At least 30,000 Indonesian school history textbooks of the 1965 coup attempt and slaughter of more than 500,000 alleged communists have been burned in Indonesia since March this year after the administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono banned several texts implicating the military in the events.
Publishers, academics and activists are planning a constitutional challenge against the ban.
"We have failed to deal with our past," says Mr Nababan, executive director of the Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Studies. "We have to find out the truth otherwise we have no capacity to heal the wounds."
After the resignation of President Suharto in 1998, the national school curriculum was revised and the new texts included. The ban on the books, which question claims that the Communist Party was solely responsible for the coup, was imposed recently following pressure from the military, ultra-nationalists and fundamentalist Muslims. A criminal investigation into the books' authors was also ordered.
Franz Magnis-Suseno of the Driyarkara School of Philosophy says, "The book burnings show us (the government) is incapable of dealing with events intellectually."
Tell that to the Malaysian members of parliament.
So I guess fascists ARE everywhere. Not just in this land we proudly call home. :P
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