Suharto debate has ripples for ours

by Terence Netto@www.malaysiakini.com

COMMENT A debate over whether former president Suharto should be included in the list of his country’s national heroes is presently raging in Indonesia and will have resonance for our country in the near future.

Two of a Kind

It’s not hard to predict that Malaysia too will come round to drawing up a similar list such that the merits of including Suharto in the Indonesian pantheon – which is hotly contested by critics of the dictator’s 32-year rule – will have relevance for our hypothetical list.

Indonesia’s Social Affairs Ministry draws up an annual shortlist of candidates to be added to the country’s official pantheon of national heroes, presently totalling 138. Suharto’s name was included in the list the ministry released earlier this month. Predictably, it triggered a heated debate in the media that is turning out to be an attempt to redefine the dictator’s legacy two years after his death and 12 after his fall from grace.

GOLKAR, the party Suharto set up to rubber stamp his dictatorship, is backing the campaign to have Suharto included for an obvious reason: it will give them a fillip in advance of the 2014 polls as the party is seen as the prime legatee of the Suharto era.

That era was one of economic development and social stability for a hitherto stagnant and chaotic nation, but the price paid was severe in terms of human right abuses and corruption.

Supporters of Suharto’s inclusion in the Indonesian list claim that the price was unavoidable for the progress made by this diverse and widely-dispersed archipelago under the dictator’s iron-fisted rule averted anarchy and assured the stability that made economic development possible.

Half a million people died in the bloodshed that followed Suharto’s takeover of Indonesia in the immediate aftermath of a abortive coup in 1965 led by the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) with the collusion of ABRI (Indonesian armed forces) quislings.

This chapter of rampant violence was followed by successive episodes of bloodletting, albeit of a lesser scale, that marked the Suharto era from its inception in 1965-66 to its conclusion in 1998. The half dozen generals who were killed in the 1965 coup are included in the national pantheon of heroes. Others included are revered names of the struggle for independence.

Gus Dur shortlisted too

This argument for Suharto’s inclusion offered by GOLKAR luminaries and other functionaries of the dictator’s era is the classic rationale for rule by authoritarians: the knife that spreads the butter must inevitably choke the pores of the bread.

Critics of the Suharto era are dismayed by his inclusion in the shortlist but they are enthused by the inclusion of the late Abdurrahman Wahid, a prime Islamic figure who served a stint as president in the democratic restoration that followed Suharto’s fall.

These critics claim that including Suharto will imperil the restoration of democracy and dishonour the thousands who suffered and died in the period of his rule.

They are also appalled that someone who was as immersed in financial corruption as Suharto is being considered for inclusion in a list of figures revered in the national memory for gifting the country with their blood, honour, and/or with intellectual and moral leadership.

While the debate is necessary as a defining moment in the ongoing Indonesian discourse on leadership and governance, one can’t help but recall the pertinence of some lines from German writer Bertolt Brecht in his renowned play, ‘The Life of Galileo’.

One of the characters tells Galileo, “Unhappy the land that has no heroes” to which the protagonist replies, “No, unhappy the land that needs heroes.”