Economic doyen Sadli turns 80

A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Only a few people in Indonesia could launch a book on their 80th birthday. Economist Mohammad Sadli, who turned 80 on Monday, is one of those few.

The book, Mohammad Sadli's 80th Birthday: the Indonesian Economy in the Era of New Politics, a collection of articles written by 38 people of different backgrounds, was launched at his birthday celebration at Bentara Budaya, Palmerah, Central Jakarta.

Many prominent people flocked to Bentara Budaya. Most were his colleagues from the School of Economics at the University of Indonesia (UI), to which Sadli has long been attached as a lecturer.

They included educators and former ministers Fuad Hassan and Juwono Sudarsono as well as noted economist Sjahrir.

Other guests included economists Widjojo Nitisastro, Ali Wardhana and Emil Salim. Together with Sadli, they are often referred to as the "Berkeley Mafia" as they all attended University of California in Berkeley and it is they who designed the New Order economy.

Intellectual Nono Anwar Makarim has an interesting account on Sadli's role in the "Berkeley Mafia" from one informal meeting at Emil's home.

"Ali Wardhana wore sandals, and he still looked like a fighter. Emil Salim illuminated the discussion with his charming smile. But there was one person whom all the economists listened to carefully when he spoke.

"I concluded that he was a capo di tutti capi, a primus inter pares within the mafia community. This man was short, his head was round, his hair was sparse and his voice was sharp. I later learned that he was Mohammad Sadli," recalled Makarim in the book, which was launched on Monday.

Born in Sumedang on June 10, 1922, Sadli obtained a very distinguished education, which definitely contributed much to his success in the years after.

Sadli graduated from the prestigious Hogere Burgerschool (HBS) senior high school in Semarang during Dutch colonial times.

He left Semarang for Bandung, where he continued his studies at Technische Hogerschool, now the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), of which first Indonesian president Sukarno was also an alumnus.

However, before he could get a degree from ITB, Japanese troops stormed the country and created upheaval here. Sadli moved to Yogyakarta and pursued an engineering degree from Gadjah Mada University (UGM).

Soon after he obtained his degree from UGM in 1952, he was invited by Soemitro Djojohadikusumo to teach at the School of Economics at the University of Indonesia.

Soemitro might have heard of Sadli's interest in economics, economist Thee Kian Wee once recalled.

In the same year, in 1952, he was invited to join the Harvard Summer Program at Harvard University.

Two years later, he obtained his master's degree in economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

He went to the University of California in Berkeley in 1957 to pursue a postgraduate fellowship.

When he went home in 1957, he started his career as a lecturer at the University of Indonesia, from which he finally obtained a doctoral degree in November of the same year with his dissertation titled Aspect of Interregional Industrial Development with Special Reference to Indonesia.

In 1963, Sadli again went abroad to be a visiting fellow at Harvard University.

When he returned to Indonesia a year later, his capitalist- inclined School of Economics was under heavy pressure from left- wing activists, linked to the rising Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

During such a critical time, Sadli and his colleagues at the university were fortunate that they were supported by military men.

The military even invited Sadli and his colleagues to teach economics at the Army Staff and Command School (Seskoad).

Through Seskoad, Sadli and his economist colleagues played an important role in designing a blueprint to lift Indonesia's economy away from bankruptcy.

Sadli's prominent role in the early period of the New Order administration was his efforts in promoting the importance of inviting foreign capital, including debts, according to Widjojo.

"Sadli shaped people's minds. He talked about the importance of obtaining capital and investment from foreign countries, including the badly needed debts by the Indonesian economy. At that time, talking about debt was taboo in Indonesian politics," Widjojo said during Sadli's 80th birthday celebration.

His landmark achievement attracted the attention of then president Soeharto, and he was mandated by Soeharto to hold key Cabinet posts, first as the minister of manpower from 1971 to 1973 and then minister of mining from 1973 to 1978.

Retiring from the bureaucracy, Sadli became a productive writer, whose articles often appeared in several influential newspapers and magazines.

"Pressure from outside is badly needed to prevent mismanagement by the government of the day," said Sadli in one of his books, reflecting the style of his columns.