Thinking of it, I realised that since I was a teen, my father never looked me in the eye whenever we talked. He tended to look at the television, the paper or out of the window when he was driving or being driven. We had very few opportunities to talk, as he worked out of the city and only came home on weekends.
Then I became an adult and started reading critical texts about the New Order, particularly about the 1965 events. I remember I felt very angry – I had been lied to for twenty years. When John Roosa’s book was banned in Indonesia and its online version became available, I bought it. I planned to print it and give to my father as a retirement gift. I hoped that finally we could talk about the 1965 events and his youth in Tulungagung. My mother then told me that my grandfather was imprisoned for three days during the 1965-66 chaos. This was because he once went to the Soviet Union, a trip paid for by the Indonesian Textile Cooperation, and because he was a member of the Indonesian Nationalist Party. My mother brought him food and clothes for the time he was in prison. “Why did you and Grandmother never tell me?” I asked. “Why?” she replied. “My father was released three days later and that’s in the past. I wouldn’t have remembered that he went to jail if you hadn’t asked.” Apparently it is true that violence during that time had been normalised by history. My Dad finally retired but I never gave him the book. When he left us and when we finally met a few years later, he still did not dare to look me in the eye. Wulan Dirgantoro #1965setiaphari #living1965
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