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For a great (if that's a word for it) documentary about the banality of evil, The Act of Killing features actual government-sanctioned mass murderers feeling p

For a great (if that's a word for it) documentary about the banality of evil, The Act of Killing features actual government-sanctioned mass murderers feeling proud about what they did. A review: http://archive.pov.org/theactofkilling/film-description/ http://archive.pov.org/theactofkilling/film-description/

wahern 5y ago
Great documentary. I can't remember if this was made clear in the film, but everything makes infinitely more sense if you s/Communist/Chinese/. Like with the Holocaust, it wasn't only Chinese who were targeted[1], but fundamentally that was the principle social dynamic that ungirded the unfathomable dehumanization of the victims. My mom is a senior care provider and one of her clients is an elderly Indonesian immigrant. He immigrated to the U.S. either during or shortly after the genocide. She was telling me stories about how he's always railing against the "communists" in the city, the city being San Francisco. She couldn't quite make sense of his complaints and opinions until I "translated" things for her. Later, when I learned about that film, I sat down with her to watch it. Countless times through the film she was like, "OMG, that sounds exactly like what [her client] says". [1] Ethnic Chinese were victimized in Indonesia long before those events, which is why Indonesia has never had as distinct an ethnic Chinese community as most other SE Asian countries--conversion to Islam and assimilation into the local culture was much more common. I suspect that many non-ethnic Chinese victims during the "Communist purge" were believed to have had Chinese ancestry, and perhaps did indeed. Again, similar to the Holocaust.
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  I think the killers used anything they could grasp, or invent, to justify the murders, at one point they said communists were atheists, so surely they (the killers) were helping the communists to heaven, because... logic. It lead to this scene they shot for the movie-in-a-movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ta9To14yw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ta9To14yw, during it an actor gives Anwar (the killer) a medal and thanks him for executing him, because that sent him to heaven.
  - wahern 5y ago
    The "communists" were "atheists" is another way of saying the "Chinese" weren't "Muslim". Except it's all far more banal than that because most people aren't religious zealots; religion is just one of the principle stand-ins for social and ethnic affiliation that also gives their animus a moralistic color. It helps to understand something about the Chinese diaspora elsewhere in SE Asia. They generally didn't assimilate culturally and didn't adopt native religions like Christianity or Islam. Adoption of Buddhism (e.g. Thailand and Myanmar) was more common, but Buddhism doesn't preclude ancestor worship or other common quasi-religious practices and thus doesn't require rejecting Chinese culture. Similarly, Straits Chinese (Peranakan), from a much older wave of immigration, did adopt Islam but nonetheless fashioned an entirely distinct culture of their own. Such partial assimilation made it easier to cast doubt on the sincerity of their faith. Again, proving the rule, in Vietnam most Catholic conversions were ethnic Chinese, thus much about French Indochina and the Vietnam War doesn't make sense without understanding the ethnic components. Over 80% of post-war Vietnamese refugees were actually ethnic Han Chinese. This also goes a long way toward explaining why both Malaysia and Indonesia refused to give refugees safe harbor, often towing their boats back out to sea where they were pillaged and sunk by pirates.
deleted 5y ago
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wahern 5y ago

Great documentary. I can't remember if this was made clear in the film, but everything makes infinitely more sense if you s/Communist/Chinese/. Like with the Holocaust, it wasn't only Chinese who were targeted[1], but fundamentally that was the principle social dynamic that ungirded the unfathomable dehumanization of the victims. My mom is a senior care provider and one of her clients is an elderly Indonesian immigrant. He immigrated to the U.S. either during or shortly after the genocide. She was telling me stories about how he's always railing against the "communists" in the city, the city being San Francisco. She couldn't quite make sense of his complaints and opinions until I "translated" things for her. Later, when I learned about that film, I sat down with her to watch it. Countless times through the film she was like, "OMG, that sounds exactly like what [her client] says". [1] Ethnic Chinese were victimized in Indonesia long before those events, which is why Indonesia has never had as distinct an ethnic Chinese community as most other SE Asian countries--conversion to Islam and assimilation into the local culture was much more common. I suspect that many non-ethnic Chinese victims during the "Communist purge" were believed to have had Chinese ancestry, and perhaps did indeed. Again, similar to the Holocaust.

bellyfullofbac 5y ago
I think the killers used anything they could grasp, or invent, to justify the murders, at one point they said communists were atheists, so surely they (the killers) were helping the communists to heaven, because... logic. It lead to this scene they shot for the movie-in-a-movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ta9To14yw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ta9To14yw, during it an actor gives Anwar (the killer) a medal and thanks him for executing him, because that sent him to heaven.
- wahern 5y ago
  The "communists" were "atheists" is another way of saying the "Chinese" weren't "Muslim". Except it's all far more banal than that because most people aren't religious zealots; religion is just one of the principle stand-ins for social and ethnic affiliation that also gives their animus a moralistic color. It helps to understand something about the Chinese diaspora elsewhere in SE Asia. They generally didn't assimilate culturally and didn't adopt native religions like Christianity or Islam. Adoption of Buddhism (e.g. Thailand and Myanmar) was more common, but Buddhism doesn't preclude ancestor worship or other common quasi-religious practices and thus doesn't require rejecting Chinese culture. Similarly, Straits Chinese (Peranakan), from a much older wave of immigration, did adopt Islam but nonetheless fashioned an entirely distinct culture of their own. Such partial assimilation made it easier to cast doubt on the sincerity of their faith. Again, proving the rule, in Vietnam most Catholic conversions were ethnic Chinese, thus much about French Indochina and the Vietnam War doesn't make sense without understanding the ethnic components. Over 80% of post-war Vietnamese refugees were actually ethnic Han Chinese. This also goes a long way toward explaining why both Malaysia and Indonesia refused to give refugees safe harbor, often towing their boats back out to sea where they were pillaged and sunk by pirates.

deleted 5y ago

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