A Daughter's Memory: 1965 in Animation (Grace Leksana, Archipel 99, 2020)

ISSN: 2104-3655 Publisher Association Archipel Printed version Date of publication: July 15, 2020 Number of pages: 41-45 ISBN: 978-2-910513-83-2 ISSN: 0044-8613 Electronic reference Grace Leksana, “A Daughter’s Memory: 1965 in Animation”, Archipel [Online], 99 | 2020, Online since 02 June 2020, connection on 15 July 2026. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/1667; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/archipel.1667 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 publiée par l’Association Archipel, hébergée 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 GRIF FITHS, 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 SchulteNordholt) 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] === Grace Leksana1 A Daughter’s Memory: 1965 in Animation A Daughter’s Memory1 Animated short film in color, 8 min. 40 sec., 2019 Director: Kartika Pratiwi Production: Kotak Hitam Forum Language: Indonesian with English subtitles The animated short film starts with a Scrabble board game. One night in a house in Gunung Sahari, three siblings are playing Scrabble. These children compose words in Indonesian as they are trying to win the game. However, their situation transforms drastically when a military truck arrives at that house. Captain Suroso enters the house, takes over the Scrabble board, and writes the word “Njoto” – the name of one of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI)’s central committee leaders, who was also a supervisor of the party’s Harian Rakjat newspaper and a minister in the 1962 Cabinet. Njoto is also the father of those children. Captain Suroso’s hunt for Njoto was part of a national-scale military project to eliminate the Left in Indonesia in 1965 and 1966 (then again in 1968 in East Java). During that period, more than 500,000 people were killed, detained, tortured, and experienced acts of gross human rights violations. While this narrative of violence remains at the margins of Indonesia’s historiography, the event that triggered it has been widely commemorated. This is the 30 1. Ph.D. candidate, Leiden University. Archipel 99, Paris, 2020, p. 41-45 === [PDF page 8] === 42 Grace Leksana September Movement, or Gerakan 30 September 1965 (G30S), which is centered on the death of six generals and one army ofÏcer during an attempted military coup. The government accused the PKI of being the instigator, which became a pretext for a complete annihilation project against the communists, the Left, and their sympathizers. A Daughter’s Memory presents another face of this historical event. Using Scrabble as a gimmick, it connects national violence with a family’s memory. By capturing the story of a young daughter who lost her father, the film aims to represent the 1965-1966 violence from an alternative perspective. It is a national tragedy but also a personal experience. It is not only about loss and sorrow but also about struggles and overcoming fear. These experiences presented in the film are the ones of Svetlana Dayani Njoto, one of Njoto’s daughters who has been actively involved in the film project. Through Svetlana’s narratives, Njoto, who is remembered in Indonesia’s history as a PKI leader, became another figure – a patient father who taught his daughter how to use the typewriter, for example. But Svetlana’s narrative does not spare the details of the horror that happened in 1965 and 1966. She recalls her experience of being detained in a jail along with her mother and other siblings. She remembers seeing victims of brutal interrogation techniques being dragged back to their cells covered in blood on a daily basis. Svetlana was often instructed to clean up the interrogation room in the morning when it was not in use. Here she saw traces of torture, such as the stingray tail and the floor covered with blood.2 The film reveals that Svetlana began to understand the larger picture when she was in middle school, particularly the reason for her father’s disappearance and their family’s detention. In her history textbook, she saw her father’s picture along with other PKI leaders – Lukman and Aidit – with the caption “PKI’s kingpin” or gembong PKI. They were blamed for the G30S movement and the deaths of the generals. Along with their families, they became enemies of the state. Svetlana and her family had to hide their identities until 1987, when she decided to start using her real name again. Through the story of the young Svetlana, A Daughter’s Memory conveys a different narrative of 1965, one in stark contrast to the State’s narrative that revolves mainly around the G30S and the deaths of the generals. More than that, this memory of a young daughter enables the audience to comprehend what 1965 violence actually represents for families and ordinary citizens – the losses and struggles that have left traces up to the present. 2. Svetlana’s memory also appears in Soe Tjen Marching (ed.). The End of Silence: Accounts of the 1965 Genocide in Indonesia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017. Archipel 99, Paris, 2020 === [PDF page 9] === A Daughter’s Memory: 1965 in Animation 43 A Daughter’s Memory Producing the Film The most interesting aspect of this film is that it is a short, animated documentary. Kartika Pratiwi is the director and producer. She is the founder, managing director, and one of the filmmakers at Kotak Hitam Forum, an organization that uses audio-visual works as a medium within Indonesia’s cultural movement to highlight and discuss Indonesia’s diversity. Besides producing films, Kotak Hitam Forum also conducts educational programs for the public in the form of discussions, workshops, and research. They believe that audio-visual media has the strength to convey and generate critical ideas and to provide spaces for marginalized voices. With this background, presenting topics related to the violence in 1965 has been a passion for Kotak Hitam Forum’s founders since its establishment in 2008. Related to this specific event in Indonesia’s political history, Kotak Hitam has produced three other documentaries, including Yang Bertanah Air, Tak Bertanah (A Motherland but no land, 2008), r.i. (The republic of indonesia, 2010 ) and Api Kartini (Kartini’s Fire, 2012). A Daughter’s Memory was produced in 2019 and takes the form of an animated documentary. This genre was chosen because the director wanted to experiment. While several documentaries on the 1965-1966 violence have already been shown in previous years, the challenge was to produce another documentary, that would Archipel 99, Paris, 2020 === [PDF page 10] === 44 Grace Leksana be interesting and, at the same time, convey a strong message through the personal figures of survivors such as Svetlana. As Kartika Pratiwi mentioned in an interview with The Jakarta Post (1 November 2019), she sees digital technology as something that could change the way memories and history are preserved. Her work, together with her production team, received acclaim when A Daughter’s Memory was awarded the prize for Best Film and Best Animation at ReelOzInd! 2019, a short film festival in Australia dedicated to Indonesian and Australian productions. Kartika Pertiwi wanted to use a narrative from second-generation victims for a particular reason. In a discussion with Watch 65 in Leiden, on 15 July 2019, she explained that narrative is the only thing that these victims have to express themselves. Recording and presenting them visually is one way to create a different kind of archive—to preserve their memories—as they are also aging. This type of films creates spaces for victims to articulate their own memories about the violence. It should be participative and involving the victims who actually hold these memories. This is why, for the director, the memorialization of the 1965-1966 violence should find its own form and not merely reproduce successful forms of memorialization found in other countries with similar histories of mass violence. Future Directions While Indonesia is moving very slowly toward the memorialization of the 1965-1966 violence, at the grassroots level, we are seeing the increasing involvement of younger generations—as exemplified in the film—in creating and producing mediums to preserve the diverse narratives of violence. This tendency is what Marianne Hirsch, a leading scholar in memory studies, has named postmemory: The relationship that the ‘generation after’ bears to the personal, collective, and cultural trauma of those who came before – to experiences they ‘remember’ only by means of the stories, images, and behaviors among which they grew up. But these experiences were transmitted to them so deeply and affectively as to seem to constitute memories in their own right. Postmemory’s connection to the past is thus actually mediated not by recall but by imaginative investment, projection, and creation. (Hirsch 2012: 5) Hirsch developed her concept while working with Holocaust survivors. The case of Indonesia in 1965 presents a different yet interesting aspect of postmemory. In the context of impunity and exclusion of violence against the Left in Indonesia’s history, Indonesians have lived for years within the public discourse initiated by the State on G30S but also within the private narratives of the mass violence in 1965. Decades after the violence and after the fall of Suharto, these narratives are not exclusively competing but also coexisting. Svetlana’s story shows how she managed to comprehend her family’s experience when she encountered the State’s narrative – the history textbook Archipel 99, Paris, 2020 === [PDF page 11] === A Daughter’s Memory: 1965 in Animation 45 that wrongly depicted her father as a national traitor. Indonesia’s postmemory of 1965, therefore, is built by understanding these diverse narratives rather than negating any of them. Both the killings of the generals in G30S and the mass killings occurred simultaneously in 1965 and should become part of Indonesia’s history. The fabricated anti-communist narrative is also part of the process in understanding this violent past. One should be understood in relation to each other, not silenced for the benefit of the other. Both the public and private narratives drove Indonesians to take action to expose more voices on the events surrounding the violence of 1965 and 1966. While victims themselves are becoming older and dying, it is now the younger generation who is taking the initiative. These people were not necessarily affected by the past violence like victims’ families, but they are driven by curiosity and motives to reveal the ‘truth.’ This is a generation born and raised toward the end of the New Order in a more democratic atmosphere and, thus, tired of being force-fed with a monolithic version of history. As Kartika Pertiwi explained in the discussion with Watch 65, her motive to produce documentaries on the 1965 violence was partly because of her guilt, as she once believed the New Order’s national narrative. Furthermore, this post-New Order generation is taking a more creative and digital approach to convey experiences of violence. Besides audio-visual formats such as those produced by Kotak Hitam Forum, there is also a digital media platform, such as Ingat 65, which has compiled testimonies from the younger generations related to 1965. Others take creative performances as their medium, such as the Papermoon Puppet Theatre or the collaboration between the singing choir Dialita, which consists of women survivors and young generations of Indonesian musicians. There is no reason to believe that this tendency will change in the near future. Therefore, one can hope that the younger generations will remain increasingly involved in creative and innovative ways of talking about 1965. References Figge, Katrin. “A Daughter’s Memory: A Voice for the Forgotten.” Jakarta Post, November 1, 2019. Hirsch, Marianne. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. 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 Riyal, Performing Arab Saints and Marketing the Prophet: Habaib and Islamic Markets in Contemporary Indonesia — Lectures Critiques: Jean-Louis Margolin, 1965: L’Heure de l’histoire? — Comptes rendus — Résumés-Abstracts 30,00 € ISBN 978-2-910513-83-2 EFEO imatco inalco des langues et civilisations orientales “HAUTES SCIENCES SOCIALES anu, INST

=== [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