Summary by: Jaymani Sevanathan
Webinar is conducted in Indonesian and the summary is in English
The webinar Counter-Archiving: Dealing with Dominant Histories was organized by the Lembaga Sejarah Sosialis Indonesia (LSSI); an Indonesia-based independent archival organisation which is part of the Under the Banana Tree Network Archival Network.
The session begins with the moderator, Angga pointing out that the LSSI’s official social media accounts were compromised the day before. He claims that this demonstrates how archiving has turned into a political battleground amidst the current wave of protests in Indonesia. He clarifies that the purpose of this conversation is to investigate how power shapes dominant histories and how counter-archiving can recover memories of the people’s movement that have been suppressed. The collection and preservation process is not neutral; rather, it is a political statement given that people who have been left out of official narratives are still alive.
Angga remembers how Suharto’s government began a concerted effort to eradicate Indonesia’s left following the 1965 coup. Books were burned, publications were prohibited, organizations were disbanded, and activists’ names were obliterated. There was intellectual as well as physical devastation. He clarifies that the goal of LSSI’s current project is to restore those broken threads of continuity by compiling shards of worker journals, socialist pamphlets, and personal accounts so that a new generation can gain insight from the hardships of the past. He then introduces the speakers, Andreas Iswinarto (Coordinator of Genosida 1965 – 1966, an online library), Wilson Obrigados (Writer and activist of IKOHI, an organisation focused on enforced disappearance in Indonesia), and Esty Pratiwi (Organiser with LSSI), who each take a distinct stance on the concept of counter-archiving, drawing on their respective political theories, activist practices, and institutional work.
Andreas starts off by making the case that archiving is not an academic luxury but rather political labor. According to him, archiving preserves subversive memory which is the collective memory of struggle that the dominant power is always working to obliterate. He references the theories of Parakitri Simbolon and Mark Selden, who both contend that the governing class upholds its dominance by controlling the collective memory. Therefore, remembering from below is a rebellious act. In his revisitation of Suharto’s militarization of Indonesian history, Andreas focuses on how Nugroho Notosusanto institutionalized an “official military narrative” through museums, monuments, and textbooks. In that narrative, the army appeared as the sole defender of the nation, while leftists and civilians who once fought for independence were portrayed as traitors. This “history in uniform,” he argues, still haunts the Indonesian imagination.
He shows how, in spite of reforms, this ideology persisted after 1998. Despite the efforts of scholars like Asvi Warman Adam to democratize historiography, the structural legacy of censorship persisted. The politics of forgetting is still present, as evidenced by the continued stigma associated with Marxism, book bans, and intimidation. Andreas believes that a fresh strategy on what Singgih Tri Sulistiono refers to as “history as liberation” is required. According to him, the lived realities of the people: poverty, inequality, and ecological destruction must be the starting point of history. The only way for historiography to regain its emancipatory power is to ground historical work in current injustice.
Andreas then discusses the mass murders that occurred in 1965–1966 and characterizes them as the core of Indonesia’s ongoing trauma. He contends that these were planned political genocides intended to eradicate a class of thought and a whole ideological horizon, rather than unplanned acts of violence, citing evidence from the International People’s Tribunal 65 and Jess Melvin’s research in Aceh. Indonesia is still tied to its authoritarian past as long as this decree is in effect.
He then introduces his own project, the Online Library 65/66, a digital repository that compiles works of literature, music, movies, and visual art that are connected to the massacres and their aftermath. He asserts that works of art are as valuable as official records because they are archives of resistance and emotion. The silenced voices of survivors are still heard through them. “Archiving is not merely about saving documents; it is about sustaining the struggle for truth and humanity,” he concludes, emphasizing that to remember is to resist.
Wilson Obrigados kicks off by identifying himself as a movement recorder as opposed to a historian. In his opinion, archiving had a weak, unorganized, and underappreciated culture in Indonesia. Complete sets of meeting minutes, statements, and press materials vanished when PRD’s offices were raided and their computers confiscated in 1997. He refers to this as “the killing of memory,” a purposeful act of repression intended to break the link between generations of resistance. Wilson argues that without documentation, movements are doomed to recur.
Wilson continues by stating that archives serve as the main source for rewriting history from the bottom up. He makes reference to Ruth McVey’s research on the early Indonesian Communist Party, which mainly relied on long-lost movement records. Such resources allow long-forgotten figures like Mas Marco, Haji Misbah, and Semaun to resurface as authentic forerunners of Indonesian nationalism. These texts change the perception of the left from “enemy of the nation” to “builders of the nation.” Wilson also talks about his own book, Papua Bergerak, which was written with a “Papua-centric” viewpoint and was based on activist documents rather than official government reports. The book shows how alternative archives can help de-center Jakarta as the focal point and give the periphery a sense of agency. He concludes that LSSI must grow into a central repository for leftist archives, not as a museum of the past but as a living, collective resource where movements can learn, connect, and write their own histories again.
A succinct summary of LSSI’s vision and mission is provided by Esty Pratiwi. According to her, the institute was established following the Fifth Socialist Congress with the goal of gathering and conserving historical documents of Indonesia’s left and socialist movements while also preventing their further extinction. According to her, archiving is a political reclamation of the people’s right to history as well as a means of preservation. She emphasizes that every archive contains the voices of struggle, demonstrating that the left was only physically suppressed rather than intellectually defeated.
Drawing from her experience with LSSI, Esty highlights the institute’s primary operations which include cataloguing and digitization, exhibitions, educational outreach, and the restoration of delicate documents. Congress results, internal bulletins, letters, photos, memoirs, audio recordings, and creative works are among the official and unofficial materials that LSSI gathers. She claims that every piece that has been saved is evidence that resistance has existed and still does. The objective is to build a living library that speaks to today’s workforce, young people, and communities rather than transforming archives into immobile monuments. She ends by saying, “Every archive we preserve serves as a reminder that the fight for justice never really ends and serves as a lesson for the present.”
The webinar exposes archiving as a political, intellectual, and ethical act through these interwoven presentations. Wilson focuses the practice on the lived experience of activists fighting against oblivion; Andreas reveals how state power creates national narratives and how remembering can liberate; Esty shows how institutional archiving like LSSI can ensure the survival of people’s history; and the moderator’s introduction places it within the ongoing struggle over memory.
The conversation ends with a consensus that counter-archiving is a collective effort to restore Indonesia’s suppressed intellectual legacy rather than nostalgia for a bygone era. Every testimony that is recorded and every document that is kept becomes an act of resistance to forgetting. In this way, archiving serves as a means of resistance and remembrance, ensuring that the people’s struggles no matter how buried, remain alive in the minds of the country.