The Indonesian Communist Party's Perspectives towards Islam

• In Event: Graduate Student Research Lightning Round: Authoritarian Regimes, Contested Spaces

Abstract

Anti-communist propaganda continues to thrive in Indonesia because of the belief that communism would eradicate the existence of religion. This propaganda started with the accusation that the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) had organized the killings of several high-rank Indonesian military personnel and began to kill religious leaders. Therefore, the Indonesian government maintains the law that bans all elements of communism in the country, although many studies have made strides to restore the party's reputation. The current president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, better known as Jokowi, was also accused as a PKI loyalist, but he has continued to deny the allegation. On the other hand, Abdurrahman Wahid, often known as Gusdur, served as the fourth president of Indonesia and did not mind risking his reputation to defend PKI, although he was knowledgeable in Islamic studies and was a well-known religious leader. Therefore, this paper is developed to signify the hypothesis that PKI was not a threat to religion by investigating what beliefs the PKI has about religion generally and Islam specifically. Related literature and PKI documents, movies, and Gusdur's speeches are analyzed to gather information. There are no indications of PKI promoting the ideas of anti-religion in literature and PKI documents, despite some controversial tragedies led by the conflicts between PKI and Muslim groups and religious leaders. The movies analyzed for this essay are The Betrayal of G30S/PKI and The Year of Living Dangerously. These movies present very different stories of the relationship between Muslims and the PKI. The first one depicts the PKI as a threat to religion; the other shows how Indonesia, including the Muslims, escalate its hostility against the West due to the influence of communist ideology. Furthermore, Gusdur, in his speech, did not present his attitude to PKI as support. However, his focus was mainly on lobbying to restore PKI's rights because it was in line with the Indonesian constitution. Interestingly, this study also indicates that Gusdur and the 1965 PKI Chairman (DN Aidit) had similar views on democracy.


Keywords: Communist, PKI, Movie, Gusdur, Islam, religion

Author

• Yenni Rosana, University of Cincinnati