Taking a fresh look at Soeharto's New Order

Suharto, Indonesia's Last Sultan; By Keith Loveard; Horizon Books Singapore, 1999; 400 pages; US$26

SINGAPORE (JP): Soeharto wants to be remembered as a hero. Popular Indonesian history describes him valiantly leading the Army to victories against Dutch imperialists and communist assassins. He is portrayed as a good man: a family man and rural man who sacrificed everything for his country.

He does not want to be a villain, let alone be remembered in a foreign correspondent's memoirs as the man who sat unashamedly enjoying a bowl of soup while fellow revolutionaries risked life and limb to defeat the Dutch in Yogyakarta. Nor does he want to be implicated in the murder of generals as an overly ambitious soldier or suspected part-time communist.

Suharto, Indonesia's Last Sultan is an apt title for a book on the man who revived and perfected the modern-day kraton (sultanate). The making of this kraton and the personalities involved fall under Keith Loveard's gaze and enter his critical passages.

Loveard does not set out to praise or defame Indonesia, although he does badly tarnish Soeharto's image. He writes with affection and frustration for Indonesia, whether he is describing meeting with paranormals in Java, Acehnese rebels or foreign minister Ali Alatas, or taking a flight on a luxury jet owned by Soeharto's daughter Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, better known as Tutut.

His memoirs are too personal and, sometimes, too comic to be mainstream news, but they are too valuable to go unpublished. Weaving together a series of feature articles, Loveard struggles to free himself from the vice of journalese until he drifts uncertainly into personal recollections of first-hand experiences and behind-the-scenes conversations with famous and infamous Indonesians. Yet he consciously clings to a journalist's quest for objectivity and belief in showing a story from several perspectives. He seldom dares share his own opinions; the words of others do nicely.

Suharto, Indonesia's Last Sultan is not a book for foreigners lacking a basic knowledge of Indonesia, nor is it for those expecting a textbook presentation of Soeharto's 32-year reign. Rather, it for foreigners and locals familiar with Indonesia's unique way of working (or not working), its people's behavior and power structures.

On Soeharto's communist witch-hunt, Loveard writes: "Fear seeped into the heart of every Indonesian. Even in the post- Soeharto era, there are many people who are afraid to speak out, aware no doubt that the wind of reform could just as easily shift to another wave of repression. While this apprehension is probably unwarranted, given the mood of change in the military in a world where stand-over tactics are no longer popular, it is the army people fear most, the machine that put Soeharto's subtle reign of terror in place." (p. 49)

Readers must appreciate Indonesia, particularly its politics, to appreciate this book because of Loveard's tendency to drop names and events without much context or background. This is particularly true when the reader finds himself in an olio of news, personal experiences and interviews wrapped neatly into a couple of paragraphs.

Loveard is reluctant to drop seemingly insignificant details which must mean a lot to him. His editor must have conceded it is Loveard's diary and these things are not published in the press. Besides, dry nonfiction on Soeharto's rise and fall is flooding the market, along with a heap of horror stories and critical literature once banned by his regime.

Unlike most other works of nonfiction dealing with Indonesian politics, Loveard dwells on the mysteries of Javanese supernatural phenomena and the way they helped Soeharto gain and maintain power. He goes so far as to reason that Soeharto may have lost his power because of his "arrogance" toward these phenomena. Loveard, demonstrating his determination to understand Indonesia, devotes a chapter to the role of magic and the supernatural in the lives of Indonesians, Javanese or otherwise.

Not surprisingly, he ends this chapter by acknowledging some belief in magic: "As a Westerner witnessing the rapid transformation of urban Indonesian life, it seems too easy to assume everybody is 'modern'. Many still believe in the ways of their parents and grandparents. Being 'modern' doesn't mean you have to throw out the past. Besides, in the supposedly sophisticated West, how many people read horoscopes? In the end, it's a matter of whether you believe or not. Skeptics won't see magic. Believers see it everywhere. For people like me who see indications of the irrational, it's hard not to believe just a little." (p. 99)

Sit back if you are into Indonesia and let the book's tide of events flow over you. Do not worry about who's who, and do not get caught flipping back and forth through the book trying to figure out names, positions and context. If you simply read it, this book is an enjoyable tour of the sideshows that surround big news events in Indonesia, particularly the human side which is often edited out of the news. The book is up-to-date in covering President Habibie's surprise gamble of offering East Timor independence in January and in describing life after Soeharto's fall in 1998. It is also amusing, as any tragedy should be.

The book, launched in Singapore in July, unfortunately is not yet available in Indonesia. According to the publisher's public relations office in Jakarta, the book is still being studied by the Attorney General's Office -- a common procedure applied to both local and foreign publications.

-- Prapti Widinugraheni