Good Old Suharto?

This article is published a few days after Suharto's birthday, simply arguing that it is not a good idea to see the past through rose-tinted glasses. Facing economic and political difficulties, it is easy to idealize the past, but the past itself may not be as beautiful as we thought.


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The Thinker: Good Old Suharto?
Yohanes Sulaiman | June 15, 2011

The debate on the legacy of Suharto and the New Order began immediately after his fall in May 1998.

Many people, notably those who felt the repressive hands of the regime, argued that the New Order was a failure, rife with nepotism and human rights violations. The loss of East Timor was the crown jewel on the top of the effigy of the failed idol of the New Order.

Reformasi and the new Indonesian democracy is supposed to derive its legitimacy from the idea that rule by the people will avoid the mistakes of the New Order and clean up all its messes. Having learned that Suharto’s strongman system didn’t work, democracy is supposed to be the power that saves the nation.

Therefore it was a terrible shock when Indobarometer dropped a bombshell last month in announcing that, based on a recent poll, Suharto beat other Indonesian presidents in terms of popularity by a large margin. The same survey also noted that 41 percent of the survey’s respondents believed that their lives were better under the New Order.

In short, 13 years after the fall of Suharto many people are longing for the good old days of the New Order. Not surprisingly, the findings caused a firestorm with experts, academics, politicians and talking heads questioning the methodology and political motivations behind the survey.

Regardless of the motivation, there is growing nostalgia for the New Order among Indonesians. This phenomenon of fondly recalling a fallen regime is not unique to Indonesia; the former states of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and East Germany, as well as Poland, have seen the same.

What’s important to note is that people are not nostalgic for the real past. Rather they are attracted to an idealized past — a constructed past that never existed in the first place, when the government was believed to be all-wise and all-benevolent, and everything was believed to be orderly.

Considering that today people are fed a steady diet of bad news, it is no wonder that people are longing for the days when everything seemed to be under control. But this is a mirage; the erstwhile government established order by sweeping everything under the rug and occasionally using extra-judicial measures.

The reason why today’s world is seemingly so chaotic is because there is so much openness, so much information swirling around, exposing all the misconduct. At the same time, the usually protected politicians today live under the glare of the spotlight, leading to many embarrassing exposes.

The government itself is not prepared to run a democracy. Instead of controlling and telling media what to write, it can only provide information. Yet the government doesn’t have well-developed media relations personnel. Not surprisingly, people are complaining about the lack of leadership.

It is important not to dismiss the Indobarometer survey as a walk down fantasy lane. The problem with such nostalgic feelings is that it creates unrealistic expectations of the current and future government — expectations that no government will ever be able to match.

Instead, both Suharto and the New Order must be humanized, to be seen and evaluated just as a normal human being with all their strength and weaknesses.

It is unfair to simply dismiss all these achievements of the New Order. Regardless of someone’s opinion on Suharto, it cannot be denied that he was rightfully a state hero, as he contributed much to national development. It is undeniable that the New Order regime managed to lift tens of millions of Indonesians from the jaws of poverty while achieving almost full literacy and various other social achievements in just a few decades.

On the other hand, the New Order’s many abuses cannot be denied. Corruption and nepotism were rife within the bureaucracy. Personal connections and corruptions made a mockery of the rule of law. The norms of professionalism were decimated in universities, judiciaries, the armed forces and other organizations that might potentially generate political problems, as Suharto personally vetted every single candidate for promotion. Political censorship and human rights abuses were commonplace. Those faults could not be simply swept away under the rug and ignored.

Such accomplishments and weaknesses of Suharto and the New Order regime must be treated fairly and mentioned in our attempts to understand the New Order. Therefore, in a belated celebration of Suharto’s birthday last week, let us hope that this and future generation of Indonesian leaders may learn the “human” Suharto and avoid his mistakes.