Echoes of the Javanese dictator
former Indonesian President Suharto
by : Pramoedya Ananta Toer*
Silencing
his people, “disappearing” those who dared think differently, filling jails
throughout the country, Suharto seemed no different from other dictators the
world has known in the course of history from Mussolini to Mobutu.
Yet he
could be even more cruel because he lacked the type of education that would
have touched him with some ideas of the Enlightenment. His rule as a Javanese
dictator was marked by extreme hypocrisy combined with extraordinary patience.
He found it unnecessary to be frank. Coming from his mouth, the words
“yes” and “no” might have meant the same thing; or they might have meant
nothing at all. It was thus impossible to be sure of what he meant. His
patience followed the Javanese saying: “alon-alon asal kelakon”, or “being slow
is all right, the important thing is to get the job done.”
Mr.
Camdessus, the IMF executive who witnessed Suharto sign the IMF conditions for an
emergency monetary aid, personally experienced Suharto’s brand of Javanese
wiliness. In the same week he made the deal with the IMF, Suharto
astutely let his accomplices trash the agreed IMF conditions.
All governments in the world use some
form of hypocrisy as a means of justifying power, but none could match the
hypocrisy of Suharto’s Javanese dictatorship. In Suharto’s mind, poverty did
not exist in Indonesia
Indeed, I myself was
not sentenced to 10 years incarceration on the prison-island of Buru; instead, for my own
well-being, I was transmigrated to a new settlement area after four years of
“guidance at a rehabilitation center” in Jakarta
The
Javanese dictator, Suharto, was at last forced to step down, leaving Indonesia
There is, of course, no denying the
fact that the heroic youths and students undermined Suharto’s repressive power
and forced him out. Yet the victory is incomplete. And even now, months later, the people
fear the threat of neo-Suhartoism. It would be a mistake for the world to
believe the situation is settled.
This threat
will surely become reality if those young people who command the future of Indonesia
Today, in the midst
of a deep monetary and economic crisis, Indonesia
There is, of course, no denying the
fact that the heroic youths and students undermined Suharto’s repressive power
and forced him out. Yet the victory is incomplete. And even now, months later, the people
fear the threat of neo-Suhartoism. It would be a mistake for the world to
believe the situation is settled.
This threat
will surely become reality if those young people who command the future of Indonesia
Today, in the midst
of a deep monetary and economic crisis, Indonesia
For more than
30 years – for the entire reign of Suharto’s “new order” – we have been in the
clutches of a crisis no less devastating than the current economic and monetary
crisis. That crisis is an intellectual one, a crisis of the mind.
The
economic-monetary crisis was unwanted: the intellectual crisis, by contrast, was a
deliberate creation. It was funded by billions of dollars over the year through
a formal indoctrination body – the P4 –
an institution created to spread the doctrine and guarantee the continued existence
of the “Panca Sila” ideology – the Indonesian state philosophy (originally
instituted by Sukarno) that believes in one God, the unity of the nation and
“consent” under the “wise guidance” of the leaders. The P4 is an institution
intended to produce “Pancasilaist human beings” and takes pride in proclaiming
itself as creator of “the complete Indonesian being.”
Suharto
succeeded gloriously in fashioning this “complete human being” as a person with
but one thought, one language, obedient to but one commander: the leader of the New
Order,
General Suharto. Because so many intellectuals were involved in and
contaminated by this crisis, there exists in Indonesia
It is far
more complicated to overcome the intellectual crisis than it is to solve the
economic one, which needs but money on the table.
During
Suharto’s power, he banned newspapers and books, and the jails
were filled – at one time holding well over a million political prisoners.
It was
exactly during that time that concocted abstractions were pounded into the mind
of society as concrete facts. People believed them as truth. Some examples:
Indonesians are indolent, they simply do not have the political capacity to
rise up in rebellion; Indonesian politics and government are nothing without
military involvement: the military is the agent of progress and development, and thus Indonesia
All sheer
nonsense, of course. But it seems the West came to believe these “truths” even
more than the Indonesian people. After all, it was very convenient for Western investors and
governments to believe during the Cold War that only the military and Suharto
stood between the Indonesian people and communism. In the name of containment
and the right to exploit Indonesia
The Cold
War has come and gone, but the old calculus has a new mission. Then the
military leaders in developing countries became the politicians in order to
keep communism at bay now the military’s role is to guarantee the political
stability needed for “globalization.”
As a result
of this Cold War legacy, United States
foreign policy, in particular, has followed the pattern of betting on the wrong
horse in Asia , realizing its mistake and
hurrying to choose a new horse. But the US US
Will
President Clinton, as leader of the West, continue to make the same
mistake as he bets on Habibie, the shadow of the Javanese dictator? Like Suharto
after Sukarno, Habibie may make a good impression in the beginning, but economic
development is sure to collapse if, in the name of development, he continues
to preside over a system that tramples on democracy and the sovereignty of the
people.
It is time
for the US and the rest of
the West to rethink its policy toward Third World
countries in the post-Cold War period. In the new era, using generals
and the military to undermine civil society has proved counterproductive
because the military can never be the means to create democracy.
It may well
be that the US feels that it is enough to have democracy at home, even if
developing countries require military power to secure the gains of
“globalization.” Indonesians today know that such a double standard was the
hallmark of America
If the US
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* Pramoedya
Ananta Toer has been called Indonesia island
of Buru New York