File 1968 #1 - discovery of inheritance
time to heal the broken generations of Indonesia
The experience of reading about Indonesia changes over time. When I read now, I feel sorry I never understood the magnitude of the unsaid, the silenced, the mysteries and the secrets. They often speak about the mystery of the east. Something the west is willing to uphold until this day. Born in Indonesia myself, I experienced the mystery as well as my true and natural family remains unknown. When I was five months old I was adopted by Dutch parents and came to the Netherlands in December 1982, two days before Christmas. As long as I can remember I want to know who my real parents are. A question I’ve always felt safe asking to my Dutch parents who were very supportive when it came to acknowledging my biological and unknown Indonesian background.
Asking became searching, and searching became a confusing quest of continuous dissapointments. Sadly my Dutch mother passed away in March 2023 after years of coping with stage 4 breast cancer and having dementia the last two years. Her wish to reunite me with my Indonesian family was one of the things she held on so strongly, despite her own health conditions. Since 2024 I’ve been driven by a new kind of research. A kind of research I want to explore and write about.
While I may never know my birth parents, I want to know why I can’t, meaning researching the spirit of age they were dealing with when they were together and my mother was pregnant with me. Knowing the zeitgeist of those years, may help me in understanding where I came from. I may not know entirely, but it may help to create an image of the time, age and circumstances of their lives.
Being born in July 1982, my mother probably became pregnant in October 1981. According to my adoption files, she was around 19 years old. While the records of my adoption are questionable and probably incorrect and illegal, the possibility of my mother being a teenager may be quite high. So she may be born in the early 60’s at least, which means the 60’s and 70’s were the decennia that led her to becoming pregnant with me. When it comes to my biological dad everything is possible as there are no records of him. He can be a young teenager, a young adult or even a grown up perhaps a middle aged man.
While searching for information and literature about the 70s, I noticed a lot of documents about the 60s. Especially the 60’s were very tumultuous in Indonesia as a change of power occurred in 1968. It was a time when the world was at war in a fight between two world powers, democracy versus communism, or actually the United States (the West) against the Soviet Union (the East). Indonesia was a very interesting country for both parties of the Cold War and the one in power could be a means to an end for one of them.
Until 1968 Sukarno was president of the Republic of Indonesia, being praised for his accomplishment to form this republic after Indonesia became independent from the Netherlands. This accomplished independence of Indonesia is the main character throughout the developments that occurred throughout the following years. It’s the silent threat for many people carrying Indonesian heritage. Whether you are adopted or not, being from Indonesia means you are part of that history the country and its people are healing from. When it comes to healing, we need to know the origin, the baseline.
While reading through literature and other research documents there were several objectives that frequently passed by. For the 60’s for example, many documents were focused on the mass killings in 1965 and 1966 following the failed coup d’etat called the 30 September Movement when six generals of the Sukarno government were killed. There are also documents claiming attempts to blackmail and assassinate president Sukarno, combined with espionage activities. Those were all attempts to influence Indonesia’s politics in taking sides and choosing its allies during the era of the Cold War. An era my and other biological parents grew up who will lose their children through international child adoption activities in the 70’s and 80’s.
While reading about the circumstances in the decades before my birth, I began to wonder whether the activities of international adoption may have been a planned consequence that was conducted in Indonesia in collaboration with other countries. It was interesting to read about the major events like the failed coup d’etat, the mass killings and the change of government in the 60’s and the student uprisings combined with the questionable but persistent leadership of Suharto in the 70s happened while the number of international adoptions increased and peaked in 1978-1979. Another interesting but silenced occurrence is the ban of many other political and student organisations starting from the 60’s with the PKI (the Indonesian Communist Party) through the ban of student gatherings and organizations in the 70’s and 80’s.
It is clear that after the ending of Sukarno’s presidency, the presidency of Suharto maintained until 1998 despite its questionable regime that was known for its corruption and oppression. A leadership that was controversial but maintained for many years, mainly by succeeding to silence those who didn’t conform to the ideas of the government. If you didn’t speak up, you were safe. Those who refused and fought against this oppressing regime, were silenced, prisoned, banned or killed when they didn’t obey. A controversial method that is noticeable to this day through generations living with the fear of speaking up. It’s up to those who live with the heritance of perseverance, protest and bravery to heal what is damaged through the unseen and broken generations of Indonesia.