52 YEARS AFTER FASCIST GENOCIDE, INDONESIANS SCARED OF “COMMUNIST GHOSTS” | OffGuardian

Image: http://www.occupy.com

The mythological King Midas’ touch turned everything to gold, whereas King Corporate-Capitalism’ touch turns everything to SHIT!

52 YEARS AFTER FASCIST GENOCIDE, INDONESIANS SCARED OF “COMMUNIST GHOSTS”

From Jakarta and Yogyakarta:Andre Vltchek

It was once again a hot, muggy day in Jakarta. The air was full of pollutants, epic traffic jams blocking entire center of the city. Biasa, as locals would say, or in a lax translation, ‘business as usual’.

It is September 29th, 2017, Friday, just one day before the most sinister anniversary in the entire Southeast Asia.

On September 30th, 1965, the Indonesian military obeying orders from foreign powers (mainly the US and the UK), overthrew the progressive and anti-imperialist government of President Sukarno, murdering between 1 and 3 million men, women and children (including almost all members of the Communist Party of Indonesia – PKI). This was done with the direct help of almost all the major religious organizations (Muslim, Protestant, Catholic and Hindu). The bloodshed continued well into 1966, and the “Rivers were choked with corpses and ran red from blood,” as I was told by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, the greatest Indonesian novelist. All the hopes for a socialist, just and egalitarian motherland were wasted.

Before the coup, Indonesia used to be a true internationalist nation, and was one of the proud founders of the Non-Aligned Movement (the West Javanese city of Bandung hosted its establishing conference in 1955). President Sukarno and his progressive and patriotic government used to hold in their hands almost all the natural resources, trying to build a proud, artistic and productive nation. Sukarno once even humiliated the US Ambassador, in front of a huge crowd, at a packed stadium: “To hell with your aid!” He did not need any Western aid. He was presiding over potentially one of the richest nations on Earth.

The Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), the third largest in the world after those of the Soviet Union and China, was going to win the elections, comfortably and democratically, in 1966, while being fully supported by President Sukarno. Their manifesto was clear: anti-imperialism, social justice and land reforms. But who were some of the largest landowners in Indonesia during that period? Religious leaders! And they, together with the military and corrupt elites, decided: “No!” This has to be stopped! No justice. No internationalism. No socialism.” They betrayed the nation and its people; they committed treason and on September 30, 1965, overthrew socialist democracy.

The results were horrifying. Perhaps the worst massacres of the 20th Century took place. Mass slaughter, mass rape, and cutting off of female breasts, torture, and shortly after the initial horrors, overflowing prisons and concentration camps. Around 40% of all the teachers of Java were slaughtered and the military was substituted into the school classrooms. Film studios and traditional theatres were shut down, and writers were sent to Buru concentration camp. Intellectualism was fully discouraged, while Communism, the Chinese language and culture, but also all progressive arts and creativity were either ridiculed, or out rightly banned. Promoted instead, were Western-style turbo-capitalism (that which was invented for the colonies, not that for the local consumption in Europe and North America), ‘religions’ (based on repetitive rituals, not on intellectual or spiritual search for God), ‘family values’ (read: patriarchal oppression), an empty pop culture, and selfishness, boosted by consumerism. All this combined gave birth to some of the worst corruption levels in the world.

Indonesia as it used to be before September 30, 1965, died. Unable to produce anything of substantial value, it began perpetrating the unbridled plunder of its own natural resources, predominantly on behalf of foreign conglomerates. The entire beautiful and naturally rich, enormous islands, like Borneo (the largest island in Asia and the second largest in the world), Sumatra and Papua, were converted into devastated, poisoned and fully privatized ecological and social nightmares.

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It seems that killing everything decent and hopeful has not been enough for this regime. Even memories have to be killed, even dreams. The great progressive past of Indonesia is being smeared and twisted, until there is nothing more left, only confusion and mechanical religious, family and commercial rituals.

Now, one of the mainstream Indonesian magazines Tempo put on its 25 September – 1 October 2017 cover: “SEKALI LAGI HANTU PKI” (“Once Again, Ghost of PKI”).

Whenever it suits the corrupt elites, the military and the religious cadres (three main pillars of the Indonesia oppressive regime), the Communist ghost is evoked. It is depicted as a monstrous, nasty, and murderous creature. Indonesian children were taught that the Communist hammer was there to smash the heads of the people, while the sickle was – to cut their throats…

please continue to read from,

via 52 YEARS AFTER FASCIST GENOCIDE, INDONESIANS SCARED OF “COMMUNIST GHOSTS” | OffGuardian — An Outsider’s Sojourn II (The Journey Continues)

“Words” are ours, “Saz” is ours!

Lyric of the song with Eanglish translation:

It’s name is stringed instrument.
It neither listens verse nor muslim judge,
The one who plays it, would understand.
Where is the devil inside of it?

It never asks to you “did you perform the ablution?”
It never asks to you “did you perform the prayer?”
It never gets something illegally like muslim judge!
Where is the devil inside of it?

It’s wire is brought from Istanbul,
It’s arm is made by juniper tree.
Hey, silly servant of god!
Where is the devil; is devil inside or outside of it?
It hasn’t got horn, it hasn’t got tail!
Where is the devil inside it?

This is very old Turkish folk song actually. This folk song was written at the begining of 1800’s by Minstrel Dertli against a muslim judge who made a law against playing “saz” (Turkish stringed instrument).

According to this muslim judge, “saz” was the devil’s work, and he banned to play “saz”. At those days, muslim judges tried the cases in Ottoman, and their title was “kadi” in Turkish.

When looking at the history, actually nothing changed in some human brains. Maybe different conditions bring different events. But mentality is the same as always. And they can never see “Minstrel Dertli is still living”, but that muslim judge name is not remembered by anyone. Same will be to the others.

Like another Turkish-Alawite great Minstrel Pir Sultan Abdal said in 16th century:
“Walk Hizir Pasha!
Someday your cycle also will be broken!
The Sultan that you trusted,
Someday he will be overthrown!”

*Turkish-Alawite Minstrel Pir Sultan Abdal had been hanged with the order of Ottoman Hizir Pasha in 155o, because of he revolted against Ottoman. (Yes! Anatolian minstrels have got the rebellious soul along side their music soul:))

Also, thank you Turkish heavy metal band Pentagram, for this amazing adaptation!

Bangladesh student Nazimuddin Samad hacked to death

April 7, Dhaka: A Bangladeshi law student who had expressed secular views online has been killed in the capital, Dhaka.

According to police, Nazimuddin Samad was hacked with machetes at a traffic junction late on Wednesday and then shot.

Samad, 28, was reported to have been an organiser of the Ganajagran Manch, a secular campaigning group.

A string of prominent secular bloggers have been attacked or killed by religious extremists in Bangladesh in the last year.

Three assailants on a motorcycle attacked Samad and then shot him, The Dhaka Tribune reported, police said.

Police have not named any suspects in the case nor confirmed a religious motive.

Samad, a student of Jagannath University, regularly wrote against religious extremism on his Facebook page. He had written “I have no religion” on his profile under religious views.

Last year, four prominent secular bloggers were killed with machetes, one inside his own home.

News quotes: http://theoslotimes.com/article/bangladesh-student-nazimuddin-samad-hacked-to-death

Racism, Equal Opportunity, and Capitalism: an intimation of a critique – written by Norm

Quotes from the article :”…So people are racists, xenophobes, and intolerant, and if they are not, then because we very much do live in a world of ‘cultural-isms,’ in a world made up of elites in competition with each other on the basis of the group allegiances that they can muster and command, in a world that often if not always privileges the notion of the group over the individual, people are at the very least most certainly susceptible to being racists, xenophobes, and intolerant zealots. So let us not pretend that things are otherwise than what they are…”
Thank you for sharing us your article my Earthling friend, NP!

Taking Sides

Racism, Equal Opportunity, and Capitalism: an intimation of a critique – written by Norm

Racism, xenophobia, intolerance – it is all around us.

The attitude – for we can speak of a singular attitude, of a single attitudinal posture, regardless of its basis, be that of an imagined racial purity, cultural identity, religious outlook, political orientation, historical national ancestry, and so on and on – rests upon the idea that one belongs by virtue of some kind of essential identity to a group and that the world divides into a multitude of such essential and potentially contending identities.

Ordinary people have no difficulty speaking of themselves as being Catholic or French Canadian or German or European or Jewish, as belonging to this or that group, or even to a variety of overlapping inclusive categories of groups, each conceived in terms of its defining folklore, its customs, its aptitudes, its values…

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Immortal

The year of 1930, the day December 23. The second fundamentalist uprising experienced at the west of the province of Menemen in Anatolia, while Turkey was young republic. (The first one had been experienced in 1925, and it was fundamentalist Sheikh Said uprising.)

The pictured Kubilay, a young lieutenant, was killed into the hands of a group that wants sharia. Mustafa Fehmi Kubilay was 23 years old. He had graduated from teacher’s training school. After completing his compulsory military service he was going to serve as teacher. He had dreams…

But after the abholisment of caliphate by Ataturk, the ones who wants sharia and the caliphate did not stop. After a long period of preparation, a bigot which called as Dervish Mehmet and 28 men who supported to him have provoked public in Menemen where Kubilay made military duty. Kubilay was injured by them. After then they captured Kubilay while he was alive, and they cut Kubilay’s head with a knife. Kubilay’s cutting head has been impaled and showed around at the end of the stick at square.

After, these bigot people were arrested by troops that come in here.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk has asked immediately the establishment of a court when he heard event. The court was established and the 29 people were executed in the same place where they cut off the head of Kubilay in Menemen.

According to a rumor, Ataturk was so angry and upset for young Kubilay’s death that even he had wanted the deletion of Menemen over the map.

Kubilay is first martyr of the revolution of secular Republic of Turkey. I’m sure if he had lived, he would have added many beauty to the children. And he would have been an immortal in the children minds, but he has been immortal for all country.

Each year, mainly including Izmir in Turkey, the commemorative ceremonies are held in many cities on Kubilay’s behalf like today. And, the brutality of his death, the bloodlust of bigots and what have been sacrificed for a secular republic, are remembering.

Look carefully into his eyes at the picture. There is a beauty that the bigots wanted to destroy in his eyes at Middle East, Turkey and elsewhere in the world today; the beauty of light. Today, as same as nearly 90 years ago, the darkness wants to drown light. Indeed there is nothing change.