Page - 73 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/01

Intercultural Perspectives | 73www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/1, 63–77 participated in provincial administration. They were even represented in parlia- ment. Moreover the Indonesian air force and navy were “reddish”, as was said at the time. Many teachers and farmers were communists. In other words, com- munists and Jews participated in Indonesian and German society respectively. They were not denied that role. The situation changed in German in the 1920s and early 1930s and in Indone- sia in fall 1965. Suddenly communists and Jews were seen as dirt and deemed infectious, a threat to the health of each country. Once that label has been applied, two possibilities lie open. Those so identi- fied might be compelled to assimilate completely, to come to resemble those who are accepted to the extent that the distinction has in effect disappeared. They might be “devoured”, in Bauman’s words. Or they might be excluded, “vomited”, deprived of the right to share a space with those who are accepted. According to racial thinking, the option of devouring the Jews was impossible in Germany; the racial distinction could not be overcome by assimilation, through education, training or other forms of socialisation.10 In Indonesia such a distinc- tion was not made. But then the threat was deemed all the greater, for now communists were like carpet mites, microbes or viruses, unseen but evil. Ex- tirpation was presented as the only option. This idea of purifying a country is found in an account of what occurred on the Indonesian island of Bali. National- ist Ernst Utrecht recorded in 1967, one year after the killings, that the murder- ers had seen the killing of members of the Communist Party as a religious duty to purify the land.11 The killings were regarded as a purification ritual compara- ble to existing rituals in the traditional Hindu religion of Bali.12 The victims even offered themselves “voluntarily” to the murderers, although probably under heavy pressure. It was said that those who volunteered to die would not go to hell after their deaths. Often clothed in white robes, they were brought to a place where they were stabbed, shot or decapitated.13 I wish to add something to this analysis that in my opinion exerted much influence in both situations – the idea that if the others were not killed, they would take the lives of the killers. Their killing is then seemingly inevitable, for the failure to intervene puts the killers and their families at risk. In the movie we hear Germans talk about hordes that will rape and kill their women and chil- dren. In Indonesia something similar was said about the communists. For the perpetrators these narratives bring an urgency to their efforts at extermination. If they do nothing, it may be too late. In Indonesia those who were not com- munists feared the communists greatly. The communists had done very well in 10 Bauman 1998, 18–19. 11 Robinson 1995, 300. 12 Swellengrebel 1984, 45; Schulte Nordholt 1991, 33–39; Bakker 2001, 40–41. 13 Robinson 1995, 300–301; Vickers 1989, 171–172.