“Yankee, Go to Hell!” Street Politics and the Anti-U.S. Movement in Sukarno’s Indonesia

• In Event: A Lost World: The Indonesian Left before the 1965-66 Politicide

Abstract

During the early-to-mid 1960s, Indonesian activists took to the streets to protest against western imperialism. By 1963, U.S. diplomatic posts and commercial enterprises became the main targets of demonstrations, boycotts, and other campaigns. Sukarno’s call for action against the United States was embraced in part because it offered a way for political parties to maintain power at a time when elections were suspended and the legislature did little more than rubber-stamp Sukarno’s directives. Yet, beyond political maneuvering, genuine anger toward the United States and its foreign policy also flared.

Scholars and U.S. officials have long portrayed the anti-U.S. movement as an Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) project. However, declassified documents, newspaper accounts, and interviews with movement participants problematize claims that the anti-Americanism of the time was solely PKI-led. These sources reveal that non-communist political activists in Surabaya – both on the left as well as the right – also played leadership roles in the movement, either in cooperation with or in opposition to the PKI. Accordingly, while PKI cadres were often at the forefront of anti-U.S. actions, they did not act alone.

Examining the mobilization against western imperialism that dominated the street-level politics of Surabaya during the Guided Democracy years illuminates why U.S. officials became increasingly committed to seeing the PKI and its affiliates destroyed. As such, recognizing the relationship between the movement and American officials’ support for the extermination of the PKI adds an important new dimension to contemporary debates about the factors that contributed to the 1965-66 politicide against the left.

Author

• Dahlia Gratia Setiyawan, University of California, Los Angeles