The Indonesian government’s plans to issue new history books have sparked fears that mention of deadly riots in 1998 targeting mostly ethnic Chinese in the country would be scrubbed from the text.
The 10-volume account was ordered by the administration of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, a former general accused of abducting activists in the unrest that preceded former Indonesian president Suharto’s fall, claims he denies. Academics fear his government could use the exercise to rewrite history and cover up past abuses.
Draft volume summaries and a chapter outline seen by AFP do not include any specific section on the 1998 violence.
Photo: EPA
A summary of Suharto’s rule in the volume only mentions how “student demonstrations... became a factor” in his resignation.
“The writing was flawed since the beginning,” said Andi Achdian, a historian at Jakarta’s National University, who has seen the outline. “It has a very strong tendency to whitewash history.”
Suharto ruled Indonesia with an iron fist for more than three decades.
Indonesian Minister of Cultural Affairs Fadli Zon, who is overseeing the history project, told lawmakers last week that the account does not discuss May 1998, because it is small.
Neither does it promise to include most of the “gross human rights violations” acknowledged by former Indonesian president Joko Widodo in 2023.
Project editor Jajat Burhanudin contradicted Fadli and dismissed concerns, saying that the new volumes would include the 1998 events, with the draft outline just a “trigger for discussion.”
Officials said the new historical account is needed to bolster Indonesian identity, but warned that any omission about its darkest past would raise eyebrows over objectivity.
“What is feared is that... the cases that have been accepted by the previous government to be resolved will be ignored,” said Marzuki Darusman, a former attorney general and head of a civil society coalition opposed to the volumes.
While it remains unclear how the government plans to use the books, Jajat said the volumes could be used as “one of the main sources” for history books taught in schools.
The revisionist history garnered renewed scrutiny after Fadli questioned whether mass rape had occurred at the end of Suharto’s rule.
Ethnic Chinese Indonesians bore the brunt of the bloodshed during the riots, when rape squads — purportedly led by army thugs — roamed Jakarta’s streets.
“Was there really mass rape? There was never any proof,” Fadli said. “If there is, show it.”
A 1998 fact-finding report, commissioned by Indonesia’s first president after Suharto, found at least 52 reported cases of rape in the unrest.
“This project risks erasing uncomfortable truths,” Amnesty International Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid said.
Fadli said the nation-building project would go ahead despite criticism.
“This is an updated version of our history,” he said.
The project involves 113 academics, including historians, but at least one of them has resigned.
Archeologist Harry Truman Simanjuntak said he quit in a dispute over language — the term “early history” was used instead of “prehistory” for Indonesia’s ancient civilization.
Fadli told lawmakers the phrase was avoided, because it was created by Indonesia’s former Dutch rulers.
However, Simanjuntak said it showed the political influence over the text.
“It was very obvious that editors’ authority did not exist. They were under the control of the government,” he said.
The furor around the project has caused some opposition lawmakers and critics to call for its suspension or cancelation.
Activist Maria Catarina Sumarsih, whose son was killed in a military crackdown after Suharto’s fall, accused the writers of warping the past.
“The government is deceiving the public... especially young people,” she said.
Others said documenting Indonesia’s past was best left to academics.
“If the government feel this nation needs a history that could make us proud... it can’t be through the government’s version of historical propaganda,” Darusman said. “It should be the result of the work of historians.”
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