YINZ/YIDS Blog, "Indonesian genocide shows parallels to Holocaust"

"Indonesian genocide shows parallels to the holocaust" from the staff of The Jewish Chronicle on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 1:29PM

Dr. Robert Lemelson, the director of "40 Years of Silence: An Indonesian Tragedy," was in town on Monday to speak at a panel discussion at Seton Hill University following a screening of his film. The event was part of the Ethel LeFrak Holocaust Education Conference at Seton Hill, and "Light/The Holocaust and Humanity Project." I had a chance to speak with him by telephone, before he boarded his plane to Pittsburgh.

Lemelson, an anthropologist, has worked in Indonesia every year since 1993. His documentary tells the story of four families affected by the mass-killings in Indonesia that occurred in 1965 and 1966, an event in Indonesia's history that is largely unknown.

Although the Indonesian genocide differed from the murders of the Holocaust in many ways, the two events present similar insights into the motivation for mass murder, Lemelson told me.

It is estimated that between 500,000 to 1 million people suspected of being Communists, or Communist sympathizers, were secretly and systematically killed in Indonesia in the mid-'60s.  The official state narrative of the event was that the Communists murdered national heroes, and were out to kill everyone else, so they had to be stopped. Under General Suharto's authoritarian rule, any discussion, recognition, or memorializing of the mass killings that differed from Suharto's official state narrative was quickly suppressed.

"I interviewed some of the killers," Lemelson said, "and they see themselves as patriots and national heroes. But they committed major human rights violations and war crimes."

The atrocity of the mass killings was concealed for almost 40 years.

Lemelson said that, like in Nazi Germany, the perpetrators of the murders had to be "prepared," in order to get them to carry out such a horrific charge.

"There may be long-standing blood disputes," Lemelson said, "but to rise to the level of genocide, it (the motivation to kill) has to come from politics."

Lemelson said that the genocides of both the Holocaust and Indonesia show that "in a broader sense, it is somewhat difficult to get people to kill other people, but it is not that difficult."

"You have to provide them with the tools and the rationale. You have to prepare them and instill fear and hatred and primal emotions to drive them to kill," he said. "It's not easy, but once you get started, it becomes very easy."

The proliferation of democracy will, hopefully, lessen the incidences of genocide, Lemelson said.

"My hope is that with mass media and stable, civil societies, you'll see less of that happening. Democracy is a great buffer against these sorts of events. The things that happened at Abu Ghraib were horrific. But some people were brought to justice. That would not happen in a non-democratic society."