Category: Politics

Soeharto looks like he might pull through.  Again.  I was speaking to a guy who works outside the building I work in, and he said that Soeharto will never die because of his wahyu, which you might loosely translate as a type of divine wisdom and power.  Very Javanese, that.

But that’s not stupid.  What’s stupid is what’s happening currently in Malaysia.  Currently, the Malaysian government is launching an attack against a Catholic newspaper in Malaysia that publishes a Malay language version, and in that Malay language version, uses the word "Allah" to refer to God.  Najib Tun Razak, the Deputy PM there, is leading this charge by saying that Muslims are going to get angry if Christians start using Allah instead of the traditional Austronesian word, which is Tuhan.  He’s not mentioned in the article, but he’s been all over BBC news explaining these things, and as I have argued in the past, Najib has historically been linked with Malay "ultras," or nationalists.

While I don’t want to editorialize too much, I….OK whatever, let me editorialize.  This is stupid.  People have been calling their mono-deity "Allah" in the Middle East since long before Islam was a religion.  All over the Muslim world, Christians call God "Allah": in Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, and in many parts of Indonesia.  Indonesia and Malaysia are different in that there is a pre-existing local term for God, whereas in places like Lebanon/Iraq/Egypt, the local form of Arabic is the local language.  Muslims in the Middle East don’t complain about Christians using the word Allah.  Neither do Indonesians.  So why should Malays?  Moreover, it’s been 700 years since Islam has been in Malaysia, and not once has someone thought to get angry about a non-Muslim saying Allah to describe his God.

So what’s the deal here?  Politics.  In not too long, Malaysia is set to have a general election, and the regime is doing its best to rally together its biggest constituents, Malays.  Najib especially has the role of "enforcer" in this situation, so he’s looking for ways to display his "pro-Malay" credentials.  All Malays are Muslims by law in Malaysia.  It’s a sad commentary that this is what passes for pro-Malay credentials.  Of course, the unintended consequence is that this is going to further inflame ethnic tensions in the country by further reinforcing the overlap between Islam and Malay-ness.  So now that Najib has made this an issue, we WILL find people deciding that they are angry about non-Muslims saying Allah.  A political issue will have been created out of nothing, and for political purposes.

The news here is that Soeharto is apparently on his death bed, suffering from kidney failure and heart failure.  They say they’re going to put him on dialysis and then give him a second pacemaker, but I saw pictures on MetroTV this morning, and he didn’t look well at all.  He’s 86 years old, after all.  They’re not saying "impending death" yet, but I’d be shocked if he lasted more than a couple more months.

This would put Indonesia into a truly new world, marking the peaceful end of one of the world’s most enigmatic, violent, yet durable dictators.  Soeharto ruled Indonesia for 32 years, making him the second longest reigning modern dictator (after Castro).  He killed somewhere between half a million and 2 million people when coming to power; but he took one of the poorest countries in the world and turned it into a firmly middle-income country.  He embraced the power of international capital, but did so while constructing one of the world’s most corrupt economies and lavishing tremendous favors on his military allies, business cronies, and children.  The World Bank ranks him as the most corrupt dictator in modern history.  The country which he ran is today a vibrant and nearly consolidated democracy, but one in which the legacies of authoritarianism (especially corruption) are still wholly evident.  He was a dictator who spent considerable effort to convince all Indonesians that he was a democrat.  He was a Muslim leader who took his inspiration from the Javanese sultans of old in crafting his public persona.  If Soeharto dies, few tears will be shed, but he will be still remembered by probably close to two hundred million Indonesians as the Father of Development.  Soeharto should have faced charges for the crimes he committed, and it is a shame that he never will.  I hope I’m here to see him go, and I say this not with malice, but with curiosity in seeing the country’s reaction.

But rather than waiting around to see if he dies, I’m going to go to try to buy a Javanese mask (topeng) as a souvenir for JM.