The state has held no formal commemoration for the 1998 Reform event, whereas those events have also become an important part of Indonesia’s journey.
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Red-and-white banners and flags are raised at important moments in the nation\'s history. However, the state has held no formal commemoration for the 1998 Reform event, whereas those events have also become an important part of Indonesia’s journey. The face of Indonesia today has also been influenced by the events of 1998.
Amidst the absence of the state’s attention, the public memory of the 1998 Reform are maintained by a number of circles, such as universities, by holding ceremonies or building monuments and memorials.
Trisakti University’s head of the Public Relations Technical Implemention Unit, Rully Besari Budiyanti, said that every May 12, the student council always held a memorial through an overnight meditation and a ceremony on the actual day.
This commemorative event was more or less intended to build individual memories. Adit Rashid, 22, a sixth-semester accounting student at Trisakti University’s economics and business school, was 2 years old when reform commenced in 1998. However, he understands that his campus was called “the Reform Campus”.
Aryo Solomon, a fourth-semester student in the Diploma IV program at Trisakti University’s economics and business school, added that the tragedy was explained to every student during the student orientation program (PPSMB). Every new student was also invited to visit the on-campus May 12 Trisakti Tragedy Museum. In October 2014, the city administration erected the May 12 Monument in front of the university’s campus.
In addition to the May 12 Tragedy Museum at Trisakti University, the city administration also named two Transjakarta bus shelters in Grogol as the May 12 Reform shelters. However, a commotion occurred at Trisakti in February, when the words "May 12 Reform" suddenly disappeared. After the university protested, the name was restored.
At Airlangga University in Surabaya, the Indonesian Association of Families of the Disappeared (IKOHI) has tried since 2005 to establish a monument of an empty frame held by statues of women and men. The monument is to commemorate two Social and Political Sciences students that went missing during the struggle for reform, Herman Hendrawan and Bimo Petrus. "There has been resistance from the university bureaucracy," said Dandik Katjasungkana of IKOHI, who is in Herman’s class.
Fading
The public’s collective memory has been fading, as has individual memories. Adit Rasyid, for example, has memorized the names of the students who died in the May 12, 1998 events on the Trisakti campus. However, he did not know what they were fighting for. Aryo Solomon also recalled the events vaguely.
"There is no government effort to give this reform in 1998 an important [historical] place. The people in power today could be said to be of the New Order," said Haris Azhar, a former coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras).
Not far from Trisakti is the Plaza Slipi Jaya. In 1998, unidentified looters ransacked and burned the shopping mall. The incident occurred at the same time as the Trisakti demonstration so the students could not leave campus.
Today, Plaza Slipi Jaya is a local hangout. One visitor, Amalia Nurul, 34, said that she frequently came to Plaza Slipi Jaya, coming to meet friends at the mall two to three times in a single week. However, she did not know that in 1998, the mall was gutted by fire. "I am surprised that I just found out that the place was once engulfed by fire and looted," said Amalia.
Mardian Susanto, 39, another visitor from Tomang, West Jakarta, said the same thing. When the events of May 1998 took place, he was studying in Bandung so he did not fully follow the events in Jakarta. "I know Jakarta was rife with looting, but I did not know the details about which stores," said the man, who is called Dian.
The people’s collective memory was also fading over the 1998 event at Citra Klender Mall, which was formerly called Plaza Sentral Klender or Yogya Plaza Klender. This shopping mall was also looted and burned. A forensics team from the University of Indonesia medical school-Ciptomangunkusumo Hospital (FKUI-RSCM) confirmed that 90 people had died in the incident at the mall (Kompas, May 18, 1998).
Yanto, 47, a visitor, claimed he knew that Mal Citra Klender had been razed. However, he did not know that when the fire happened, massive looting was also taking place and caused dozens of casualties.
Sahroni, 40, a security guard at Mal Citra Klender, said no signs of the fire remained. The mall was renovated about two years after the fire. "I know there was a riot there back then, but don’t know why it turned violent, especially to the point that dozens of victims burned inside," said Yanto.
Memories of reform are important because a nation is formed by its experience on events. Meaning of history will be given in line with the memory, both inherited and interpreted based on today\'s experience.
For 20 years, no serious effort has been made to remember that the people made a serious attempt in 1998 to clean Indonesia of corruption, collusion and nepotism, and to make the state focus more on its people.
In the end, what has ensued its that the House of Representatives and the government became involved in transactions that led to corruption in the electronic ID card project, causing the state to suffer losses of up to Rp 2.3 trillion, Indonesian migrant workers are being extorted and many other corruption cases.