Soeharto: Tracing his rise and fall from power

Soeharto: Tracing his rise and fall from power

Mochtar Pabotinggi, Contributor, Jakarta

Suharto: A Political Biography;
Robert B. Elson;
Cambridge University Press 2001,
289 pp

A reading of some two-thirds of the book impressed me with its
clarity, empathy, fairness and commendable scholarly discipline
in dealing with its subject.

The book consists of 11 chapters, each of which is divided
into pertinent topical sections that stick to the main line of
the political biography. The narrative is chronological,
beginning with Soeharto's early life to his sudden political
prominence in October 1965, his rise in power and ending with his
crisis-laden fall. With such an organization, readers are not
left overwhelmed when plowing through the thick volume.

Prof. Elson shuns three schools in the literature of
developing countries' politics: authoritarian typification,
cultural essentialization and bureaucratic patrimonialism. He
prefers to base his argument on the very materials he has
gathered and move his narrative "with a jaundiced, critical and
sensitive eyes and do his best to draw balanced, measured and
sensible conclusions ...".

Thus, he avoids idle or vague controversies, such as that
surrounding Soeharto's parenthood, ex-colonel Latief's accusation
of Soeharto's complicity in the 30 September Movement and why the
plan to kidnap the generals during the abortive coup turned to
killings.

He contends that Soeharto was "no reader", a far cry from
onetime prime minister Sjahrir, vindictive to his enemies, well-
versed early on in founding parasitic foundations, eager to embed
the military "in business activity" with "a proclivity to allow
close associates to have their heads" in economic deals, decades-
long reliance on rent-seeking generals who were backed up by
Chinese businessmen, all the way characterized by political ideas
which "remained narrow and resistant to sophistication."

Conversely, he was at once attentive and trustful to his close
friends, which composed the inter circle of his power during the
first two decades of his rule, and direct subordinates with "a
significant reputation for efficient field leadership, political
reliability and stubborn steadiness".

Regarding the coup attempt, blamed on the Indonesian Communist
Party (PKI), Elson says that it hatched from "a coordinated
effort by some PKI leaders, and junior officers connected with
the Diponegoro Division and the Air Force," of "limited in scale
and defensive in intend," and that Soeharto had nothing to do
with the movement.

Elson has three arguments to support his position: Soeharto's
typically cautious character would not countenance such a
"hastily and sloppily planned ... conspiracy"; his success in
quickly "rallying the army on the morning of Oct. 1 and keeping
it under his control thereafter"; and the impossibility for
Nasution to remain passive had he had an inkling that Soeharto
played a role in the coup.

This goes well with Elson's later argument that Soeharto "was
himself unclear about his longer-term goals, or even the role
that he should play".

The thrust of Soeharto's power lies, according to Elson,
mainly in his filling the inner-power circle of the New Order
with his close aides in the military whose loyalty to him had
been sufficiently tested in the past.

Ironically, this power thrust contained its own anathema: its
tightness and effectiveness necessarily evaporated over time --
the aides Soeharto trusted passed away one by one, leaving him a
very smug, lonely and ever greedy autocrat.

There is another serious drawback to this monolithic power
circle, which Elson gets from Nasution: it insulated Soeharto
from receiving a more systemic or paradigmatic kind of political
advice.

This simultaneously explains the intensity of self-righteous
greed among the Soehartos and, in a much broader sense, the deep
irrationality both in the politics and in the economy of the New
Order. In this regard, the book virtually seconds what Indonesian
observers have already seen. We are talking about the
accumulation of negative impact that this double irrationality,
coupled with the smugness and loneliness, at the apex of power,
that later visited a conflagration of insurmountable political
disorder out of long pent-up bitterness due to decades of
oppressions, inequality and sheer power arrogance.

But, as we say in Indonesian, "no tusks without fissures". I
think in three instances, Prof. Elson assumes wrongly or read
confusedly that many present-day Indonesians want to forget
Soeharto, that his book "portrays something of the essential
nature of modern Indonesian political practice" and that Soeharto
(harto, ironically, means wealth in Javanese) was only interested
in money in so far as "it was central to his capacity to maintain
power and to move Indonesia in the direction he desired."

It is precisely because no conversant Indonesians want to
forget Soeharto that they keep and continue against all odds
their painful efforts toward political reform. It would also be
grossly misleading to identify "modern Indonesia" with the New
"Netherlands India" Order.

It seems that Prof. Elson is here recovering Harry Benda's
thesis, lapsing into a subconscious cultural prejudice, which he
states in the beginning he wants to avoid. The last instance
definitely belies the fact of how resentful and angry Soeharto
always became if anybody questioned or censured his attention to
enrich his family -- a stance he stuck to even as he lost any
remaining hope of keeping power.

With the mountain of wealth the Soehartos allegedly siphoned
off, they could have contributed significantly to save the
country, at least from its economic crisis while easing out of
the political, moral and leadership ones. Soeharto could have
stepped aside gracefully by giving his full support to the
process of political reform and by mobilizing his family and fat
crony-capitalists; he could have easily held them all by their
"umbilical cords".

What he decided instead was to hold his plundered lucre
covetously by means of opting for a scorched-earth strategy for
the rest of Indonesians, saving himself and his family by
dragging the nation tragically further down. Greed is Soeharto's
final definition. After all, it is in his name.