It's always good to find substantiation of one's theories. A few years ago I produced an attempt to historicise the New Order, my 'keeping up appearances' article (in the book Indonesia Today: The Challenge of History). There I argued that the Suharto regime was not concerned with running Indonesia properly, merely giving the appearance of doing so (by maintaining the appearance of law, the appearance of economic growth, and the appearance of order, rather than actually doing anything substantial).
Now we have the situation where Suharto is all but dead, his vital organs seem to have packed up, but his doctors have announced triumphantly that the life-support machines have maintained the appearance of life. I don't particularly like Suharto, but I feel sorry for him and think that he should be allowed to die with dignity, without the horrible press crushes around his comatose body.
Suharto's impending demise raises the broader issue of reassessing his rule and his legacy. A number of his friends overseas have argued that we should overlook his faults (read mass murder, suppression of democracy, suppression of Islam etc) because he brought economic growth to Indonesia. This argument was already been put about during the Cold War as part of the US and Australian support for the anti-communism of Suharto, and found its strongest advocates in academics such as Heinz Arndt.
As I've already indicated, that assertion needs to be questioned. On the economic side, the rapid collapse of Indonesia in 1997 pointed to fundamental problems in the economy, the major one of which was the huge corruption which Suharto led (and this despite the fact that the ANU school thought at the time that the fundamentals of the Indonesian economy were sound!).
Another way of looking at this question of development is to ask what the alternatives were. I would argue that a better, less corrupt and more democratic, government could have produced better economic figures with a more lasting impact. Look at Thailand, sure they've had problems with democracy and corruption, but not to the extent of Indonesia, and so the standard of living in Thailand is higher than in Indonesia. Suharto failed to make any substantial investment in education, and doomed his country to being the cheap labour source of the region (Indonesia labour is still cheaper than China or India, unbelievable), with no development of skills and human resources. Look at India, where the education system has allowed Indians to take leading roles in IT.
Suharto also left the mechanisms of the state severely weakened. They had been under strain during the Sukarno period, but Suharto's cultivation of corruption and the use of violence as a political tool have made the work of those trying to build a democratic and prosperous Indonesia very difficult. The efforts of those trying to improve the country are easily derailed by demagogues who use groups of preman to run local politics (and wasn't it helpful of the VP to say recently that democracy might have to be restricted in the interests of prosperity?).
Comments
Adrian...
It has been a very long time! I took some of your Indonesian history, politics, culture classes many, many, many moons ago (1990-1991) at UOW.
What is clear in the post Soeharto / New Order Regime period has been 'what is the Soeharto legacy and how should it be dealt with?'
Now that the old fella is dead and buried this struggle is likely to become more acute each time it raises its head. In the immediate aftermath of Soeharto's passing there was the obvious debate about whether or not he should be recognized as an Indonesian hero.
Your points on the economy as being the sort of 'get out of jail free' pass (and remembering he never did any jail time) for all of the other evil that was perpetrated needs much more scutiny. This is for the simple reason that you point out; for the economy to collapse the way it did suggests that the fundamentals were wrong and that the economic growth for which the bloke is praised was a house of cards built on unsustainable public and private debt!
The fact that Indonesia is still in "transition" from the new order after ten years is testament to the damage done to not only the institutions of State themselves but the damage done to the political culture that allows these institutions to stall fundamental reforms -- in many ways it is business and politics as usual.
I have linked to your blog so it is easy to get back to!
Posted by: Rob | March 16, 2008 03:00 AM
Let's hope Indonesia will become more democratic after the death of the old crack, and hope the soul of the victims of his murderous cronies wil at last be at rest
Posted by: ketut santrawan | January 28, 2008 02:16 PM
the old crack was gone but SBY could not do nothing, he is inside suharto. Indonesia is far behind with other asean countries
Posted by: wayan sudira | January 28, 2008 10:20 AM
Adrian,
There has been a heated debate in Indonesiamatters on 1965 masssacre. You might, perhaps, like to write something or join in the debate.
cheers
spew-it-all
Posted by: spew-it-all | January 25, 2008 10:48 AM
Dear Adrian,
Nice writing on Soeharto, one of the biggest dictators in Asia ever live. I can hardly understand why so many of those prominent politicians keep urguing to pardon Soeharto isntead of taking his case to the court. Pardoning without any juridial sentence sounds silly. How can those politicians so easily forget that many people lost their life during his repressive, non-democratic adminsitration, and how his greedy family (and cronies) took people's property in the name of development!
I was hoping that our current president (SBY) would take a more progressive and actual legal action to finish him. But, he's also such a lad! Very undecisive. God knows what really can do to resolve this case.
Posted by: Ketut Santrawan | January 23, 2008 06:00 PM