INDIFFERENCE KILLING DEMOCRACY
A reason for Indonesians overwhelmingly supporting cashiered general Prabowo Subianto and a likely military dictatorship is because the electorate rarely reads; voters haven’t been taught to think critically so know little of their new president’s past.
In 1998 Prabowo was stripped of his rank and discharged from the Army for disobeying orders. His squad arrested student dissidents and 13 have never reappeared. He fled to Jordan and returned earlier this century to become a hugely successful businessman.
Australian author and academic Max Lane, who translated the works of political prisoner Pramoedya Ananta Toer into English last century, says Indonesia is the only country in the world that doesn’t require students to read their own nation's literature:
“This was deliberately created so that the Indonesian people would not understand their own nation so they would not have any imagination for the future.” As Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952) said: ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’
The condemnation of intellectuals and creatives, heavy censorship and book banning during second president Soeharto’s rule (1966 - 1998) caused a great slump in reading history. A US university study of The World’s Most Literate Nations ranked Indonesia at 60 of the 61 states surveyed. (Top is Finland; Australia is 12th).
A Melbourne University commentary concluded: “Culturally, Indonesians have a very strong oral tradition, and the country is not going to transform into a nation of bookworms overnight (but) … to recognise that creativity and innovation are urgently needed to address the reading crisis.”
Although World Bank data shows Indonesian literacy above 96 per cent, knowing how to read and using that skill widely are separate issues.
Indonesian public schools are in a mess. One Australian academic review blamed “inadequate funding, human resource deficits, perverse incentive structures, and poor management” adding: “Problems with education quality and learning have also been, at their root, a matter of politics and power.”
In the past liberal Muslim parents ignored crucifixes nailed above doorways to get a better education in Catholic schools; this trend is waning as independent schools develop. However, the curriculum is still controlled by the government which is again rewriting history.
The first version of the 1965 coup, widely and uncritically taught, had naked Communist women dancing on the castrated corpses of murdered generals. The brief uprising was savagely suppressed by General Soeharto who went on to become the nation’s second president.
The lewd story was untrue - a pre-internet hoax to foment hatred towards the Communist Party and its supporters seeking land reform. It worked - and an estimated half-million were slaughtered in a military-engineered genocide.
Soeharto (who died in 2008) is known overseas as the greatest kleptocrat in the Republic’s history, though never charged. He allegedly stripped US $35 billion from the public purse. This is also not taught in schools.
Now Golkar Party Deputy Chair Melchias Markus Mekeng reckons Soeharto should be made a national hero. That’s reportedly because he “did a lot of good work and was dedicated when he served as president.” No details.
The motive for trying to canonise a villain comes after the current and seventh president Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo last month suddenly smoothed the facts by rehabilitating his rival.
He awarded his cashiered successor Prabowo with the honorary rank of four-star general. When kicked out of the military 26 years ago he had three stars.
The promotion dismayed civil society groups that claimed Prabowo’s promotion was a ”betrayal of the 1998 Reformation.”
A career military man educated in the UK and US, Prabowo's meteoric rise in the army was boosted by serving with alleged brutality in East Timor and marrying Soeharto's second eldest daughter Siti Hediati Hariyadi. The couple have since divorced.
He then tried to be elected president, crashing both times against the current holder of the title. To widespread astonishment Jokowi made his bitter opponent Prabowo Defence Minister, giving the failed candidate a platform.
On his third try on 14 February Prabowo convincingly won the presidency, sweeping the stage of his two main candidates with close to 60 per cent of the vote. (Jokowi had already served two five-year terms and was prevented by the Constitution from standing a third time.)
There are 24 political parties registered in Indonesia, including Golkar, the vehicle for Soeharto who served for 32 years before he quit in 1998 during an economic crisis and massive student protests.
Golkar (Party of Functional Groups) was formed by the military in 1964. It's now the second-largest party and claims to be democratic and nationalist. It backed Prabowo's candidacy in this year's election so will get some of the ministries.
Merit and skills in a specific portfolio are not required.
So far the priority is not education but military bases in every province. There are 14 at present. During the election campaign, Prabowo pledged to increase these to all 38.
Any chance the schooling situation will change for the better with Prabowo as president? It’s unlikely though it depends on who’s appointed Education Minister and how much clout they carry. In the Indonesian system, a minister can be recruited from outside politics.
The current education minister is billionaire businessman Nadiem Anwar Makarim who started the Gojek motorbike taxi service in 2009. He's not known as a member of a political party.
Dr Anies Baswedan, once a university rector and failed presidential candidate, was a former Education Minister. He tried to reform the system but soon encountered opposition and was sacked by Jokowi in 2016.
Monash University’s Dr Sharyn Davies reportedly said Prabowo’s nationalism “could affect higher education policy – including appetite for overseas university campuses.
“No Indonesian university apart from Monash Indonesia has foreign academics employed in anything other than guest adjunct positions.
“It’s a very insular, ultra-nationalist kind of education system and…my sense (is that) Prabowo will move that even more towards the nationalist insular side.”
First published in Pearls & Irritations, 11 March 2024: https://johnmenadue.com/indifference-killing-democracy/
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