Indonesian Politics and Society

A Reader

David Bourchier, Vedi Hadiz, David Bourchier, Vedi Hadiz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781135544799
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Using an exhaustive selection of primary sources, this book presents a rich and textured picture of Indonesian politics and society from 1965 to the dramatic changes which have taken place in recent years. Providing a complete portrait of the Indonesian political landscape, this authoritative reader is an essential resource in understanding the history and contradictions of the New Order, current social and political conditions and the road ahead.

Part I
The search for a political format, 1965–73

1
The organicist camp

This chapter presents excerpts from writings, speeches and documents that establish some of the distinguishing features of the official orthodoxy in political thinking during Soeharto’s New Order. Among these features were a strident anti-communism, an aversion to party politics and an insistence on political stability guaranteed on a permanent basis by the armed forces. While modernisation and economic development were the overriding public priorities of the regime, the New Order’s ideologues promoted a vision of state–society relations that drew heavily on familial, nativist and organic metaphors. Harmony, cooperation and consensus were the catch cries of Pancasila democracy.

Soeharto did not come to power with any clear blueprint for the future. He and his allies were in one sense all children of the Sukarno era and it took them some years to work out what sort of a system they would – or could – establish in place of Guided Democracy. But it is possible to discern early patterns of interaction and confluences of ideas that set the parameters of the New Order. The corporatist organising principles of the New Order were essentially a continuation of the strategy the army leadership had used since the late 1950s in its efforts to undermine the influence of the parties in general and the PKI in particular. The regime’s managerial and developmentalist character grew partly out of Soeharto’s close relations with Lieutenant-General Suwarto, the man who brought together Indonesia’s first generation of US-trained economists and senior officers at the Army Staff and Command School (Seskoad). Soeharto also depended on a group of military lawyers led by Brigadier-General Sutjipto, who contributed much to the New Order’s bureaucratic character and to its organicist ideology. Indonesian – or perhaps Javanese – military culture was another important ingredient, with its regard for hierarchy, order and its institutional prejudice against political Islam and regionalism.

Soeharto’s first priorities were to establish control over the country and to convince the West to initiate flows of financial aid and investment to rescue an economy in drastic decline. The PKI stood in the way of both objectives and was the army’s first target. Reading 1.1, from an army-run newspaper called Api, provides a taste of the anti-communist propaganda produced by the Soeharto camp in the weeks after the coup of 1 October 1965. It was published at a time of widespread killing of members of the PKI and its mass organisations, and was clearly designed to maintain that bloody momentum.

The New Order, however, did not officially begin until 11 March 1966, when Sukarno signed the document that became known as Supersemar. This document, included as Reading 1.2, was used as the basis for Soeharto’s claim to power and signalled the beginning of his slow but steady marginalisation of Sukarno before being appointed president in 1968. Another seminal document was the decree of the Interim People’s Consultative Assembly (MPRS) banning the PKI and the teachings of communism/Marxism–Leninism (Reading 1.3). This provided the formal basis of all persecution of communists and leftism under the New Order. It is a measure of the success of the Soeharto government’s efforts to keep the communist threat alive that when President Abdurrahman Wahid attempted to have this decree rescinded in early 2000 he was opposed by most major party leaders.

A defining characteristic of the New Order was its claim that the military, as the ultimate guardian of the state, had a permanent right to participate in political affairs. While military leaders had spoken in these terms since at least 1957, it was not until the Second Army Seminar, held at Seskoad in Bandung in August 1966, that the doctrine of ‘dwifungsi’, or the ‘dual function’ of the armed forces, was formally enunciated. Dwifungsi was the subject of frequent debate and controversy in the 1970s and 1980s, and, despite the formal renunciation of the doctrine in 2000, the military’s role in politics remains a contested issue both within the armed forces and outside it. The most succinct statement of dwifungsi we could find appeared in a booklet published in 1973 by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, an influential Jakarta think tank that had a direct input into government policy at this time (Moertopo 1973; Reading 1.4).

While warning against the evils of ideology, the New Order placed enormous rhetorical emphasis on the Pancasila and the idea of the family state. Reading 1.5 is taken from a 1967 speech in which Soeharto outlines the fundamentals of the system of government he called Pancasila democracy. The speech is striking for its mix of constitution-alist and organicist rhetoric. It foreshadows not only the simplification of the party system, but also Soeharto’s campaign in the 1980s to force social organisations and parties to adopt Pancasila as their sole philosophical foundation. This is followed by an extract from a report to parliament written by Colonel Abdulkadir Besar, one of the army’s foremost lawyers and ideologues (Reading 1.6). It has been included because it is one of the earliest and clearest attempts to establish the organicist character of the 1945 Constitution. Although Abdulkadir at this time was not closely aligned with Soeharto, the ideas he propounded here – particularly his identification of the ultra-conservative Dutch-trained customary law expert Supomo as the authentic source of constitutional thinking – became part of the ideological orthodoxy of the New Order. According to this vision, Indonesia’s political and constitutional life necessarily reflected the country’s agrarian and communitarian culture. Pancasila, as the product of Indonesia’s indigenous culture and value system, was in contradiction to both liberalism and communism, regarded as alien and unsuited to the Indonesian ‘national character’.

But of course traditionalism was only part of the story. At the same time the New Order was resolutely modernist in its appeal to development, progress and rapid economic growth. The skill of its leaders – including Soeharto’s remarkable intelligence aide Ali Moertopo – was to combine these apparently contradictory features in such a way as to enable the regime to reap the benefits of capitalism while denying its cultural baggage of individualism and liberal democracy. The rhetoric of Soeharto and Moertopo in this sense embodied many of the characteristics of what Jayasuriya called ‘reactionary modernism’, in which ‘images of the future are coded in the name of a past cultural or natural heritage’ (1998: 84). The discourse of organicism or the ‘family state’ clearly helped to legitimise state-dominated corporatist arrangements that prevailed during the New Order and the regime’s penchant for state intervention into all aspects of social, economic and political life.

Next to Soeharto, Ali Moertopo was undoubtedly the most influential figure in crafting the political architecture of the New Order. Famously wily and indefatigable, Moertopo and his networks of agents created Golkar, dismantled the political party system and restructured state–society relations along corporatist lines. He was also an expert propagandist. In Reading 1.7 Moertopo gives a confidential briefing to a group of military officers in 1970. This extract is a good example of the way the regime attempted to establish the legitimacy of the New Order regime by redefining the past. Such narrations of the nation, in which the government is presented as leading the nation back to the true path, became a staple of official speeches and school texts. Reading 1.8, ‘The floating mass’, is taken from Moertopo’s unofficial manifesto of the New Order, a 1973 tract entitled The Acceleration and Modernization of 25 Years’ Development. In contrast to Sukarno’s efforts to mobilise the masses, the emphasis here is on winding back popular participation in politics for the sake of political stability and development. The term was first used in the Indonesian context by the Muslim scholar Nurcholish Madjid shortly before the 1971 general elections but was soon picked up by Moertopo and his assistants. This reading presents the best known formulation of the ‘floating mass’ concept, according to which political parties were forbidden to maintain a presence in villages except during election campaigns. Translated into Law no. 3/1973, the concept remained a crucial element of New Order politics for the life of the regime.

The chapter ends with a rare impromptu speech by Soeharto in 1972 (Reading 1.9) attacking students for criticising an ‘Indonesia in Miniature’ theme park project headed by his wife. In his 1967 speech Soeharto had promised to uphold basic rights for the common good of the state, society and the people. By 1972 it had become increasingly apparent that this common good was increasingly being defined by Soeharto himself. In this impassioned speech Soeharto revealed his extraordinary sensitivity to criticism that would mark the rest of his presidency and lead to serious strains with some of his early supporters.

1.1 Api: keep attacking them

Api was a virulently anti-communist broadsheet, which began publication on 1 October 1965, the day of the attempted coup – referred to here as the G30S affair (Gerakan 30 September, 30 September Movement). This article was part of the army’s campaign of hatred against the PKI that saw as many as half a million suspected communists killed. The following reading is Api’s editorial of 7 November 1965, ‘Pukul terus’. It is translated from Dewan Redaksi Api (1965: 67–8).

The G30S (alias PKI) must be eliminated physically, mentally and spiritually, albeit within the bounds of humanitarianism in keeping with the Pancasila. This is the basic message of Pak Harto, who was mandated by Bung Karno to restore security. Thanks to our collective effort and the intimate bond between Bung Karno, the people and the armed forces, significant progress has been made.

The physical, mental and spiritual blows must be intensified in order to display an understanding of Major-General Soeharto’s statement about the radical and total struggle of humanity, especially in facing enemies of the revolution as fierce and cruel as these. As well as crushing these enemies of the revolution with physical violence, the broad public must be instilled with a sense of moral revulsion at the attitudes and practices of the barbarous PKI, whose members laughed openly as they witnessed the murder of six generals and a junior officer.

Let there be no compromise, no bargaining, and no wavering among our officials in taking firm and just measures against figures implicated in the G30S affair. By the same token, do not get in the way of those who unyieldingly and courageously devote their energy, and even their lives, to crushing the G30S. Do not create difficulties, either physical, moral or spiritual, for the members of the armed forces who are now carrying out a comprehensive cleansing of all evil people in our republic and their teachings: PKI-ism.

Because, to be frank, there are some among our officials who hanker after the PKI, who lament its fate, who have been hit by the deadly sledgehammer of the people. The PKI is obviously counter-revolutionary and aims to destroy the unitary state of Indonesia. This is evident in a document discovered by the authorities which reveals a plan to turn Indonesia into a fractured federal state.

These officials are usually the overly clever types, enabling them to justify all sorts of misdeeds, or those who are too dim to keep pace with these vibrant and dynamic times. Or else those affected by moral disorders, making them vulnerable to blackmail by PKI people, who are very cunning in using these kinds of tactics.

The best way to harden our resolve against the PKI and PKI-ism is to arm ourselves with a superior ideology: the Pancasila. Major-General Ibrahim Adji was quite correct when he said that we must have Pancasila morals, morals whose humanitarian character contrasts starkly with that of the PKI.

We urge you, therefore, with clean hands, with a pure heart seeking divine guidance, and with the blessings of Bung Karno: keep attacking the PKI and PKI-ism, keep attacking Durnoism¹, keep attacking traitorous thoughts and deeds, keep attacking them so that the Republic of Indonesia will be free of all blemishes.

1.2 Supersemar

On 11 March 1966, with unidentified troops surrounding the state palace, President Sukarno fled by helicopter to Bogor. There he was visited by three of Soeharto’s generals, who, in circumstances that remain unclear, obtained Sukarno’s signature to a document conferring power on Soeharto to ‘restore order’. Soeharto’s forces pressed their advantage, using the Executive Order of 11 March as a weapon to wrest power from Sukarno and as the foundation for their efforts legitimise the New Order constitutionally. The ‘sacred’ status bestowed on the document was underlined by its cleverly conceived official acronym Supersemar (Surat Perintah Sebelas Maret). Semar is a shadow puppet character beloved of the Javanese who in times of chaos transforms himself from a rambunctious jester into a mighty god and a restorer of cosmic order. The version below is translated from Dinuth (1997: 164–5).²

Executive Order of 11 March

President of the Republic of Indonesia

Executive Order

Considering:

• 1.1 The present stage of the Revolution, as well as the domestic and international political situation
• 1.2 The Order of the Day of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces/President/Leader of the Revolution on 8 March 1966

Bearing in mind:

• 2.1 The need for calm and stability in the running of government and the course of the Revolution
• 2.2 The need to guarantee the integrity of the Great Leader of the Revolution, the Armed Forces and the People in order to preserve the leadership and the authority of the President/Supreme Commander/Great Leader of the Revolution and all of his teachings

Instructs:

Lieutenant-General Soeharto, the Minister/Commander of the Army In the name of the President/Supreme Commander/Great Leader of the Revolution

1. To take all necessary steps to guarantee security and calm and the stability of the running of the government and the course of the Revolution, and to guarantee the personal safety and authority of the President/Supreme Commander/Great Leader of the Revolution/Mandatory of the Interim People’s Consultative Assembly [MPRS] for the sake of the integrity of the nation and the Indonesian Republic, and to carry out faithfully all of the teachings of the Great Leader of the Revolution.
2. To coordinate the execution of this order with the Commanders of the other armed services to the best of his abilities.
3. To report back on all matters relating to the above mentioned tasks and responsibilities.

Concludes

Jakarta, 11 March 1966

President/Supreme Commander/Great Leader of the Revolution/Mandatory of the M...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Notes on the authors
• Glossary
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I The search for a political format, 1965–73
• Part II The New Order at its height, 1973–88
• Part III Themes in the later New Order
• Part IV Crisis and reform
• Bibliography
• Index