American Studies Miscellany Final Paper

Name: Thoby Dwi Pramudito

NIM: B0316048

Orientalism in Indonesian Depiction by the Americans: Analysis of Coverage of

Indonesian Genocide of 1965

1. Introduction

In 1965 - 1966, there was a largely forgotten genocide conducted in Indonesia, to

remove all of the influences of the Communist Party of Indonesia. It was the
culmination of the failure of President Soekarno to balance the three competing main
ideologies in Indonesia at the time - the religious, the nationalist & the communist
(NASAKOM). It claimed approximately a million souls - it was one of the largest, but
forgotten tragedy in the 20th century.

Many years later, after the fall of the regime of Soeharto, Joshua Oppenheimer, a
German-American documentary maker, lived in Indonesia for more than 10 years to
investigate the effects of the genocide. He decided to make two documentaries - one
documentary depicting the legacy & lives of the perpetrators of the genocide, and the
other depicting the effort of a sibling of the victim of this genocide to confront their
perpetrators. The movie is released, titled The Act of Killing (2011) and The Look of
Silence (2014), respectively. Both resulted in a critical acclaim.

In the second movie, The Look of Silence, there is a scene which took my interest:
It was said that prior to Oppenheimer’s two movies, and the declassified CIA
documents regarding the involvement of Indonesia’s 1965 genocide, the only source
& knowledge the Americans have regarding this genocide is from a 1967 reporting of
the genocide by the NBC, Titled “Indonesia: The Troubled Victory”. It is interesting
to me that the interview displayed a blatant case of orientalism, especially by the fact
that this interview took place during the height of the Vietnam War. Oppenheimer’s
movie only show a 3-minute clip of the reporting, and it is that reporting that I shall
analyze.

Coined by Edward Said in his book, Orientalism (1979), he talked about

orientalism as the tendency of the Western people to look at the Eastern world in a
caricaturized, patronizing manner. He argued that this depiction of the Eastern world
project a subconscious prejudice to see the Eastern world in a caricaturized,
patronizing, outsider-prejudiced manner, as a simpler, underdeveloped society which
can be used as a justification for colonialism. Even after the end of colonialism, this
prejudice, Said argue, is still exist. This lays down the foundation of postcolonial
studies.

2. Discussion

The scene began with an overview of the situation. The transcript says that
hundreds of thousands of souls has been taken from the event which just happened,
the genocide. However, the depiction of the picture is a young woman riding a bicycle.
It is also said from the video that her husband was massacred and dumped into a mass
grave.

The orientalism here can be seen from the seeming pacifism & indifference of the
young woman, after her husband were killed. The island is also depicted as exotic &
peaceful, with people went along with their lives, and unlike the usual depiction of
recently-occuring genocides which were usually depicted as horrendous & tragic.
 The next scene depicting an interview between a NBC correspondent, with the
interviewee, a person named Rata, who was interviewed to describe the proceeding of
the genocide. The scene informs the audience that Rata is an anthropology professor.
The correspondent starts from opening and expression of sympathy that there was
a tragic event in Bali. Then, the interviewee, Rata, replied that the removal of the
communists are changing the island for be better, and the Balinese views this
cleansing as sort of religious duty.. He then explained about the story about the
communist leader in the village, after “realizing that they were wrong”, came to the
village council asking to be “cleaned” / killed.

He then described the method of execution in the village - decapitation by the

sword.

After that, he described that all of the communist sympathizer in the next day
came to the village council, and swearing that they will not have any sympathy to the
communist cause anymore. But the village didn’t believe them, so he described that
these people will be held into a purification ritual.

The orientalism tendencies in this interview are shown in:

1. The behavior of the interviewee. Rata is a professor in archeology, however, the

way he behaved & talked, from gesture, ways of expression and tonal expression, that
he doesn’t behave like an intellectual nor a professor. He behaves and depicted in a
stereotypically over-sympathetic, caricaturized manner of the “exotic” depiction of
the East by Western media.
2. Single-mindedness of the interviewee also comes to mind. He talked in a
jingoistic, almost like he was advertising. Rather than talking in a sad manner, or any
behavior to be expected from a villager who had just lost a significant part of the
population, he talks in a seemingly “thankful” manner that the communist menace has
been removed. The way he talks about how the island becomes much better after the
removal of the communist, and how the Balinese views themselves in this act (as a
religious duty), reinforced the notion that Bali is an exotic, strange, faraway land full
of exotic people, rather than viewing the Balinese as a complex society worthy of
attention and equal standing with societies such as the United States.#

After the interview, the reporter talks about Indonesia’s natural resources, and the
fight to exploit this resources. From Soekarno’s collectivization of American industry,
and now that Soekarno has fallen, Soeharto’s regime (the New Order) wanted the
capitalist to be back. The example used by the NBC reporting is Goodyear company.

C. Conclusion

During the height of the Vietnam War, and the American crusade against communism,
this short reporting of the Indonesian genocide of 1965, which was the average
American’s only source of knowledge regarding the genocide prior to Oppenheimer
& declassified CIA documents, contains cases of orientalism. This depiction of third
world countries, which, at this stage of the Cold War, was the ideological
battleground between the United States and Soviet Union, helped served the prejudice
that:
1. Third world countries, are simpleton and exotic. This can feed an underlying
prejudice of racism towards “brown” people (a professor of anthropology who
behaved like a simple, barely educated, faraway, people), or feeding a sense of
Western superiority as cerebral & complex, and Eastern people as easily manipulated
and used. This happens despite the fact that Indonesian War of Independence (1945 -
1949) are still within a living memory.

2. That the country affected by the genocides are perfectly happy with what the
United States does, and they’re happier that the communist are removed. This
reinforced a one-sided, overly simplified view of the world, and helped to shape the
prejudice and the perception of the average American regarding the world outside the
Euro-North-American sphere.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Yates, T. (1967). Indonesia: The Troubled Victory. New York, NY: NBC Universal
Media, LLC. Accessed on December 30th, 2019.

Username: cdgr0820 (2017). Indonesia 1967: American reporter for NBC speaks to a
genocidaire in Bali. Taken from www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI42TlCZcik

Said, E. (1979). Orientalism. London, UK: Penguin Books Ltd. (pp. 7 - 27)