Page - 18 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/01

18 | Lucien van Liere www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/1, 15–34 as “asymmetrical entrainment”.6 Its use of civilians as killers was viewed as one of the main successes of the early New Order regime. General Sarwo Edhi, who was responsible for “pacifying” Central and Eastern Java, explained: “We decided to encourage the anti-communist civilians to help with the job. In Solo we gathered the youth, the nationalist groups, the religious organizations. We gave them two or three days’ training, then sent them out to kill the Communists.”7 Hughes noted hardly a year after the killings that these civilians had killed with “fanatical relish”.8 Estimates of the number of people killed varies between 300,000 and 2 mil- lion.9 After the genocide, communism was portrayed as a great threat to Mus- lim, Hindu and Christian communities, taking up the atheist feature of classic communism that had never characterised the PKI. Tales of black lists found in communist homes circulated and continued to inflame anti-communist senti- ment long after the genocide. SILENCE During and after the atrocities, the government organised systematic discrimi- nation against family members, with the children of murdered or imprisoned PKI members excluded from schooling. In this way the next generation was discouraged from writing about the genocide, a strategy manifest in The Act of Killing (see figure 1). “Communist” became a term of abuse and being a communist was officially prohibited. The government set the terms by which the atrocities were to be remembered by emphasising that the killings had prevented a genocide of the Indonesian population being carried out by the communists. With many people having had a role in the killings, as perpetrators or bystanders, few people in Indonesia were prepared to raise their voices in favour of the victims. The genocide took place at the height of the Cold War, which explains the lack of international pressure. Other than China, countries were reluctant to take the side of the Indonesian communists.10 Mass graves were many and became uncanny, haunted places.11 Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI To model collective memory around the atrocities, Suharto’s New Order re- gime sponsored a movie about the killings. In 1984, Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI 6 Collins 2008, 103. 7 Hughes 1967, 151. 8 Hughes 1967, 151; see Collins 2008, 119. 9 Cribb 1990, 12. 10 Mehr 2009. 11 See Sukanta 2014, 24.