A Nation of the People
Suharto’s annual commemoration of the Serangan Umum 1 Maret had been criticized as a vehicle of self-legitimation of his own rule. In order to better apprehend the reenactment as performed in 2016, it is important to understand how the former president developed his authoritarian regime as a response to the situation in which he rose to power.
Today, this has become known as the killings of 1965, an enormous massacre that took place over several months. It started after an alleged coup by the Indonesian Communist Party that resulted in communal hatred, targeting not only communists but also leftists and ethnic Chinese citizens. According to several estimates, at least half a million citizens were killed in those few months’ time (Gellately and Kiernan, 2003).These purges defined the downfall of President Sukarno and the transition into Suharto’s New Order regime. Suharto claimed that the violent killings should be seen as a “popular outpouring of emotion in response to a threat to the beloved nation’s security” (Gellately and Kiernan, 2003, p. 291). Therefore, his regime was aimed at injecting “virtues of obedience, stability,” and most importantly, “order in the service of national objectives” (Hadiz, 2000, p. 14), replacing disorder with Suharto’s authoritarian New Order regime.
According to anthropologist James Siegel (2001, 2006), this context is vital for understanding how the idea of “the people” and “revolution” in Indonesia has been transformed. Under President Sukarno, the struggle that resulted in an independent nation-state had always been regarded as the result of the work of the rakyat, “the people,” under the leadership of the educated (Siegel, 2001, p. 46). However, during Suharto’s New Order, the notion of rakyat changed. Suharto argued that the massacres of 1965 had illustrated a destructive force which was the result of “uncontrollable” and “decomposed” people, “without the goals of independence or any other aims, which leaves them violence as their only property” (Siegel, 2001, p.
46). Through this kind of discourse, the notion of “the people” became increasingly associated with an unpredictable “mass” or “mob.” In order to prevent further violence and uprisings, this meant the state needed to exclude them from political participation, legitimize state surveillance and censorship of the press, and ignore them in official history (Schulte Nordholt, 2004, p. 9). “Military actions and national interests were [presented as] synonymous” (Schulte Nordholt, 2004, p. 7). This process resulted in a powerful and military-dominated government that characterized the New Order (Vickers, 2005; McGregor, 2007; Strassler, 2010). “The masses” had been a tool to justify the authoritarian rule, and according to Siegel (2006), this myth became increasingly inscribed in Indonesian nationalism itself.Taking this context into account, the reenactment, as performed in 2016, provides a very different narrative of the past. While the Komunitas Djokjakarta 1945,s reenactment does not make any claims about the real initiator behind the guerrilla attack, it creates another version instead: one without controversies and one that, to some extent, even downplays the importance of the primary figures. Rather, they choose to emphasize the importance of the common soldier and ordinary citizens in the struggle and path to independence. Taking this approach, the Komunitas account seems to follow a more common critique, namely that Indonesian historiography, specifically in regards to the National Revolution, has been too military centered (Moedjanto, 1999). After 1965, Suharto identified a need for a strong military role in safeguarding the nation (McGregor, 2007, p. 21). Its regime therefore “consciously turned to history as a source of legitimacy,” specifically with regard to representations of the struggle for independence (McGregor, 2007, p. 16). Where “the people” were once considered the energy of the revolution, civilian contributions became increasingly defined as only a backdrop to the larger military struggle (Wood, 2004).
As Ahimsa- Putra (2012) has argued, “such an interpretation gives the impression that the Indonesian military was solely responsible for freeing the country, while in fact it was the civilians who had played a more important role. Without the support of the people, the military would not have succeeded with carrying out their plans” (p. 173).Benedict Anderson, like many others, sees the struggle for independence as a social revolution predominantly rooted in the pemuda [youth] (Anderson, 1972). Many young Indonesians had joined militias, as taking part in the struggle for an independent state was considered a matter of pride (Vickers, 2005, p. 105). Similar sentiments have famously been described by Indonesian writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer. His novels tell Indonesian history through stories of everyday life, arguing that the National Revolution comprised “a strong moral and social component” (Teeuw, 1997, p. 266). His writings “[elevate] nationalism to the centre of Indonesian life, arguing that nationalism should be rooted in the people” and not in the state (Vickers, 2005, p. 6). The sense of this “imagined community” becomes so strong that people are willing to die for their nation (Anderson, 2006, p. 7). I argue that it is specifically these “ordinary people” who became the central focus of the reenactment of 1 March 1949 in 2016.
The emphasis on the “common man” frequently came to the fore in conversations with participants. Having rarely seen a reenactment before this study, I was keen on learning about role distribution and often questioned which role was valued most. One of my informants, Farel, told me to my surprise that he was not interested in playing a primary role in the reenactment and rather preferred to play a regular soldier of the Indonesian Voluntary Army [Pembela Tanah Air] or Student Army [Tentara Pelajar]. It didn’t matter to him, as he explained: “at that time, the structure in the army was not as hierarchical as it is today.” While it was popular to play the enemy because of the “cool” Dutch uniforms, relatively little attention seemed to be paid to who would portray the main roles.
Often, participants emphasized how ordinary Indonesian citizens who joined the National Revolution should be seen as the true heroes, suggesting that this was not recognized enough. This observation coincides with other studies on reenactment indicating a “fascination” with the average or common man who merely fought “for what he believed was right” (Daugbjerg, 2014, p. 727). This mythic conception includes the belief that the ordinary individual had little interest in larger ideological and political issues (Daugbjerg, 2020). Additionally, other historic tensions were also deflected in the reenactment. The Komunitas emphasized that as a historical society, they represented a selection of all different armies instead of focusing on a specific “impression” like most of the other reenactment groups. While the Indonesian resistance is often presented as a state effort, it actually involved frequent conflicts over who should have power. In the reenactment, however, these militias stood shoulder to shoulder. The Serangan Umum 1 Maret is presented as the ultimate unifying force between these militias. As Benedict Anderson would argue, despite inequality and tensions, the nation is represented as a deep horizontal comradeship (Anderson, 2006, p. 7).Horizontal comradeship was also expressed in longing for a sense of national unity. Jerome de Groot has argued that reenactment seems to remind both the reenactor and the spectator “of the essential otherness of history” (de Groot, 2009, p. 105). The contrast between the “here” and “then” could be what attracts reenactors to reenact specific histories. Looking back on my conversations, similar expressions came regularly to the fore. When, for example, I asked participants what interested them so much in reenacting this specific episode of history, it became clear how many related their daily concerns with the romanticized image they had of the past. Those concerns broadly included the rise of Islamic extremist movements, corruption, and nepotism.
The Serangan Umum 1 Maret seemed to provide a kind of escapism, a romanticized idea of “how it was before.” When I asked one of the participants, 16-year-old David, if reenacting made him feel proud to be Indonesian, he argued that Indonesia was “divided” and that people, especially his fellow youngsters, lacked “purpose” and were “spending their time doing nothing,” in contrast to 1949. He emphasized that during the National Revolution, “everyone” united for a common goal: freedom. He defined patriotism as a kind of attitude that could be developed through reenacting. David stated that every time he reenacted, he became prouder of what his fellow countrymen had achieved in the past. Through reenactment, he was able to reimagine his nation. This was specifically evident in how the Komunitas Djokjakarta 1945 presented themselves. A handout entitled “Company Profile” stated that the society’s main goal is to “unify people in their interest in history.” While power struggles during the National Revolution often followed religious or ethnic lines (Vickers, 2005), the Komunitas took great pride in the fact that they were a community of different religious and ethnic backgrounds, as was regularly emphasized in interviews. They were a community “for everyone.” Taking my participants’ societal concerns into account, the image of a past in which people were unified against a common enemy rather than against one another seemed much more urgent. Indonesia, as a multiethnic and multireligious society, is often depicted as a kind of “mosaic” of cultures, exemplified in its national motto, bhinneka tunggal ika [unity in diversity] (Vickers, 2005, p. 184). But as a polyethnic nation-state, it is constantly fraught with internal tensions. In this context, the annual reenactment, with its drama, spectacle, and especially emotional power, became a vehicle to reimagine the nation. Its main message: the National Revolution’s common goal for merdeka [freedom] transcended ethnic and religious boundaries. But more importantly, this kind of “non-ethnic nationalism” (Eriksen, 2010, p. 140) was rooted in the Indonesian people rather than in the state.