Ketika Sejarah Berseragam:
In
1945 when Indonesia proclaimed its independence from the Netherlands it
had no army-in-waiting, indeed no police, nothing at all in the way of
a formal apparatus of repression or defense. The leadership was
essentially anti-militarist and in the case of Prime Minister Sutan
Sjahrir avowedly anti-fascist.
Twenty years later the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) submerged the
nation’s leftists, principally but not solely the Indonesian
Communist Party (PKI) in a bloodbath that took hundreds of thousands of
lives.
That bitter episode continues to be the target of official
obfuscation and falsification. The shameful 2007 burnings of school
history texts offering alternative versions of the events of 1965-66
demonstrate a continuum between democratic Indonesia and
Soeharto’s New Order, at least where presentation of
uncomfortable truths is concerned. The specter of the New Order
continues to hover above writers and historians.
Those such as playwright Ratna Sarumpaet who insist that Indonesia
face up to the crimes of the past face formidable obstacles, and may in
effect be involved in a dialogue of the deaf.
How did such a powerful force as TNI arise ab ovo?
Certainly, President Soekarno end the founding fathers felt no
urgent need in 1945 for the creation of a national army but within five
years it had come together from a rag-tag of different elements such as
the “pemuda” militias.
How does TNI explain itself?
It is the second of these two questions that Australian historian
Kathleen McGregor deals with in this important new book History In
Uniform. Central to the book is the control of history, who decides
what can and cannot be said about the history of Indonesia. Central to
that are certain important individuals such as General Abdul Haris
Nasution, former Chief of Staff of TNI, the pro-military University of
Indonesia academic Nugroho
Notosusanto and ex-President Soeharto himself as well as figures in the defeated and now banned PKI.
Battles over history have gone on in Indonesia for decades and
continue as the book burnings orchestrated by the Attorney
General’s Office (AGO) in recent months demonstrate. History or
the telling of it remains a theater of conflict. Versions of the tragic
events of 1965-66 (I say “tragic” not because I am a
sympathizer of the PKI but because of the huge loss of life) remain
contentious, of which more in a moment.
Author McGregor knew when she took on this project that the military
would vet her and seek to control her output and that she would thus
work under constraints not imposed in her native Australia. Never
willing to let the truth out at the best of times, TNI operates on a
platform of suspicion and obfuscation in which independent researchers
are seldom welcome.
Interestingly, however certain compromising material remains in
military archives and skilled, determined researchers can unearth it.
The Armed Forces prefer their kept men and women, in this case
historians such as Nugroho Notosusanto whose position as the head of
the History department at the University of Indonesia and his closeness
to the military pose serious questions about UI’s independence
even prior to the coming of Soeharto’s New Order.
Nugroho was the quintessential state-sanctioned academic and the
leading spokesman of the so-called Generation of 1945, that age group
which lays claim to being the true harbingers of independence through
the armed struggle of 1945-49 which gave birth to TNI.
Nugroho became more or less the official historian of the military
and one who could barely conceal his contempt for the founding fathers
and their willingness to pursue negotiations and diplomatic means to
advance the national cause. In particular he would have had in mind
President Soekarno, Vice-President Hatta and PM Sutan Sjahrir, the last
of whom was absolutely convinced of Indonesia’s need to win
international recognition and support.
As spokesman for the Generation of ‘45, it was Nugroho’s
purpose to write up the heroism of the armed struggle against the
British and the Dutch, leaving out of course inconvenient matters such
as the holding of Dutch civilian internees, men, women and children as
hostages and the November 1945 Bekasi massacre of British and Indian
troops and airmen.
We learn here that in the 1950s and especially the early 1960s PKI
was doing what Stalinist parties everywhere tried to do (still do in
North Korea), writing its own account of national history, omitting
inconvenient truths or indeed anything that would cast it in poor
light. Because this meant omission of the 1948 Madiun Affair and its
role in the events in East Java, Nasution was desperate to put out a
counter-view that would cast TNI in a good light in relation to the
same period.
The TNI leader brought together a team to write an official,
military-endorsed history and Nugroho, a man of aristocratic priyayi
background from Central Java, did most of the writing. Out of this
project, which succeeded in Nasution’s aim of beating the PKI to
the publication punch, came the Armed Forces History Center, which of
course has since had the role of propagandizing on behalf of TNI. It
would be a mistake to dismiss the Center lightly.
Nugroho was an admirer of Japanese militarism and of the ancient
bushido warrior spirit that infused it. This would appear to place him
close to the fascist end of the political spectrum but McGregor,
without cautioning against the use of the term “fascist”,
does not openly say so. Certainly the historian was passionately
anti-Western and no democrat. What mattered most to him was the
integrity of the state, which should, according to integralist
thinking, subsume society.
Arguing that only historians with a “national spirit”,
narrowly defined, could write national history, Nugroho offered up a
template for some of the bleakest New Order censorship.
McGregor has done an essential service in this lucidly written
account in highlighting the way in which the military has both erased
much of Indonesia’s history and shaped a conformist
interpretation of it.
HISTORY IN UNIFORM: MILITARY IDEOLOGY AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF INDONESIA’S PAST
Katherine McGregor
National University of Singapore Press 2007
Book Reviewed by David Jardine
from:
http://www.indonesialogue.com/best-of/book-review-history-in-uniform.html
Comments
Post a Comment