The origins of the New Order regime

By Candra Gautama

JAKARTA (JP): When Soeharto stepped down from the presidency on May 21, 1998, it marked the fall of the New Order. But some anti-New Order circles say New Order supporters are still striving for a comeback, especially through the legislature.

This sounds plausible given that Golkar, the former ruling party, has the second-most seats in the legislature. Therefore, anti-New Order crusaders are demanding that New Order supporters be removed from the legislative body.

One of the latest signs of this anti-New Order crusade was the strong opposition to the election of Golkar official Abdul Gafur as North Maluku governor. Thousands of people from various parts of North Maluku launched a demonstration against him and occupied the local council building on July 6.

Despite all the uproar surrounding the New Order, those who came up with the name, which is reminiscent of the Ordo Nuova of Benito Mussolini's fascist regime in Italy, remain unknown.

The birth of the New Order began in January 1966, when people demanded Sukarno step down from the presidency, following the aborted coup of Sept. 30, 1965.

A symposium held by the University of Indonesia, the student movement KAMI and the academician movement KASI in Jakarta from May 6 to May 9, 1966, is regarded as one of the seeds of the New Order, as is the rise of the 1966 Generation of student activists.

A keynote speaker at the symposium, Yap Kie Hien, used the word orde. In his paper What is torn down; what is waiting, Yap discussed the situation of the "Old World" before the 1966 Generation made a breakthrough to the expected "New World".

He also said, "... based on all reasonable criteria, the social 'order' of the old world is not more than a ... conspicuous social and mental confusion". He spoke at length of "old" and "new".

On June 27, Kompas quoted former military commander Gen. A.H. Nasution as saying before thousands of people: "Develop a new order, eliminate the old order." This was the first time the terms were used in public.

Standing on an armored vehicle, he thundered: "There is still no institution purely based on the 1945 Constitution. But let us work for that purpose, and also for improvement in the Cabinet composition and government programs as soon as possible. The new order should be developed and the old order should be eliminated thoroughly ..."

From this point on, the terms "new order" and "old order" frequently came up in political discourses in Indonesia, but the meanings remained unclear. On July 4, 1966, Kompas' editorial read: "The new order does not mean people, but a framework of a life order ... the old order is colonial, and the new order is the national order ...."

About four months later a different interpretation emerged. On Oct. 18, Kompas quoted Gen. Nasution, then speaker of the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly, as saying that the "Old Order" consisted of those actively advocating for the communists before the Sept. 30 attempted coup, yelling support for the national-religious-communist doctrine and for the eradication of "capitalist bureaucrats".

The "Old Order" also included those fostering the cult of the individual, who did not participate in crushing the "contrarevolutionary group Gestapu/PKI ..." and those who opposed the "People's Three Demands" at that time -- dissolve the Indonesian Communist Party, purge communist elements from the Cabinet and lower prices of basic needs. It aslo included those still engaged as "political guerrillas and in contraoffensives after the issuance of Supersemar -- a document transferring power from Sukarno to Soeharto.

It is interesting to observe Sukarno's response to the two terms as contained in Kompas published on Dec. 15, in an article titled President Sukarno: Not Orba, not Orla, using the acronyms of for the new and old orders, respectively.

The article read: "President Sukarno said ... the terms Old Order and New Order have confused many people. Pointing repeatedly at reporters and asking them to note his words, the President said: 'I myself don't know what is New Order and Old Order.' He said that once a foreign journalist asked him for an explanation of the (terms) and he answered: 'I don't know myself,' and further said that he belonged to the 'genuine order', which he said originated from the objectives and sources of the revolution."

"I am not La nor Ba. The terms don't come from my mouth," Sukarno said when receiving an art mission from Minahasa at the Merdeka Palace.

So was the name "New Order" created by Gen. Nasution? If he was only quoting someone, who was it? How far was the New Order inspired by Mussolini's Ordo Nuovo?

The writer works with the Gramedia publishing house in Jakarta.