Category: Politics

There is simply no end to the ways that Suharto gave favors to his sons, daughters, cronies, cousins, and fellow businessmen. Four recent examples from the mid-1990s include the decision of B.J. Habibie, his vice-dictator, to design and produce Indonesia’s own jet liner; the ill-fated attempt of Bob Hasan (who’s actually Chinese Indonesian) to create Indonesia’s own car for domestic consumption; the fake discovery of the world’s largest goldmine in Borneo by a Canadian company whose local representative was Suharto’s daughter; and the granting to Suharto’s son Hutomo Mandala Putra (“Tommy”) of both monopsony rights to buy all cloves produced in Indonesia for clove cigarettes and monopoly rights to sell all cloves to clove cigarette companies.

Yes. So basically, Tommy was the middleman on both sides. First farmers had to sell all their cloves to Tommy, who would buy them at below-market prices and create a profit. Then, clove cigarette makers (Djarum, Sampoerna, Galam, etc.) had to buy all of the cloves for their cigarettes from Tommy, who would sell them at above-market prices. When it became clear that Madagascar was producing cloves even cheaper than Indonesian farmers, Tommy managed to become the sole licensed importer of foreign cloves. Nobody could argue cause his daddy was the dictator. It’s funny cause it’s true.

One nice thing about our apartment is that we get BBC World on the TV. We mentioned before how much nicer it is to watch real news on TV.

Last night we watched Tony Blair address the Labour Party congress. It makes us sad to think about how backwards our country is. Our president has latched onto the word “freedom” like it’s a life raft, making vague promises about what he will do if he gets elected president. (Note the infuriating subtext here.) Tony Blair talks about seven and a half years of overwhelming progress in British society. Our president claims that the economy is “getting better.” Tony Blair cites seven and a half years of economic growth, a massive drop in crime and unemployment, a doubling in the percentage of poor Londoner students passing through high school, and a 200% increase in the efficiency of Britain’s government-funded public health system. Our president wants to amend the founding document of our society to include a provision that prevents loving same-sex couples from being treated just like everyone else. Tony Blair proudly proclaims that the New Left has forced the Lib Dems and the Tories to accept gay rights and to openly compete with Labour for the gay vote. Our president has nothing to say about minorities except for that he appoints them to cabinet posts. Tony Blair notes the changes in the past decade–racial relations are not “political correctness,” but rather an issue that all Britons must accept as a key issue in British society.

Now let’s be clear. Poor Tony glossed over a bunch of troubling economic problems, including the failure of Britain to join the EU–a massive defeat that will harm Britons in the long term. Poor Tony still refuses to acknowledge the flip side of “I’m Not Going to Apologize for Removing Saddam,” which is “It Is Not the Case that Anything Is Better than Saddam.” But still.