Violence: A Living Reality in Indonesia

For some time now we have been living in an atmosphere of violence. Even before the July 27 violence broke out, there had been ample evidence that physical violence was part of our daily life in Jakarta. Every day we have been reading news about criminal robbery committed with rape and murder. In addition to this “hard violence” there has also been evidence of “soft violence.” We have been talking in a violence language to each other. The language of law and civility has been replaced by the language of force and coercion. Threats of physical retaliations have been issued to warn those inclined to assault others verbally. The boundary between verbal violence and physical violence has become blurred.

One such violent act is accusing others of being communists. This is very violent behavior because in this country such accusations can have lethal consequences. Someone has lost his wife and home after was falsely accused of being a communist. In addition, he was prohibited to practice as a doctor for a number of years. Such is the damage that can be caused by verbal violence: accusing someone of being a communist. The physical violence on July 27 and the subsequent verbal violence that ensued were triggered by a political dispute. The sad thing about this is that is not the first time that physical violence has been used in this country to solve a political problem. In the past—and not so distant a past at that—similar crises resulted in the death and injury of a great number of people, the exact number of which will perhaps never be revealed.