Indonesia

Now That former Indonesian President/Dictator Suharto has died I think it might be of some small interest to you if I write a little about my impressions of Indonesia, many of them formed while twice visiting Indonesia in 1998 and 2000, when Suharto ruled with unquestioned power. Few who lived there during the long Suharto years would disagree that he led one of the 20th century's harshest and most corrupt dictatorships. Anyone in the country then for more than a few hours could see it in person. I did.
Suharto was finally toppled by mass street protests in 1998, several months after that first visit I made during the same year. Though he withdrew from public life, rarely venturing from his Jakarta villa, thereafter he was still greatly influencing things behind the scenes in 2000 when I returned to the country. Funny though, his successors all grabbed power on the promise to end the corruption of his regime, yet their own administrations have been as bad or worse as was his.
Suharto ruled with a totalitarian dominance that saw soldiers stationed in every village. His power rested in his control of the police, military and the wealthy. In 1998 I arrived just a month or so after the infamous riots in Jakarta that were directed against ethnic Chinese Indonesians there. I drove with an Chinese/Indonesian friend through the bombed and burned areas of Chinatown and saw the destruction, heard stories of rape and murder of children and women during those riot days (actually, just attacks on anything Chinese) and the fears of the Chinese Indonesians who live there that more such episodes would happen.
I remember my friend Calina's mom calling Calina's cell phone with rumors of the "next riot" and with warnings to stay our of certain areas of the city. All such rumors proved to be false but pointed to the general fear in Jakarta at the time. Suharto portrayed the Chinese as his "Jews", just as Hilter had made the successful Jewish population the enemy in the pre W.W.II era in Germany. The Chinese Indonesians have been the best educated, hardest working and most successful of all Indonesians. Given they are often affluent, Suharto made them an enemyfor the masses of poor Muslims to target and blame for their own lack of success in Indonesia. In Suhato's view it was a far, far better thing to blame the Chinese for the poverty, than to blame him.
Wherever Calina and I went in Jakarta we got stares, because she was Chinese and I was Caucasian, at the time, both enemies of the poorMuslim who lived there. But there were never an overt threats against us. The poverty that Indonesia had, both before and during Suharto's reign, was abysmal. Muslim women would often approach Calina's car and offer to sell their sexual favors to me for less than a dollar. (Haha I DID decline..I swear) Everywhere the chief occupation seemed to be that of begging in the street. The "rent a child' begging routine used by filthy looking women was an art from in Indonesia, any tactic tired to engender sympathy and a donation from a westerner.
We spent quite a few days going into all areas of the city, Muslim and non Muslim, and seeing the country bare. I must say I liked Jakarta very much. The people, food, culture were all pleasing to see despite the problems I am mentioning today. There was a certain resignation among everyone in Jakarta to the filth and corruption, so the assets of the city (there were many, but I will save that for another day) were magnified and irresistible.
In 2000 I went back, this time to Jakarta again and to Bali and to a Muslim city called Surabaya. I had friends in all three who offered to show me around. After becoming a fan of Jakarta the first trip I had closely followed the Indonesian news it became the favored place of mine in Indonesia. My return to Jakarta in 2000 showed me an improved, less tense city. Two of my friends three Indonesian friends there were Chinese Indonesians and they echoed all of the things I had heard the first time in Jakarta two years earlier. We moved about the city and I did not feel the same tensions as in 1998. There were plenty of Muslimsprotests and police were everywhere. One thing I discovered on both trips is that the Indonesian police are just as corrupt as everyone elsein Indonesia, but that they have un paralleled power over the residents.
Every Indonesian fears them, few have any respect for them, and they rule the day to day activities in Indonesia. The best way to coexists with the police there is through generous use of the bribe. Bribes aren't appreciated, they are expected.he third Jakarta friend I was with that trip, Dini, was a very nice lady from a wealthy Muslim family. She arranged for her chauffeur to drive her, myself and two others to Tangkulban mountain, about two hours away. (It's an active volcano site and an absolutely beautiful view to and from the mountain itself). Interestingly, when I asked one of my Chinese Indonesian friends to go with us she declined, saying she would be uncomfortable with a limo filled with Muslims.
Hmmmmmmmmm All of the people I rode with that day were especially nice and well educated. They were not representative of the endless numbers of poor Muslims in Jakarta. Instead, they were western in attitude and education and looked on the poor more with scorn than sympathy. We talked and joked more like westerners than the poor rabble that we saw on the side of the road as we drive to the mountains.
Begging seems to also be the biggest occupation of Muslims in the rural areas outside of Jakarta's. Poor Muslims would sit beside the highway with long nets, imploring any auto to slow down or stop in order to "donate money to the mosque". There was never enough work for the poor, so begging in the name of religion had become a full time substitute employment. One time Dina stopped the car and asked me if I wanted to take a picture of the begging. I suggested it might not be safe, but she laughed and said as long as I dropped money into the net it was fine. Haha I got my picture of me as "the rich Americans exploiter" donating money to the local mosque (minus a percentage for the begger, of course).
All of the Muslims I was with that day agreed with what the Chinese friends said earlier, that the situation in Jakarta that explained the millions of poor Muslim Indonesians conditions there was one of corruption and exploitation. I went on to Surabaya and was with a Muslim friend the two days there, seeing the Muslims areas of the city and being an object of curiosity among the residents, who see few westerners in that hotbed of Muslim culture. There were almost no ChineseIndonesians living in Surabaya at the time, so blaming the Chinese for the poverty there was impossible, instead, the people vented against the rich Muslims residents who lived in and controlled Surabaya. One thing for sure..I wouldn't go back to Surabaya in these post 911 days.
My next stop in Bali was a completely different experience. Bali was always run efficiently and as a safe house for then endless number tourists who go there. There was little evidence of poverty, political activity, any of the problems found in the rest of Indonesia. In essence, Suharto had made an agreement with the fanatical wings of Islam to leave Bali alone. And they did. Going to Bali is not going to Indonesia. Bali is Disneyland in look in feel. Indonesia itself is farmore troubled and more interesting because of it.
I thought things were better on that second trip to Indonesia, but because of the poverty it was dangerous city (I was robbed in Jakarta on the street that time, proof that I was right). I saw as many more homeless the second time, all of them illiterate Muslims. Surely, Suharto was a major fault of the mess that had been created for many there. But I am still waiting for one of his successors to do better.