We Have Tired of Violence: A True Story of Murder, Memory, and the Fight for Justice in Indonesia

by Matt Easton

Orwell wrote in Nineteen Eighty-Four, “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” It was fitting that in 1984, Indonesia’s state-owned film company released The Treachery of the 30 September Movement.

Two features distinguished the Indonesian military from most modern, professional defense forces. First, the doctrine of dwi fungsi, or dual function, gave the military a formal role in politics and society, well beyond national defense. Second, the territorial command structure posted troops at regional, provincial, district, and subdistrict levels within Indonesia. Both of these features demonstrated that the military’s primary focus was not foreign threats, but internal control.

the link between violence, law enforcement, and power. Police and prosecutors were servants to power and routinely used violence, including the torture of suspects, not just to secure confessions and convictions, but to protect the state and support its ideologies of development and stability.

“Well, what’s the greatest risk of being alive?” “That you will die.” “And you can die while eating, while sleeping, while doing anything. If you can help people, and be of use, you should do it,” she said. “I don’t like it. But you should do it.”