Before we start…

But the greatest unresolved question of the killings is not “Whodunit?” but “Can it happen again?” Should the Indonesian people be liberated from the spectre of the past, or should they be considered blessed precisely because it stands there as a constant, horrible warning? …Now, too, we have to be alert to the various politics agendas that may be served by the different interpretations of the killings.

-(Robert Cribb, historian, 2002)¹.

Academics – historians – sit behind our desks and pour over our books and try to construct this crafty historical argument and write it lucidly. I need to be aware of the contemporary political landscape at play – and the political parties I may indirectly serve – if I end up arguing a particular point of view.

---

We need to bear in mind that by focusing our attention on the past, crying over the suffering and the loss of the past, including the loss of many lives, we would at the same time forget and sacrifice our future generations. Would we continue to demand vengeance for all wrongdoings in the past, even if justifying it with the slogan of upholding the rule of law and promoting justice but at the cost of our future generations?

-(Soedjati Djiwandono, Senior Analyst, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta), (2000).²

Sources suggest that Indonesians today – young, old, victims, perpetrators – have extremely varied attitudes towards revising the past. For some, it’s a taboo and unnecessarily raised topic. For others, digging up the past is a chance to rehabilitate memories that they do not want to fade. What moral imperative does a historian have in this case?

---

1. Cribb, Robert. ‘Unresolved Problems in the Indonesian Killings of 1965-66’. Asian Survey. 42:4 (Jul/Aug 2002). 561.

2. Djiwandono, Soedjati, ‘Turn Over a New Lead for Future Life of Nation’, Jakarta Post, (Dec 21, 2000), accessed via Factiva.

The Use and Abuse of Oral History: Personal Dimensions in the Singapore History Gallery

A paper written for a module on history and collective memory: on the Singapore History Gallery at the National Museum of Singapore.

The Singapore History Gallery in the National Museum of Singapore presents two entangled, yet seemingly incompatible facets. Visitors to the History Gallery are bombarded with a cacophony of artifacts, installations, audio supplements and oral histories to the extent where the gallery seems to present multiple historical perspectives. On the one hand, this multiplicity is unsurprising given that oral histories are necessarily reliant on very personal and subjective memories. On the other hand, the museum as a national institution would be expected to pull historical sources into a univocal national- historical narrative. This essay argues that the selection, dramatization and presentation of the gallery’s exhibits allow for the illusion of multiplicity that appeals to populism. By carefully controlling what, and how, personal and oral histories are exhibited, the gallery’s curators are able to provoke an emotional response that bridges the present condition of its audiences with the constructed contents of Singapore’s past.

While the museum emphasizes the role of personal narratives throughout the Singapore History Gallery, the availability of sources available to a historian or curator will necessarily be a limiting factor. As such, I argue that the gallery can, broadly, be divided into (1) chronologies without access recorded oral interviews or primary footage and (2) chronologies that make heavy use of such oral testimonies. Mark Ravinder Frost has articulated his conception of the Singapore History Gallery as a cacophony of personal voices. For Frost, drama and emotional stirrings take privilege over a narrative of historical ‘events’. The execution of this drama, however, is dependent on the sources available to us. In the periods of history that predate the use of audio-video recording, the personal dimension is achieved primarily through the audio-visual guide, also known as the ‘Companion’. The ‘Companion’ is given to every visitor upon entrance to the gallery, and holds within it a large repository of explanatory blurbs, expositions by professional historians and fictional dramatizations of historical sources. Fictional dramatizations are especially effective in the pre-World War II exhibits, providing an emotional or personal foothold for audience engagement in lieu of recorded footage and interviews.

Raffles Hotel, Beach Road front.

Tired, but so content :)

This week is the time when the stress balls start gradually, but surely, rolling towards you. The last 48 hours have been more hectic than normal (although to be fair, my normal is veeeery relaxed), and it’s been a blur of assessments with lots of writing. And this constant demand for productivity isn’t going to relent anytime soon.

But honestly, it’s also been so amazing. A documentary midterm test on Washington’s perception of LKY in 1967? Staying up well past midnight to craft a presentation on Heidegger’s rejection of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology with fellow philosophy-lovers online? (While listening to an upbeat, albeit totally cliche, ‘classic love songs’ playlist, might I add)? Getting rewarded (gradewise) for discussing British and French attitudes to diet in Madras and Pondicherry? 

It’s true what they say. It’s not work if you love what you do. 

Hey, Indonesia

Two things greeted me when I woke up a few days ago in this technologically immersed world:

1. An email from dad with Abbott’s speech to SBY in Jakarta. [relevant press conference here].

2. A link on the ‘Indonesia Research Network’ Facebook group to the new Australia-Indonesia initiative to be based in Monash. [relevant news piece here]. 

It was all very exciting to hear, given my lately-confirmed ISM on the G30S killings. [relevant blog post here].

In the light of all these happenings, I’m considering tacking on an ‘Indonesia: History, Economy and Society’ module conveniently offered next semester. It’s taught by a prominent professor in the field, and covers very useful ground. And of course, it’ll complement the ISM nicely too.

It does mean I’ll have to drop either gender studies or evolution, though. And it’ll be an extremely heavy semester. But it’ll be an exciting prod in the right direction so I can get my act together before honours year, I think. 

Perspectives of Slavery in the First Great Awakening

I realised that I don’t actually have a single actual history essay on this blog, so here’s one I’m procrastinating with by re-editing/re-thinking.

It was written for a 2nd year Atlantic history course, and there are holes in it (as there are in anything written for a uni course, especially where word counts are involved). After feedback, I’m thinking about adding a discussion regarding perspectives of spiritual equality/spiritual welfare in terms of slaves and slave-owners. Might also extend that final point about informal relationships and networks, since there are a lot of correspondences involved, especially if we widen the scope to include native Amerindians as well.

Exciting ISMs ahead!

Oh, when all the research projects come together nicely for you.

I realised how much fun it is to study US/Asia diplomatic history (mainly because it incites a lot of anti-imperialist angst and helps me understand the references in The West Wing more).

So it went down like, “hey, this is fun.” “hey, I have Bahasa skills.” “hey, wasn’t the CIA involved covertly in the G30S movement?” “oh let’s do this”.

And then I brought it up with Prof Quek over dinner one night and she said SHE HAS A STACK OF DOCUMENTS on US/Indonesia relations that she saved onto a CD from that time she was in Houston. So I ‘choped’ (Singlish, I hope I’m using the word correctly) her for an ISM next semester, YAY!

And and and like a few weeks before that Jon mentioned that he was keen on doing an ISM on stereotypes and that Levinas was quite a good fit to read for stereotypes, and I love Levinas, so he suggested a joint-ISM and we’ll see how this works out, but EXCITING!

Perfect timing too, since the philo department’s offerings for conty subjects next semester were a little disappointing.

So that’s two exciting ISMs lined up, plus Peleggi’s memory & heritage course, plus Dr Lo’s gender course. As much as I’m enjoying this semester, I have a feeling ’tis gonna be a brilliant next semester.

History Boys

“What’s always concerned me is, where do they eat their sandwiches? Drink their cokes?”
“The visitor’s centre, it’s like anywhere else.”
—
“That’s right, isn’t it? Wittgenstein-”
“Yes, that’s good-”
“Asdfjkl, no, it’s not good! It’s flip, it’s glib, it’s journalism.”
—
“Wittgenstein did not screw it out of his very guts in order for you to turn it into a dinky formula!”
—
“Can’t you see that even to say et cetera is monstrous? Et cetera is what the Nazis would’ve said. The dead reduced to mere verbal abbreviation.”
—
“But when we talk about putting ’em in context, it’s only the same as in the dissolution of the monasteries. After all, monasteries have been dissolved before Henry VIII, dozens of them!”
“Yes, but the difference is I didn’t lose any relatives in the dissolution of the monasteries!”
—
“Not good point, Sir. TRUE!”
—
“No, no! But this is history. Distance yourselves! Our perspective of the past alters, and looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground. We don’t see it. And because we don’t see it, this means there is no period so remote as the recent past. And one of the historian’s jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be. Even on the holocaust.”

#HISTORYmajor

19 things only a history major will understand.

Yes! Especially #1, #2, #3, #6, #9, #16, and #19.

1. ALWAYS footnotes. Endnotes require endless back-and-forth page flipping, and most of the time I just print out extra copies and make .pdf duplicates anyway. Plus, footnotes take up large chunks of space and makes me feel like I’m reading through those pages quicker than normal!

2. Oh, yes. First used one of these beauties in Year 11. They always (deceivingly) make me feel a little older and a little wiser.

3. Not just bliss, but relief and sheer gratefulness. Props to all those public servants and librarians and archivists who sift through dusty documents, scan them through one-by-one, and then go through the whole process of cataloguing and ascribing keywords and making them accessible.

6. Or supersearch/google scholar/Wiley/Taylor&Francis/PAO etc etc etc.

9. You have no idea. People passingly say comments like “oh yeah, you must really like reading, right?” when I mention I’m a history major. No. Not after 200 pages a night I don’t. Try reading a 60 page journal article detailing the transportation of pepper from ports in Southeast Asia to the Middle East then to Venice and the European hinterland and how fun reading can be then.

16. In Australia, Trove is the best service any undergraduate (or even graduate) history student could ask for. When you’re chasing a deadline, and the only available copy of the book you want is in the NLA or UC’s library and you don’t have a car, inter-library loans make your day.

19. History is more than alien conspiracies and Hitler.

A criticism of my reactions to ‘The History Boys’

I just watched The History Boys and I loved it. But what did I love? And why did I love it?

Hector said that he didn’t want to create boys who would claim to love ‘words’ – claim, but not love. What is it I’m loving about words? The pure aesthetic enjoyment of rhetoric and polemics and panegyrics? Witty puns and intertextual references that spark a lightbulb, allowing me to recognize something ‘cultured’? The thought that I may take more joy in recognizing the esoteric references made in the movie than the poignancy of the movie itself disgusts me. When the movie faded out in that sepia-another-era way, I felt weighty and heavy and depressed about the state of high school education today. Almost like The History Boys depicted a time that should have been treasured and preserved [a parcel passed on], but became lost. But at the same time I lusted over the luxury of the rich wood and oil paintings and tweed blazers during the interview at Oxbridge scenes. What do I want?  An ivory tower?

I could relate to Irwin. He’s so animated and challenging in an academic circle. He could turn anything into a topic, dissect history and apply theories about distance and detachment and dead grounds. Yet he’s so incapable at life, he didn’t even know how to stay on a motorcycle.

One thing I noticed about myself while watching this movie was the way I laughed at the references to historical theory. I scoffed off the idea of “distancing ourselves”, chuckled at “history is just one fucking thing after another” and pondered at “all literature is consolation” (note to self: as opposed to “history is written by the victors”?). The unifying thing between all these reactions was as if I was ‘jaded’ by academia, or at least experienced and wise enough to reflect upon it. But I’m not! I’m a second year undergraduate student for goodness sake! I’m not jaded, I’m in love! I’m not reflecting back upon past experiences of an ivory tower, but standing on the edge of a precipice of new theories and perspectives and ideas. All this made me think that so much of my behavior is performative-for-myself, like I’m projecting a version of me that’s been through academia, when I have absolutely zero claim to fame. Is my worldliness so extreme that I need to deceive myself, and tell myself I’m jaded when I’m actually full of anticipation?