Conclusion
A little while ago, when scrolling through old pictures of the Komunitas Djokjakarta 1945 on Facebook, I encountered a few images of participants at the annual reenactment in Surabaya.
One featured Henry wearing a white T-shirt with a telling text, which stuck with me as it read: Apakah kita juga pahlawan? [Are we heroes too?]. As famously described by Benedict Anderson (2006), nations and nationalism are culturally and ideologically constructed through myths of origin. Indonesian historiography has long been characterized as strongly state-centered, as each event focuses on the role of the “hero” with a strong militaristic focus (Purwanto, 2001; McGregor, 2007). The National Revolution was also represented as a state effort, in which civilian contribution only functioned as a mere backdrop. A central event during this period, the General Offensive of 1 March 1949, became one of Indonesia’s most well-known controversies, as an increasing number of historians claimed that the Suharto regime manipulated its narrative for self-legitimation and glorification. This chapter has sought to analyze how the annual reenactment of this historic event relates to these debates in Indonesian historiography. It followed the thesis that reenactors operate in “an elastic space” between “something that has really been” and room for change (Brsdder et al., 2017, p. 187). By demonstrating the various ways in which reenactors negotiate authenticity, I observed how the original historic narratives were merely a backdrop to creating a much more spectacular and entertaining past that exceeded historical reality. While this playful reconstruction challenged my initial questions, it also provided insights into alternative narratives created by reenactors’ agency in revisioning history.While many books, newspaper articles, and seminars since Suharto’s fall have focused on the issue of who actually initiated the famous Serangan Umum 1 Maret against the Dutch, an increasing number of historians argue that these have been “little more than attempts to counter New Order propaganda” (Vickers, 2006, p.
6). Replacing Suharto with the Sultan does not change anything since “the real hurdle is political, which partly reflects more on ideological preference than the truth of the past” (Purwanto, 2001, p. 117). The controversy also seemed of little interest to the average reenactor I spoke with, as they were mostly fascinated by ideals of the common soldier, uninformed by politics. Similarly, the reenactment of the General Offensive of 1 March itself seemed to reject Indonesian historiography as a channel for military ideology. The performance instead reinforced another myth: one of a nation without controversy. It presented a past in which the counter-offensive becomes a unifying force between the various “big men,” militant groups, and, predominantly, the Indonesian citizens. The reenactment of the Serangan Umum 1 Maret can therefore be interpreted as an attempt to revivify public history. As reflected in the question on Henry’s T-shirt, are they heroes too?
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