Janda PKI: stigma and sexual violence against communist widows (Pohlman, 2015)
Pohlman (2015) on 'janda PKI': women widowed in 1965-66 were doubly stigmatised as widows and as 'PKI' women demonised by Gerwani propaganda; four testimonies show sexual violence and exploitation. Gendered stigma analysis.
Genjer-genjer, the song feared by history (Tempo, Ika Ningtyas, 2015)
Tempo feature (8 June 2015; IPT 1965 repost) on 'Genjermania', a Berlin live-music project by Tomi Simatupang raising funds for the son of Genjer-genjer composer Muhammad Arief, killed after 1965; traces the song's Japanese-occupation origin and its 1965 stigma.
Ripples, Echoes, and Reverberations: 1965 and Now in Indonesia (Stroud, 2015)
Martha Stroud's 2015 UC Berkeley/UCSF medical-anthropology dissertation, based on fieldwork in Yogyakarta (2010-12), examines how the 1965-66 killings shape daily life through propaganda, surveillance, stigma, silence and justice. Gerwani appears mainly as the object of New Order propaganda: the Lubang Buaya mutilation
Tempo.co, 2 October 2015: Putmainah, the Gerwani-PKI podium lioness who forgot September
Tempo.co profile (2 Oct 2015, by Bobby Chandra) of Putmainah, 77, former Gerwani chair and PKI faction member of the Blitar DPRD, now stroke-afflicted in Pakisrejo, Srengat. Her husband Subandi, Blitar Front Nasional and DPRD head, was killed after a PKI congress; she fled into the forest with seven children. Once a re
Tempo.co, 9 October 2015: The fall of the PKI, Suharto and the destruction of the women's movement
Tempo.co report (9 Oct 2015) on a Yogyakarta (UIN Sunan Kalijaga) discussion of Saskia Wieringa's book on the destruction of the women's movement. It summarises her argument that the military slandered Gerwani over Lubang Buaya as a pretext to kill; army press libel, and women forced to dance naked while soldiers photo
Pohlman (2016) argues the demonisation of Gerwani created an enduring 'pathological discourse' constraining women's sexual and political citizenship; perpetrators invoked the slander to justify violence, as in the cases of Ibu Susiani and others.
Tempo, 8 February 2016: Mintardjo and a fragment of Gerwis history
Tempo review (8 Feb 2016) of Elisabeth Ida Mulyani's video 'Supervivere' on 1965 exiles (Mintardjo and nine others in the Netherlands and Sweden), shown in Yogyakarta with a charcoal portrait 'Suti, Plight of Gerwani' by Dewi Candraningrum. It describes Suti, 95, founder of Gerwis Musuk/Boyolali in 1952, a literacy cam
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
Wieringa's 2017 insider account, as chair of the IPT 1965 foundation, of the tribunal's rationale, genesis (a 2013 meeting with Oppenheimer, Stanley Prasetyo and Nursyahbani Katjasungkana), structure and July 2016 conclusions. Background on the tribunal's organisation.
Challenging the Lifeline of Imperialism: Afro-Asian Solidarity 1955-1965 (McGregor and Hearman, 2017)
McGregor and Hearman's 2017 chapter on AAPSO (founded Cairo 1957-58) as the main vehicle of the 'Bandung Spirit' among non-state activists 1955-65, taking up Sukarno's 'lifeline of imperialism' image. Context for Afro-Asian solidarity.
Between Citizenship and Human Rights: the struggle for justice after the 1965 violence (Hearman, 2018)
Hearman's 2018 article on how 1965 survivors and NGOs shifted from an inclusive citizenship strategy (1998-2004) to a 'boomerang' appeal to international norms, with stalled domestic justice. Context on the post-1998 struggle for justice.
The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66 (Robinson, 2018)
Geoffrey Robinson's 2018 synthesis of the 1965-66 violence (about 500,000 killed, a million detained), arguing the army provoked and organised it, the US and allies facilitated it, and colonial and Cold War history set the preconditions. Context; Gerwani in the propaganda chapters.
Francisca de Haan's 2018 chapter proposing a 'global left-feminist 1960s' led by the WIDF network, from the 1953 Copenhagen Congress (whose declaration reached Indonesia) to the 1963 Moscow congress. Frames WIDF transnationalism relevant to Gerwani.
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
WIDF, the Third World and the Global Cold War (Gradskova, 2019)
Yulia Gradskova's 2019 article, from Soviet WIDF archives (GARF), on how far the WIDF's anti-colonial stance gave women from Africa, Asia and Latin America real voice in the late 1950s-mid 1960s; internal documents show a Europe- and Soviet-dominated agenda. Context for Gerwani's WIDF role.
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.
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
The Act of Singing: Women, Music and the Politics of Truth and Reconciliation (Weintraub, 2021)
Andrew Weintraub's 2021 study of the Dialita choir from 2018-21 fieldwork with members including Njoto's daughter Irina Dayasih, arguing collective singing is critical remembrance and memory activism where legal routes are blocked. Substantial English-language study.
Tempo.co, 14 April 2021: Film 'You and I' about two women ex-prisoners streams online
Short Tempo.co news item (14 Apr 2021) that the documentary 'You and I' by Fanny Chotimah, about ex-political prisoners Kaminah and Kusdalini, streams on Bioskop Online from 9 April 2021 after winning the Festival Film Indonesia 2020 documentary prize and the DMZ Asian Perspective Award. Mostly promotional; Gerwani is
Tempo, 1 May 2021: Rukiah's second life
Tempo feature (1 May 2021) on publisher Ultimus (Bandung) reissuing works by woman writer S. Rukiah, banned after 1965 because she was jailed as a Lekra activist: 'Kejatuhan dan Hati' and 'Tandus' (2017), children's book 'Pak Supi' (2018), and nine more children's titles found in libraries. Gerwani is not mentioned.
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
Mysterious poet and supporter of children's literature: Sugiarti Siswadi (Tempo, 1 May 2021)
Tempo article, 1 May 2021, by Isma Savitri and Hardian Putra Pratama, on Lekra writer Sugiarti Siswadi: Lekra central leadership member from 1959, children's-literature advocate, author of the banned Sorga Dibumi, and editor of Api Kartini. Researchers cannot trace her life; one suspects she was jailed in Semarang in 1
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: 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-