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.