Trade union to follow TNI’s lead with own screenings of New Order anti-communist film

Koran Perdjoeangan – September 23, 2017
KSPI president Said Iqbal (Koran Perdjoeangan)
KSPI president Said Iqbal (Koran Perdjoeangan)

Jakarta -- The Indonesian Metal Trade Workers Federation (FSPMI) and the Confederation of Indonesian Trade Unions (KSPI) will hold joint screenings (nobar) of the film G30S/PKI on the evening of Friday September 29 at the FSPMI headquarters parking lot on Jl. Pondok Gede No 11 in East Jakarta.

This was conveyed by KSPI president Said Iqbal in Jakarta on Saturday September 23.

In addition to Jakarta, screenings of the film The Treachery of the September 30 Movement/Indonesian Communist Party will also be organised in several other industrial cities such as Bekasi, Bogor, Karawang, Purwakarta, Bandung, Medan, Batam, Semarang and Surabaya.

“Workers will hold a nobar of the film so that workers know the great history of this country, that there were revolutionary heroes who were shot [by the G30S] and a change of presidency”, said Iqbal.

Furthermore, according to Iqbal, the film screenings will provide a lesson on the 1965 affair. Because of this therefore, the joint screenings will be interwoven with discussions.

“Differences of opinion are normal. Precisely because there are these differences, space is needed for discussion. Not by using violence as was done by rogue groups against the LBH [Legal Aid Foundation] Jakarta”, said Iqbal.

Iqbal, who holds a position on the International Labor Organisation’s (ILO) Governing Body, slammed last week’s attack on the LBH Jakarta offices as a way to respond to differences. He also hopes that violence such as this will not occur again.

Notes

Activists on social media have questioned why the KSPI and the FSPMI are falling in behind the Indonesian military (TNI) by only holding joint screenings of the G30S/PKI film, a dramatisation of the Suharto dictatorship’s version of the events surrounding the alleged communist coup in 1965, and not showing alternative films such as Joshua Oppenheimer’s award winning documentaries Jegal and Senyap.

[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was KSPI Akan Nobar Film G30S/PKI.]

Source: http://www.koranperdjoeangan.com/kspi-akan-nobar-film-g30spki/.