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.”
REBUILDING: A researcher said that it might seem counterintuitive to start talking about reconstruction amid the war with Russia, but it is ‘actually an urgent priority’ Italy is hosting the fourth annual conference on rebuilding Ukraine even as Russia escalates its war, inviting political and business leaders to Rome to promote public-private partnerships on defense, mining, energy and other projects as uncertainty grows about the US’ commitment to Kyiv’s defense. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were opening the meeting yesterday, which gets under way as Russia accelerated its aerial and ground attacks against Ukraine with another night of pounding missile and drone attacks on Kyiv. Italian organizers said that 100 official delegations were attending, as were 40 international organizations and development banks. There are
The tale of a middle-aged Chinese man, or “uncle,” who disguised himself as a woman to secretly film and share videos of his hookups with more than 1,000 men shook China’s social media, spurring fears for public health, privacy and marital fidelity. The hashtag “red uncle” was the top trending item on China’s popular microblog Sina Weibo yesterday, drawing at least 200 million views as users expressed incredulity and shock. The online posts told of how the man in the eastern city of Nanjing had lured 1,691 heterosexual men into sexual encounters at his home that he then recorded and distributed online. The
TARIFF ACTION: The US embassy said that the ‘political persecution’ against former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro disrespects the democratic traditions of the nation The US and Brazil on Wednesday escalated their row over US President Donald Trump’s support for former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, with Washington slapping a 50 percent tariff on one of its main steel suppliers. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva threatened to reciprocate. Trump has criticized the prosecution of Bolsonaro, who is on trial for allegedly plotting to cling on to power after losing 2022 elections to Lula. Brasilia on Wednesday summoned Washington’s top envoy to the country to explain an embassy statement describing Bolsonaro as a victim of “political persecution” — echoing Trump’s description of the treatment of Bolsonaro as
CEREMONY EXPECTED: Abdullah Ocalan said he believes in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons, and called on the group to put that into practice The jailed leader of a Kurdish militant group yesterday renewed a call for his fighters to lay down their arms, days before a symbolic disarmament ceremony is expected to take place as a first concrete step in a peace process with the Turkish state. In a seven-minute video message broadcast on pro-Kurdish Medya Haber’s YouTube channel, Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), said that the peace initiative had reached a stage that required practical steps. “It should be considered natural for you to publicly ensure the disarmament of the relevant groups in a way that addresses the expectations
RSS