Tom Pepinsky

Author: tompepinsky

  • Soeharto vs. Mahathir

    It’s really interesting to compare the way that different dictators act.  (Here’s to hoping the censors are looking the other way today.)  As far as I (TP) can tell, Soeharto and Mahathir could not have been more different when it comes to personality.  In the Western press, Soeharto was often known as the "Smiling General."  The image we are supposed to get is quiet, balanced, harmonious, but also willing to kill half a million "Communists" if need be. Authors have made a great deal about whether or not this reflects some mystical Javanese cultural quality or what, but Soeharto never lost his temper, never said anything that could be considered controversial, and rarely even spoke in public.  He couldn’t even speak Indonesian very well–whenever he had to express a complex thought, he reverted to Javanese.  Yet he managed to hold onto power for 32 years, and surrounded himself with eminently capable politicians and technocrats who reverted to complete and utter babbling idiots when around him as they fell over themselves to compliment him.  My favorite story is of B.J. Habibie, who became his vice president in early 1998 and eventually succeeded him in office.  Habibie is no dummy–Ph.D. in Aeronautical Engineering from a Western University, etc.  Yet he used to refer to Soeharto–to his face–by the nickname of "SGS," which, I am not kidding, stood for "Super Genius Soeharto." 

    Mahathir could not be more different.  He prides himself on being loud and abrasive, displaying a remarkable penchant for shooting his mouth off without thinking first. (I refer to him in the first person because he, like Soeharto, is still alive, just retired.)  While Soeharto quietly and respectfully pretended to comply with IMF directives during the financial crisis of 1997-98, Mahathir went around the world blaming people for the crisis.  From currency speculators to Western capitalists to Jews to Bill Clinton to George Soros, he left few groups out, becoming famous for his loud mouth and brash demeanor.  If you get the minute-by-minute data from the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange, you can actually watch the Malaysian stock market decline during the course of his speeches.  In the University of Malaya library there is a whole shelf full of speeches by, biographies of, and testimonials to the greatness of Mahathir.  To my knowledge, Soeharto dictated an autobiography in 1989, and that’s it.

    There’s not much English language content, but you can check out a scrolling set of pictures of Soeharto and his wife at the Soeharto Center online.  You can compare this to Mahathir’s page, full of his speeches and viewpoints.

  • New Job

    So I (JM) have a new job.  While playing with the elephants this weekend, I mentioned to some of the staff members of the Malaysian American Commission on Educational Exchange (the office that manages Fulbrights here) that I’d be happy to help out at their office if they had any use for me.  Turns out they were desperate for volunteers to help mentor and advise Malaysian students interested in studying in the US.  I guess they weren’t joking, because I got a call at 8:15 this morning and they asked me to be in at 10.  I told them I could come in whenever they most needed me, and they asked me to come every day from 10-4.  So I have a job.  They pay me a "stipend" for lunch money and train fare of approximately $1.50 an hour which is hysterical.  I’d do it for free, but this way it will accumulate into grocery money.

    I got the grand tour of the office today.  It’s a really nice, new place which is literally next door to the Petronas Towers, and it’s easy to get to via the train that runs near our place.  They have an enormous library of materials about going to college in the States.  I thought I knew just how many books there were ranking schools and giving little descriptions, but I was wrong.  They have hundreds and hundreds of these things.  I don’t know whether it’s kind of cool or really weird.

    There were 8 or 10 students that came by today, so I listened in on the other two advisors to get a feel for how it works.  It was really fun, they all have different stories and interests and little problems.  I think the hardest thing is going to be getting them to look at other colleges aside from the Ivy Leagues.  The was one dude who came in looking for material for his son and would not leave us alone until we helped him pull up the list of Ivies on the computer.  Then he said "Where’s MIT?"  It was pretty amusing.  Did you know that during the Malaysian economic boom of the 1980’s about 20,000 Malaysian students came to the US every year to go to college?  I thought that was astonishingly high, especially since this country has only about 22 million people.  After the economic crisis in the 90’s and 9/11 the numbers are down to more like 6500.  That’s still an awful lot.  I’ll have other little interesting tidbits in the coming days as I slog my way through the 2 pound "Training Manual for Educational Advisors".