The History She Dreads
There has been much commentary and analysis of the television adaptation of The Last of Us in the last year, and much more commentary on the game for the last decade. Yet, amongst the sea of commentaries, analyses, breakdowns, reactions, and other media-driven content, there is one scene in the show that seems to be largely ignored: the cold open to the second episode. It is somewhat understandable why this scene seems to be on no one’s radar, it is a flashback that gives us more context and backstory but doesn’t necessarily advance the plot. Strictly speaking, it is an unnecessary scene: the first hour of the show is enough to let us know exactly what is going on. The scene likewise features none of the main characters, the characters that are featured are never to be seen again, presumed lost to the gaping maw of the infection. Further, the scene is not in English and thus reading subtitles is required to understand what is going on. I fully understand why this scene is not discussed nearly as much as any other, yet, it is the scene that I keep going back to again and again and again. I have lost count of how many times I have watched it, but over the last week, I have gone out of my way to watch it once or twice every single day. I would argue that this first ten minutes and forty-six seconds of “Infected” not only encapsulates the moral quandary at the heart of the show but also may just be the best scene in any piece of zombie horror fiction.
Before continuing, in case you have not seen this sequence or if you have forgotten, I urge you to go and watch the sequence for yourself. I can only do so much to summarize the scene in a written form and for my analysis to make more sense, it would be imperative for the reader to have watched it for themselves. Furthermore, it should be noted, that from here on out there will be spoilers not only for The Last of Us but also for Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985). If you care about spoilers, go ahead, and watch these pieces of media before proceeding.
The cold open begins with an establishing shot of the skyline of Jakarta, Indonesia; the ground zero for the global fungal infection that will destroy civilization. People are going about their day, and we are brought to a lunch diner, presumably in the city's heart. The diner is raucous with conversation as people are enjoying one another’s company when two soldiers walk through the door. There is a sudden tonal shift as all the chatter dies out completely. Someone is audibly heard shushing their companions as all eyes in the diner turn to look at the soldiers who just came in. Inaudibly, the soldiers ask if a particular person is in the diner, the waitress points and identifies an older woman sitting alone in the back; we learn later that this is Ibu Ratna, Professor of Mycology. As the soldiers approach Ratna, the only thing heard is an off-screen radio, everyone in the diner is completely silent. We see a wide shot of four men sitting at their table as the soldiers walk past, they are visibly nervous, one man tensely holds his cigarette and eyes them anxiously. Ratna is also nervous as the two men approach her, she remains seated and they seem to loom over her in all the power and authority that their uniforms exude.
There is a hard cut to Ratna in a car, she is somberly staring out the window, she looks nervously at the soldier sitting next to her, gripping her purse tightly, visibly wary and fearful. “I apologize about your lunch,” the voice of Lieutenant-General Agus Hidayat says from the front of the car. At this point, Ratna seems to be visibly ill. “No need,” she replies in a meek and subdued voice. “I was just finishing.”
There is an uncomfortable pause and Ratna’s body language exudes dread, “Excuse me, sir.” She says, “Have I committed a crime?” That in and of itself is a strange question, she clearly knows that she is innocent, which begs the question why would she bother to ask?
It is necessary here to make a diversion (perhaps a tangent) down a path that will bring the scene into stark new clarity. It may, at first, seem irrelevant to this zombie story, but a better understanding of Indonesian history will make all the difference to not only better appreciate this scene but likewise, I would argue, elevate this scene to being the linchpin of the entire show as well as the best scene in the zombie horror genre. Furthermore, frankly, I think a better historical understanding would help to appreciate most art more thoroughly. Historian Melani McAlister seems to agree with me when she writes that, “a cultural product, be it a novel or a painting or a film, cannot be understood solely through ‘immanent’ analyses that stay within the text itself.”[1] In this regard, exploring the history outside the text of The Last of Us may just lead us to a greater appreciation of the show itself.
Indonesia has a very turbulent history that has been punctuated again and again with violence and terror. Throughout the 17th century, the Dutch laid claim to various parts of the archipelago. They did not take it in one stride, however; it was a nibble at a time through a series of wars between warring princes and sultans. The Dutch would choose sides and in return gain more and more concessions, until, in the end, the little Netherlands controlled a territory that was roughly equivalent to the size of Europe.[2] This approach to colonial acquisition was mirrored by the British in India and Malaysia.[3] It raises an interesting riddle: how do you eat an elephant?
Like other European colonial holdings, Indonesia was not a unified whole, rather it was a raucous amalgamation of various religions, ethnicities, and languages which only found a sense of unity in opposition to the colonial master.[4] While there were rebellions against colonial rule from time to time, very often they were swept aside by the superior military technology of the Dutch and were also undermined from within by either a lack of cohesion or a lack of support. Indeed, it is within these struggles, particularly those led by the highly educated middle-and-upper class natives, that a sense of “Indonesia” not just as a label on a map but as an identity of personhood took place.
While Indonesia did gain its independence, it was not without heavy cost. For one, some nationalists actively collaborated with the Japanese occupation, seeing in the Japanese a Liberation from European domination.[5] As World War II came to an end and the Japanese empire collapsed, in 1945 Sukarno “unilaterally declared Indonesia’s independence” from both the Dutch and the Japanese and assumed the first presidency of Indonesia.[6] However, as can be seen throughout Sukarno’s career, he was a fair-weather friend and often supported whoever was able to support him and his personal goals. This not only included supporting Japanese occupation but likewise garnering the support of the Indonesian Communist Party (the PKI), as well as accepting aid from the CIA as well as taking a loan from the Soviet Union.[7] Much of these shifting alliances coming in close succession. It did not seem to matter much to Sukarno, so long as they could help him and his personal claim to political power. Loyalty was less important to Sukarno than power. Such behavior led the Soviets to distrust Indonesia’s leadership due to “Sukarno’s unpredictability.”[8] President Johnson felt much the same, proclaiming in one of his characteristic diatribes: “I don’t trust him. I don’t think he is any good.”[9]
Despite the declaration, the Dutch did not want to relinquish their hold on the islands and attempted to reassert themselves. In a so-called “police action,” the Dutch attempted to take back the archipelago with military force in 1948.[10] If it were not for intervention from the United States, the Dutch may very well have regained their colony, precipitating a long colonial bush war. The American National Security Council wished to help Sukarno achieve independence because Communism was perceived as a “virus” and nationalism as an “antidote” to that virus.[11] However, that did not stop the PKI from attempting a coup, a coup that Sukarno would put down with bloody efficiency.[12] Yet, true to his character, Sukarno would later curry favor from the Communists when it suited him.[13]
Ideals of nationalism, ethnic self-determination, and Cold War rivalry came to a head in the 1960s as various islands of the archipelago attempted to break away from Indonesia in armed rebellions, some of them being funded by the CIA.[14] While these were more or less lost causes from their inception, it contributed to a mounting sense of isolation for Sukarno as well as offered an opportunity for the Indonesian state and military to firmly assert a nationalist identity as well as double down on a secular modernist state.[15] Further, such was the nationalist fervor that in 1963 and 1964 Indonesia threatened to conquer Malaysia and bring it into the fold.[16] It was naturally part of the archipelago, of course. Yet, these were mere preludes to the ocean of blood to come.
The exact details of what happened next are somewhat hazy and the story shifts depending on who you ask.[17] What can be said for certain, though, is that on the night of September 30, 1965, six anti-communist generals of the Indonesian military were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered.[18] After they were murdered, their bodies were thrown down a deep well nick-named “the Crocodile Hole.”[19] Many claim that the generals were murdered by Communists as a prelude to a Communist coup d’état and an attempt to establish a Soviet-style regime in Indonesia.[20] Others claim that the generals were murdered by Communists, but that it was an action that was not condoned by the PKI or its supporters and were rather rogue pro-communist officers.[21] Others claim that the generals who were murdered were themselves about to attempt a coup and thus the murders were a defensive measure.[22] Regardless of which story we choose to believe, what happened next is indisputable.
Believing a Communist coup was imminent, the Indonesian military under the leadership of General Suharto launched a nationwide pogrom against the PKI, their supporters, and anyone of left-leaning proclivities.[23] Many of these officers had received money, weapons, and training from the United States.[24] The purge, while not orchestrated by the CIA or MI-6, was not frowned upon either.[25] While the Indonesian military took the lead in this campaign it was supplemented by groups of regular citizens, police departments, the armed wings of other political parties, Muslim youth groups, and even gangsters; all of them worked together to wipe out Communists in Indonesia.[26] Suharto himself afterward described it this way: “I had to organize pursuit, cleansing, and crushing.” Suharto demanded an “absolutely essential cleaning out.”[27] General Nasution, one of Suharto’s collaborators, declared of the PKI that “All of their followers and sympathizers should be eliminated…down to its very roots.”[28] Consistently throughout the genocide, there was a comparison of Communists with disease.
The mass killings that took place swept through the breadth of Indonesia, every island was affected; lists of names were acquired through informants, neighbors wishing to settle scores, and even the CIA and MI-6 contributed to identifying Communists and their sympathizers.[29] On the island of Java, where the paratroopers lead the charge, it was estimated that upwards of 100 PKI members were murdered every night.[30] On the island of Bali, somewhere between 5-10% of the population was murdered.[31] The Australian Embassy estimated that in the first three months of the genocide, 1,500 people were murdered every day. Two months later, in February 1966, it was estimated that around 400,000 people had been murdered.[32] While the Communists were the primary target, quickly it became apparent that this was a convenient time for people to denounce neighbors they did not like. Further, the targets began to shift as some conservative Muslim groups went after those who did not follow a “recognized religion.” The logic being that if anyone was not Muslim, Christian, or Hindu, they must be an atheist and therefore they must be a communist.[33] As such, religious minorities also found themselves on the chopping block.
Most of the killings were done with hand-held weapons, Anwar Congo, a gangster, noted that his preferred method was using metal wire and strangling Communists to death after torturing them for information.[34] In this manner, somewhere between half a million to a million people were brutally murdered in a six-month blood bath. Some estimates go as high as two or even three million.[35] At the height of the bloodshed, one survivor remembered that “the streets were littered with body parts, innards, and blood and the rivers were overrun with the stench of death.”[36] As an aside, many of these descriptions themselves have an apocalyptic tone. When the slaughter reached a quivering climax six months after it started, a hundred thousand survivors were kept as political prisoners.[37]
The CIA in a report noted that the slaughter was “one of the worst mass murders of the twentieth century, along with the Soviet purges of the 1930s, the Nazi mass murders during the Second World War, and the Maoist bloodbath of the early 1950s.”[38] But unlike the Armenian Genocide, which the government of Turkey denies ever happened; unlike the Holocaust, which the German government fully acknowledges and has apologized for; unlike these previous examples of mass violence, the government of Indonesia neither denies nor has apologized. Rather, to this day, the mass murder of close to a million people is seen as a necessary measure of self-defense.[39] That is the narrative that is taught in Indonesian public schools. The perpetrators do not hide what they have done, indeed their neighbors know full well what they did, and some of them either revel in it or chalk it up to a grim duty. Some have used their participation to advance their own careers and are lauded as heroes by militant youth groups like Pemuda Pancasila. The 2012 documentary The Act of Killing follows several of the perpetrators fifty years after the fact, and most of them are unrepentant. Many politicians in Indonesia proclaim it to have been an act of patriotic duty.
Yet, the violent history of modern Indonesia does not end there.
Following the genocide, General Suharto forced Sukarno to step down from office and assumed leadership himself, thus propagating a military dictatorship that would last until 1998.[40] Whatever dressings of democracy it put on itself, it was all a sham and a mask for a authoritarian state that verged on Fascism.[41] As part of this dictatorship, there was strict censorship, recurrent purges of leftists and other “malcontents,” and a further strengthening of Indonesian nationalism in the form of a secular modernist state.[42] Often this strengthening was through military adventures that put down any kind of secessionist sentiment. Into the 1980s, communists and their sympathizers continued to be “disappeared.”[43] Further, Suharto sought territorial expansion.
East Timor is a tiny island in the archipelago just north of Australia. While most of Indonesia had been a Dutch colony, East Timor had been claimed by Portugal. The 1970s saw the final collapse of the colonial world as the Portuguese empire disintegrated. In 1975, East Timor declared its independence from Portugal along with Angola and Mozambique.[44] While many celebrated the end of the Portuguese Empire and the military dictatorship that propped it up, to Suharto and his supporting Generals this was an affront. East Timor, being an island in the grand archipelago, ought to belong to Indonesia by right, so claimed many nationalists. There was a worry amongst Indonesia’s leadership that if East Timor were allowed to be independent it would be a serious challenge to the sense of nationhood that they had spent so much time, blood, and treasure cultivating. The fact that the Communist group Fretilin had popular support in East Timor was just the casus belli Indonesia needed.[45]
With the tacit permission of the United States and Australia, Suharto invaded the tiny country of East Timor.[46] Henry Kissinger noted to Suharto before the invasion that “It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly.”[47]
The 1975 invasion was characterized by “mass public executions” as well as herding thousands of civilians into concentration camps after whole villages were burned to the ground.[48] While the civilians were dealt with, the Indonesian military began a brutal counter-insurgency to hunt down the Fretilin and their supporters using napalm and chemical weapons.[49] According to a UN report, the Indonesian military deliberately used starvation as a weapon to break the will of Timorese resistance, in much the same way the Soviet Union starved Ukraine into submission.[50] The military also used “rape, sexual slavery and sexual violence [as] tools…as part of the campaign designed to inflict a deep experience of terror, powerlessness and hopelessness upon pro-independence supporters.”[51] The Invasion and the subsequent occupation resulted in the deaths of roughly 170,000 people, roughly 1 in 4 Timorese lost their lives in paroxysms of cruel violence that bordered on genocide.
The occupation of East Timor would continue for the next twenty-four years as the Indonesian government desperately tried to crush nationalist sentiment and make the Timorese “proper” Indonesian citizens. Part of this process involved the “disappearance” of 18,600 people as well as the torture of 8,500 others.[52] Indonesian methods of terror varied from burning prisoners with cigarettes, to the mutilation of genitals in front of victims’ families, to burying prisoners alive, to simply setting people on fire.[53] Such crimes against civilians not only went unpunished by the Indonesian government, they seemed to be part of a deliberate and accepted strategy of domination. The occupation continued on with this kind of brutality for a quarter-century, with the tacit support of the United States (who was providing weapons to Indonesia) as well as Australia (who not only hesitated to take Timorese refugees for fear of agitating a Cold War ally but also recognized the annexation as legitimate).[54]
Yet, the Timorese were not cowed into submission, protests and agitation continued, coming to a head on November 12, 1991, when Indonesian troops massacred around 200 protestors in the city of Dili.[55] It was after this massacre that global attention turned to Indonesia and the Suharto regime was roundly condemned, yet the military dictatorship did not weaken its grip.[56] After Suharto was ousted in 1999, the new leadership finally accepted a referendum on whether or not East Timor should be independent.[57] In the lead-up to this election, Indonesian-funded paramilitary groups once again began a campaign of terror with kidnappings, assassinations, and torture.[58] Despite such ferocity, the Timorese nevertheless flocked to the polls and voted 78.5% for independence, despite the clear and present threat posed by the Indonesian military.[59] The Indonesian government only accepted this outcome when the United States threatened to withhold military aid.[60] Tim Hannigan in his history of Indonesia intones darkly that “If East Timor was really going to leave Indonesia, then the departing army would make certain there was nothing left of East Timor.”[61] The Indonesian military proceeded to burn their own barracks and did nothing to inhibit pro-Indonesian gangs from running rampant in the streets. In the chaos deliberately instigated by the Indonesian government, thousands were killed and thousands of others were injured. A month after UN peacekeepers came to stabilize conditions, Indonesia officially ended its occupation on October 20, 1999. And with that, the 24-year occupation came to an end.[62]
We can now return to Ibu Ratna. As she is sitting in the back of the car, the military personnel taking her somewhere, the vagueness of their explanations; is it any wonder why she has a look of cold horror on her face? Within the context of Indonesian history, the recentness of the events of East Timor, and the brutal legacy of the 1965 Genocide, can we as an audience not but understand what is racing through her mind? Only, unfortunately for Ibu Ratna and everyone else in The Last of Us, what she is going to confront will be far worse than anything the Indonesian military can serve.
[1] Melani McAlister, Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, & U.S. Interests in the Middle East since 1945, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), p. 6.
[2] See Tim Hannigan, A Brief History of Indonesia—Sultans, Spices, and Tsunamis: The Incredible Story of Southeast Asia’s Largest Nation, (Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2015). pp. 89-158.
[3] Peter N. Stearns, et. al. World Civilizations: The Global Experience, (Boston: Pearson, 2017), pp. 591, 593-94; Elisabeth Gaynor Ellis & Anthony Esler, World History, (Boston: Pearson, 2016). p. 626.
[4] Hannigan, pp. 158, 250, 261.
[5] Hannigan, pp. 190; Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 87.
[6] Westad, pp. 87-89.
[7] Westad, pp. 113, 129.
[8] Westad, p. 185.
[9] Westad, p. 186.
[10] Hannigan, pp. 202-03; Westad, p. 114.
[11] Westad, p. 114.
[12] Hannigan, p. 205; Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, (New York & London: The New Press, 2007), p. 152.
[13] Westad, p. 187.
[14] Westad, p. 129.
[15] Westad, pp. 130, 186.
[16] Westad, p. 186.
[17] Hannigan, p. 227-28.
[18] Hannigan, pp. 225-27; Westad, p. 187; “Indonesia, 1965-66,” 2024, Holocaust Museum Houston, Accessed Jan. 5, 2024. https://hmh.org/education/indonesia-1965-1966/
[19] Hannigan, p. 228.
[20] Hannigan, p. 229.
[21] Hannigan, p. 228.
[22] Hannigan, pp. 225, 227.
[23] A.H. Johns, “An Islamic System or Islamic Values? Nucleus of a Debate in Contemporary Indonesia,” in Islam and the Political Economy of Meaning: Comparative Studies of Muslim Discourse, ed. William R. Roff, (Berkley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987), p. 257.
[24] Christina Klein, Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945-1961, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), p. 244.
[25] Hannigan, p. 230.
[26] Hannigan, pp. 229-31,
[27] “Indonesia,” 2024, Yale University—Genocide Studies Program, Accessed Jan. 5, 2024. https://gsp.yale.edu/case-studies/indonesia
[28] “Indonesia.”
[29] Prashad, p. 155; Westad, p. 188.
[30] “Indonesia.”
[31] Hannigan, p. 232; Prashad, p. 154.
[32] “Indonesia.”
[33] Robert W. Hefner, “The Political Economy of Islamic Conversion in Modern East Java,” in Islam and the Political Economy of Meaning: Comparative Studies of Muslim Discourse, ed. William R. Roff, (Berkley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987), p. 66.
[34] “Indonesia, 1965-66;” The Act of Killing, Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer & Christine Cynn, (Final Cut for Real, 2012).
[35] Hannigan, pp. 232-33; Prashad, p. 154.
[36] Prashad, p. 155.
[37] Hannigan, pp. 232, 241; Prashad, p. 156.
[38] “Indonesia.”
[39] Hannigan, p. 229.
[40] Hannigan, pp. 234-59.
[41] Hannigan, pp. 241-43.
[42] Hannigan, pp. 243, 249-50, 264, 266.
[43] Hannigan, pp. 241, 243; Jean H. Quataert, Advocating Dignity: Human Rights Mobilizations in Global Politics, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), p. 128.
[44] Hannigan, pp. 235-37.
[45] Hannigan, p. 237.
[46] Hannigan, p. 237.
[47] Westad, p. 247.
[48] “East Timor, 1975-1999,” 2024, Holocaust Museum Houston, Accessed Jan. 5, 2024. https://hmh.org/education/east-timor-1975-1999/; Hannigan, p. 246.
[49] Sian Powell, “UN verdict on East Timor,” Jan. 19, 2006, The Australian, Accessed Jan. 5, 2024. https://gsp.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/UN%20verdict%20on%20East%20Timor.pdf
[50] Powell.
[51] Powell.
[52] Powell.
[53] Powell.
[54] Matthew J. Gibney, The Ethics and Politics of Asylum: Liberal Democracy and the Response to Refugees, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 183; Hannigan, p. 264.
[55] “East Timor: The November 12 Massacre and its Aftermath,” Asia Watch, Vol. 3, No. 26 (Dec. 12, 1991). Accessed Jan. 5, 2024. p. 2. http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/pdfs/i/indonesa/indonesi911.pdf;Hannigan, p. 249.
[56] “East Timor.”
[57] Hannigan, p. 264.
[58] “East Timor.”
[59] Hannigan, p. 265.
[60] “East Timor.”
[61] Hannigan, p. 265.
[62] Hannigan, p. 266.
