Chapter 6 From The Year of Living Dangerously to in Popular Imaginings of Indonesian Cold War History

Adrian Vickers

The work of historians can only go so far in creating images and passing judge- ments about the past. Often our careful consideration of evidence is bypassed by works in popular media which convey ideas and impressions that receive wide circulation. One of the few events in Indonesian history to receive wide- spread general attention has been the climactic moment in the Cold War when the Communist Party of or PKI was wiped out, a process that began in October 1965 and lasted until 1969, involving the killing of possibly one mil- lion communists or suspected communists. In 1965, Indonesia was on the front line of the Cold War, with the largest communist party outside of the USSR and China pitted against an alliance of the army and anti-communist political par- ties and civil society groups, including Muslim organisations. While heated controversy has surrounded the documentation and attribu- tion of responsibility for the killings, two very different narratives have emerged in international consciousness to shape public perception of the events. The first was the 1978 best-selling novel by Australian author Christopher Koch, The Year of Living Dangerously, made into a Hollywood movie in 1982 by Australian director Peter Weir.1 The narrative of the book of The Year of Living Dangerously provides a clear anti-communist political interpretation, one that is very much at odds with the sympathies of The Act of Killing, the Danish-based American documentary maker Joshua Oppenheimer’s co-directed 2013 award-winning film.2 The novel and the two films share a number of themes, but are at op- posite ends of the ideological spectrum. They belong to very different politi- cal contexts, one largely Australian, the other focussed on internal Indonesian dynamics, demonstrating the shifting legacies of Cold War upheavals. The authors of these works come from different generations as well as dif- ferent countries. Christopher Koch was active as a journalist and writer at the

1 Christopher Koch, The Year of Living Dangerously (London: Sphere, 1978), 2 Joshua Oppenheimer and Anonymous, The Act of Killing (2012). (London: ; Danish Film Institute, Dogwoof Pictures (115 and 159 minutes).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004361676_008 130 Vickers time of the Vietnam War, and his brother, Phillip, was one of the only west- ern journalists in Jakarta at the time of the events narrated in the novel. The year in which the novel is set, 1965, was a major turning point in the Cold War, given that Indonesia was a source of anxiety for the US as then president Sukarno (known by one name) demonstrated increasingly radical tendencies, particularly in his turn towards China. The trigger for the wiping out of the Communist Party of Indonesia was an alleged coup in which seven leading right-wing generals were targeted, six of them being killed in a manner pre- sented by military-controlled media as extremely brutal, with a great deal of exaggeration for propaganda purposes. When the story of the murders of the generals, including one of their young daughters, started to spread, it provided the catalyst for mass murder not only of known communists, but of those sus- pected of left-wing sympathies, or who were simply the victims of social jeal- ousy. Killings were planned and organised by the army, but often outsourced to militia belonging to social groups and political parties, notably to conservative Muslim groups. As the process of killing and imprisonment went on over a pe- riod of nearly four years, it spread into actions against wealthy ethnic Chinese and other groups. The general who emerged at the end of the process as presi- dent and dictator was Suharto (known by one name), who had put down the initial “coup”.3 The Year of Living Dangerously has outlived other interpretations of the events of 1965 because of the quality of writing of the book and the compelling nature of the film, both of which elevate the moment of the beginning of the 1965 killings onto a quasi-mythical level, conveying the West’s distance from an Asia that is generalised into a site of danger. While both book and novel seek to transcend the historical events themselves, they also leave an impres- sion that causality and responsibility for the mass killings are beyond debate, having been finalised into a story in which the communists are to blame for their own demise. The framing of the events is more important than the ac- curate representation of the events themselves. The Act of Killing gives a very different picture of responsibility and motivation by engaging with the killers, but is not directly concerned with conveying the history, since it is focused on the present. Koch’s book and its film are not directly comparable with The Act of Killing, but all three tell us about how popularising representations have a variety of implications. All three also offer external perspectives on Indonesian history, primarily shaping western views, although, as we will see, The Act of Killing attempts to intervene in Indonesian debates as well.

3 For a full discussion, see Adrian Vickers, A History of Modern Indonesia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), chapters 6 and 7.