The Cold War is a topic of interest for many scholars since it unfolded after the Second World War. The Cold War has generally been considered to be long over, with either the symbolic fall of the Berlin Wall, the 1989 Eastern European revolutions or the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 marking the end of the Cold War. Orthodox scholarship on the Cold War have thus generally defined the Cold War to be a period of conflict involving the United States and the Soviet Union, beginning from around the years 1945 – 1946 and ending around the years 1989 – 1991. In other words, the orthodox school of thought regarding the Cold War limits it to an East-West conflict of the global north from 1945 to 1991. Such a characterization implies
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In fact, as I shall explore in this essay, the 1965 Indonesian massacre was remembered as both a domestic conflict and a Cold War conflict. Domestic accounts of the incident, bolstered by information that had surfaced in recent years regarding the massacre, support this idea. To state my argument more precisely, the 1965 Indonesian massacre was remembered not merely as a domestic conflict nor a proxy Cold War conflict, but a domestic conflict that had made use of the desperation of the Cold War superpowers. Moreover, the lasting impact of the massacre on the domestic political situation and the society of Indonesia challenges the ‘end date’ of the Cold War as per orthodoxy. In this sense, the massacre acts as a challenge to orthodox definitions and perceptions of the Cold …show more content…
The massacre did not manifest itself as a sudden, extreme episode of violence, but instead was the culmination of years of political power-play and dissent. Some scholarship go further to suggest an inherent culture of violence that leads to mass killings like the one in Indonesia. In addition to the internal issues within the Indonesian government that had persisted in the years leading up to 1965, Indonesia also faced intense external political pressures from various powers in the Cold War. This we shall investigate more closely by looking into the lead-up to the massacre of 1965. The lead-up has been divided into three sections: Indonesia’s road to independence, the tensions of the 1950s and the decline of Sukarno from
In fact, as I shall explore in this essay, the 1965 Indonesian massacre was remembered as both a domestic conflict and a Cold War conflict. Domestic accounts of the incident, bolstered by information that had surfaced in recent years regarding the massacre, support this idea. To state my argument more precisely, the 1965 Indonesian massacre was remembered not merely as a domestic conflict nor a proxy Cold War conflict, but a domestic conflict that had made use of the desperation of the Cold War superpowers. Moreover, the lasting impact of the massacre on the domestic political situation and the society of Indonesia challenges the ‘end date’ of the Cold War as per orthodoxy. In this sense, the massacre acts as a challenge to orthodox definitions and perceptions of the Cold …show more content…
The massacre did not manifest itself as a sudden, extreme episode of violence, but instead was the culmination of years of political power-play and dissent. Some scholarship go further to suggest an inherent culture of violence that leads to mass killings like the one in Indonesia. In addition to the internal issues within the Indonesian government that had persisted in the years leading up to 1965, Indonesia also faced intense external political pressures from various powers in the Cold War. This we shall investigate more closely by looking into the lead-up to the massacre of 1965. The lead-up has been divided into three sections: Indonesia’s road to independence, the tensions of the 1950s and the decline of Sukarno from