“The Look of Silence”: Will New
Film Force U.S. to Acknowledge Role
in 1965 Indonesian Genocide?

Tonight we went, with friends, to the Milwaukee Film Festival to watch The Look of Silence. It is a documentary about a middle-aged Indonesian man, whose brother was brutally murdered in the 1965 purge of “communists,” as he confronts the men who carried out the killings. The men and family involved in the genocide do not want to talk about that time. They keep saying we should not open this wound. Keeping silence, the government behind the coup in 1995 and still in power, encourages. Out of concern for his safety, the man is not fully identified in the film and is credited only as “anonymous,” as are many of the film’s crew positions.

What was scary about this movie was on some scale this is what our society, who backed the coup in Indonesia, encourages, keeping the silence. When people are reminded of the extreme poverty and segregation in our city people do not want to talk about it. When one points out that the US is the biggest arms dealer in the world, selling arms to all sides, people do not want to hear this.

Breaking the Silence is not something people like and can make one a ‘reject.’
Interesting enough is the fact that the movie has had many shows in Indonesia. After fifty years the silence about this genocide is finally being broken. There is now even a Facebook petition for the US acknowledge its role in the 1965 Indonesian genocide.

This genocide, recognizing it and admitting responsibility is a good example of how history can teach us not to repeat the same mistakes. Sadly, the opposite seems to be true in the USA, ignoring history and repeating mistakes.

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