Iwan and I have certain things in common. As the youngest child, Iwan is the one who knows the least about the history of his family during 1965. However, he is also the most keen to know. When I approached his siblings, they did not show as much interest in my project as Iwan did. They asked me to contact Iwan instead.

Maybe not knowing instilled in Iwan and me a desire to ‘catch up’ with the other members of the family, who know a lot more, and compelled us to keep searching. Maybe …

Why did the communist insurgency happen on the evening of 30 September 1965? Why not other dates? After or before? Does it have anything to do with the commemoration of the sixteen-year anniversary of the Chinese Revolution then? With the birth of the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949? And why China? Because I believe that country played a major role in the 1965 event. China had been trying its hardest to get power in Indonesia. If any PKI rebellion had been successful, I believe the Indonesian Independence Day would not be on 17 August, but on 1 October. Well, I did not experience the dark events of 1965 myself. But I feel that those bloody events changed the lives and fates of our family. These events made me almost not recognise my father.

My family settled in Makassar in 1950, a year after my parents got married in their hometown, Gorontalo in North Sulawesi. A few years after, my parents moved to another house, right opposite of the South Sulawesi governor's office. That house was also used as an office for Antara, the news agency for the region of East Indonesia. My father was the head of this office, therefore, our house was always busy.

When night fell and ayah [father] happened to be at home, officers from Minahasa used to play bridge at our home, including people who took part in the Permesta rebellion71 in 1957-1958. Permesta was a half-hearted rebellion against Jakarta. They believed that the centralised division of funding was unfair to the eastern part of Indonesia.