It’s strange that I had put off writing about Indonesia back when I was writing last month about American “allies” around the world. I was writing at that time about elections held in South Korea and Australia and Thailand and was just thinking about Southeast Asia in general. I had been planning on talking about Indonesia and America’s purported love for democracy around the world and how that set of PR slogans just doesn’t fly when looking at the history of our support for various regimes.
One great example of this disjuncture is Indonesia and now with the death of Suharto, (and also, frankly the “uplifting” treacle of the flag-waving “audacity of hope” type of primary campaign rhetoric), it’s a perfectly nice time to reflect on the legacy of murder and brutality that America has been supporting. The Washington Post piece somewhat understates the case, if in nothing else, then in tone:
Suharto’s poor health had kept him from facing trial, and no one has been punished for the killings.
Corruption watchdog Transparency International has said Suharto and his family amassed billions of dollars in stolen state funds, allegations the family is fighting in court.
Suharto’s successors as head of state _ B.J. Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid, Megawati Sukarnoputri and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono _ vowed to end corruption that took root under Suharto, yet it remains endemic at all levels of Indonesian society.
With the court system paralyzed by corruption, the country has not confronted its bloody past. Rather than put on trial those accused of mass murder and multibillion-dollar theft, some members of the political elite consistently called for charges against Suharto to be dropped on humanitarian grounds.
I guess the sacred stones have failed. Guess he shouldn’t have lost the sacred hairpiece of his dead wife.
Still, there’s something ghoulish that I feel when someone like this dies. It’s awful. I’m not the one who committed these acts (even if my tax dollars helped them happen), but it’s hard to also unambiguously embrace happiness when an American-supported butcher dies. Pinochet is another good example. In fact, I feel some kind of sadness that this person’s life has concluded and that future generations won’t know life in a world where these monsters still exist. Even if these withered old men were largely just living their last years in luxury, it’s weird to feel that they are now gone forever, that history books are now able to close off that parenthetical hyphen that will come after their names.
It seems like the forgetting of their atrocities, already well underway, can now accelerate, with Americans not at all interested in our government’s support for Suharto over the years. Do we care at all about the story of how this kind of depraved lunatic got control over the lives of so many people (taking it from this guy), or are we too busy pushing our government to fine TV stations for the audacity of showing a flash of a human butt on television some four years ago? Makes the idea of “morality” seem so pathetic. Let’s not talk about redneck Jim Bob and Freeport and West Papua! Not when there’s a human butt on TV! A human butt! On TV!
The 234 million people of Indonesia have had to deal with a lot of crap, lots of it facilitated by our government and our hollow claims to support representative democracy. May they have better years in the future, uncontaminated by the reach of the pale light being shone from our beacon of freedom.
Way to namecheck IMET. Also, I hope that Jim Bob gets what’s coming to him.
General Suharto spent his life creating an American version of the evil Dutch East Indies Corporation (VoC) – a Corporate State. In 1961 Suharto organised a pathetic attempt at a military invasion of West Papua, while his Freeport friends in Washington tricked U.S. Pres. Kennedy into writing the “New York Agreement” selling the people of West Papua like cattle to Indonesia.
After Suharto came to power he gave the colonial minerals to Freeport (1967) & related American corporations; and he put the population of Java to work in factories making the cheap American clothes of the 1970s.
By time America moved its cheap factories to Mexico the people of Java had developed a taste for Colonial Profits of West Papua & other colonies, and too many people liked it.
Great comment Andrew! Very interesting context. Thanks for reading!
Funny that there’s a big different perception of seeing Suharto nowadays, Indonesians vs. international. Indonesians seem very forgiving and give the highest respect to Suharto, while international press wrote him like, ‘dictator died’, or even your posting title: skullface suharto dies, etc. I gathered the blogs that write about Suharto and found out that most of Indonesian blogs paid respect to Suharto. Those who are Indonesians, those who still live there, those who were there when 1998 happened. Click here for more detail.
Anita, Thank you for your interesting comment. Your post raises an interesting question. I mention this in my comment over on your blog, but I’ll mention it here for the benefit of our readers: Why do you think there is this split where the western media is more willing to bash Suharto after his death and the Indonesian blogs are more respectful? While I am wary of being part of a chorus of western voices bashing the man post-mortum in some kind of act of smug pro-democracy sentiment, I can’t deny that he had a series of repugnant misdeeds (facilitated, often in fact, by my country) and I’m willing to take the pro-human rights position against a variety of his (and our) policies. I certainly don’t mind the lack of reverence on my part and would be happy to engage in some spirited debate with anyone wanting to defend the specifics of IMET or Freeport-McMoRan.
Stetson, I don’t have the answer. I said in my blog that I was actually surprised to find out the reactions of Suharto’s death from Indonesians in general. I imagined the worst (actually I was in Indonesia when he was admitted to the hospital and everyday we prayed he survived at least until we left, because we imagined there was going to be a chaos), but it didn’t happen at all.
It seems like suddenly after having several presidents after Suharto, Indonesians realize that it’s not easy to lead this country, let alone bring it to the state of what Suharto had done before, economically. Gradually, people have been starting to compare the government(s) against Suharto era, where 1 USD = Rp 2,000 and life wasn’t as difficult as today, where disaster is just right next door and everyone is a criminal. Some even tell me that corruption is worse, it used be generally accepted in Suharto era, but nowadays they do it much more brutally, more expensive, more aggressive.
But I’m not an expert. You should check Wimar Witoelar’s, or Indonesia Matter