Soeharto: An everlasting paradox of sins and virtues
Soeharto is far from a good person. Through the end of his regime, especially, his morals and choices seemed to be more and more contradictory to the statements and actions he made at the start of it — hence the particular ‘power-hungry dictator’ image that inevitably stuck onto him even years past his death.
Being painted as a ‘bad person’ by the public eye, for one, does a huge number to an individual’s achievements and contributions; because even 24 years after his regime was dissolved, people rarely associate ‘New Order’ with its positive outcomes, rather overly highlighting its infamous practices of corruption.
However, does the ‘morally bad’ person that Soeharto is mean that his contributions should entirely be overlooked?
It is hugely important to consider Soeharto’s strong military background due to the fact that a) the support and backing he received from the military allowed him to maintain his position as the highest commander, b) his political and socio-economic choices that would put the military at advantage regardless, and c) his ability in accessing and controlling military intelligence unlike any other presidents before and after him.
He waltzed his way into power after a historical turning point in Indonesian history: G30SPKI — an event in which a group calling itself the ‘September 30th Movement’ kidnapped (and executed) six high-level commanders of the Indonesian army. Soeharto (almost immediately) blamed the Communist Party of Indonesia for ‘masterminding’ the movement, used the emergency as a mask to gradually eradicate then-President Soekarno’s powers, and installed himself as the leader.
At that state of national turmoil, he relied on the military to ruthlessly maintain domestic security, going as far as expanding the army’s territorial system down to village-level as well as perpetrating massacres targeting members and alleged affiliates of the Communist Party of Indonesia. At the same time, he and his cabinet devised an operation known as ‘Petrus killings’, a series of extrajudicial executions carried out as “shock therapies’’ with an objective to reduce criminal rates.
As brutal and bloody those schemes were, they worked: criminal rates were dropped, and the security of Indonesian communities were once again restored.
Objectively speaking, Soeharto’s morally-incorrect schemes greatly helped in reducing ‘distractions’ at the start of his regime while also installing a mix of fear and respect in citizens, making him a seemingly ‘desirable’ and ‘well-respected’ leader.
Now, national security is not the only matter to worry about especially when a) you want long term support from your citizens, and b) the country you just took over is facing a huge monetary and economic crisis.
In order to achieve long term support and economic stability, Soeharto and his cabinet enlisted U.S.-educated Indonesian economists (dubbed the ‘Berkeley Mafia’) to formulate changes in Indonesian economic policies. These policy changes resulted in the cutting of subsidies, decreasing in government debt, and reformation of the exchange rate system, successfully lowering the 660% inflation in 1966 to 19% in just three years.
Soekarno’s economic self-sufficiency policies were also reversed; opening opportunities for foreign investments in selected sectors through the 1967 Foreign Investment Law.
On top of that, he jumped on the opportunity to heavily invest in infrastructure (through a five-year development plan series known as Repelita) after securing low-interest foreign aid from ten countries grouped under the Inter-Governmental Group on Indonesia (IGGI) as well as the revenue from oil export jump due to the 1973 oil crisis.
Surely enough, whenever there’s ‘good’ in Soeharto there’s also the ‘bad’ existing within the same timeline.
In this case, it was a scandal surrounding Cendana family-owned ‘charity organisations’ supposedly extracting ‘donations’ from domestic and foreign enterprises in exchange for necessary government permits. According to reports, while some of the funds did get used for charitable purposes, much of the money was recycled as a slush fund to reward political allies and to maintain support for the ‘New Order’.
You’d think someone who (allegedly) stole $35 billion would not have done much as a leader; that would (again) be wrong.
Soeharto initiated a healthcare reform (which included the Puskesmas project), successfully increasing the life expectancy from 47 (in 1967) to 67 (in 1997). He also authorised the Compulsory Education Programme — a programme that requires every Indonesian citizen to attend school for nine years at the basic education level, namely from grade 1 of elementary school (or that level) to grade 9 of junior high school (or that level) — which increased the Indonesian literacy rate from under 65% (in 1967) to approximately 86% in 1997.
Therewithal, he initiated the Family Planning (Keluarga Berencana) programme which: a) promoted the idea of “dua anak cukup” (“two kids are enough”), b) changed the popular “banyak anak, banyak rezeki” (“more kids, more fortune”) mindset among the Indonesian population, and c) suppressed the natural increase rate to 1.98% (a successful progress in what the experts originally predicted would be a 20% jump).
As it had been pointed out in previous statements, Soeharto is a grey area between a ‘good’ leader and a ‘bad’ leader. Most, however, tend to agree that Soeharto was a bad leader considering his scandalous approaches in achieving his goals and, again, his corruption practices.
Would the case remain the same if we were to separate all of Soeharto’s good deeds from his wrongdoings?
Perhaps not, but it would still remain unfair for us to ignore such a huge matter which has, undoubtedly, harmed Indonesian politics with its influence in widespread corruption and nepotism. Not to mention the racial divide caused by several oppressive policies which have contributed to pushing prejudices towards ethnic minorities.
It is astonishing just how baffling this case of a continuously-paradoxical political leader is, because developing efficient nation-wide programmes is one thing, and being the most corrupt political leader in recorded history is another. Those are two things that seem impossible to coexist, especially within the same soul; and yet, we have Soeharto.
This is the case of a ‘morally bad’ person with rather questionable values though at the same time having contributed very significantly to a country’s development.
We know for sure that we shouldn’t exactly label him as a ‘good’ person, but that should not stop us from discussing the many positive aspects of his regime. If we choose to ignore parts of the past, even when it seems reasonable to do so, we would still lose a part of our history; and losing a part of our history would make it difficult for us to associate ourselves with our past as a country.
