--Let’s first distinguish the following actors (first 2 = Chinese diplomacy, last 2 = Chinese-Indonesian migrants): a) ROC = “Republic of China” until losing the Chinese Civil War and becoming Taiwan. b) CPC = “Communist Party of China” winning to establish PRC (“People’s Republic of China”, today’s China) c) “Blue” = pro-ROC/Taiwan Chinese-Indonesians d) “Red” = pro-CPC/PRC Chinese-Indonesians
1) ROC/Indonesia: --Overseas Chinese are stereotyped similar to Jews, as there has been a visible group of capitalist merchants, thus having a middle-class status (it should be noted that this omits large lower-class groups, i.e. farmers/workers). --European colonialism perfected divide-and-rule especially based on detailed (note: disturbing co-evolution with Western science) definitions of social identities (ethnicities/“race”/caste/religion etc.), using certain groups for colonial administration (ex. colonial tax collection). We can see the legacies in post-colonialism’s “communal violence” (social identity hostilities, esp. South Asia, as British colonialism was particularly proficient). --In Indonesia, Chinese merchants were used as colonial mediators by the Dutch. As ROC was nationalist and pro-capitalist, they: i) looked up to Western capitalism/imperialism ii) looked down on Indonesian nationalism/independence as backward (which was reciprocated by prejudice/violence towards Chinese migrants) …We can see the vicious cycle of communal violence: the ROC’s lack of respect meant supporting Dutch re-colonization (1945-49, after Japanese occupation ended from its WWII defeat) and boldly interfering with overseas Chinese. This compounded Indonesian distrust/violence towards Chinese-Indonesians during Indonesia’s tumultuous independence struggle/decolonization. --As mentioned earlier, Chinese migrants were hardly homogenous, with various intersections between political vs. apolitical, Indonesian assimilation (which has its own political/class distinctions, esp. nationalist/religious/communist) vs. keep Chinese ties (Chinese nationalist ROC vs. Chinese communist CPC), etc. --As CPC was not yet the ruling party in China, they relied on underground networks to spread their ideology and resist ROC. This book features Ba Ren, who tried to oppose the vicious feedback loop of communal violence. Ren cites Friedrich Engels supporting Chinese nationalist struggle during the 2nd Opium War as a progressive anti-imperialist struggle while critiquing those (I'm assuming this is especially relevant to European leftists believing in a crude stages of development) who saw it as backwards/barbaric. …Thus, Ren focused on the anti-imperialist aspect of Indonesia’s nationalist struggle, recognizing the chaos of social revolution (including violence towards Chinese-Indonesians). Ren, a communist, wanted to build a working-class anti-imperialist alliance between Indonesian nationalist struggle and Chinese-Indonesians, to transcend the colonial legacy of communal violence.
2) PRC/Indonesia: --Both CPC and Indonesia secured their national victories in 1949, with the CPC kicking out the ROC to establish the PRC (today’s China) and Indonesia preventing Dutch recolonization. --Unlike the ROC, the PRC pursued a pragmatic non-intervention relationship with Indonesia, by: i) relying on formal diplomacy (state-to-state) ii) shutting down overseas CPC branches …this was PRC’s foreign policy given isolation as Western imperialism sought to suffocate the new communist state (ex. US’s total trade embargo 1950-1972; keep in mind the US dominated global food grains after WWII, while China had great sacrifices during WWII and a massive agrarian population seeking rapid industrialization). …Thus, PRC pursued a “united front” supporting neighboring sovereignty (in hopes of anti-imperialism) even if they were not communist. As Indonesia achieved sovereignty under nationalist (not communist) Sukarno, PRC respected this by pulling out their CPC branches so there would be a single communist party, Indonesia’s home-grown communist party PKI. Crucially, state-to-state diplomacy meant going through the nationalist president Sukarno, rather than the non-ruling PKI. --Ren was assigned PRC’s ambassador to Indonesia, creating a personal tension he was never able to resolve between his prior revolutionary underground activism and his new diplomatic boundaries. --Despite PRC’s diplomatic efforts building trust with Sukarno/Indonesian nationalism, the hands off approach with Chinese-Indonesians meant a lack of control over their communal battles between “Blue” (pro-Taiwan) and “Red” (pro-PRC) which were ideologically fought in civic organizations, newspapers and schools. --Anti-Chinese ethnic tensions continued; such visceral prejudice bypassed logic, where the “Chinese” remained homogenous and were now both capitalist (middle-class self-interested profiteers with no interest in Indonesia’s national development) and communist (deviously plotting with the PKI for a communist coup).
3) Sukarno and Cold War polarization: --The “Cold War” was always hot in the Global South (decolonization). As Sukarno spread his global influence with the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM: The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World), the US (keen to prevent any successful alternatives even if they aim for “capitalist” reforms, since global capitalism is built on imperialism: Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present) tried to split up Indonesia by covertly supporting regional rebellions (Permesta/PRRI, 1957-61). …This failed and US support was exposed, with nationalist Sukarno shifting further towards anti-imperialism. As Taiwan was also part of the imperialist support, Sukarno finally banned ROC/Taiwan-affiliation in Indonesia. Unfortunately, given the crude anti-Chinese prejudice, this spread to laws and public violence against all “Chinese” Indonesians (note: European elites with the greatest share of wealth somehow always avoid communal violence), with Indonesian anti-communists trying to further spread this onto the local PKI as well (i.e. all communism = Chinese plot). --At the same time, PRC also moved closer to Sukarno after the Sino-Soviet split 1961, sharing the PKI’s oversight in building too much dependency on Sukarno’s popularity to hold off Indonesia’s anti-communists (esp. in the army, whom the US shifted towards after their failed regional rebellions). …Meanwhile, facing economic turmoil with the IMF at the door, Sukarno relied on PKI’s mass organization and tried to keep unity with the army through anti-imperialist military campaigns. The contradictions culminated in the Confrontation campaign against Malaysia, seen as a British imperialist project, with PKI/China supporting Sukarno while the army’s anti-communists were hostile to Chinese-Indonesians' participation and began to sabotage Sukarno. The book highlights the lack of planning in PRC and Sukarno’s alliance.
…See comments below for rest of review (“Indonesian genocide and aftermath”, and “The Missing”)…...more
Preamble: --For a Jim Glassman class project, I chose the 1965-66 Indonesian genocide to learn about basiFoundations of the worst political genocide…
Preamble: --For a Jim Glassman class project, I chose the 1965-66 Indonesian genocide to learn about basically the worst case scenario for activism: some 1 million unarmed civilians (not even guerilla forces) murdered based on their mainstream political affiliations, with no truth/justice/reconciliation and leftism still slandered. …Crucially, the class challenged me to avoid hindsight bias, where we assume history as inevitable and fail to reconstruct the uncertainty and subjectivities of the actors at the time.
The Good:
--I started with journalist Bevin’s non-academic breakthrough The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World, so start with the linked review for background. --Next came academic sources, starting with Robinson’s book as it provides the foundational structures (centered on the genocide and branching out) synthesizing the key perspectives (debunking propaganda, while being open to various critical interpretations where evidence is still insufficient):
1) Overview of Propaganda: --While I prioritize not getting bogged down by debunking every piece of propaganda, it’s still useful to notice common tactics. --We should expect long-term power to hide in abstraction, shifting blame onto surface-level appearances (scapegoating 101). --Applied to the Indonesian genocide:
i) Myth #1: The Victims as Existential Threats: --Abstraction: we should be alert to history’s many examples of “false flag” operations, to commit a crime and blame it on the opposition to create a “pretext”/excuse (i.e. mobilize public support/passivity) to attack them. …In this case, concrete evidence of a “false flag” is still contentious (Robinson overviews the most compelling theories), but there is no doubt the main perpetrators (anti-communist side of the Indonesian army) and enablers (Western states/intelligence, esp. US) relied on “provocation” to scare just a few targets into over-reacting, trapping them in an unwinnable scenario and creating a “pretext” to then scapegoat millions of targets. …With increasing rumors of a coup plot by a group of anti-communist generals targeting the nationalist (and increasingly anti-imperialist) first-president Sukarno, a group of lower-level soldiers (“G30S”) kidnapped the generals. Such political “kidnappings” had a certain procedural tradition in Indonesia’s tumultuous decolonization, but in this case it went mysteriously awry with the generals killed. --Scapegoating: One general mysteriously not targeted was Suharto, who was conveniently ready to immediately establish a military dictatorship (with US backing) and flood the country with propaganda (Bevins notes US psyops tactics) blaming the unarmed mainstream Communist party (PKI) (largest non-ruling communist party in the world) and its unarmed mass affiliates, including the myth that the generals were castrated by naked dancing members of the PKI-affiliated Gerwani (women’s movement, one of the largest in the world; see Saskia E. Wieringa on the gender dynamics; I’m also reminded to finish Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation). …Depending on regional peculiarities, religion (PKI’s atheist communism, mixed/moderates), immediate socioeconomic conflicts (peasant land reforms, trade unions), ethnicity (Chinese) were also targets. However, the underlying target was political leftism (i.e. challenging hierarchies for social needs, often quite moderate given how mainstream leftism was as a pillar of Indonesian nationalism), making this genocide unique by mainstream definitions. …So, we can see the conservative’s hysterical use of crude identity politics, of existential threats (“traitors and whores”) against family/God/property. Bevin’s The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World provides vivid comparisons with Latin America (esp. Brazil during its military dictatorship as well as the recent Bolsonaro revival). For reactionary ideology, see: The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump
ii) Myth #2: The Perpetrators as the Public: --Abstraction: see below on the Army as perpetrator, the West as Enabler. --Scapegoating: blame is shifted on the public, the mob with pitchforks. This includes psychological (peer pressure, bystanders), cultural (“running amok” with spontaneous violence; “amuk” is a Malay word), and the aforementioned crude identity politics.
2) Historical context: Indonesia’s militarized state: --I was most fascinated with this part, in particular the balance of power of: i) The army in Indonesian society ii) The anti-communists within the army iii) How the West eventually took advantage, which was not inevitable. After all, the Indonesian army fought for independence against Dutch colonialism, and many remained loyal to the nationalist hero first-president Sukarno (who tried to unite nationalism/religion/communism, in the acronym “Nasakom”). --Robinson highlights the significant influence of Japan’s occupation (1942-45) kicking out the Dutch colonialists. Japanese imperialism passed on their infamous violence (torture/arbitrary imprisonment/collective punishment) to the new Indonesian army, as well as mobilizing mass militias (including future dictator Suharto). --After Japan withdrew from its WWII defeat, the Dutch tried to re-colonize Indonesia. As colonialism relies on divide-and-rule, the infant nationalism was fraught with conflicts, leading to regional rebellions by communists (Madiun Affair) and Islamists (Darul Islam). Both were crushed by the nationalist army, whose anti-communism was rewarded by the US withdrawing support to the Dutch leading to Indonesian independence. --By the mid-1950s, nationalist president Sukarno expanded his influence to lead the “Third World Project” in the 1955 Bandung Conference (1st Afro-Asian conference: The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World), thus becoming a priority in the CIA’s hit list (Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations). --US first tried to covertly break up Indonesia by supporting regional opposition (1955 elections, 1957-58 Permesta/PRRI rebellions) but failed, strengthening the nationalist Sukarno (including his distrust of US imperialism). However, in the state of emergency Sukarno declared martial law and ended parliamentary democracy, strengthening the army: i) “Territorial command/management”: the army entrenched itself in civil society by creating its own political counterparts, i.e. state within the state. ii) The army got its hands on many nationalized industries, thus even more status quo conservatism to maintain its privileges. --US shrewdly shifted support to the army to foster its anti-communist side under the banner of Modernization theory (excusing the use of military dictatorships in economic development) by offering military training (no doubt practicing provocation) and corporate economics (“Berkeley Mafia”, see Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.-Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968, resembling the “Chicago Boys” economists behind the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism). --Sukarno relied on combining the following to secure national unity (esp. between PKI and army): i) bellicose anti-imperialist rhetoric (with mounting PKI support, with US war on Vietnam heating up) ii) military action (strengthening the army) ...this unravelled by the Confrontation campaign against newly-formed Malaysia (portrayed as a British neocolonial project); it seems the anti-communists in the army (no doubt emboldened by the US) became too concerned with Sukarno’s growing alliance with the PKI at home and China abroad. This was also a time of domestic economic tumult (enter IMF: The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions).
3) Massacres: the Army as Perpetrator, the West as Enabler: --We have covered the provocation and immediate Suharto military coup/anti-PKI propaganda campaign. Next, the massacres… --Myth #3: variations in time/space of the massacres reveal they were not centrally planned by the army (assumed as uniform) but instead led by diverse local public reactions (assumed spontaneous). --Robinson’s key breakthrough is flipping this myth on its head with a national overview to reveal the variations in time/space of massacres actually reflect the pro-Suharto army’s capacity in the region more so than local public conflicts (religion, ethnicity, immediate socioeconomic, etc.): i) As the army was still divided given Sukarno’s mass popularity, Sukarno could not be immediately overthrown (risking civil war). Sukarno was gradually silenced by restricting info to him and from him (his public radio speeches were a crucial feature of Indonesian nationalism). Sukarno still tried to preserve unity by not directly condemning Suharto while pushing for a peaceful political solution. Thus, pro-Sukarno regional troops/mayors stopped at mass detentions. ii) Areas already dominated by pro-Suharto troops (central army, as Suharto consolidated national power) had immediate and mass killings. iii) For delays in mass killings, this meant initial peaceful resolutions by pro-Sukarno troops/mayors until they were overwhelmed by incoming pro-Suharto troops. In some places, this shift in the balance of power was never fully achieved, sparing the detained. Thus, long-term detention (Jakarta/West Java/Sulawesi/Buru island) had an inverse relation to mass killings (Acet/Bali/East Java). --While Robinson’s national overview approach presents a foundational framework, Roosa’s detailed case studies in Buried Histories: The Anticommunist Massacres of 1965–1966 in Indonesia really bring this to life (I’ll review next).
…See comments below for the rest of the review (“Aftermath” and “The Missing”)…...more
History without hindsight bias, even for the worst political genocide…
Preamble: --Continuing on a Jim Glassman class project on the 1965-66 IndonesiaHistory without hindsight bias, even for the worst political genocide…
Preamble: --Continuing on a Jim Glassman class project on the 1965-66 Indonesian genocide, basically the worst case scenario for activism: some 1 million unarmed civilians (not even guerilla forces) murdered based on their mainstream political affiliations, with no truth/justice/reconciliation and leftism still slandered. 1) I started with the mainstream breakthrough contextualizing the global significance: The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World. 2) Next, the academic overview: The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66 3) This academic book (Roosa’s third in a trilogy) refutes the short-cut generality of viewing the genocide as “one big event”, by featuring 4 case studies of specific regions; this method epitomized my class’s challenge for analyzing history: avoid hindsight bias where we assume history as inevitable (I am susceptible given my preference for big-picture geopolitical economy and its tidal waves). This can be refined with careful empirical case studies/comparisons to capture the uncertainty and subjectivities of the actors at the time.
--Hindsight tells us a genocide happened, so in our reconstruction we are biased to see every event as inevitably leading to the conclusion. Big picture geopolitics focus our attention on the global powers: US imperialism replaced European colonialism, profiting from WWII’s war markets while the other great powers became addicted to US: i) Weapons/supplies: still looking for comprehensive analysis; Harry S. Truman and the War Scare of 1948: A Successful Campaign to Deceive the Nation is another approach showing how desperate US capitalism was when WWII war markets ended and the need to manufacture the Cold War… ii) Debt: Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance …Surely if US imperialism targets you, it’s over?
The Good: 1) Subjectivity of the victims: normalizing successes: --Then again, the real world presents us cases like Cuba, Vietnam, etc. While the war on nearby Vietnam dragged on for 20 years, how did the much-bigger Indonesia succumb to US-backed military dictatorship in weeks (the genocide spanned 6 months)? --This genocide’s victims were not just individuals. The Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was a mainstream party, the largest non-ruling communist party in the world (3.5 million) and a pillar of Indonesian nationalism/decolonization (popular nationalist first-president Sukarno’s unity of nationalism/religion/communism: “Nasakom”). …At its height (prior to the genocide), the PKI was Indonesia’s best organized party for mass mobilization (known as the least corrupt; most active with social needs of the masses); the PKI had mass affiliates (women’s, farmers, unions, students, etc.), adding another 20+ million, totalling almost a quarter of Indonesian’s 100 million. --In reviewing The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66, we see how Indonesia’s militarized state was built during decolonization, with the contradictions of colonialism’s divide-and-rule spilling over in regional rebellions. --When the nationalist army successfully crushed regional leftists in the Madiun Affair 1948 (where anti-communism was rewarded with the US pulling support of the Dutch leading to Indonesian independence), the PKI switched to a non-violent strategy (“New Road”) focusing on consent/hegemony (Roosa uses Gramsci’s “war of position”). --Crucially, the PKI saw soldiers as part of the struggle (peasants/workers/soldiers) rather than as enemies, and aimed to recruit in the army. Thus, the “New Road” strategy meant being openly communist to avoid confusion, and to support Sukarno’s nationalist military actions. --When Sukarno’s state of emergency martial law during regional rebellions ended parliamentary democracy and entrenched the military in politics/civil society (“Territorial Command”), the PKI were content with burrowing in the expanding fortress and having easier access to soldiers (now in civil society). --The paradox: PKI’s growing success with the masses and with Sukarno (whom the army also backed) made the PKI/supporters normalize their success, failing to see the risk of the army’s growing “Territorial Command” and anti-communism during Cold War polarization. This is related to being too dependent on Sukarno and failing to see his lack of control/caution over the anti-communists in the army (see next section). --Evidence for this is stark: in the months prior to the genocide, there were increasing rumors of anti-communist/anti-Sukarno generals planning a coup. Roosa notes PKI leaders who believed even if such an attempt was made, it would be immediately stopped by pro-Sukarno/pro-PKI side of army/navy/police (similarly, Bevins notes Chile leftists believing coups were from decades in the past and could not happen in Chile’s democracy). When the provocation trap was sprung and PKI was blamed, PKI supporters sought shelter in policy/army assuming they were not guilty of anything.
2) Subjectivities of the perpetrators/bystanders/resisters: the Army’s contradictions: --While the anti-communists in the army also attempted “war of position” (with assistance from the US; perhaps their greatest success was keeping their anti-communist intentions under the radar of Sukarno), they were clearly built to win a “war of maneuver” (lightning strike strategic victory, such as coup) --Thus, the US trained the army’s anti-communists on provocation to trap the PKI in an unwinnable confrontation and use it as a “pretext” (with US psyops tactics) to systematically wipe out the PKI mass base in order to install a military dictatorship (without such a lightning strike, civil war/long 20 year campaign like Vietnam was indeed likely). --Even so, comparing Roosa’s case studies reveal the resisters (not just the perpetrators/bystanders/victims) in positions of power (esp. pro-Sukarno city mayors and regional army commanders), by building on the framework of the genocide that emerged from the detailed 2018 case study of one regional massacre (Acet, where the blame was on religious public killing) by Jess Melvin (The Army and the Indonesian Genocide: Mechanics of Mass Murder): i) Phase 1: immediately after the PKI was blamed, there were some public (thus visible and in social memory) killings and mass detention; note: public killings are difficult as the public are not trained for mass sustained killing, and the victims can receive forewarning to escape. Crucially, PKI supporters even sought shelter in police/army custody. Sukarno (who could not be immediately overthrown, risking a civil war) urged a peaceful political solution, and pro-Sukarno city mayors/troops followed his orders, stopping at mass detention with their local situation under control. ii) Phase 2: pro-Suharto troops that managed to take over (be it from central direction or invitation from regional anti-communist opportunists) were able to execute the mass killings of the already-detained (trapped; not a threat) in discrete (outside of social memory) assembly-line truckloads (the cover of Roosa’s book). Weapons and psyop encouragement (license to kill) was also provided to militias. …Manipulating social memory for propaganda is featured by Roosa. Related is the re-framing of “torture does not work” (in seeking the truth), where torture does work in re-enforcing the torturer’s fantasies (a feedback loop). …Roosa suggests the PKI leadership over-estimated support from the army, which was confused during the lighting strike of Suharto’s takeover (control of media, psyop immediately ready while PKI/Sukarno paralyzed in confusion). Thus, even would-be supporters in the army resorted to its hierarchical chain-of-command. Roosa’s case studies bring this tragedy to life, where would-be army resistors (capable of starting a civil war in defense of victims) let in Suharto’s troops thinking they were just obeying Sukarno’s peaceful resolution (as all opposition was silenced), then being shipped away while the killings occurred.
3) Writing style as argument: --Roosa is very careful with using an affective writing-style for this book to capture the human subjectivity/emotions of the actors, rather than a cold, “objective” big-picture approach useful for setting up foundations (common in academic writing). Roosa also wants to avoid sensationalism or viewing such events as exotic. Here are some videos where Roosa describes this: -https://youtu.be/PK5k9Dt5bDU -https://youtu.be/2D_S_G98nio
US anti-communism vs. Global South decolonization:
Preamble: --My personal readings and my classes finally converged with this book, helping me dive mUS anti-communism vs. Global South decolonization:
Preamble: --My personal readings and my classes finally converged with this book, helping me dive much deeper than just reading it by myself. --For a Jim Glassman class, I started my project on the 1965-66 Indonesian genocide with the question: how were some 1 million people (who were associated with a mainstream leftist party) murdered, with survivors still silenced and slandered? …While I’ve prioritized big picture analysis of systems, if there was ever a case study to dive into, it would be this one: perhaps the worst atrocity of unarmed civilians (not even guerilla forces) based on their mainstream political affiliations. How many are familiar with the details? --How mainstream were the victims? i) The Indonesian communist party: the largest non-ruling communist party in the world took the unarmed parliamentary democracy route with popular affiliation in women's/farmers/unions/student activism; known (at the time) as the least-corrupt party and respected for its role in decolonization/Indonesian independence. ii) Nationalist supporters of the wildly-popular first president of Indonesia, Sukarno: although not in the communist party, Sukarno became a target of the West as he shifted towards anti-imperialism.
1) Mainstream journalist connects censored global histories: --Of all the listed books, this one is the only non-academic one. It was also the only one on my must-read prior to my class project; indeed, this book has thousands of ratings/reviews, whereas only one of the other books have cracked a hundred ratings. --Bevins is a journalist for the big, bad mainstream media. Thankfully, he developed a critical view as his default Western-liberal views eroded from his journalism in Latin America and Southeast Asia. --From being Los Angeles Times’ foreign correspondent in Brazil to The Washington Post’s foreign correspondent in Indonesia, Bevins was perfectly placed to popularize the connection made by 2 academics: i) Indonesia 1965-66: first use of mass disappearances (see later) in Southeast Asia (according to John Roosa, author of Buried Histories listed earlier) ii) Guatemala 1966: first use of mass disappearances in Latin America, with connections to Indonesia via US diplomats/intelligence (according to Greg Grandin, author of The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War).
2) How to popularize for Western audiences?: --How can Bevins’ prevent Western readers from naturalizing/abstracting the atrocities into some distant, exotic piece of history disconnected from the West (like The Year of Living Dangerously film starring Mel Gibson)? --Bevins targets the reader’s world-view: i) Western default: the Cold War was supposedly the Western First World democracy vs. Soviet Second World communism. ii) Critical global view (i.e. not omitting the Global South): the Cold War as Global South decolonization (“Third World project”) vs. US imperialism/capitalist globalization (replacing European colonialism with US hegemony, thus preventing alternatives while cloaked as Red Scare anti-“communism”). --I can attest to the impact of this paradigm shift in world-view, as it helped me connect several contradictions unresolved from my Western schooling/media: i) The rest of the world is portrayed as poor and violent (I was politicized during the “War on Terror”) ii) …while the West is portrayed as developed and civilized …yet somehow is home to all the major global banks (dictates the flow of capital/debt) and arms dealers (merchants of death)? …The missing piece is imperialism, the continuation of colonialization (“neo-colonialism”). Bevins cites the book that got me into the “Third World project” (The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World), while relying on The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times. --Instead of relying on these academic tomes, I want to recommend a short-cut especially for communicating to those "All-American" audiences: Major General Smedley D. Butler, the most decorated US marine who fought for the US in interventions all over the world, only to become an anti-US imperialism activist (War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier):
I spent 33 years and 4 months in active service as a member of our country's most agile military force – the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from a second lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. […] Thus I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. […] I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. […] During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, promotion. Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents.
3) US toolbox of terror: --US “anti-communism” in practice means preserving hegemony by preventing any sovereign alternative in Global South decolonization. --Land reform is a foundational step in decolonization, where colonial feudal parasitism is abolished to rebuild food sovereignty and feed industrialization. This is often far from radical collectivization, as capitalist markets are introduced. The US is perfectly aware of how crucial land reform is, supporting it in puppet regimes Japan/South Korea/Taiwan. --Given the difficulties of outright wars (esp. genocidal wars on Korea and Vietnam, which drained the US gold supply: Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance), Bevins overviews the evolution of US intelligence developing a toolbox of terror (Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations). --Global South liberals who got a tad nationalist and unarmed leftists were eradicated country by country: i) Countries that managed to resist: anti-communist hysteria produced communist guerillas, a curious feedback loop (ex. Guatemala’s land reforms to build capitalist markets threatened US’s United Fruit company… Guatemala’s democracy fell to US’s coup since it rejected the repeated calls for civilian armed resistance made by... Che Guevara). This feedback loop is similar to the “torture confessions” feedback loop discussed in Buried Histories: torture confessions “work” in that it validates the fantasies of the torturer. ii) Countries that succumb: anti-communist military dictatorship blanketed much of the Global South. Since even certain “capitalist” market land reforms were prevented, this shows how perverted global capitalism’s imperialism is on the Global South. The hole left by the eradicated moderate-liberal-to-leftist (including the affiliated women's/farmers/unions/student activism) was often filled with reactionary populism.
4) Indonesian anti-communist genocide: --I’ll review the details of the Indonesian genocide in reviews of the academic books. In summary: i) Propaganda by the Indonesian army/government/Western enablers: the genocide was a spontaneous public reaction to a failed "communist" coup (G30S) because the public hates communists. Ii) Actual history: the US and anti-communists in the Indonesian army encouraged a provocation (coup bound to fail; in this case, the coup was mostly internal to the army rather than under the control of the communist party) so the army could blame and wipe out the unarmed mainstream communist party/mass supporters/supporters of the nationalist anti-imperialist Sukarno and install a US-backed military dictatorship. --On genocidal mass killings, it’s crucial to note: i) Common propaganda conveniently shifts blame on the public (the mob with pitchforks). ii) However, the public is untrained for such extensive and sustained one-sided killing; it’s much easier for the victims to escape and resist. iii) On the other hand, the function of the military is systematic killing. This includes the institutional capacity: an assembly-line of mass detainment (much easier to kill the defenseless) by the truckloads.
…See the comments below for the rest of the review (The Bad/Missing)…...more
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