Sacred and Cursed Bodies: The Necropolitics in the Suharto Regime's Politics of Memory

• Published in: Cultural and social history Vol. 21; no. 4; pp. 555 - 571
• Main Author: Głąb, Katarzyna Marta
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Routledge 07.08.2024; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Anti-communism; Biopolitics; Collective memory; Communism; Credibility; Indonesian mass murders 1965-66; Mass murders; Narratives; National identity; necropolitics; necroviolence; Political change; Politics; Politics of memory; Sacredness; Suharto (1921-2008); Victims; Indonesia
• ISSN: 1478-0038; 1478-0046
• DOI: 10.1080/14780038.2024.2355677

The article investigates the Suharto rule regime's use of necropolitics to construct Indonesia's memory of the 1965-66 mass murders. These memory politics were based on the anti-communist myth, which was the basis of the memory formation and creation of positive and negative heroes closely related to political changes. The regime used the bodies of generals who were killed during the attempted coup for political purposes, thus permanently anchoring this image in Indonesian society's space and memory. Herein, the image of the generals' bodies is juxtaposed with that of the victims' bodies, which are still cursed and excluded from official Indonesian history. These necropolitics served the Suharto regime's various interests of power, knowledge, and the clash between sacred and cursed bodies. Thus, the generals' and victims' bodies enhanced Suharto's credibility. In this context, the generals' bodies are treated as sacred, while the victims' bodies are considered to be cursed, but both are causative agents of the development of the regime's historical narrative, collective memory, and national identity.