Ethics Upon Remembering and The Act of Killing : An Anlysis

Trauma, by definition, is a deeply distressing experience, which sometimes leads to long-term neurosis. Such term has been one specifically belonging to the victim, as we perceive from remnants of war, conflict, and violence. Hence, we mostly see the victims of sexual abuse haunted by the happening, rather than the abusers. However, Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary, “The Act of Killing” has challenged the bias by humanizing the perpetrator, shifting the ownership of trauma, and questioning the ethics upon forgiving.

For a short recap, “The Act of Killing” is a two hour long documentary released in 2012 focusing on the perpetrators that participated in the Indonesian mass killing of 1965 to 1966. The perpetrators were gangsters like Anwar Congo, paramilitary organization Pancasila Youth, the government, and the press. Victims were neo-communists, Chinese, and left-wing extremists. Under the name of protecting the nation from communism, but with the intention to kill any that got in the way of corruption, perpetrators did not hesitate, nor hide to kill millions of people. Thus, the abnormal became normal; Politicians bribed for votes, governors demanded money on the spot, and gangsters roamed free. There are more that astounds the audience; even to this day, some are basically helpless without any alternate status quo to escape nor correct the situation; some genuinely revere the “saviors” that have saved the country from the “evil” communists; and yet some are indifferent to the situation.

Even after the release of the documentary, the norms have stayed the same. Indonesia’s government and education permeates with vestiges of anti-communist propaganda. Most of the primary and secondary schools are run by the government, and the curriculums are heavily influenced by authoritarian traditions. Thus, from a young age, students receive biased education favoring the government and their acts. The groundless deeds, over a long time, become ones excusable acts by invincible superiors. Therefore citizens cannot think of any other means to fathom the situation nor have the will or power to change the system. Because they are taken away the option to critically assess the situation, people fall into a vicious cycle to halt progress.

Despite the hopeless situation, how does Oppenheimer portray Anwar to the audience in the documentary to ultimately humanize him? Much of the success relies on the recognizable and empathetic narratives slowly outlined throughout the documentary. We are involuntarily exposed to a series of scenes that depict him as an ordinary and vulnerable human being. He sits his grandchildren on his laps, takes care of injured ducks, dances around to trip, and even slightly repents his actions towards the end of the documentary. Anwar displays slight hints of trauma when he is seen having nightmares of victims and avoids the killing site before he had filmed the documentary. Even further, the audience becomes to notice that Anwar’s trauma is the reenacting documentary itself. Trauma is best recognized when the person cannot distinguish past and present time within the trauma. Because he conflates the two, he is unable to perceive it as a memory. Therefore, he distances himself from his crimes and turns them into performances of a hyper realistic act. Thus, the process of creating the documentary, and watching the process of doing so is the means of withdrawal, “acting out,” or “performative regenerating as if it were fully present rather than one represented in memory. (La Capra, 716)” The documentary offers an alternative interpretation: Anwar’s  seemingly ignorant acts may be actually his means of seeking ways to relieve the trauma he is going through.

Anwar’s disclosure of trauma shows how the perpetrators, who, most of the times, are characterized as singularly merciless, bizarre, and psychotic, are placed into narrative. We thus situate them inside the normal realms of history and understandings to illuminate a slight possibility of the perpetrators also being human and even the victims of tradition, norms, violence, and pressure. As a result, the documentary allows a slice of trauma’s ownership to be tossed over from the victims to the perpetrators. We thus realize how it is crucial to separate trauma from the victimhood, and deconstruct the polarized possession of the term.

Then is such shift of possession necessary? Restoring memory and attaining testimony are core pillars within memory studies, and the same applies to the perpetrators. Reconstituting a “thou (Laub)” for not just Anwar but also the citizens of Indonesia allows true reconciliation. Only such reparation can further facilitate correcting collective memory and ultimately bring proper justice to all parties. It has almost been fifty years since the massacre. Human rights associations, activists, and NGOs have tried intervening to restore such justice, but there has not been much progress. To this day, much of the authorities remains the same, with bribery, corruption, and violence permeating the country. Much amendments are to be made.

Then is a sincere apology for the shift in possession ethical? The question is a complex one: yes, but also at the same time, no. For the audience, the perpetrators’ trauma should not be belittled, as doing so would be condoning the act of “competitive memory. (Rothberg)” Such position leads to dangers of treating memories as mere events, rather than ones that continue in today, thus become shortcuts to weigh one over another. Objectifying the memory thus becomes to offend victims and, as theorized in this essay, even the perpetrators of the event. On the other hand, perpetrators must also understand that those who they have victimized are also going through trauma because of their once shameful actions. Thus, they should not over empathize because most victims do not have positive feelings for the perpetrators. Therefore, only when both parties act accordingly will the shift in possession become ethical, thus return justice upon both sides.

Finally, after the shift of ownership and a sincere apology, are perpetrators forgiven? Ethics upon perpetrators are complex, but must be defined as forgiven yet unethical for a few reasons. First, Anwar was not penalized. In the documentary, other than being uncomfortable with his acts, Anwar did not take full responsibility for the killings. The government nor international courts have punished him, and he continues to roam free untouched. Punishing a crime is a convention humans have built the society upon, and Anwar’s actions should be the last to be immune from it. Further, allowing forgiveness may incur collateral damage, in that it may permit a second chance to everyone. The goal of punishment is to prevent crime in the first place and protect the innocent from offense that they do not deserve. Therefore, ethics must become the social safety net and disallow further misfortune.

        Although severely controversial in its content and directing, “The Act of Killing” is remarkable in that it disputes common perception, opens up possibilities of the perpetrators’ traumas, and questions the verity of ethics. It shook much of my pre-established conventions in that I could also be living a life where people in the future or other nations may perceive as unethical. This led me to think about the strife around the world and within Korea, including income distribution inequality, over-competition within Korean education, and extreme feminism. However, it also prompts further doubts in that these strife may be perceived as problematic only because of the values that we have constructed as of now. In other words, they may not be perceived as the same if the values themselves have been fallacious. Therefore, we continue to question and stay critical to the society, as the documentary successfully conveys.

LaCapra, Dominick. Trauma, Absence, Loss, University of Chicago Press, 1999

Laub, Dori. Truth and Testimony Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991

Rothberg, Michael. Multidirectional Memory, Stanford Unversity Press, 2009

Dori Laub : A Short Precis

   Dori Laub’s "Truth and Testimony: The Process and the Struggle" shows how trauma, undeniably one of the most devastating human creation, is ironically only resolvable within and by humans. Such paradox is best illustrated in his quote, “The survivors did not only need to survive so that they could tell their stories; they also needed to tell the stories in order to survive.” The irony augments as the traumatized are frustrated by physical disabilities, the event’s inexplicability, guilt, or mere alteration of the memory. Witnesses of trauma also are unable to objectively articulate the event, and while others are exterminated to prevent the sharing of their perspective. Trauma abolishes both its history and the people's identities, yet still burdens with responsibility and indoctrinated guilt. 

   Trauma must be examined in lines with the theory of diffusion of responsibility,which states that people become less responsible for an action in the presence of others. However, the theory only deals with action and justification, not the consequences. The murder of Kitty Genovese can be described as the apotheosis of diffusion of responsibility as 38 witnesses spread their responsibilities to take no action when Genovese was raped and stabbed for over two hours. However, rarely questioned is the potential for trauma to befall on the witnesses. The theory of diffusion of responsibility and Laub’s description of trauma thus contradict in the presence of collective responsibility; Responsibility diffuses within a group, yet those traumatized from it are borne with an overwhelming sense of guilt and perplexion. The traumatized must rely on imperfect vocalization to rid such burden, or “make and break the promise: the promise of testimony as a realization” that the traumatized is, in fact, not at fault.

Act of Killing : A Short Precis

The Act of Killing (2002) is the first documentary in Indonesian language about the Indonesian mass killing in 1965 to 1966. It follows Anwar, Pancasila Youth, and members of the death squad that killed over one million under the purpose of the nation’s security. Victims were neo-communists and left-wing extremists, or namely “those who wanted to destroy our country (Indonesia).” As Anwar glamorizes his murders into a Western-influenced film, he inadvertently unveils the full range of corruption and crime permeating within the government, media, tradition, and norms.

Notably, he quotes, “We have too much democracy. Things were better under the military dictatorship,” thus “conflates absence and loss (707)[i],” as theorized by La Capra. He mistakes the absence of a perfect nation as something that is lost, thus tries to regain it by searching for a reason behind the loss. The communist Indonesians therefore became the scapegoat and the victims of the massacre.

Further, when asked if he feels responsible for the truth, he answers, “Why focus on killing the communists? Americans killed the Indians.” Such comparison of crime becomes a moral hazard as he tries to justify his actions by competing one trauma to another. Thus it becomes dangerous as it avoids any responsibility and even attempts to alleviate his acts.

The confrontational documentary provoked complete confusion in that it merged perpetrator with victim and evil with good, ultimately leading me to question the verity of ethics. Thus, when he comments, “War crimes are defined by the winners. I’m a winner, so I can make my own definition,” we are left powerless, only left to sympathize the fates of the victims.