5 . 5 0 ( i n c l . G S T ) - Prof. Dr. Andi Faisal Bakti

5 . 5 0 ( i n c l . G S T )

I NSIDEIndonesiaNo. 68October-December 2001Inside Indonesia is published quarterly bythe Indonesia Resources and InformationProgram (IRIP), Inc. IRIP comprisesacademic specialists on Indonesia andmembers of overseas aid agencies,development action groups and tradeunions. It aims to promote mutualunderstanding and cooperation betweenthe peoples of Indonesia and Australia andto increase international awareness of theissues facing the Indonesian people today.Editorial responsibility rests with theIRIP Board. The views expressed in InsideIndonesia are not necessarily those ofIRIP's sponsoring organisations.IRIP Board:Ed Aspinall, David Bourchier,Kathy Gollan, Krishna Sen, Ron Witton,Gerry van Klinken, Pat Walsh,Vanessa JohansonEditor: Gerry van KlinkenProduction Manager: Helena SpyrouEditorial consultants:Lane Berman, lan Chalmers,Peter Cronau, Richard Curts, KeithFoulcher, Ariel Heryanto, David Hill,Michael van Langenberg, Robin Osbome,StanleyAdministration: Annie Keogh,Laurie Price. Melinda Venticich,Valli MendezPromotions: Melinda VenticichWebmaster: Colin RundleEditorial: Articles and letters, with graphicsif possible, are most welcome. Contact theeditor first about your plans! Use emailwhenever possible:editor@insideindonesia.org. Otherwisecommunicate through the Inside Indonesiaoffice (below).Inside Indonesia:PO Box 1326Collingwood Vic 3066 AustraliaTel +61-3-9419 4504Fax +61-3-9419 4774Email admin@insideindonesia.orgWeb www.insideindonesia.orgCover and Supplement design:House Mouse Design(mail@housemouse.com.au)Production and layout:Andrew Pecze (apps@vicnet.net.au)Printing: Arena Printing 4 Publishing.Tel +61-3-9416 0232Published by:IRIP (ISSN 0814-1185)Registration No. A0015981COriginal design concept: Helena SpyrouRegistered by:Pnnt Post ApprovedPP340 646/00012Cover: President MegawatiSukarnoputri recalls the popularityof her father, former PresidentSukarno.Design by House Mouse Design,based on a PDI-P election postercollected for us by Merryn RiderREWRITING HISTORY4 Out of the black holeAfter the New Order, the lid onIndonesia's past is beginning toliftHilmar Farid6 Untold storiesOn die other side of 1965 lay avibrant Indonesia worthrememberingAnn Laura Stoler8 A soldier's historianNew Order generals needed newhistory books. NugrohoNotosusanto was their manKate McGregor10 Romo MangunTribute to a multi-talented,national figureCatherine Mills12 Merdeka!Indonesian poetry of freedom1966-1998Harry Aveling13 Rebel rises from the deadSulawesians believe that Qahhar,their rebel hero, has risen againAndi Faisal Bakti15 For kicksThe history of football is a historyof Indonesia itselfFreek Colombijn17 The Suharto MuseumWhat gifts did Aussie primeministers bestow on presidentSuharto?Pam Alien19 Whitlam knewAustralia's complicity inIndonesia's 1975 East Timorinvasion plansPaul Monk21 The first Asian boat peopleIndonesian refugees coming toAustralia during World War IIJan LingardPOLITICS AND HUMAN RIGHTS23 Mother of the nationFor now, reformasi is dead. ButMega didn't kill itEdward AspinallRomo Mangum, p. 10Laskar Jihad 2001, p. 2925 The return of 'Shock therapy'Overseas friends stand bypersecuted Acehnese humanrights workersSigne Poulsen27 Radical or reformist?How Islamic will the newmovements make Indonesia?Bernhard Platzdasch29 Laskar JihadThis militant sect is used bydangerous elites for their ownendsIRIP News Service30 Ethnic fascism in BorneoOld elites in Central Kalimantandiscover new and dangerousstrategiesGerry van KlinkenREGULARS2 Editorial2 Your Say3 Newsbriefs32 Reviews33 Bookshop

e w r i t i n g h i s t o r yRebel rises from the deadSulawesians believe that Qahhar, their rebel hero, has risen againAndi Faisal BaktiKH Syamsuri, Qahhar look-alike, photographed in 1999COURTESY ANDI FAISAL BAKTISchool history textbooks in Indonesia make it very clear who is a hero and who a traitor. For Sulawesi, names likeSultan Hasanuddin and Andi Mappanyukki are heroes, while Arung Palakka and Abdul Qahhar Mudzakkar aredefinitely traitors. That's what students have learned all the way to university level. The mass media helped reinforcethe distinction. History is the interpretation of people engaged in a game of power. It is a one-sided story, especiallywhen those in power restrict freedom of speech and refuse to listen to the people.After Suharto, however, those restrictions began to loosen. Many Pandora's boxes are being opened. Local ideasthat used to only circulate within the family or among small communities are coming out, especially on the internet.The Sukarno and Suharto eras were for nation building. Today, nation-building is exposed to a harsh light, amongothers by the story I am about to tell.In Indonesian history books, Arung Palakka is portrayed as a dangerous rebel, but he has a place in the hearts ofmost Bugis people. They remember him for his epic and ultimately fatal struggle in the seventeenth century toliberate the Bugis from the Gowa kingdom of South Sulawesi. The same goes for Abdul Qahhar Mudzakkar. Born inLanipa, Luwu, on 24 March 1921, he is remembered for struggling not just for his own Bugis people but for all thepeople of Sulawesi.In the post-Suharto era, people long for a leaderlike QahharFreedomFrom a tender age, Qahhar's father taught him to defend the people from oppression. In 1938 his parents senthim to Java to study at the Muhammadiyah high school in Solo. By 1941 he was back, and teaching at a primaryschool in Luwu, Sulawesi. As good Muslims, he taught his students, the Bugis should free themselves from thefeudalistic Luwu kingdom, which fell under Japanese influence during the occupation. He often preached inmosques around Luwu. The Luwu rulers, and their Japanese backers, soon expelled him. He fled to Java.When the nationalist revolution broke out in Jakarta in August 1945 he set up a movement in the capital of youngfighters from Sulawesi who lived in Java. It came to be known as Kris. He recruited many Bugis and Makassarese, andmembers of other Sulawesi ethnic groups, and even brought some out from the island, which at die time was a veryprestigious trip for them. They fought like good nationalists, and some later joined the Indonesian national army TNI.Qahhar became famous as a brave warrior. Between 1945 and 1949 he joined in many battles for the Republic ofIndonesia, and was awarded the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, the first Bugis to rise so high.13Inside Indonesia/October-December 2001

However, just when Indonesian independence was secure, he met his first disappointment. In 1950 a special brigade(Brigade XVI) of Sulawesian troops was created. Put in charge was not Qahhar but LtCol Warouw. Qahhar was deputy.Nor were all his revolutionary fighters recruited. He fell sorry for those thousands of men who had fought alongsidehim. At first he demanded that they be formed into another brigade, Hasanuddin, under his leadership. But theregional commander, Col Kawilarang, rejected it and told Qahhar to disband his men. At that moment Qahharhanded in his rank and went into the jungle, with tens of thou-$ands of his supporters. Together they started aguerrilla war against Jakarta.His jungle strategy was good. He soon controlled all the mountains of South and Southeast Sulawesi. Some NorthSulawesi revolutionary fighters supported him too. Qahhar adopted an anti-Javanese, anti-communist ideology,which warned of a revival of 'Majapahit' imperialism and predicted a communist coup in Jakarta. He preferred afederal system for Indonesia, where every ethnic group would be led by its own people.For fifteen years he remained in the forest. It was a time of warfare and bloodshed. But also one of educating hisfollowers. People with a city education went into the forest to give informal classes. Others he sent for studies toJava or overseas. He wrote at least ten books on politics.After the Indonesian armed forces put down the combined regional revolt known as Darul Islam/ Tentara IslamIndonesia (DI/TII) in Aceh, West Java and South Kalimantan, their attention turned to Sulawesi. In charge of theoperation to crush Qahhar was Muhammad Yusuf, a man whom Qahhar himself had brought to Java years before. InNovember 1961 he and Qahhar had a private meeting that became known as the 'Bonepute meeting'. No one knowsfor certain, but most Qahhar followers believe the talks were about a way to surrender with honour. Yusuf, orderedto bring the revolt to an end, found it impossible to bring in Qahhar 'dead or alive'. Qahhar, meanwhile,could not betray the struggle of his people and his followers to tree themselves from outside domination. And thetwo of them were as if brothers.The story that got around was that Qahhar at that moment disappeared, on Yusuf’s own suggestion. In exchange,Qahhar had to provide a look-alike, to be shot by TNI. To this day Qahhar's supporters believe the man who was shoton 3 February 1965, near the Lasolo River in Southeast Sulawesi, was not Qahhar. Qahhar was safely elsewhere, andwould return when the time was right — especially if the communists should make a move again.The story that got around was that Qahhar at that moment disappeared, on Yusuf’s own suggestion. In exchange,Qahhar had to provide a look-alike, to be shot by TNI. To this day Qahhar's supporters believe the man who was shoton 3 February 1965, near the Lasolo River in Southeast Sulawesi, was not Qahhar. Qahhar was safely elsewhere, andwould return when the time was right — especially if the communists should make a move again.When in early April 2000 President Abdurrahman Wahid expressed his intention to lift the ban on communism inIndonesia, many people in Sulawesi concluded this was the moment Qahhar would return!Like QahharJust as the rumour about Qahhar's imminent return began to circulate again in Sulawesi, Kiai Haji Syamsuri appearedin Jakarta. It was not long after Suharto resigned, about June 1998. Syamsuri approached some of Qahhar's relativesand followers. Some believed it was he. Most didn't, at first. Abdullah Ashal, one of Qahhar's sons, said Syamsuri wasnot his father. He had seen his father's body himself, laid out in Makassar. But others said: 'Ashal never really knewhis father, because he was raised in Java'. Others had long wanted to know why Yusuf never invited Qahhar's wives,who obviously knew him much more intimately, to identify the corpse. And where was he buried?The suspicion that Qahhar's death had been faked gained more and more adherents. When Syamsuri arose, actingremarkably like Qahhar, he immediately became controversial. Even the experts disagreed. One famous historiansaid Syamsuri could not possibly be Qahhar. But others believed he was.Local ideas, circulated within the family, are now coining out on the internetSyamsuri, who tried hard to resembleQahhar, got a huge reception in Sulawesi. His mosque sermons, even his signature, were made as near to those ofQahhar as possible. People snapped up calendars with Syamsuri's photograph in various poses. Cassettes of hisspeeches became very popular. Even if his voice, his accent, his posture, and his skin colour, not to mention his age,were of doubtful comparison to say the least, the photographs and cassettes were copied and recopied. They spreadfrom one Bugis-Makassar-Mandar per¬son to another, as far as East Malaysia, Sumatra and Kalimantan. On 17August 2000, Qahhar's extended family, who objected to the whole story, made a public appeal to stop. Since then,Syamsuri has not surfaced again. But others say he is still making plans.14Inside Indonesia/October-December 2001

Local ideas, circulated within thefamily, are now coining out on theinternetQahhar Mudzakkar, Sulawesi heroCOURTESY ANDI FAISAl 8AKTINo one knows much about Syamsuri. He first turned up in Dumai, Riau (Sumatra), saying he was from Banjarmasinbut had lost his way. He rented a house there, and appeared to be a sim ple teacher of religion, though occasionallyan eccentric one. He loved to ride a racing motor cycle while wearing his turban but also a set of body-tight racingleathers. He acquired a religious following and managed to found a school (pesantren), which taught a rathermystical doctrine. 'It never had many students, but two years ago', a neighbour told a magazine, 'it suddenly startedto renovate its facilities'. Syamsuri said little about his family origins. Then people in Dumai wereamazed to hear he had become popular in Sulawesi because he was thought to be Qahhar. There are many formerfollowers of Qahhar in Riau, even though none had ever seen him. Some say Syamsuri is solely after money. Othersthat he is a TNI agent trying to gauge the strength of the underground Qahhar movement.Qahhar was an impressive figure, whether on the speaker's podium or the battle field. He was simple anddemocratic. His followers gave everything for him, and he in turn never failed to help them. They were as ifhypnotised. Hundreds of thousands of DI/TII members died fighting TNI. Huge numbers lost their homes and fled.Their relatives died as martyrs for the cause of freedom or for that of religion. But when Qahhar delayed his return,their faith began to waver. For Qahhar was to them still the one who would save them. This was the situation thatSyamsuri exploited.In the minds of his followers, Qahhar's greatness did not fade after he went away. While the government and hisfamily said he w3s dead, his movement did not die. His sayings are still quoted. Others have taken up his mantle.Today, in the post-Suharto era, people long for a leader like Qahhar. It is for this reason that Sulawesians warmlywelcomed the government's regional autonomy program. They hope it will help free them from outside domination,just like Qahhar tried toAndi Faisal Bakti (amfabak@gmail.com) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian and Pacific Studies,University of Victoria, Canada. Qahhar Mudzakkar's name is sometimes spelled Kahar Muzakkar.