'Djuanda model' may be suitable for today's Indonesia: Legge

The endless political tumult has placed Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri in the spotlight and with it a resurging interest in her father, Sukarno, the late first president of Indonesia.

John Legge, former professor of history at Monash University, dean of the Faculty of Arts, spoke to The Jakarta Post's contributor Dewi Anggraeni in Melbourne, about Sukarno. Prof. Legge is the author of A Biography of Sukarno, first published in 1972 and a second edition was brought out in 1985.

Question: To have written a biography of Sukarno you must have observed his life in great detail. How would you describe Sukarno?

Answer: The book was written shortly after the change of regime from Sukarno to Soeharto. It was written very much against the background of guided democracy. I argue in the book that Sukarno had three periods during which he made history by grasping the initiative and changing the course of events.

What periods are they?

The first of these was in the late 1920s as chairman of the Indonesian National Party (PNI). He made lots of speeches, traveled around Java talking about nationalism as the uniting ideological theme. He was able to bring together other streams of nationalism like Islam and Marxism. He was a very visible figure developing a nationalist ideology. That period came to an end with his arrest and imprisonment.

The second was the period of Japanese occupation. The Dutch called him a Japanese collaborator, but I think in reality he was fairly effective in manipulating the occupying government to look favorably on his nationalist stance. He developed his well-known presence through his access to radio, and he used this privilege in a clever way. He spoke somewhat ambiguously, in ways understood by his listeners but not by the Japanese.

Did he ever make a blunder, something not uncommon in an uncertain era?

There were questionable parts in this period, for instance his acceptance of recruiting romusha laborers. He had to tread very carefully during the period of Japanese occupation.

What is the third period?

The third period is 1957-1959, when constitutional democracy had largely broken down. Before 1957 there had been short-lived governments, weak coalitions, regional revolts.

He stepped forward outside the Constitution, formed a government. As he put it, "President Sukarno has commissioned citizen Sukarno to form a government". That was the government of Djuanda.

During the next two years, he gradually moved toward abolishing, by decree, the 1950 Provisional Constitution, and returned to the Constitution of 1945. This was the beginning of guided democracy.

There are some disagreements about the degree to which this was due to his own initiatives and how much it was Nasution's or the Army's.

What do you think?

My view is that there was a bit of both. Sukarno did take a leading role, but he did this with the agreement of Nasution and the Army's leadership, and with their aid. Of course this created a very strong presidency.

Under the 1950 Constitution he had been a figurehead president. The 1945 Constitution placed a great deal of power in the hands of the president.

Over the next few years the Communist Party became bigger and stronger. Sukarno had no real power base of his own so he had to operate a bit like Gus Dur does now, within the framework of contending political pressures, the Army being one and the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) another. So Sukarno had to balance these two. I see him during that period as responding to events rather than making them.

So I see these periods as being the time when he changed things. During the first two he was more powerful, after that things got a little out of hand, right up until the events of 1965, when Soeharto stepped in, and with Supersemar (the order signed by Sukarno on March 11, 1966), delegated authority to Soeharto so the latter could take action himself. Sukarno however remained president formally until 1968, when Soeharto became officially president.

So from 1959 onwards he began to lose his grip on power?

He was president during the period of guided democracy, but it was a very fragile and divided political situation, in which you can say nobody had a real grip on power.

Do you think it was a mistake of Sukarno's to attempt to bring these unlikely forces together?

Well, he didn't have a choice. That was the way the political balance was at that time.

Where did he go wrong, or how did he misjudge the situation?

I wouldn't say that it was a matter of going wrong or a case of misjudgement. After Independence, Indonesian politics became very volatile.

There were a whole series of governments under the provisional constitution, the coalitions were largely between Masyumi and PNI. Nobody had dominant power. It was a matter of compromise.

Sukarno felt that a return to the 1945 Constitution would make for a stronger presidency and he would have greater authority to control the situation. Having done that, things didn't improve much. To stop the Army and the PKI from openly clashing, Sukarno waged large nationalist campaigns, first against the Dutch in West Irian, and then against the new state of Malaysia.

But those were economically costly and resulted in hyper- inflation. Indonesians claimed to feel that Sukarno was too tolerant of inflation and of economic decline. Is there anything that Sukarno did that may be relevant to today's situation? In 1957 Sukarno appointed Djuanda as prime minister. The government was effectively run by the prime minister and the Cabinet. Last year Gus Dur (as President Abdurrahman Wahid is affectionately called) did suggest something of that kind, when he suggested that Megawati be responsible for running the government while he remained President.

That didn't work out. In reality the Djuanda model might be appropriate for Indonesia considering Gus Dur's present state.

Can you see some parallels between Sukarno and Gus Dur?

There may be more significant parallels between their situations, rather than between them as individuals. Soeharto had the army behind him. Both Sukarno and Abdurrahman Wahid have had to deal with volatile political situations. Neither of them could really be on top, having to cope with a variety of political pressures, regional ambitions and resistance.

Sukarno had to handle resistance from North Sumatra and North Sulawesi while today Gus Dur has to find solutions for Aceh and West Papua.

Where were Islamic groups during the Sukarno days?

In the fifties there were Masyumi and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) as the two major Muslim parties, in addition to some other minor ones. They were part of 'the big four' which emerged from the 1955 election.

In the 1960s, Masyumi, having become involved in regional revolt and subsequently outlawed, was virtually out of the picture.

During the period of guided democracy, the power of the Army and the PKI became greater than that of political parties.

Would you say Islamic groups were disenfranchised at that time?

I would say it was pretty close in the case of Masyumi, but NU continued to play a role.

And they were disenfranchised again during Soeharto's rule?

Yes. Soeharto's government was basically a military regime. Initially Soeharto was concerned with development, but over time he became much more authoritarian. Everybody was disenfranchised.

Are there parallels or contrasts between Sukarno and Soeharto?

Apart from the fact that they are both Javanese, they are not alike. Soeharto took power from Sukarno with the backing of the military. Sukarno never had the chance to do that, so he had to control the situation through political maneuvers. That was very unlike Soeharto. And in policy terms Sukarno was uninterested in pursuing an adequate economic policy, unlike Soeharto in the early years of his rule.

Would you say that the disenfranchisement of Islamic groups during Sukarno and Soeharto has something to do with the current national crisis?

Yes. The banning of Masyumi removed its members from power entirely, but the values they represented are still around.

Do you see Sukarno as a person who was able to invoke or evoke patriotism in Indonesia?

I would say that he was very important in emphasizing and keeping alive the idea of an Indonesian nation. Some would argue that Indonesia is not naturally a nation, considering its ethnic, geographical and economic diversity. Yet we have a perception of a nation.

Has that kind of sentiment, a perception of belonging to a nation, now faded?

I don't think so. Indonesia is really a manufactured nation, or to use Benedict Anderson's term, it had to be "imagined" as a community. Sukarno's contribution was to stress the idea of nationalism and to keep alive the perception of an independent nation.

If you could say it in several sentences, what do you see as the core problems that may cause the disintegration of Indonesia?

Apart from regional differences that have always been there, the authoritarian nature of Soeharto's rule has naturally generated the ideas of reformasi (political reform). What we see now is the reaction against years of Soeharto's rule.