, Puspa Wanita, Varia) from 1945-66 to argue that the Lubang Buaya narrative about Gerwani worked as a 'post-text' of long-running anxieties over modernity, moral crisis and the 'Mother of the Nation
Tempo.co fact-check, 15 June 2020: Did Ribka Tjiptaning call Jokowi's mother a Gerwani-PKI chair?
Tempo.co fact-check (15 June 2020) debunking a Facebook meme that PDI-P MP Ribka Tjiptaning said Jokowi's mother chaired Gerwani PKI. Ribka never said it (she wrote 'Aku Bangga Jadi Anak PKI', 2002) and Jokowi's mother Sudjiatmi was no Gerwani leader; a biography by Wawan Mas'udi and Ramdhon is cited. Shows Gerwani inv
Tempo, 3 October 2020: Cinema of friendship between women ex-prisoners ('You and I')
Tempo feature (3 Oct 2020) on Fanny Chotimah's documentary 'You and I' (DMZ festival award) about Solo ex-political prisoners Kaminah and Kusdalini, Pemuda Rakyat/Gita Patria choir members detained in 1965 and later rejected by family; contrasts it with the Pengkhianatan film's razor-blade scene and the Plantungan docu
Legal aspects of dissolving the FPI
Ambon Ekspres, 5 Jan 2021, p. 4: opinion on the FPI ban by a student; cites Gerwani as the 'concrete example' of a PKI 'underbow' dissolved for its members' crimes. Shows Gerwani as a legal precedent in contemporary debate.
Tale of two Lekra writers: S. Rukiah Kertapati (Tempo, 1 May 2021)
Tempo feature, 1 May 2021, by Moyang Kasih Dewi Merdeka and Hardian Putra Pratama, on the forgotten Lekra writer S. Rukiah Kertapati: poet and novelist, Lekra leadership member from the 1959 congress, wife of BTI leader Sidik Kertapati. Soldiers took her from Purwakarta (article dates the arrest 1969; she was held at C
Tempo.co, 29 September 2021: Organisations considered affiliated with the PKI
Tempo.co explainer (29 Sept 2021) on organisations 'considered affiliated' with the PKI: Gerwani, Lekra, SOBSI, Pemuda Rakjat. It states, citing Wieringa, that Gerwis became Gerwani at its 1954 second congress, electing PKI member Umi Sardjono as chair. Short, background-level.
Tempo, 2 October 2021: The burden of trauma of 1965 (why Umi Sardjono was not open about Gerwani's history)
Tempo feature (2 Oct 2021, Dini Pramita and Bagja Hidayat) on why Gerwani chair Umi Sardjono (Suharti Sumodiwiryo) said little after 13 years in Bukit Duri (to 1978). Drawn from Ita Nadia, Ruth Indiah Rahayu, others: she wept at accounts of rape and Sudjinah's injury, 'it is my responsibility'; friendships with Fransis
Tempo, 2 October 2021: Breaking up before the decisive congress (how Umi Sardjono led Gerwani)
Tempo feature (2 Oct 2021) on how Umi Sardjono led Gerwani: Marx House courses, the 1945 Barisan Buruh Wanita with S.K. Trimurti, Gerwis founded at Semarang (3-6 June 1950, Tris Metty chair), Umi chair from 1954 when it became Gerwani. Cites 650,000 members and 179 kindergartens at the 1957 Solo congress, WIDF links, s
Tempo, 2 October 2021: From priyayi daughter to underground activist (how Umi Sardjono became an activist)
Tempo biographical feature (2 Oct 2021, Isma Savitri and Nurdin Kalim) on Umi Sardjono's early life: born Suharti Sumodiwirjo in Salatiga, 24 Dec 1923, inspired by Kartini, joined Parindra then Gerindo, worked as an underground courier in East Java, tortured by the Japanese in 1943 alongside S.K. Trimurti, married Suki
Tempo, 2 October 2021: Gerwani, Sukarno and polygamy (Gerwani and the dilemma of brotherhood)
Tempo essay (2 Oct 2021) by I Gusti Agung Ayu Ratih on why Gerwani did not criticise Sukarno's polygamy. It recounts Kowani expelling Gerwani on 29 Oct 1965 and removing Hurustiati Subandrio in 1966, the erasure of Gerwani from women's movement history, Perwari rivalry, Gerwani members' reverence for Sukarno, and anti-