Awakening
The Indonesian genocide of 1965-66
«We must remember. We must remember, so that these things won’t happen again. It is not a cliché. I’ve seen people getting killed. I’ve seen them! They die because we don’t remember the past, because we forgot everything». – Febriana Firdaus (36)
In 1965 the Indonesian government was overthrown by the military. In six months, more than half a million members of the Indonesian Communist Party and its affiliated organizations were killed.
Another million or so were detained without charge; some for more than thirty years. It was one of the largest and swiftest, yet least examined instances of mass killing and incarceration in the twentieth century.
The massacre was followed by a thirty-year repressive regime – the so-called New Order. The dictator Suharto commited himself to make people forget and to hide what had happened in 1965, especially the new generations. In Indonesia, the events of that year are still taboo. However, there are communities and associations where attempts are made to keep a memory of what happened. This visual essay portrays some of the militants of memory: people who try to build the nation’s awakening, despite the constant threats from the army, the police and the extremist organisations.
Click on the images below to see them full screen with captions:
