The Women and the Generals: Unraveling a Myth of Sexual Perversion (Wieringa, Archipel 99, 2020)

ISSN: 2104-3655 Publisher Association Archipel Printed version Date of publication: July 15, 2020 Number of pages: 23-27 ISBN: 978-2-910513-83-2 ISSN: 0044-8613 Electronic reference Saskia Wieringa, “The Women and the Generals: Unraveling a Myth of Sexual Perversion”, Archipel [Online], 99 | 2020, Online since 03 June 2020, connection on 10 July 2026. URL: http:// The text only may be used under licence CC BY-ND 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) may be subject to specific use terms. === [PDF page 2] === -— Etudes interdisciplinaires sur le monde insulindien — ARCHIPEL 99 2020 —Revue publice par l’Association Archipel, h¢bergée au Centre Asie du Sud-Est,— sous le patronage de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales === [PDF page 3] === Etudes interdisciplinaires sur le monde insulindien Publiées avec le concours de l'Institut des Sciences Humaines et Sociales du CNRS, de l’Ecole francaise d’ Extréme-Orient, de |’Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales et de |’Institut francais d’Indonésie (Ambassade de France en Indonésie) Fondateurs: Pierre LABROUSSE, Denys LOMBARD, Christian PELRAS ARCHIPEL 99 Comité de rédaction Delphine ALLES, Elsa CLAVE, Véronique DEGROOT, Elsa LAFAYE DE MICHEAUX, Rémy MADINIER, Daniel PERRET, Dana RAPPOPORT, Jéréme SAMUEL, Christina WU Comité scientifique Henri CHAMBERT-LOIR, Andrée FEILLARD, Arndt GRAF, Arlo GRIFFITHS, Robert HEFNER, Claude GUILLOT, Claudine SALMON, James SIEGEL, Luis Filipe THOMAZ, Monique ZAINI-LAJOUBERT Directeur de la rédaction Henri CHAMBERT-LOIR Secrétaire de rédaction Sophie HENON La Rédaction exprime ses sincéres remerciements 4 Madame Diah Novitasari (EFEO Jakarta), qui a assuré la mise en page de ce numéro dans les difficiles conditions de la pandémie de Covid 19. Editeur Association Archipel EHESS, bureau 740, 54 boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris 2020 ISSN 0044-8613 === [PDF page 4] === Sommaire 5–11 Hélène Njoto et Andrée Feillard In Memoriam Merle Calvin Ricklefs (1943-2019) Échos de la recherche 13–18 Charles Coppel Chinese Indonesians: Identities and Histories (Monash University, 1- 3 October 2019) Dossier 1965 and Cinema II 19–21 Elsa Clavé Filmed Memories of 1965 23–27 Saskia Wieringa The Women and the Generals: Unraveling a Myth of Sexual Perversion 29–33 Vannessa Hearman Buru Island: Still Much More to Reveal 35–40 Soe Tjen Marching Forty Years of Silence: The Insanity of Society 41–45 Grace Leksana A Daughter’s Memory: 1965 in Animation 47–73 Gilang Desti Parahita and Vissia Ita Yulianto The Treachery on YouTube: The Politics of Memory on New Media in Indonesia Études 75–105 Robert Wessing The Maiden in the Forest: Reflections on Some Southeast Asian Tales 107–141 Arlo GrifÏths Rediscovering an Old Javanese Inscription: Mpu Mano’s Donation in Favor of a Buddhist Dignitary in 888 Śaka 143–151 Merle C. Ricklefs Music and Dance Go to War in Java 153–188 G. Roger Knight An ‘Indies’ couple: Colonial Communities and Issues Surrounding Identity in the Dutch East Indies, ca. 1890-1930s 189–213 Syamsul Rijal Performing Arab Saints and Marketing the Prophet: Habaib and Islamic Markets in Contemporary Indonesia Lectures Critiques 215–261 Jean-Louis Margolin 1965: L’Heure de l’histoire? 261–264 Kuncoro Hadi, dkk. Catatan Hari Per Hari G30S Sebelum Hingga Setelahnya (1963-1971) Archipel 99, Paris, 2020, p. 1-3 === [PDF page 5] === Comptes rendus Préhistoire et Asie du Sud 265–271 Wolfgang Marschall und Markus Wäfler, Felsmalereien Indonesiens, Borsdof: Winterwork, 4 vol., 2012-2017 (Antonio Guerreiro) 271–276 Michael Feener and Anne Blackburn, Buddhist and Islamic Orders in Southern Asia. Comparative Perspectives. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2019 (Andrée Feillard, Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière) Histoire contemporaine et Société 277–278 Taomo Zhou, Migration in the Time of Revolution: China, Indonesia and the Cold War. Singapore: ISEAS, 2019 (Claudine Salmon) 279–282 Suryomenggolo, Jafar (ed.), At a Moment’s Notice: Indonesian Maids Write on Their Lives Abroad. Copenhague: NIAS Press, 2019 (Laurence Husson) 282–286 Edwin Jurriëns & Ross Tapsell (eds.), Digital Indonesia: Connectivity and Divergence. Singapore: ISEAS, 2017 (Deasy R.P. Simandjuntak) 286–289 Alessandra Lopez y Royo, Contemporary Indonesian Fashion: Through the Looking Glass. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2020 (Clara Jones) Études régionales 289–293 Fanany, Rebecca & Ismet Fanany, The Elderly Must Endure: Ageing in the Minangkabau Community in Indonesia. Singapore: ISEAS, 309 p., 2018 (Suryadi) 293–295 Richard Fox, More Than Words: Transforming Script, Agency, and Collective Life in Bali. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018 (Dick van der Meij) 295–298 Agung Wardana, Contemporary Bali. Contested Space and Governance, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019 (Michel Picard) 298–301 Hans Hägerdal, Held’s History of Sumbawa: An Annotated Translation. Amsterdam University Press, 2017 (Henri Chambert-Loir) 301–303 Geneviève Duggan and Hans Hägerdal, Savu: History and Oral Tradition on an Island of Indonesia. Singapore: NUS, 2018 (Gregory Forth) 304–306 Leontine Visser, Sejarah Pertanian dan Kebudayaan Sahu di Halmahera (History of Sahu Agriculture and Culture in Halmahera). Yogyakarta: Ombak, 2019 (Laksmi Adriani Savitri) 307–310 Christopher J. Shepherd, Haunted Houses and Ghostly Encounters: Ethnography and Animism in East Timor, 1860–1975. NUS, 2019 (Frédéric Durand) 310–312 Oman Fathurahman, Kawashima Midori, and Labi Sarip Riwarung (eds.), The Library of an Islamic Scholar of Mindanao: The Collection of Sheik Muhammad Said bin Imam sa Bayang at the Al-Imam As-Saddiq (A.S.) Library, Marawi City, Philippines: An Annotated Catalogue with Essays. Tokyo: Sophia University, 2019 (Mulaika Hijjas) Archipel 99, Paris, 2020 === [PDF page 6] === Littératures 312–314 Andi Muhammad Akhmar, Islamisasi Bugis; Kajian Sastra atas La Galigo Versi Bottinna I La Dewata Sibawa I Wé Attaweq, Jakarta, Yayasan Pusaka Obor Indonesia, 2018 (Faried Saenong) 314–317 Asahan Alham, Dendam Sejarah. Bandung: Ultimus, 2019 (Nico Schulte- Nordholt) 317–321 Ajip Rosidi, Surat-Surat ti Jepang. Bandung, Kiblat, 4 jilid, 2017 (Julian Millie) 321–324 Luis Cardoso, L’Année où Pigafetta boucla son tour du monde. Arkuiris, 2019 (LF Thomaz) Résumés – Abstracts © Copyright Association Archipel 2020 En couverture: Photo du studio Kurkdjian de la famille MacNeill ‒ Bezoet De Bie, c. 1905 (voir l’article de G. Roger Knight dans ce volume). Archipel 99, Paris, 2020 === [PDF page 7] === Saskia Wieringa1 The Women and the Generals: Unraveling a Myth of Sexual Perversion The Women and the Generals Documentary, 56 min., 20131 Director: Maj Wechselmann2 Production: Swedish Television (SvT) / Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) / Fritt Ord (Norway) Distributed via http://www.wechselmann.se/en/2013/03/26/the-women-andthe-generals/ Language: English/Indonesian with English captions and subtexts The documentary is also available, via VIMEO, in a longer version (84 min), which is the basis of the present review. The Women and the Generals by Maj Wechselmann tells the story of the sexual slander fabricated by the Indonesian military under General Suharto which fuelled the campaign to annihilate the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). The lies center around the presence of women at the site where six generals and one lieutenant were buried in a disused well. They had been abducted and murdered by a group of their own soldiers under the control of junior ofÏcers in the night of October 1, 1965. The girls attended a training given by the Air Force in preparation for the anti-Malaysia campaign of 1. Emeritus professor, Amsterdam University. 2. To date the Danish-Swedish director Maj Wechselmann (1942) has produced some 45 films. She became known with her documentary on the defense industry Viggen (1973). Archipel 99, Paris, 2020, p. 23-27 === [PDF page 8] === 24 Saskia Wieringa President Sukarno. The documentary explains how and why the lies have been fabricated, their impact up to nowadays in Indonesia and presents a detailed counter-version based on archival images, victims and expert testimonials. The military under General Suharto blamed the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) for the deaths of the high-ranking militaries killed on 1 October. In reality, only a handful of top leaders of the PKI had been involved in planning the abductions, but not the murders, and they had not been involved in the execution of those plans. Members of the leftist women’s group Gerwani were accused of having seduced, sexually tortured and killed the generals. This slander forms the core of the propaganda campaign that the army used to incite mainly Muslim mass organizations and militias to assist the army in murdering perhaps one million people and incarcerating hundreds of thousands others. The prisoners were tortured, subjected to sexual violence and many were sent to slave labour camps such as on the island of Buru. The victims were never tried, and the perpetrators of these crimes were never charged. The survivors have lived with the stigma that they were considered ‘traitors to the nation’ ever since and the women among them have always been associated with sexual perversion. The consequences of this bloody period in Indonesian history were not only felt by the direct victims. As the documentary film shows, after General Suharto had replaced President Sukarno, and established a military dictatorship, called the ‘New Order’, progressive social movements such as Gerwani, and the progressive trade unions, (as well as the farmers’ union and the leftist cultural association, but this is not detailed here) were destroyed. State-dominated women’s organizations were established to turn women into obedient housewives and mothers. Labourers and peasants were likewise controlled to serve the interests of the economic and military power holders. The false accusations that the action of the 30 September Movement, as the group that abducted and killed the generals called themselves, was masterminded by the PKI and that the Party was preparing to take over the country provided the pretext for General Suharto’s seizure of power. They were part of a propaganda campaign staged by Suharto which not only led to one of the worst genocides in history which took place between 1965-1968 but which also helped spread terror to sustain the military dictatorship he established. A major part of the documentary film The Women and the Generals is a critique of the three hours’ infamous propaganda film that President Suharto ordered to be produced. This film is called ‘The Betrayal of G30S/PKI’, by Arifin C. Noor. It was obligatory for school children to watch it ever since it was released in 1984. The bloody scenes it contains have traumatized millions of school children, as Chika Noya explains in ‘The Women and the Generals’. They had this memory of ‘communist women’ as devilish, cruel whores etched on their minds. Archipel 99, Paris, 2020 === [PDF page 9] === The Women and the Generals: Unraveling a Myth of Sexual Perversion 25 The Women and the Generals During the New Order writers and artists were compelled to repeat the ‘truth’ of the army version of the ‘events of 1965’ and as a critical discussion of this period in Indonesian history was almost impossible the Indonesian people grew up with these distorted ideas. As the prominent historian Hilmar Farid explains in The Women and the Generals, smart students had to uncover the truth of this period themselves. Serious analyses of the army propaganda film and of any aspects related to the mass crimes against humanity by the army and the militias associated with them were prohibited. To their despair women who had legally and enthusiastically carried out many social, educational and political activities as proud members of the ‘socialist family’ in Indonesia, and who had been imprisoned for many years under inhuman conditions, came home to find themselves being associated with unspeakable perversions. The memories of their social activism had been supplanted by the fake memories of their alleged perverse acts. To escape the social censorship engineered by these constructed memories, a small group of them lived together in a home in Jakarta, where Maj Wechselmann interviewed them. The army propaganda film portrays Suharto as the hero who managed to save the nation from murderous and sexually perverse communists. The documentary The Women and the Generals exposes the lies of the propaganda film in which fiction poses as truth and thus reveals the ‘hero’ of the New Order to be a villain. Wechselmann also uses shots of another propaganda tool of the military regime, the Pancasila Sakti (Holy Pancasila) Monument on the site where the generals were thrown into a well. On this monument, the story of ‘The Betrayal of G30S/PKI’ is repeated. It became an almost sacred place. During the New Order the vast terrain of the Holy Pancasila Monument used to swarm with children and adults in Muslim dress. Below the huge statues of the murdered generals a bronze mural is placed which depicts the post- Archipel 99, Paris, 2020 === [PDF page 10] === 26 Saskia Wieringa independence history of Indonesia according to Suharto and which contains depictions of the so called ‘dance of the fragrant flowers’ which the women present at the site allegedly had danced to seduce and castrate the generals. The museum complex itself comprises a museum and the building in which the generals had been allegedly murdered and mutilated. As John Roosa and Saskia Wieringa explain in The Women and the Generals, the ofÏcial autopsy demonstrates very clearly the generals were killed by bullets; they were not castrated. The largest part of the documentary was shot around 2009 and 2010 and contains interviews with women survivors by Maj Wechselmann. They were teachers, journalists, or trade union leaders, heavily traumatized and stigmatized. They spent many years in jail under inhuman conditions and after their release were reduced to poverty. Most of them are no longer alive now, and the interviews provide a rare glimpse into their harrowing experiences. They tell that when they realised the army and the militias went hunting for anyone associated with the left, some of them went on the run, with their children, trying to survive in the jungle. Ultimately all of them were arrested and horribly tortured and raped. Other former prisoners interviewed for the film include the poet and filmmaker Putu Oka Sukanta and the writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer. Beside these interviews with survivors, academics like John Roosa, Olle Törnquist, Saskia Wieringa and Hilmar Farid as well as human rights activists like Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, Nusya Kuswatin and Chika Noya provide background information. Particularly revealing is the material from the outrageous NBC-film ‘The Troubled Victory – The Battle for Asia’, which shows both the arrests and murders at the time, and the influence of the CIA on the army. The return of American businesses, some of them previously nationalised by Sukarno, went hand in hand with the destruction of the trade union movement. The documentary also has archival footage from the events of 1965-1968, as well as from the demonstrations and the shootings at Trisakti University that marked the end of the military dictatorship in 1998. The country is littered with mass graves. The local population usually knows their locations, which have become haunted places, as Nusya Kuswatin explains. She used to live close to one of the largest mass graves, in the Botanical gardens in Purwodadi, East Java. The human rights lawyer Nursyahbani Katjasungkana also lived close by, and as a 10-year old girl she regularly saw the corpses of people murdered in the night, on her way to school. When later she defended one of the victims she was immediately branded as a ‘defender of communists’. She was one of the women leaders who spearheaded the protests that led to the fall of General Suharto. The women activists found a soft spot in the General’s armour when, in the Asian economic crisis of 1997, food shortages occurred. How come, they mocked him, that a self-styled ‘Father of Development’ cannot provide milk for the nation’s children? Archipel 99, Paris, 2020 === [PDF page 11] === The Women and the Generals: Unraveling a Myth of Sexual Perversion 27 The film shows some footage of the first exhumation of a mass grave in Wonosobo, carried out by a group of human rights defenders around Mrs Sulami, a former Gerwani leader. Some of the bodies could be identified, but when their families tried to give them a proper reburial, they were attacked by an Islamist mob. A major part of the documentary is devoted to the difÏcult search for justice for the victims and an end to the impunity of the survivors. Even after the end of the military regime human rights activists like Munir Said Thalib, who received the Right Livelihood Award in 2000 for his courage, were attacked. He was murdered in 2004. So far the mastermind of this assassination walks free. During the short presidency of the charismatic and progressive Muslim leader Abdurrahman Wahid (1999-2001), popularly called Gus Dur, there was hope Indonesia would confront the truth of this ugly period in its history. History school books were rewritten, in which effort Hilmar Farid was involved. But when they were ready, they were burnt; they never reached the schools they were meant for. When Wechselmann was shooting her film, the National Commission on Human Rights had started its investigation into the mass crimes against humanity committed after October 1 in Indonesia. A valiant effort, but, she notes, how can seven investigators ever be able to cover such massive and widespread crimes? The film ends with two telling scenes. Filmmaker Eros Djarot recounts how his team was prevented from shooting his fictional film about a former member of Gerwani who was arrested and tortured. Although he had the permission to shoot, a mob prevented him from doing that. The second episode reports the valiant efforts of family members of students murdered by the army during the 1990 unrest, Munir’s widow, survivors of the 1965 events and of other crimes against humanity to get justice for these crimes. Every Thursday afternoon they stage silent demonstration named Kamisan in front of the presidential palace. In her interviews Wechselmann vividly captures the lasting effects on the memory of the nation of the terror that started with the slander of the girls who watched the generals being killed by the military on their training ground. The value of the film is the combination of these and other interviews, and archival footage. It provides a comprehensive overview of this period, with a focus on the sexual propaganda which formed the core of the campaign which was fabricated to incite the Muslim militia to help murder possibly a million people. This documentary provides a much-needed background to understand the silence and impunity that still reign in Indonesia around the crimes against humanity committed after October 1 1965. The effects of this campaign are still felt in Indonesian society. The Kamisan continue and human rights defenders are still labelled ‘communists’. Archipel 99, Paris, 2020 === [PDF page 12] === [Blank page] === [PDF page 13] === Archipel 99 Héléne Njoto et Andrée Feillard, In Memoriam Merle Calvin Ricklefs — Echos de la Recherche: Charles Coppel, Chinese Indonesians: Identities and Histories (Monash University, 1- 3 October 2019) — 1965 and Cinema II: Elsa Clavé, /ntroduction au dossier — Saskia Wieringa, The Women and the Generals: Unraveling a Myth of Sexual Perversion — Vannessa Hearman, Buru Island: Still Much More to Reveal — Soe Tjen Marching, Forty Years of Silence: The Insanity of Society — Grace Leksana, A Daughter's Memory: 1965 in Animation — Gilang Desti Parahita & Vissia Ita Yulianto, The Treachery on YouTube: The Politics of Memory on New Media in Indonesia — Etudes: Robert Wessing, Maiden in the Forest: Reflections on Some Southeast Asian Tales — Arlo Griffiths, Rediscovering an Old Javanese Inscription: Mpu Mano’ Donation in Favor of a Buddhist Dignitary in 888 Saka — M.C. Ricklefs, Music and Dance Go to War in Java — G. Roger Knight, An ‘Indies’ Couple, Colonial Communities and Issues Surrounding Identity in the Dutch East Indies, ca. 1890-1930s — Syamsul Rijal, Performing Arab Saints and Marketing the Prophet: Habaib and Islamic Markets in Contemporary Indonesia — Lectures Critiques: Jean-Louis Margolin, 1965: L’Heure de I’histoire? — Comptes rendus — Résumés-Abstracts 30,00 € ISBN 978-2-910513-83-2 tar Haunonanen now iA, LECOLE (co MTS STI — des langues SCIENCES EFEO et civilisations orientales SOCIALES

=== [Page 2] === Interdisciplinary Studies of the Insulindian World ARCHIPEL 99 2020 Journal published by the Archipel Association, hosted at the Southeast Asia Centre, under the patronage of the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales === [Page 3] === Interdisciplinary Studies of the Insulindian World Published with the support of the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences of the CNRS, the École française d'Extrême-Orient, the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales and the Institut français d'Indonésie (Embassy of France in Indonesia) Founders: Pierre LABROUSSE, Denys LOMBARD, Christian PELRAS ARCHIPEL 99 Editorial Committee Delphine ALLES, Elsa CLAVE, Véronique DEGROOT, Elsa LAFAYE DE MICHEAUX, Rémy MADINIER, Daniel PERRET, Dana RAPPOPORT, Jérôme SAMUEL, Christina WU Scientific Committee Henri CHAMBERT-LOIR, Andrée FEILLARD, Arndt GRAF, Arlo GRIFFITHS, Robert HEFNER, Claude GUILLOT, Claudine SALMON, James SIEGEL, Luis Filipe THOMAZ, Monique ZAINI-LAJOUBERT Editor-in-Chief Henri CHAMBERT-LOIR Editorial Secretary Sophie HENON The Editorial Board expresses its sincere thanks to Madame Diah Novitasari (EFEO Jakarta), who handled the layout of this issue under the difficult conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic. Publisher Association Archipel EHESS, office 740, 54 boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris 2020 ISSN 0044-8613 === [Page 6] === 3 Literatures 312–314 Andi Muhammad Akhmar, Islamisasi Bugis; Kajian Sastra atas La Galigo Versi Bottinna I La Dewata Sibawa I Wé Attaweq, Jakarta, Yayasan Pusaka Obor Indonesia, 2018 (Faried Saenong) 314–317 Asahan Alham, Dendam Sejarah. Bandung: Ultimus, 2019 (Nico Schulte-Nordholt) 317–321 Ajip Rosidi, Surat-Surat ti Jepang. Bandung, Kiblat, 4 volumes, 2017 (Julian Millie) 321–324 Luis Cardoso, L'Année où Pigafetta boucla son tour du monde [The Year Pigafetta Completed His Voyage Around the World]. Arkuiris, 2019 (LF Thomaz) Résumés – Abstracts © Copyright Association Archipel 2020 On the cover: Photo from the Kurkdjian studio of the MacNeill – Bezoet De Bie family, c. 1905 (see the article by G. Roger Knight in this volume). Archipel 99, Paris, 2020