Janda PKI: Stigma and Sexual Violence against Communist Widows following the 1965-1966 Massacres (Pohlman, 2015)

=== [PDF page 1] === Indonesia and the Malay World ISSN: 1363-9811 (Print) 1469-8382 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/cimw20 Janda PKI: stigma and sexual violence against communist widows following the 1965–1966 massacres in Indonesia Annie Pohlman To cite this article: Annie Pohlman (2016) Janda PKI: stigma and sexual violence against communist widows following the 1965–1966 massacres in Indonesia, Indonesia and the Malay World, 44:128, 68-83, DOI: 10.1080/13639811.2015.1100873 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2015.1100873 Published online: 07 Dec 2015. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 1108 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 2 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cimw20 === [PDF page 2] === INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD, 2016 VOL. 44, NO. 128, 68–83 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2015.1100873 Janda PKI: stigma and sexual violence against communist widows following the 1965–1966 massacres in Indonesia* Annie Pohlman This article explores the relationship between the derogatory social Indonesia; propaganda; constructions and the sexual violence against janda in Indonesia sexual violence; stigma; with regard to the experiences of women who were widowed widows during the 1965 massacres. At that time an estimated 500,000 people were killed for their alleged ties to the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Specifically, it examines how discourses which stigmatise janda as sexually available and/or promiscuous were compounded by the demonisation of women connected with the PKI as dangerous and sexually voracious. By examining the testimonies of women widowed by the death, disappearance or imprisonment of their husbands during the massacres, I argue that janda PKI were subject to two forms of stigmatisation, based on their status as janda and on their connection with the PKI. This was manifest in the sexually predatory behaviours from men in their communities, particularly from the local security forces and militia groups who had taken part in the massacres. By emphasising the political aspects of gender politics which congregate around the extremely derogatory constructions of janda PKI, I articulate how the gendered and sexualised bodies of janda were also politicised and, as a result of the Indonesian military’s anti-communist propaganda, made abject in their sexualisation. Introduction Gerson Poyk’s short fictional account written in 1966, ‘A woman and her children’, is the story of a man simply called ‘A’ (Poyk 1975). ‘A’ is a civil servant who returns home to his village some months after the 1 October 1965 coup and the subsequent mass killings which swept across the country. The majority of the victims of these killings were members or sympathisers of the mass-supported Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia/ PKI), which was blamed for the attempted coup and then eradicated by the Indonesian military together with their co-opted civilian militia groups. Half a million people were killed in these massacres and a further million leftist sympathisers were rounded up and held in political detention camps where many were tortured, starved or worked to death (Kammen and McGregor 2012). My thanks to the IMW anonymous reviewers for their feedback which helped improve this article. I also thank the University of Western Australia-University of Queensland Bilateral Research Collaboration Award which enabled this research. CONTACT Annie Pohlman a.pohlman@uq.edu.au; anniepohlman@yahoo.com.au © 2015 Editors, Indonesia and the Malay World === [PDF page 3] === INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD 69 In this story, ‘A’ who identifies himself as anti-communist, seeks out his former lover, Hadijah. He knows that Hadijah is now the widow of his former enemy, the murdered PKI leader ‘K’. As with many women who lost husbands during the violence, Hadijah is now almost destitute and is desperate to find help to feed her five small children. Despite the stigma of associating with PKI families and his hatred of ‘K’, ‘A’ decides to help Hadijah by taking care of her children. There are occasions in the narrative when both Hadijah and other women referred to loosely as members of the communist women’s organisation Gerwani (Gerakan Wanita Indonesia) or ‘PKI women’ are described by other characters as sexually available with the implication being that they are prostitutes. In one exchange between ‘A’ and a street vendor, for example, the vendor implies that ‘A’ has gone to have sex with Hadijah because, ‘it’s what most of the Gerwani who aren’t in prison are doing now’ (Poyk 1975: 76). In another exchange between ‘A’ and some anti-communist vigilantes, they accuse Hadijah of trying to trick ‘A’ into taking care of her children, saying that, ‘Then she’ll be free to do whatever she wants to. She can be a real first-class slut then’ (Poyk 1975: 74–75). The suggestion is that Hadijah will need to become a prostitute in order to survive. The story ends, however, when Hadijah dies as a result of ‘[t]he prison, her husband’s death, no one to look after her children … public opinion … shock,’ and ‘A’ takes her children away with him (Poyk 1975: 76). Written while the killings and mass arrests were still going on in some parts of Indonesia, Poyk’s short story about the fate of Hadijah and her children reveals much about both the conditions of life for the widows (and children) of those killed during the anticommunist purges and the forms of stigma against those widows. Working as a journalist at the time, Gerson Poyk was one of the few who travelled during the immediate aftermath of the violence. This short story was one of a handful about the mass killings to be published in the Indonesian literary magazines Horison and Sastra between 1966 and 1970. These short stories were the initial literary responses to the killings and give vivid insight into these turbulent events in Indonesian society at a time when non-fiction accounts would not have been published in Indonesia (Seluka 1987). The Gerwani women are clearly condemned in the descriptions of sexually promiscuous communist women. In this article, I argue that women who were made janda (widows and divorcees) through either the death or imprisonment of their husbands experienced two forms of stigmatisation during and after the mass violence of the mid 1960s in Indonesia. Firstly, they were stigmatised because of their status as janda in a society which both sexualises and denigrates women who lose their husbands through death or divorce, as discussed in the other contributions to this special issue. Secondly, being known as janda PKI or ‘communist widows’ compounded the stigmatisation because of the demonisation of communist supporters following the attempted coup d’état on 1 October 1965. In the months that followed, the military carried out an anti-communist propaganda campaign which depicted communists as dangerous and evil enemies who had to be wiped out in order to save the country. The misogynist themes within this propaganda were often built upon concepts of uncontrolled female sexuality and sexual behaviours leading to disorder and had the further effect of demonising communist women as sexually dangerous and ferocious. Women who became janda PKI were therefore not only deemed sexually available, they became legitimate targets for sexual assault during the violence that followed the coup. By analysing testimonies by and about janda PKI, and by drawing upon Julia === [PDF page 4] === 70 A. POHLMAN Kristeva’s theory of abjection (1982), I show how the bodies and sexual identities of communist widows were both sexualised and made abject during the violence of 1965. Negative and sexualised stereotypes of janda in Indonesia Adult women who live outside marriage in Indonesia, as widows, divorcees, sex-workers, single women or as lesbians and transgender women, sometimes occupy precarious positions within their communities. Women who lose their (male) partners take on the unenviable status of janda. Divorce is common in Indonesia and divorced women, as with widows, often remarry. For older women whose married lives have ended through the death of their spouse, their role within the family and the community often involves the care and education of children and the maintenance of the extended family home. Younger and middle-aged women who are not married, however, commonly experience various forms of marginalisation; divorcees and widows are viewed with suspicion, unmarried women become the target of sexual harassment, and lesbian and transgender women must live on the periphery of communities where LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex) lifestyles do not fit within predominantly heteronormative and patriarchal systems (Wieringa 2012). To study the experiences of women widowed during the 1965–1966 massacres, this article considers the negative and sexualised stereotypes against younger and middleaged women who are janda (women aged from their late teens through to their early fifties) in Indonesia. These stereotypes cluster around the role and status of janda in Indonesian communal life. Once a janda’s husband has gone, she is expected (and encouraged) to remarry. Being married is commonly seen as the correct, and desired, social arrangement for women (and, indeed, men) of this age in Indonesia. To be without a husband and therefore to be without his social position, with the corresponding economic status and means of subsistence, a janda is without secure status from the date of her husband’s death or their divorce until her own life is over or her status is changed by a new marriage. Until a janda can regain a ‘normal’ (read ‘married’) life, she has restricted social means and previous roles in community affairs are closed off.1 There are avenues for janda to subvert these forms of social marginalisation, such as through performing valorised religious and maternal roles; however, these must be viewed in differential terms against women who are married ibu (wife and mother) occupying full/‘normal’ social roles for women of this age group (Bennett 2005; Wieringa 2012: 524–26). Within the social organisation of the local community, janda are therefore often burdened with several layers of stigmatisation and marginalisation. The most significant for the purposes of this discussion is the negative association of janda with sexual availability and/or promiscuity.2 A janda is sharply defined in sexual terms because of her previous sexual relationship(s) and experience through marriage. Once she is without a male partner who both defines and controls her ‘proper’ sexual behaviours and roles, she will It should be noted that men in Indonesian society of this age are also expected to remarry if widowed or divorced (see Rudkin 1993). I thank my anonymous reviewer for this reflection and the many others which helped to improve this article. Negative stereotypes which posit widowed and divorced women as sexually available and/or promiscuous are by no means limited to a modern Indonesian context. For examples of some of the comparative and historical literature from other cultural contexts which discuss negative views of widows and divorcees, see Reinhart et al. (1998), Sossou (2002), and Nyanzi et al. (2009). === [PDF page 5] === INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD 71 continue to seek out another (male) source of sexual gratification. As such, janda are subject to what researcher Saskia Wieringa (2012: 523) has noted as a ‘pornographic gaze’, or ‘the sexualised and objectifying ways in which they [are] regarded by men, but also by women, in their communities’. In this way, janda are negatively stereotyped as women who try to seduce other women’s husbands, or as women who are promiscuous and welcoming of sexual advances. Janda in contemporary Indonesia will often adapt various strategies to avoid such negative speculation and to maintain their sexual reputation through, for example, not socialising with a man/men on their own. Social surveillance of female sexuality against all women and girls is common to varying degrees across Indonesia, but the sexual propriety and reputation of janda are the subject of high levels of scrutiny by members of the community (see Bennett 2005: 4–6). This stigma against janda in Indonesia has two effects. Firstly, it sexualises the bodies and identities of these women; and secondly, these women are often maligned and treated with suspicion because of this sexualisation. In regard to the first, when Wieringa noted a ‘pornographic gaze’ attached to janda, she noted the sexualisation of these women as the embodied subjects and objects of this sexualised gaze. It is because janda are sexualised as desirable and sexually available that they are also condemned and treated with suspicion. In some ways, this condemnation of janda sexuality and sexual activity outside the con- fines of marriage derives from ideas of female purity and impurity, and correct and sinful behaviours in adat (customary laws and traditions) and often religiously inspired cultural norms in Indonesia. Idealised notions of female sexuality across Indonesia tend to gather around prescriptions of female virginity before marriage on the one hand, and with the entwined archetypes of motherhood, reproduction and fecundity, and correct/proper female sexuality which is controlled and finds correct expression within marriage on the other. Sexual relations outside (heterosexual) marriage are considered illicit. In Indonesia, where these prescriptions of female sexuality are often shaped by the gender roles in the traditions of Islam and other religious influences in the archipelago, there is a range of social sanctions for the monitoring and censure of female sexuality outside marriage. In Islamic traditions, for example, sexual conduct outside marriage is zina: prohibited and forbidden sex. Although these social codes and restrictions on sexual behaviour apply equally to men and women within Islamic law, there is a clear double-standard of expected behaviours whereby male sexuality outside marriage is permissible and female sexual activity outside marriage strongly condemned (Bennett 2005: 22–8). When examining these social mores in Indonesia, the notion of female sexuality as uncontrolled or uncontrollable, and therefore dangerous, is significant when describing the pure/impure and correct/sinful binary categorisations of female sexuality.3 Some of these mores, particularly more religiously defined customs, have a strong association with uncontrolled/controllable female sexual desire and female sexual deviancy. The female body (and female sexuality) is seen as a source for potential disorder, as it may inspire wrongful lust in the men who, for example, see her aurat (or awrah) or parts of the body which should be covered (see Parker 2008). The cultural traditions of the As with all binary categorisations, these pure/impure and correct/sinful binaries used to classify female sexuality in Indonesia obscure the very complex world of gendered identities and sexualities which they seek to describe. Sexuality and ideas governing sexual identity, gender and sex in Indonesia (traditional or otherwise) can never be reduced to such distinctions. On this topic, see Davies (2010) and Boellstroff (2005). === [PDF page 6] === 72 A. POHLMAN pre-Islamic Indic cosmology in the courts of Java and Bali contain similar prescriptions which shaped ideals of female sexuality and sexual behaviour. As Helen Creese (2004: 184) shows, while uncontrolled sexuality for either men or women is to be avoided in these Indic court traditions, men can control their own sexual desires but women’s sexuality ‘must be controlled – through marriage’, as there is potential harm in uncontrolled female sexuality which leads to danger and chaos. For this discussion, these traditional prescriptions aimed at controlling uncontrolled female sexuality are useful when examining how women’s sexuality is negatively perceived in many Indonesian cultures and how janda are made the target of stigmatisation based on these perceptions. The sexualisation of janda bodies and identities, and the condemnation of janda because of this sexualisation, relate to the censure of female sexuality outside marriage and to the danger of female sexuality. In many cultural traditions across Indonesia, the sexualisation of janda bodies and identities, and the suspicion and other negative social surveillance practices which arise from this, can be traced to this need to guard against the potential harm which can arise from illicit female sexuality. These conceptions of uncontrolled female sexuality perpetuate the negative stereotypes about janda which posit them as promiscuous and constantly seeking out sexual gratification from (other women’s) men. As a result, janda hold the injurious position of being both sexually desirable and sexually dangerous to their communities. When they sometimes become the target for sexually predatory behaviours from men within their communities, they are to blame for attracting the men and then for the resulting social disharmony. In this article, I am primarily concerned with a particular group of janda during a period of mass social violence in Indonesian history. The women who became janda during the anti-communist violence experienced both the stigma associated with widowhood and, more importantly, the stigma of association with the PKI. This two-fold form of stigmatisation arose from the dehumanisation and demonisation of communism during the upheaval and mass violence of mid 1960s Indonesia. Whores and monsters: depictions of communist women in Indonesian military propaganda The demonisation of communism in Indonesian society finds its strongest roots in the military’s anti-PKI propaganda campaign. It began within days of the 1 October 1965 coup and was deliberately designed to create fear of the PKI. The propaganda was also used to incite violence against those who supported the party or any of its associated organisations. At its heart were the depictions of communist women whose sexual appetites and depravities almost destroyed the nation. These depictions drew upon cultural notions of dangerous female sexuality, showing how dangerous communist women were and revealing how far they had transgressed cultural and religious boundaries. The allegations that communist women and, in particular, members of the communistaligned mass women’s organisation Gerwani, had played a main role in the attempted coup were key to portraying the PKI as an imminent and dangerous enemy that had to be destroyed (Drakeley 2007; Wieringa 2009). In brief, the core of the propaganda campaign was a fictitious narrative about the coup itself, in which six generals were kidnapped and killed by a group of middle-ranking === [PDF page 7] === INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD 73 officers calling themselves the ‘30 September Movement’. The propaganda claimed that the PKI had set up the coup and attempted to overthrow the state, thus casting them as a subversive force which needed to be eradicated. More important to the success of the propaganda in inciting anti-communist fear and hatred were the stories created which claimed that Gerwani women had played a central and sadistic role in the coup. Reports spread by the Indonesian military include, for example, accounts that Gerwani women had killed the generals by ‘playing with and fondling the genitals of the victims while at the same time displaying their own’ (Angkatan Bersenjata, 9 October 1965, cited in Drakeley 2007: 15); and that Gerwani women had ‘indulged in delirious sexual orgies’ (Antara, 8 December 1965, cited in Drakeley 2007: 15). Spread through newsprint media and radio, these stories shocked and horrified the Indonesian population (Cribb 1990; Wieringa 2002; Drakeley 2007). The Indonesian military’s propaganda campaign was successful; anti-communist militias actively participated in the massacres and mass arrests. The PKI and leftist ideologies more generally were eradicated from the Indonesian political landscape, and the new military regime which rose to power during these massacres went on to rule for 33 years (Heryanto 2006). Looking more closely at the propaganda that was so effective for inciting violence, the hypersexualised ways in which communist women were depicted in some of the military’s stories were key to the effectiveness of the campaign. These portrayals allegedly revealed shocking ‘truths’ about Gerwani and the evils of communist ideology. Stories of how communist women had participated in orgies not only on the night of the coup but also during months of training and indoctrination beforehand were proof of their immorality and sexual debauchery (for example, Antara, 8 December and 13 December 1965, morning editions, cited in Drakeley 2007: 15). The debauched sexual behaviours of the Gerwani women in these stories drew strong connections between the danger of female sexuality and the threat to social order as it perpetuated tales that the communist women were not only sexually available but actively sought out sexual acts with all those around them. The terms associated with Gerwani which endure to this day are a legacy of these deeply sexualised depictions: lonte, pelacur or cabul (all meaning ‘whore’ or ‘prostitute’) are almost always added to the word ‘Gerwani’. In her analysis of the misogynist military propaganda, Wieringa also highlights the role of dangerous female sexuality in describing how Gerwani women were vilified in dehumanising and in monstrous, supernatural ways, such as by depicting them as kuntilanak (Angkatan Bersenjata, 11 October 1965, cited in Wieringa 1996: 14). A kuntilanak is a type of female ghost: a beautiful woman who has died in childbirth and who roams the night, preying upon babies, children and pregnant women. As Wieringa (1996: 7) points out, these and other depictions of Gerwani women carrying out horrifying deeds drew upon ‘Islamic concepts of sexual disorder’ and were signs of the ‘disorder symbolised by women’s sexually perverse behaviour’. Other depictions which equated Gerwani with bestial behaviour were also a feature of the propaganda, such as likening them to ‘scurvy beasts’ with ‘slimy claws’ and animal sexual instincts (Djakarta Daily Mail, 11 December 1965, cited in Drakeley 2007: 21). One of the key aspects of these depictions of Gerwani women was that, however horrifying their actions and debauched their sexual desires, they were alluring. This theme runs throughout the reports in the military’s propaganda, one example including descriptions of ‘beautiful women to destroy opposing parties’ (Djakarta Daily Mail, 20 December === [PDF page 8] === 74 A. POHLMAN 1966, cited in Drakeley 2007: 16). Another article described ‘seductive members of Gerwani, enchantresses (whose task was to) lure leaders of other parties by offering themselves, (and thereby persuading) them to follow the PKI program’ (Djakarta Daily Mail, 5 November 1965, cited in Drakeley 2007: 16). This link between the demonisation of communist women and sexual deviancy in the Indonesian military’s propaganda is central when examining the experiences of women who became janda as a result of the death or incarceration of their husbands during the anti-communist purges. These depictions of Gerwani women commonly echo the more misogynist forms of stigma against janda in Indonesia. There is, of course, an important difference, which is the politicisation of this stigma against Gerwani women and their alleged aberrant and uncontrolled sexuality. It was this additional element which caused the negative and sexualised forms of stigma which commonly attach to jandahood in Indonesia to become further pathologised in the case of communist janda since it was constructed as a threat to the very moral fabric of Indonesian society. As Wieringa (1996: 11) clearly shows, the propaganda campaign ‘struck chords with the Islamic fear of the uncontrolled sexual powers of women, a religiouslyinspired apprehension that women’s disobedience will endanger the entire social system, … notions of all-female maniacal crowds and the male horror of castration’. For women accused of communist sympathies, including those made janda when their husbands were killed or arrested for their alleged ties to the PKI, this demonisation had direct and ongoing consequences. Sexualised violence against women following the coup: experiences of janda PKI The military’s propaganda against communist women had devastating effects during the mass violence that followed. Sexualised forms of violence were common during the anticommunist killings and mass arrests. Women who were members of the PKI or one of its associated organisations, as well as the female relatives of men who were accused of communist sympathies, were frequently made targets of sexual assault and a range of sexually predacious actions. This violence was committed by a range of perpetrators, including soldiers and policemen, members of civilian militia gangs who took part in the killings, as well as from men in their communities. This violence was perpetrated against women in their homes and communities and, on women who were arrested and held as political prisoners, frequently in the various ad-hoc interrogation and detention centres that spread across Indonesia, as well as at guard posts, military and police quarters and in many other settings. As I have examined in detail elsewhere, sexual violence perpetrated predominantly against Gerwani women (and those accused of being members of Gerwani) can, in part, be seen as a response to perceived sexual excess on the part of the PKI. In my interviews with women survivors of these events, many told stories about how they had been accused of promiscuity and sexual licentiousness because of the propaganda’s depiction of communist women and their alleged behaviour during the coup. As these testimonies revealed, the perceived sexual depravity of Gerwani women was both a justification for and motivation to commit sexual violence against women and girls with alleged ties to the PKI (Pohlman 2015). === [PDF page 9] === INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD 75 The position of janda PKI cannot be disconnected from that of women who were made targets of sexual violence more generally during the violence of 1965–1966. I would argue, however, that women widowed by the death, disappearance or imprisonment of their husbands during the massacres experienced particular forms of sexual violence more frequently, namely, sexually predatory behaviour from men in their communities and in the militia groups, and being forced into new sexual relationships and new marriages. These new sexual relationships began in a wide range of circumstances, and must be considered in light of the threat of sexual assault that many women experienced once their husbands had been taken away or killed. During my interviews with both men and women survivors of the killings and arrests over the past decade, there was a range of descriptions and first-hand accounts about women entering sexual relationships during this period, as well as the conditions in which they did so. On a few occasions, I heard stories of women who had formed love matches with new men (including with members of the army, police or militias) and who went on to create new families, often bringing children with them from their first marriages. These cases whereby the woman developed a mutual relationship (sama suka) and then remarried were, however, very rare when compared with the many other stories about women who entered new marriages under extremely coercive conditions. In numerous interviews with women survivors, they described the persistent threat of sexual violence during the killings and mass arrests, particularly during the first year following the 1 October coup. These included descriptions of gangs of militias or soldiers hunting down members of the PKI, in which women who were captured or killed were also often sexually assaulted. As one woman whom I met on a number of occasions in West Sumatra, Ibu Titiek, explained in a matter of fact way, sexual assault and rape were ‘what happened’ to women if they were caught, that ‘everyone knew this’. She added, ‘that’s what happened, that’s what they did to women’ and that many of the women she had known at the time had ‘experienced this fate’.4 Sexual violence was also a prevalent threat and reality for the women whose husbands and other (usually male) relatives were detained or killed. As some of the men and women I have interviewed explained, these women were often harassed, to varying degrees, by men in their communities and by men who had taken part in the killings. These included quite vague descriptions of women being subjected to harassment and unwanted attention (diganggu or dilecehkan) to women being ‘visited’ by men in the community, to clear descriptions of sexual assault, rape and cases of sexual enslavement and enforced prostitution. A further, frequently used term which I heard in interviews on numerous occasions to describe women being forced into new sexual relationships was istri diambil (lit. ‘wife taken [by someone]’). At different times, this term could be used to signify a new official marriage, a woman being taken as a second wife, a woman being made into a man’s mistress or secret wife (istri gelap), as well as women being forced into situations of enforced prostitution. These and other descriptions made it clear that women who became janda during the anti-communist purges were likely to experience various forms of sexual violence. Interview with Ibu Titiek, together with Narny Yenny, September 2005, West Sumatra. All names of informants have been replaced by pseudonyms and all other identifying details removed or obscured. === [PDF page 10] === 76 A. POHLMAN Accounts of sexual violence against janda PKI In this section I present four accounts about janda PKI and their experiences of sexual violence. These accounts are in no way representative of the experiences of all janda PKI following the 1965 coup; however, they do reveal, in part, the range of their experiences of sexual violence. The testimony of Ibu Sinta5 reveals some of the ways in which women whose husbands had been imprisoned were sexually harassed by men in their communities. The daughter of a farmer in a poor, rural area, Ibu Sinta was still a teenager in 1965. She had married young to a farmer about a year before the coup and had a newborn baby when her husband was arrested in late 1965. She was forced to return to her parents’ home and worked as a field labourer and market seller for the next few years in order to provide for her child. While she was working, she said that she was frequently ‘bothered’ (ngganggu-ngganggu) and harassed (digoda sana-sini) by men in her community. In particular there was a local policeman who often sexually harassed her. As Ibu Sinta explained, [The local policeman] kept asking me to marry him, but I didn’t want to. It wasn’t quite that he spied on me, but, when I was working selling sugar, he would come and ask me about getting married every day. After a while, I simply couldn’t take it anymore [ … ] Whenever he saw me, he’d start bothering me. If it wasn’t him, it was this other man from the [local government]. It went on and on like this, and I couldn’t take it anymore, so I left and went to Jakarta. I left my child with my parents [ … The policeman] just kept at it, he would even [come to] my house. [He’d say], ‘Your husband isn’t ever coming home.’ Trying to get me to [have sex] with him, to seduce me, but I didn’t want to [because … ] I was waiting for my husband to come home, I was faithful to him, and because we had a child. To escape the unwanted attention from men in her community, and the policeman in particular, Ibu Sinta moved to Jakarta and became a maid. She stated that she had to leave because ‘they would never leave her alone’ and that she was frightened because she ‘was alone, after my husband had gone, by myself.’ After her husband’s arrest, the ‘men came after [her]’. As a janda, she became the target of this unwanted attention. As the janda of a political prisoner arrested for his ties with the communist party,6 Ibu Sinta received persistent sexual harassment to the point where she felt she had to move to the capital in order to escape the unwanted attention. She worked in Jakarta for four years, sending her wages home to her parents to help raise her child, until she got word that some of the political prisoners were to be released, including her husband. On hearing the news, she returned home to her village in Central Java. Ibu Sinta’s experience of sexual harassment was a commonly repeated story when people talked about what happened to the widows of men killed or detained following the coup. As stated, these experiences of sexual harassment against janda PKI ranged widely from ‘unwanted attention’ to more serious forms of sexual violence. The story of Pak Hardi’s wife, recounted in the book Tahun yang tak pernah berakhir (The year that never ended), is a case of ongoing rape and sexual enslavement. Pak Hardi was a Ibu Sinta’s interview transcript was given to me by the Indonesian Institute for Social History (Insitutut Sejarah Sosial Indonesia, or ISSI) during my fieldwork in 2005-2006. The interview was conducted in 2003 in Central Java. Ibu Sinta does not mention her husband’s affiliations in her interview, but it is likely that her husband was a member of the communist party-affiliated BTI (Barisan Tani Indonesia), a mass organisation for farmers. === [PDF page 11] === INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD 77 farmer who was arrested and detained because of his association with one of the PKI’s organisations, the BTI, in November 1965. He was detained at various prisons including on Buru Island until his release in 1979. When he returned home, he found that his two young children had been expelled from school and made to work, while his wife had died from ‘terrible suffering’ during his absence (Hasworo 2004: 51–2). His younger brother told him about what had happened to his wife. [His] wife had been forced to ‘serve’ (melayani) many men over and over. One night, [she] would be forced to sleep with one local village head (ketua RT), the next night with another one, the night after that [she] would be called by [another] village leader (lurah). After she returned home, the next night a soldier would come and sleep at Hardi’s house. You couldn’t count the number of teachers, and youth militia members from nationalist and religious groups who came to be served by Hardi’s wife. The most terrifying was a young Ansor [Muslim youth militia] man who came and slept with Hardi’s wife; he would come wearing a shirt and a machete covered in blood because he just returned from killing people accused of being communists in Purwodadi. Frequently, [Hardi’s wife] was even ordered to wash these clothes and the machete that were covered in blood. (Hasworo 2004: 52; my translation AP) After Pak Hardi was imprisoned, his wife was raped by numerous assailants and, from the description given by Hardi’s brother, sexually enslaved by a young man (who is simply called ‘A’ in Pak Hardi’s account) from the Ansor militia group. Pak Hardi’s brother further explained that soldiers and members of the various militias went every night to be ‘served’ by his wife. Pak Hardi’s wife ‘got thinner and thinner and thinner, [eventually] dying in 1977’ (quoted in Hasworo 2004: 53). The experience of Pak Hardi’s wife demonstrates some of the extreme forms of violence perpetrated against janda PKI. ‘A’, the Ansor man who enslaved Hardi’s wife, along with the many other men from the security forces, local village administration and militia gangs, committed these acts of ongoing sexual violence over a period of some years, perhaps as many as a dozen years, though the wording of the account is ambiguous on this point. While the exact period for these assaults is unclear, what is clear is that Pak Hardi’s wife was repeatedly raped and sexually enslaved over a period of years and under conditions of extreme coercion. These crimes were committed with impunity and as a janda PKI she became the target of these repeated acts of sexual violence. That so many men from all different sections of the community became perpetrators of sexual assault against Pak Hardi’s wife speaks to the permissive and pervasive nature of such violence against women who were deemed legitimate targets. Further, while sexual enslavement must be understood as a fundamentally gendered crime, there are other elements which differentiate the ongoing conditions of enslavement from individualised acts of sexual offences. Those forced into positions of sexual slavery in Indonesia during this period, particularly when coerced to become mistresses, ‘second’ wives or to become part of other forced marriages, were also frequently required to do a range of other tasks, such as domestic chores (cleaning, washing and cooking), as well as, in many cases, bearing and raising children.7 As was clear in the account about Pak Hardi’s wife, she was forced by the Ansor man to perform such tasks. For a discussion on sexual enslavement during the Indonesian killings, including elements of the crime under international law, see Pohlman (2015). === [PDF page 12] === 78 A. POHLMAN The last accounts about janda PKI that I share here reveal further cases of violent crimes, sexual violence and attempted murder. While living in Jakarta in 2005–2006, I met and interviewed various women who had been senior members of either Gerwani or the PKI. It was during one of several interviews with one of the former leaders of Gerwani, Ibu Wanti, that she passed me a photocopied list, entitled ‘List: People Raped and Killed in the 30 September 1965 Event in the ____ Sumatra Area which have been Verified.’ The list had been compiled by the 1965 survivor advocacy NGO, LPRKROB (Lembaga Perjuangan Rehabilitasi Korban Rezim Orba, the Institute for the Rehabilitation of the New Order Regime’s Victims), one of several such organisations in Indonesia.8 There are 20 names on the list, with few details given: the victims’ names, their ages in 1965, and where they were from (all details are obscured or removed here), and short descriptions about what happened to them. Here I quote the descriptions of what happened to two women: Dwi and Niken. Dwi. Aged 37. From _____, North Sumatra. Around the month of October 1965, she was giving birth to her 7th child. Her husband was arrested and a few days later Dwi was also arrested by [a group of militia, and] she was made the mistress of [a man called D___]. A number of years later, she was made the wife of one of the [local military post] soldiers and for six years she was his official wife and they had two children. Then the soldier was arrested because Dwi was suspected of being PKI and so, as a result, Dwi returned to her village at ____. And then, when she was there, she was caught again by [a new group of militia] and they were going to rape her but then did not. Then she was handed over to [another military post] and there she was made the mistress of [another man], and they had one child. Then this was discovered by [the regency military command]. And so to cover their tracks, Dwi was given over to some criminals who were led by [a man called K___] to be killed and so was taken by a group of them to the Chinese plantation and raped until she was almost dead. Then the men just left her there, and in the end she was found still alive [ … ]. She is still alive now, her address is _____, North Sumatra. Niken. Aged 25. From _____, North Sumatra. In 1966 while her husband was being detained in the event of G30S, she was always visited by a militia man named T___ and then raped until she was pregnant because this was done by T___ again and again, in order that she could guarantee that her husband in jail wouldn’t be killed. Then the village became upset about her pregnancy and Niken was expelled on the orders of T___ and had to go from place to place where she wasn’t accepted. As a result, Niken hanged herself. When she hanged herself her twin children were born and they both lived but she died. Both Ibu Dwi and Ibu Niken became janda PKI during the mass violence of 1965 and targets for ongoing forms of sexual violence because of their familial relationships. Ibu Dwi was forced into sexual relationships with first, ‘D’ from one group of militia, then with a soldier with whom she had two children. When this soldier was himself arrested because of his relationship with her, a janda of Communist affiliation, she was then made the mistress of another soldier from the local military command post, with whom she had another child. Aside from the second relationship with the soldier which is noted in the description as being an ‘official’ marriage, it is unlikely that she was This is one of about a dozen such lists that have been given to me over the past decade, and I have not been able to ascertain the process by which these lists were compiled or to whom individual authorship should be attributed. === [PDF page 13] === INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD 79 married to either the militia man ‘D’, or to the second soldier. The level of coercion that Ibu Dwi experienced when entering each of these new sexual relationships was likely high; she was passed from man to man, experiencing forced marriage and enslavement as well as aggravated sexual assault. No mention is made in the account of what became of the children she had during these latter relationships or her previous children. When the military commander in the area found out about the relationship between Ibu Dwi and the local military command post soldier, the soldier arranged for her to be killed by a group of local thugs. They gang raped and left her for dead, but she survived. Ibu Niken was repeatedly raped by a man from one of the local militia groups called ‘T’. The practice of intimidating or coercing the wives and other family members of detainees was an issue that was raised in a number of interviews with survivors of this period. Usually, this coercion would take the form of extorting money or goods in exchange for keeping prisoners from being executed. In some cases, sex was extorted from the wives or other female relatives of detainees, such as in the case of Ibu Niken, though the description of these events as extortion likely does not fully encompass the nature of these acts in that she was repeatedly raped by a man who attacked her. It is highly doubtful that she initiated this relationship, regardless of any perceived transactional benefit that she may have received, that is, a ‘guarantee’ of her husband’s safety in detention. Further, Ibu Niken’s position as janda PKI made her the target of persecutory behaviours not only from the man who repeatedly raped her but also by members within her community. When she became pregnant, her position as an unmarried woman became more tenuous. Ostracised by her community, she was then forced to become homeless by the man who raped her. It is unclear in the description how her suicide and the birth of her twins occurred; whether she killed herself during her pregnancy or post-partum. Nor is there any mention of what happened to her children after her death. Janda PKI: abject widowhood In the accounts discussed above, and in the many others that I have heard about the experiences of communist widows, there were a number of similar themes. Firstly, because their husbands had gone, they were perceived as janda and were therefore sexually available. The repeated stories of women whose husbands had been killed or arrested who were then frequently ‘bothered’ and sexually harassed were evidence that the sexual stigmatisation against janda in Indonesia was also a factor for these women. Secondly, the misogynous discourses which construct janda as sexually available were compounded by their association with the PKI. As discussed earlier, the depictions of PKI members as dangerous and the demonisation of communist women in particular as part of the military’s propaganda meant that these derogatory social constructions of janda sexuality and sexual availability were exacerbated. This demonisation drew upon often religiously inspired notions of dangerous and uncontrolled female sexuality. These negative discourses about janda PKI became both the rationalisation and motivation for sexual abuse against these women by men from the security forces and militia groups as well as from men in their communities as seen, for example, in the testimonies outlined in the previous section. The inherent violence of stigma against janda across many Indonesian cultures, which often conflate the religious and adat-inspired condemnations of === [PDF page 14] === 80 A. POHLMAN female sexual activity and female sexuality outside the confines of marriage, was made abject by the misogynous, deeply dehumanising and fundamentally politicised discourses of communist women as sexually dangerous, alluring and monstrous. These discourses placed janda PKI outside the realm of human beings with human behaviours, recreating these women as unnatural with inhuman desires and therefore as legitimate targets for violence. Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection in Powers of horror (1982) helps to explain the violence of this conflation of social stigma and politicised demonisation that constructed misogynous depictions of and violence against janda PKI. According to Kristeva, abjection is the encounter with something out-of-place, creating a moment of crisis. The encounter pushes the subject violently into a space between subject and object: between self and the encounter with that which must be totally and completely rejected (Kristeva 1982: 2). The encounter with the abject is met with visceral disgust, denial and loathing, as well as fascination. For Kristeva (1982: 208), abjection tells us about ‘the power of fascination exerted upon us … by that field of horror [ … and how] its meaning as well as its power, is based’. In the moment of confrontation, the subject must thrust aside the abject in order to re-establish the self. In order to remain whole and ‘clean’, you must reject the abject, lest it contaminate you; dirt, viscera, excrement, vomit, and other things which must be ‘cast off’, following Mary Douglas’ understanding of the unclean being ‘matter out of place’ (1966). According to Kristeva, the power of abjection lies in this seemingly universal urge to ‘thrust aside’ the abject in so violent and visceral a way, that it invokes horror and disgust in those who encounter it. While Kristeva’s notion of abjection is useful when trying to understand how we comprehend human reactions of fear and horror to both things and groups of people (such as through racist or homophobic discourses, see Butler 1993, 2009), it is also helpful to examine cases of sexual and other extreme forms of violence against janda PKI in terms of how such acts functioned to exclude and violently reject these women. When viewed using Kristeva’s theory of abjection, the reason janda PKI provoked such fear and fascination, and such intense violence, was that they were seen to have transgressed important cultural and religious boundaries as well as contemporaneous idealised norms of Indonesian womanhood. Communist women were thus a threat to those around them. The alleged transgressions by communist widows made them abject for a number of reasons. Firstly, they were janda in a society which sexualises and maligns widows. As discussed earlier, social forms of stigma against janda are often based on cultural notions about the inherent threats of uncontrolled female sexuality; a janda is a woman who is both sexually desirable and dangerous to her community. This threat was compounded in the depictions of communist women in the Indonesian military’s propaganda which transformed them into sexually monstrous but alluring women. The allegations that communist women had carried out sexual mutilations and participated in orgies during the coup provoked both deep shock and intense vilification. The ‘monstrous feminine’ in these depictions drew on these culturally and historically derived notions of vilified female sexuality; the castrating but desirable women in the military’s propaganda embodying the fear of and the fascination with the abject (see Creed 1993). The second and crucial reason for the abjection of janda PKI was that these women were depicted as sexually aberrant, and violent in their sexual excesses. Such depictions === [PDF page 15] === INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD 81 would have stood in direct contrast to idealised notions of womanhood and expected behaviours. As some feminist scholars of Indonesia such as Wieringa (2002), Blackburn (2004) and Oey-Gardiner (2002) have written, the demonisation and destruction of communist women, most notably the obliteration of Gerwani, was an essential component of the new military regime’s gender ideology. To use Kathryn Robinson’s term (2009), the ‘gender order’ of the New Order restricted and policed women’s roles as wives and mothers, drawing on traditional and re-inscribed patriarchal and patrimonial norms to constrain women, particularly in public life. Portrayed as a backlash against the transgressive, aberrant and sexually offensive behaviours of Gerwani, the New Order’s gender regime brought women ‘back’ to their ‘natural’ duties as women (kodrat wanita), as wives and mothers in an appropriated image of ibu (see Djajadiningrat-Nieuwenhuis 1987). In these ways janda PKI were seen to have transgressed the contemporaneous social norms of womanhood and were therefore a threat to all. As the stories about this violence against women who became widows during the 1965 violence discussed here have shown, the conflation of social stigma and politicised discourse which targeted ‘monstrous’ communist women meant that janda PKI were demonised and made abject in their sexualisation. The need to expel these deviant and sexually dangerous women in order to maintain and protect social order and norms meant the abjection of janda PKI, which was manifest in the many and various forms of sexual and other violence perpetrated against them during the mass killings and arrests following the 1965 coup. Conclusion An Amnesty International report (Huang 1975), entitled ‘Women and political detention in Indonesia’, highlights the position of women who became janda PKI, their economic and social vulnerability, the struggles they faced following the death or detention of their husbands, and the stigma they faced in their communities. [T]he detainees’ wives face the suspicion and sometimes open hostility shown in many localities towards women living without husbands. This is a very usual state for women to be in in Indonesia. Few women remain unmarried and a widow would be expected to marry again. Unattached women are often taken advantage of by male neighbours or local military commanders and female neighbours often look upon them as being ‘out to steal other people’s husbands’. The sensitive position in which they are placed as the wives of detainees makes them particularly vulnerable to abuse and hostility. This complex of difficulties has led many wives to opt for a solution that conceals their relationship with a detainee. This has its problems however because if a wife intends to visit her husband in prison or keep him supplied with food, she must present a document of verification of residence by the local official which can only be obtained by explaining the need. Therefore, to visit a husband means revealing one’s identity as a detainee’s wife. Some wives take this risk, especially those living in more friendly areas; others do not and are compelled to sever connections with their husbands. It is a terrible choice, with little consolation to be found whichever one is taken. The earlier account by Gerson Poyk in ‘A woman and her children’ and the description above from an Amnesty International (Huang 1975) report ten years after the coup, reveal much about the plight of janda PKI. They testify to the enduring legacy of this === [PDF page 16] === 82 A. POHLMAN stigma against janda PKI and the continuation of persecutory behaviours against them. Poyk’s short story, written only months after the 1965 coup, depicts a woman and her children shunned and reviled by their community, and the sexual harassment and vilification of women after the death or detention of their husbands. While a fictionalised account, Poyk’s story highlights the misogynous depictions of communist women as ‘whores’ and ‘sluts’ whose allegedly promiscuous desires and behaviours make them legitimate objects of sexual advances and assaults. These and the accounts discussed here about what happened to Ibu Sinta, Pak Hardi’s wife, Ibu Dwi and Ibu Niken, provide insights into the experiences of women who became janda PKI. While brief and fragmentary, these testimonies and accounts do reveal some trends. The social stigmatisation of janda in Indonesia which both sexualises and denigrates women who have lost their husbands was compounded by the strong misogynist themes within the Indonesian military’s propaganda. This propaganda demonised communist women and drew upon traditional and religiously inspired notions of female sexuality to allege that they were sexually deviant and dangerous. Janda PKI were therefore not only seen as sexually available, they became legitimate targets for sexual violence following the coup. Furthermore, the bodies and sexual identities of communist widows were made abject; their purported transgressions against cultural and religious norms, and perceived perversion of ideals of womanhood, meant that they had to be crushed or destroyed. Author biography Annie Pohlman is Lecturer in Indonesian at the University of Queensland, Australia. She is author of Women, sexual violence and the Indonesian killings of 1965–66 (Routledge, 2015) and co-editor of Genocide and mass atrocities in Asia: legacies and prevention (Routledge, 2013). Her research interests include Indonesian history, comparative genocide studies, torture, gendered experiences of violence and testimony. Email: a.pohlman@uq.edu.au References Bennett, L.R. 2005. Women, Islam and modernity: single women, sexuality and reproductive health in contemporary Indonesia. London: RoutledgeCurzon. Blackburn, S. 2004. Women and the state in modern Indonesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boellstorff, T. 2005. The gay archipelago: sexuality and nation in Indonesia. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. Butler, J. 1993. Bodies that matter: on the discursive limits of ‘sex’. London: Routledge. Butler, J. 2009. Frames of war: when is life grievable? London: Verso. Creed, B. 1993. The monstrous-feminine: film, feminism, psychoanalysis. London: Routledge. Creese, H. 2004. Women of the kakawin world: marriage and sexuality in the Indic courts of Java and Bali. Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe. Cribb, R. 1990. Introduction: problems in the historiography of the killings in Indonesia. In R. Cribb (ed.), The Indonesian killings, 1965–1966: studies from Java and Bali. Clayton: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, pp. 1–44. Davies, S. Graham. 2010. Gender diversity in Indonesia: sexuality, Islam and queer selves. London: Routledge. Djajadiningrat-Nieuwenhuis, M. 1987. Ibuism and priyayization: path to power? In E. Locher- Scholten and A. Niehof (eds), Indonesian women in focus. Dordrecht: Foris, pp. 43–51. === [PDF page 17] === INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD 83 Douglas, M. 1966. Purity and danger: an analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. London: Routledge and K. Paul. Drakeley, S. 2007. Lubang Buaya: myth, misogyny and massacre. Nebula 4 (4): 11–35. Hasworo, R.T. 2004. Penangkapan dan pembunuhan di Jawa Tengah setelah G-30-S [The arrest and killings in Central Java following the 30th September movement]. In J. Roosa, A. Ratih and H. Farid (eds), Tahun yang tak pernah berakhir: memahami pengalaman korban 65, esaiesai sejarah lisan [The year that never ended: understanding the experiences of the victims of 65, essays in oral history]. Jakarta: ELSAM, Tim Relawan untuk Kemanusiaan, and ISSI, pp. 25–59. Heryanto, A. 2006. State terrorism and political identity in Indonesia: fatally belonging. London: Routledge. Huang, W. 1975. Women and political detention in Indonesia. Amnesty International, 7 April 1975, ASA 21/WH/CF. Kammen, D., and McGregor, K. (eds). 2012. The contours of mass violence in Indonesia, 1965–68. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press. Kristeva, J. 1982. Powers of horror: an essay on abjection. Translated by Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press. Nyanzi, S., Emodu-Walakira, M. and Serwaniko, W. 2009. The widow, the will, and widow-inheritance in Kampala: revisiting victimisation arguments. Canadian Journal of African Studies/La Revue canadienne des etudes africaines 43 (1): 12–33. Oey-Gardiner, M. 2002. And the winner is … Indonesian women in public life. In K. Robinson and S. Bessell (eds), Women in Indonesia: gender, equity and development. Singapore: ISEAS, pp. 100–12. Parker, L. 2008. To cover the aurat: veiling, sexual morality and agency among the Muslim Minangkabau, Indonesia. Intersections: gender and sexuality in Asia and the Pacific 16. Pohlman, A. 2015. Women, sexual violence, and the Indonesian killings of 1965–1966. London: Routledge. Poyk, G. 1975. A woman and her children. In H. Aveling (ed. and trans.), Gestapu: Indonesian short stories on the abortive communist coup on 30th September 1965. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, pp. 56–76. Reinhart, C.J., Tacardon, M. and Hardy, P. 1998. The sexual politics of widowhood: the virgin rebirth in the social construction of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century feminine reality. Journal of Family History 23 (1): 29–46. Robinson, K. 2009. Gender, Islam and democracy in Indonesia. London: Routledge. Rudkin, L. 1993. Gender differences in economic well-being among the elderly in Java. Demography Seluka, K.A. 1987. Literature and social upheaval: the events of 1965/66 as portrayed in Indonesian novels and short stories. B.A. Honours thesis, Flinders University, Australia. Sossou, M-A. 2002. Widowhood practices in West Africa: the silent victims. International Journal of Social Welfare 11: 201–9. Wieringa, S. 1996. Sexual metaphors in the change from Sukarno’s Old Order to Suharto’s New Order in Indonesia. The Hague: Institute of Social Studies. Wieringa, S. 2002. Sexual politics in Indonesia. New York: Palgrave. Wieringa, S. 2009. Sexual slander and the 1965–1966 mass killings in Indonesia: political and methodological considerations. Singapore: Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Wieringa, S. 2012. Passionate aesthetics and symbolic subversion: heteronormativity in India and Indonesia. Asian Studies Review 36: 515–30.