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Abstract
The memory of the PKI has always focused on the post-G30S 1965, which positioned the PKI as a victim (genocide); before that, in 1948, the PKI had been a force, a threat, as well as a perpetrator of the murder. Post-PKI was argued as an illustration that communism in Indonesia failed or went bankrupt after the PKI itself came to power. The failure narrative appears in the novels Menggarami Burung Terbang by Sitok Srengenge and the Kubah by Ahmad Tohari. These two authors are the second generation of the 1948 Madiun PKI Rebellion, which in Marianne Hirsch’s view, is called the postmemory generation. On the one hand, the narrative is the second generation’s response to the PKI’s past threats and fear of the same forces and threats in the present. On the other hand, post-PKI became a familial look and a familial gaze in its attempt to project a personal ideology. In turn, the failure narrative emphasizes the factual aspects of the story, not historical facts, because the second generation did not experience direct trauma. In addition, the post-PKI shows the contestation of the ideologies of communism, Islam, and kejawen[1].
[1] Javanese belief