Provocative commentaries on international issues, social development, and people and places by a veteran journalist
Published in PostGlobal, January 28, 2008
Published on June 1, 2008 By PranayGupte In Politics

Suharto Without Tears

By Pranay Gupte

In the cascade of condemnations and condolences that followed the death of former Indonesian strongman Suharto on January 27, one voice was conspicuously missing. That voice was of Dr. Haryono Suyono, the Chicago-trained sociologist who served for almost two decades as Suharto’s minister of population and family welfare.

Those two decades represented the most benign of Suharto’s authoritarian rule, not the least because of Dr. Haryono’s emollient personality. If there was an architect of Suharto’s social development policies – one that resulted in a dramatic drop in what had been a galloping rate of population growth in the world’s largest Muslim country – it was Dr. Haryono.

He brought about that drop not through coercion. There was no forced sterilization, as there’d been in 1975-1977 during then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s “emergency” rule in India, when the Constitution was suspended and the only daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru – India’s first prime minister and co-founder, along with Mahatma Gandhi -- assumed dictatorial powers that far exceeded anything that Suharto ever exercised. There were no penalties imposed on families with more than one or two children, as had been done for quite a while in nearby China.

Suharto and Haryono created a model of social development by tapping into a simple, central understanding: people want families that they can economically support; parents want only as many children that they can afford to educate properly; and men and women, particularly in traditional societies, seek insurance in their old age through producing children whose own longevity can be assured.

That meant – in the Suharto-Haryono model of economic and social development – the creation of more jobs in the Indonesian archipelago, which consists of 13,000 islands, through governmental subvention and by encouraging the private sector to go into the previously neglected rural hinterland. It meant establishing a wide assortment of secular schools where not just a tolerant form of Islam was taught, but also foreign-language and vocational skills. It meant broadening the national network of primary health-care clinics.

The Suharto-Haryono model meant focusing on education and employment for women because, as Suharto always liked to say, women – particularly in male-dominated countries of the 135 nations of the Third World – were the wisdom keepers, the purveyors of family values. Haryono would add that he always found that women managed family finances far more diligently than their men folk.

The model worked. While elsewhere in the Third World the population growth rates were exceeding 3 or 4 percent annually – in India, at one point, some 18 million people were being added each year, the size of Australia – Indonesia was able to bring down its growth rate to just a shade over 1.5 percent in 1975 from 4 percent in 1965, when Suharto seized power in a military coup.

Implementing that model meant vigorously advocating birth control measures such as use of condoms by men, and pills and intra-uterus loops by women. I remember covering large rallies at which Haryono would rouse audiences through songs and poems, extolling the value of small families. Meanwhile, his associates would course through the crowds, distributing literature, condoms, and birth-control pills.

Indeed, a documentary I made for American public television on Haryono was titled, aptly I think, as “Doctor of Happiness.”

Haryono would frequently request Suharto attend meetings with mullahs in order to persuade them to use the power of the pulpit to preach the importance of small families in nation building.

Needless to say, when Suharto left the Indonesian presidency in 1998, not entirely on his own volition, Haryono’s tenure as minister also ended. He subsequently became an academic and a syndicated columnist.

Regrettably, the Suharto-Haryono model was abandoned by subsequent governments. They seemed more determined to investigate allegations of corruption on Suharto’s part and that of his family. No one ever impugned Haryono. In fact, he became popular on the international lecture circuit, particularly at conferences organized by the United Nations. The support of multilateral agencies such as the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) had been vital in expanding the Suharto-Haryono population-control model.

That model needs to be revived, not only in Indonesia but in many other developing countries. The world’s population is still growing at the rate of more than 85 million people annually, 90 percent of such growth occurring in poor countries.

This is an unsustainable rate, one that rapidly diminishes what scientists call the earth’s carrying capacity. Overpopulation contributes to a variety of social ills – congested cities, impoverished rural regions, deforestation, and poor health. And overpopulation contributes to global warming because unsustainable demographics inevitably result in increased use of fossil fuels in cities, and firewood in villages – pollutants that trap gases in the atmosphere and overheats the planet below.

Because Suharto-Haryono showed by example an expeditious and culturally acceptable way toward social development, they were backed not only by multilateral agencies such as the UN and the World Bank. They also received generous support for their population programs from the United States, and the Europeans, most particularly the Nordic countries and the Dutch, erstwhile colonial rulers of Indonesia.

With the vitriolic attach from the Right since the Reagan era on family planning, U.S. support for family planning programs globally has been whittled down. Even the Europeans have been lackadaisical of late.

One more point: I interviewed Suharto several times, and covered Indonesia quite extensively during many of the years that he was in power. I am not one for endorsing dictatorships, nepotism and state-condoned corruption. But you could look far beyond Suharto and see worse. I don’t think that even in his sternest periods of rule, Suharto was the kind of nail puller and torturer that, say, Mobutu of Zaire was.

That is to say, let’s be a little more careful about making sweeping judgments about Third World rulers, even those who come to office through unconventional means. Pulling nails and murdering people wasn’t in the Indonesian tradition, at least not in Suharto’s time.

Nor is public display of personal grief. Maybe one reason Haryono Suyono’s voice has been missing from the coruscating chorus about Suharto’s alleged villainy is on account of that time-honored tradition. In that tradition, one simply doesn’t speak ill of the dead. And particular of a man who did much to spur social development and transform lives at a time when it truly mattered.

Such transformation needs to be accelerated in the Indonesia of today, an oil-rich country where democracy wobbles along. At least governance was sturdy in Suharto’s time. And with that governance – however authoritarian – came a special form of progress, one that benefited everyday people by persuading them to opt for smaller families. Small may not be necessarily beautiful always, but it was certainly progressive in Suharto’s lifetime.


Comments
on Jun 01, 2008
Good read for me, I didn't know that there are people interested in my country still. The ones that do are the ones that usually post up Free (a province of Indonesia). But, this is interesting, least for me personally.
on Jun 01, 2008
Pulling nails and murdering people wasn’t in the Indonesian tradition, at least not in Suharto’s time.


That's true. Apart from his involvement in one of the 20th century's biggest genocides, he restricted his responses to opposition tactics to kidnapping, assassination and private beatings.
on Jun 01, 2008
Pulling nails and murdering people wasn’t in the Indonesian tradition, at least not in Suharto’s time.That's true. Apart from his involvement in one of the 20th century's biggest genocides, he restricted his responses to opposition tactics to kidnapping, assassination and private beatings.


I know that this would sound really evil from me but looking at the news of present day Indonesia, I wish some of those things still exist in the present. The government today is a bit more unstable than when i was living here in 1992. Back in those days everything seems to have been more quiet and when since not many knows about whats happening around Indonesia, they don't seem to care about whats happening and live their normal lives. Today people tend to get agitated by even the most simple things such as a slight increase in price, or a government election.

I forgot where it specifically was but I saw on the news here that there was an election for a new governor in a province, people voted and a new governor was appointed. Maybe around 3 days later, people that voted for the opposite side started taking their anger to the streets and started burning cars and throwing stones at the government buildings, and the police can't do anything about it. Because of that they had to reset the election 3 times. With this, i wish the police would just shut those people up or better yet shoot them since they have nothing better to do IMO. Maybe y'all don't agree with what I'm saying but everyone is different and Indonesia IMO Isn't ready for a democracy because the people are still too immature to accept change. [ALL IN MY OPINION DON'T FLAME ME]. Try living here and watch the news, you'd probably be ticked off at the things people do.

on Jun 01, 2008
Try living here and watch the news, you'd probably be ticked off at the things people do.


Been there, done that. I'm well aware of how big a problem preman and their ilk play in politics.

The problem Indonesia has it that it has too much of a tradition of rolling over in the face of aggression. Such as with your election example. If people are rioting, you don't give them what they want - you send in the police, the SWAT teams and finally the army.

There was nothing wrong with that election, but because people are too scared of what might happen they refuse to do what's right.

What Indonesia needs, and what they will hopefully get soon, is more people with a strong backbone who will stand up against bullies and rent-a-mobs. There are some, but it's going to take more. Wahid was a little crazy after the stroke, but in his prime he was one of those people. There will be more over time. You just have to have faith and do what you can to make the system better, whether that's by resisting the convenience of bribery or refusing to be intimidated by thugs.

There are so many good and honest people in Indonesia that if they stood together no force could stop them. They just need to stop submitting to those who don't have their interests at heart. Caste systems and blindly obeying authority never got the people anywhere.
on Jun 01, 2008
True to that, and fully agreed. I'm also puzzled as to why they didn't send in the army or police. Well actually the thing circling my mind is that the government is worried that the people will see that as an act of aggression against the people. Just my thoughts. But seriously, I hate what my country has become. BTW, I never knew that people know about Indonesia. Each time I ask my friends if they knew bout Indonesia, they just say "India?" 10% of them say they hate Indonesia because of the East Timor Massacre, although I asked a soldier that works for my mom (for security) that used to serve his military service in East Timor (no he's not Kopassus). He says that the place was a rebel area. Oh well i still don't know what the heck happened but guess I don't need to rub it in. All in the past. Sorry I have a tendency to stray off my own topic, became a habit.
on Jun 01, 2008
Well actually the thing circling my mind is that the government is worried that the people will see that as an act of aggression against the people.


It's true. But I don't think that's a worse outcome than letting people think a democratic government is weak and powerless.

BTW, I never knew that people know about Indonesia.


It's hard not to know something about it in Australia, even if all you know is Bali. I assume you're in the US?

As for your mum's employee, he's right - many Timorese really didn't want to be Indonesian. Indonesia is much better off without that province, as it chewed up just as much resources as it provided.
on Jun 01, 2008
As for your mum's employee, he's right - many Timorese really didn't want to be Indonesian. Indonesia is much better off without that province, as it chewed up just as much resources as it provided.


Actually he told me that East Timor was a rich province, and shortly after there was peace and East Timor became an independent country, the military ransacked the place and stole everything and moved it to the Indonesian border.

I assume you're in the US?


Nope, I'm in Surabaya, Indonesia. A very hot place even with the AC fan on high, must be global warming.

-+ : I never turn my TV on here 'cos it annoys me to see burning cars and people screaming nonsense as if anyone is going to listen to them, much like my 6 year old little sister screaming for her ice cream. And so i spend US$500-2000 on my internet bill.