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Reviewed by:
  • Breaking the Silence: Survivors Speak about 1965–66 Violence in Indonesia ed. by Putu Oka Sukanta
  • Jason A. Higgins
Breaking the Silence: Survivors Speak about 1965–66 Violence in Indonesia. By Putu Oka Sukanta (Editor). Translated by Jennifer Lindsay. Clayton, VIC: Monash University Publishing, 2014. 256 Softbound, $39.95.

Breaking the Silence uses a combination of creative nonfiction and oral history methods to tell the story of collective violence in Indonesia. The format presents readers with a passionate and personal lens from which to view the atrocities of war, and at the same time raises an important question for historians: what are the ethical considerations of representing the personal histories of the survivors and perpetrators of genocide?

The oral history accounts in the book are translated into English and reconstructed into a narrative by student and professional creative writers, providing a smooth read and thus increasing accessibility. Putu Oka Sukanta, the editor, acknowledges that some of the narrators still experience discrimination, so he protects their identity with pseudonyms. Overall, Breaking the Silence not only confronts Indonesia's violent history, but it also documents a younger generation's efforts to reconcile the past and the present.

The testimonies speak to the sometimes permanent consequences of trauma for individuals, families, and states. Sukanta structures one narrative as a conversation between Beny, a policeman who acted as an executioner during the genocide, and his daughter, Maria. Maria struggles to reckon with her father's role in the genocide, and Beny confronts the enduring legacy of the violence. At first Beny "remained convinced" that the killing "had to be done, and was right" (23). During the extended exchange with his daughter, though, Beny begins to question various social structures and the beliefs built into them. For decades, Beny justified his participation in the violence because he acted as an authority in the police force. Beny wonders whether the police are "really protectors of the people" (23). As he begins to reconsider his beliefs, Beny must grapple with the implications of his actions during the genocide. Beny's narrative, then, illustrates what I would term ideological shock—the violent and traumatic disruption of one's ideological understanding of the world and the individual's relationship to it. Beny questions the benevolence of the police force as an institution that protects the innocent because his personal experiences contradict this aspect of his ideological belief system. Beny's understanding of himself, then, transforms as he begins to reinterpret the killings. "They told us these people did not know God because of their communist ideology," he recalls. "But the reality was not like this.… In the depths of my heart I know that most of these people had done no wrong" (27). In the years after the killings, Beny experienced "internal conflict" and "mental illness," exhibiting aggression, rage, and violence. Sukanta's exploration of the perpetrator-as-victim framework through Beny's story challenges readers to consider crimes against [End Page 224] humanity beyond the paradigm of good and evil. The dynamics of Beny's narrative mirror social divisions in Indonesia today. Some of Beny's children refuse to acknowledge their father's history, but the youngest daughter, Nia, considers her father "a victim of Soeharto's crimes" (Soeharto was a military leader and former president of Indonesia; 31). Beny's "search for healing" illustrates the ways in which trauma can be intergenerational—that is, Beny's family also experiences trauma associated with being related to this policeman who murdered accused communists. The reconstruction of this family's conversational journey demonstrates the ways in which creativity can enhance the rhetorical effect of oral history and elicit empathy. Beny's story suggests that oral history can be a catalyst for reconciliation within a family and, possibly, within a society more broadly.

Breaking the Silence also recounts the testimonies of women who were pregnant during their persecution, showing the impact of intergenerational trauma on families from the perspective of survivors. For example, Nadue, a teacher and advocate of women's rights, and her husband tried to "buil[d] a future world of education for the people and for the nation" (107). In 1965, the state accused her of...

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