Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface: The Dead, the State, and the People in Timor-Leste
- Introduction: Martyrs, Ancestors and Heroes: The Multiple Lives of Dead Bodies in Independent Timor-Leste
- Part I Ancestors, Martyrs and Heroes
- Part II The Dead in Everyday Life
- PART III The Dead and the Nation-State
- Index
10 - Gender, Agency and the (In)Visibility of the Dead and the Wounded
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 April 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface: The Dead, the State, and the People in Timor-Leste
- Introduction: Martyrs, Ancestors and Heroes: The Multiple Lives of Dead Bodies in Independent Timor-Leste
- Part I Ancestors, Martyrs and Heroes
- Part II The Dead in Everyday Life
- PART III The Dead and the Nation-State
- Index
Summary
Abstract
The official memorialisation in Timor-Leste of those who died in the struggle for independence has been a visibly masculine one, giving pride of place to those men who died in the armed struggle. This has been replicated at the private level, with new memorials to fallen ex-FALINTIL family members being erected across the country. While this memorialisation of fallen heroes is understandable, it invisibilises many other victims – women across the board and those of diverse gender identities, unarmed men, those on the ‘losing’ side, as well as the wounded and disabled. Apart from causing grief and concerned to loved ones, these invisibilisations hide the messy complexities of the occupation and undermine the state's own claims of establishing an inclusive narrative.
Keywords: gender, militarised masculinities, women, invisibilisation, memorialisation, narratives
Introduction
Two decades after the last Indonesian troops pulled out of Timor-Leste, at a point in time when the average East Timorese citizen has been born several years after independence, the fallen dead of the 1975-1999 struggle are visually more present than ever before. The valorisation of the heroes and martyrs of the independence struggle has been made official state policy. New, massive statues have been erected in Dili to commemorate dead leaders of the independence movement and the wounded demonstrators of the Santa Cruz massacre of 1991, and heroes’ cemeteries have been built for the unearthed remains of fallen FALINTIL (Forças Armadas para a Libertaçao Nacional de Timor-Leste – the armed wing of the East Timorese independence movement) fighters (cf. Leach 2017 and Leach, this volume, for a broader discussion of official memorialisation processes, national identity, and state-building).
In parallel with these state-led efforts, families have used their increased incomes to build elaborate and very visible graves for family members who died during the struggle – especially for those who participated in the armed struggle. As discussed in the Introduction to this book, this trend in private commemorations has been so great that the central government felt the need to intervene through the nation-wide Kore Metan Nasional. The dead heroes of the independence struggle are also routinely evoked in political speeches, especially as an admonition to the younger generations born after independence, who are now demographically in the majority.
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- Information
- The Dead as Ancestors, Martyrs, and Heroes in Timor-Leste , pp. 243 - 262Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020