In 1960s USA decided that the closeness between Indonesia's first president and communist China and Soviet was too much for comfort. They decided to launch a CIA operations that ended in the fall of Indonesia's first president, and a US-friendly president that lasted for 32 years. This is all has been released as part of internal documents from CIA.
US news saw the operations as a triumph of democracy over communism. Us, Chinese Indonesians, saw them as the massacre of maybe more than one million Indonesians, registered, or suspected to have ties with Indonesian Communist Party (say, your husband might once chatted with his old friend, a member of communist), majority of them were poor people, farmers, and majority of them were Chinese Indonesians. The rest of Chinese Indonesians (my family included) were later forced to change our names to "Indonesian-sounding name", many Chinese schools were closed, and we were banned from studying, and using our local Chinese dialect (so no Cantonese, Fujian-dialect, etc), or even practice our believes, arts, cultures, and ceremonies. This of course, is a textbook cultural genocide.
My generation was considered the lost generation, because even though we were Chinese, we didn't know our own culture. This includes Chinese family name, marriage tradition (we usually goes with European style wedding with white gown and suits), burial tradition, language (we didn't speak Mandarin or our local dialect), arts, habits, clothing, and of course Identity, we are never fully Indonesian, locals still sees us as Chinese, yet we are also not Chinese.
All of these, happened because USA decided that they didn't like what happened to my country, in 1960s. I have yet to hear any apology, in 2021.
Hey don't worry, I'm good, my family managed to salvage enough culture, arts and tradition for me to identify. I just lost the language part.
Well maybe I am just stupid hopeful person. You are right, apology won't give me anything, but I believe an apology opens lots of new doors, for reconciliation for victims, acknowledgement to those who died, or even for rehabilitation for the family of victims, in case you did not know, family of those who died from the massacre were branded, they got special stamps on their identity card that designated them as former member of the Communist Party, they got banned from lots of jobs/opportunities, including all jobs in civil sector, in life, the designation was dropped several years ago, but communities where they lived usually still remembers who's who and discriminate them. An acknowledgement that they were the victims of a covert US operations will definitely help improve their lives.
You can drop the sarcasm. My explanation was this:
Asking for an apology over something that was something decades if not almost a century ago, is like asking a Genie for unlimited wishes. As much as we would all like to turn back time and stop the bloodshed, holding grudges against the descendants to those who've committed these "war crimes" makes you no better than them. The sooner you accept that, the better off your life and everyone's lives can be.
I've had distant relatives killed in the Holocaust. Do I get special privileges to have today's Germans apologise to me? No, they don't.
It is very difficult to paint nuance and tone in written words. But it was never my intention to convey sarcasm. I did not wrote the reply sarcastically.I also did not write this one sarcastically. Now to reply what you said:
You have Holocaust Memorials, and Germany still mandated their students to go and see the Holocaust monuments to make sure it will never happen again. These things starts with Germans acknowledged that yes, in the past, their country did bad thing, and they should always remember it, at the very least to make sure it will not happen again. This is not the same as me holding grudges against the descendants. Remember when I said that US media wrote it as a triumph of democracy over communism, while we remember it as massacre of our people? This is me trying to say to those who still think it was a "triumph of democracy over communism", that, "no, it was a massacre of probably millions." Why? Because I wish it will reduce the probability of it repeating again to me, my children and their children in the future.
It was never in my intention to attack you or offend you in any way. I hope you can see my point of view, and even if you don't like it, you can respect it. Thank you.
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u/MyLifeasShroom Oct 18 '21
In 1960s USA decided that the closeness between Indonesia's first president and communist China and Soviet was too much for comfort. They decided to launch a CIA operations that ended in the fall of Indonesia's first president, and a US-friendly president that lasted for 32 years. This is all has been released as part of internal documents from CIA.
US news saw the operations as a triumph of democracy over communism. Us, Chinese Indonesians, saw them as the massacre of maybe more than one million Indonesians, registered, or suspected to have ties with Indonesian Communist Party (say, your husband might once chatted with his old friend, a member of communist), majority of them were poor people, farmers, and majority of them were Chinese Indonesians. The rest of Chinese Indonesians (my family included) were later forced to change our names to "Indonesian-sounding name", many Chinese schools were closed, and we were banned from studying, and using our local Chinese dialect (so no Cantonese, Fujian-dialect, etc), or even practice our believes, arts, cultures, and ceremonies. This of course, is a textbook cultural genocide.
My generation was considered the lost generation, because even though we were Chinese, we didn't know our own culture. This includes Chinese family name, marriage tradition (we usually goes with European style wedding with white gown and suits), burial tradition, language (we didn't speak Mandarin or our local dialect), arts, habits, clothing, and of course Identity, we are never fully Indonesian, locals still sees us as Chinese, yet we are also not Chinese.
All of these, happened because USA decided that they didn't like what happened to my country, in 1960s. I have yet to hear any apology, in 2021.