From 3-7 August 2026, young people from Aceh, Papua, Timor-Leste, and Indonesia gathered at the AJAR Learning Center in Bali for a Youth Learning Exchange on Memorialisation. Coming from different histories of violence and experiences of transitional justice, they spent five days sharing their work and asking how memories can be kept alive and contribute to justice and non-recurrence.
Participants brought experiences from communities facing ongoing violence and militarisation, the legacies of conflict and peace agreements, and the struggle over how mass violence is remembered decades later. Despite these different contexts, the discussion revealed similar concerns, including the denial of victim’s experiences, the disappearance of historical sites, the loss of culture and language, gaps between generations, and the continuing impact of violence on survivors and their families.
Through a Gallery of Memories, participants from Aceh, Papua, Timor-Leste, and communities working on the legacy of the 1965 violence in Indonesia shared what happened in their communities, what memorialisation work has been done, and why they choose to remember the history in different ways. Stories about children born of war, women’s experiences during conflict, stigma against survivors, and the impact of militarisation opened conversations about what happens when histories are not passed to the next generation. The discussion also raised questions about whose stories are remembered. What happens when parents are afraid to tell their children what happened? What do young people understand when they inherit only fragments of history? And whose experiences disappear when official narratives leave out the voices of victims?
Those questions led into discussions about the victim-centred approach. With Indria Fernida, participants discussed safety, confidentiality, non-discrimination, informed consent, cultural sensitivity, and doing no harm. They also reflected on the importance of recognising survivors not simply as sources of testimony, but as people who have agency in deciding how their experiences are documented, remembered, and how these experiences transformed into advocacy.
The discussion recognised that these choices are not always straightforward. Survivors may experience intimidation, threats, economic difficulties, family pressure, or other circumstances that affect their decisions. For young people working alongside them, this means learning to listen and accompany without judging the choices survivors make.
The exchange also explored the relationship between memorialisation, transitional justice, and peacebuilding. Nuno Rodrigues reflected on Timor-Leste’s experiences with the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) and the Indonesia–Timor-Leste Commission of Truth and Friendship (KKP), including the continuing challenge of implementing their recommendations. His experience showed the importance of political commitment, while also highlighting the role that survivors and grassroots initiatives can play when official mechanisms move slowly.
Atikah Nuraini from the Indonesian Trauma Testimony Project (ITTP) invited participants to reflect on three questions: Why are we memorialising? For whom? And what change do we want to see? The questions encouraged participants to see memorialisation as a verb rather than a noun. Memorialisation is not limited to a museum, monument, or other physical structure. During the exchange, they discussed how poems, songs, films, articles, social media, community gatherings, historical walks, and storytelling can also carry memories. Many participants realised that some of the work they were already doing could be understood as memorialisation, even though they had not previously described it in those terms.
The questions of physical space became particularly visible during a Memory Walk with Taman 65 to places connected to the 1965 violence in Bali. Participants found sites that had been destroyed, transformed, or were no longer visibly marked. This was very different from the experience shared by participants from Timor-Leste, where some historical sites have been preserved and can still be visited by younger generations. The walk raised another question about what happens to collective memory when physical places connected to violence disappear. At Taman 65, participants saw that stories continue to be passed between survivors and younger generations even when the sites no longer exist. People and communities can continue to carry memories that have disappeared from the physical landscape.
Memorialisation was also explored through the body. In a session facilitated by Mulawali Institute, participants used breathing, movement, sensation, and bodily awareness to reflect on how experiences and memories can be carried physically. Some recalled stories of violence and conflict, while others became more aware of their own physical discomfort and limits.
The experience opened a discussion about the well being of people who document violence and accompany survivors. Listening repeatedly to difficult stories can also affect those doing human rights and memorialisation work. Participants discussed secondary trauma, emotional exhaustion, personal boundaries, and the need to care for themselves while accompanying others.
Throughout the exchange, participants had shared many ways they are already working with memory. They write articles and books, make films and music, organise historical tours and community gatherings, document survivors’ stories, teach human rights, and use social media to reach more people. The diversity of these practices showed that there is no single form of memorialisation that fits every community.
Participants brought these reflections together in a Youth Manifesto for Memorialisation. The manifesto emphasised the importance of placing victims and survivors at the centre, challenging historical erasure, using creativity, education, and technology to keep histories accessible, building connections across generations and communities, and paying attention to care and well being while working for justice.
The exchange did not provide a single answer to how young people should remember and work with histories of violence. Instead, the event gave participants space to compare experiences, question their own approaches, and recognise practices already developing within their communities. It also left them with questions to carry home about whose memories need to be protected, how they should be passed on, and what role young people can play in ensuring that difficult histories are not forgotten.
Read the manifesto in Bahasa Indonesia and English below.
Manifesto Orang Muda untuk Memorialisasi
Kami orang muda yang hidup berdampingan dengan jejak kekerasan, konflik, dan pelanggaran hak asasi manusia dari Aceh, Papua, Semarang, Bali, serta Timor-Leste.
Kami meyakini bahwa untuk membangun masa depan yang adil, kita perlu bersama-sama dan bersolidaritas untuk menjaga ingatan.
Memorialisasi adalah cara kami menjaga ingatan penting agar tetap hidup, sekaligus tindakan untuk membangun masa depan yang lebih adil.
Bagi kami memorialisasi merupakan bentuk perlawanan terhadap penghapusan sejarah, penyangkalan kebenaran, dan keberulangan kekerasan.
Dalam rangka memperingati Hari Anak Muda Internasional, Kami berkomitmen dan menyatakan bahwa:
- Korban adalah pusat dari setiap upaya memorialisasi. Suara, pengalaman, pilihan, dan martabat mereka harus dihormati dan terus dilibatkan dalam setiap prosesnya.
- Ingatan bukan milik negara atau penguasa semata. Komunitas korban serta seluruh warga negara memiliki hak untuk menjaga, merawat, dan mewariskan sejarahnya sendiri.
- Memorialisasi dapat hadir dalam berbagai bentuk seperti cerita, lagu, puisi, film, seni, arsip, perjalanan napak tilas, pendidikan, ruang dialog, maupun tindakan sederhana yang menjaga ingatan tetap hidup.
- Perdamaian yang berkelanjutan hanya dapat dibangun melalui pengakuan atas kebenaran, reparasi, keadilan, dan jaminan agar kekerasan tidak berulang.
- Membangun ruang belajar lintas generasi sehingga perjuangan atas hak-hak korban tidak berhenti pada generasi yang mengalaminya.
- Menolak penghapusan sejarah, penghancuran situs ingatan, manipulasi narasi, diskriminasi, serta politik pelupaan sebagai upaya penghilangan ruang bagi korban dan generasi berikutnya untuk mendapatkan kebenaran dan keadilan.
- Merawat solidaritas lintas wilayah, lintas identitas, dan lintas perjuangan karena kami percaya bahwa luka di satu tempat adalah pengingat bagi semua.
- Menjaga diri dan sesama dalam kerja-kerja memorialisasi, menyadari bahwa merawat ingatan juga berarti merawat tubuh, pikiran, dan harapan.
Kami memahami bahwa jalan menuju keadilan tidak selalu mudah. Kami akan menghadapi penyangkalan, intimidasi, ketakutan, dan kelelahan.
Namun kami memilih untuk terus berjalan bersama.
Ketika sejarah dihapus, kami akan menceritakannya kembali.
Ketika ruang ingatan dihancurkan, kami akan menciptakan ruang baru.
Ketika korban dibungkam, kami akan memastikan suara mereka terus bergema.
Bali, 7 Agustus 2026
A LUTA CONTINUA !
VICTORIA SEMPRE!
Youth Manifesto for Memorialisation
We are young people from Aceh, Papua, Semarang, Bali, and Timor-Leste, living alongside the legacies of violence, conflict, and human rights violations.
We believe that building a just future requires us to stand together in solidarity and keep memory alive.
Memorialisation is our way of keeping important memories alive and taking action towards a more just future.
For us, memorialisation is a form of resistance against historical erasure, denial of the truth, and the recurrence of violence.
In recognition of International Youth Day, we commit ourselves to the following:
- We place victims at the centre of every memorialisation effort. Their voices, experiences, choices, and dignity must be respected and they must continue to be involved throughout the process.
- We believe that memory does not belong solely to the state or those in power. Victim communities and all citizens have the right to preserve, nurture, and pass on their own histories.
- We recognise that memorialisation can take many forms, such as stories, songs, poems, films, art, archives, historical walks, education, spaces for dialogue, and simple acts that keep memory alive.
- We believe that sustainable peace requires recognition of truth, reparations, justice, and guarantees that violence will not happen again.
- We will build intergenerational learning spaces so that the struggle for victims’ rights does not end with the generation that experienced the violations.
- We reject historical erasure, the destruction of sites of memory, the manipulation of narratives, discrimination, and the politics of forgetting. These practices take away spaces for victims and future generations to seek truth and justice.
- We will nurture solidarity across regions, identities, and struggles because we believe that a wound in one place is a reminder to us all.
- We will care for ourselves and one another in memorialisation work. Caring for memory also means caring for our bodies, minds, and hopes.
We understand that the path to justice is not always easy. We will face denial, intimidation, fear, and exhaustion.
But we choose to keep moving forward together.
When history is erased, we will tell it again.
When the spaces of memory are destroyed, we will create new ones.
When victims are silenced, we will ensure their voices continue to be heard.
Bali, 7 August 2026
A LUTA CONTINUA !
VICTORIA SEMPRE!