Long Reads: Michael Vann on Indonesia's Killing Fields (Part 2)

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Socialism, History, News, Left, Jacobin, Alternative, Socialist, Politics

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🗓️ 18 December 2021

⏱️ 58 minutes

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Summary

Michael Vann joins Long Reads for a conversation about Indonesia’s turbulent past and present. Michael is a professor of history at Sacramento State University. He specializes in the history of Southeast Asia. This is the second part of a two-part interview. The previous Long Reads episode covers events leading up to Suharto’s coup in the 1960s.

Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by Features Editor Daniel Finn.

You can find Michael's essays about Indonesian history on the Jacobin website:

"The True Story of Indonesia’s US-Backed Anti-Communist Bloodbath" https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/01/indonesia-anti-communist-mass-murder-genocide

"Indonesia Still Hasn’t Escaped Suharto’s Genocidal Legacy" https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/09/indonesia-sukarno-suharto-communists-genocide-dictatorship-corruption

Produced by Conor Gillies, music by Knxwledge.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, you're very welcome to Long Reads, a Shakavan podcast where we look in depth at political topics and thinkers.
0:14.0	My name's Daniel Finn. On the features editor here at Shakavan, I'll be presenting the show.
0:31.0	The song we're listening to Gengher Gengher comes from Indonesia. It tells the story of that country's modern history.
0:38.0	Originally composed during the Second World War, the song became associated with the Indonesian Communist Party, the PKI, one of the world's largest.
0:46.0	It was recorded in the 1960s by some of the country's leading pop stars.
0:51.0	Then General Saharto sees power in a military coup and slaughtered the Indonesian left.
0:57.0	Saharto's regime propagated a false story that PKI members had tortured a group of generals to death while singing Gengher Gengher.
1:05.0	The song was banned by the new regime.
1:14.0	I guess today for a conversation about Indonesia's turbulent past and present is Michael Van.
1:19.0	Michael is a professor of history at Sacramento State University. He specializes in the history of Southeast Asia.
1:25.0	This is the second part of a two-part interview. In last week's episode, Michael spoke about Saharto's coup in the 1960s,
1:32.0	and the bloody repression of the PKI and the left-wing women's organization, Garwani.
1:38.0	When Saharto had consolidated his grip on power, what was the nature of the system that he called the new order?
1:45.0	And was there any space for opposition to Israel, whether in the political or the cultural fields?
1:50.0	So the new order is predicated on three pillars.
1:54.0	First, there's the big lie about the PKI that the PKI was trying to overthrow the government and establish a communist state
2:03.0	and was a threat to the Indonesian nation and the Indonesian soul in many ways.
2:08.0	So that big lie is constantly repeated.
2:10.0	But then there's also the promise of development.
2:13.0	And there's quite a bit of foreign capital that comes in and there's these large developmental projects,
2:19.0	particularly in construction, leader tourism, oil, gas, mining, lumber, many extractive industries.
2:27.0	While not all of that wealth is evenly distributed on the contrary, a very small, hyper-rich leader created under the new order,
	...

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