A Short History of South-East Asia

by Peter Church

  More than any other person, Sukarno succeeded in spreading the simple message of freedom to a wider cross‐section of urban and rural Indonesians than ever before. He popularised the nationalist ideology—the simple idea that his people were Indonesians and must set aside their religious and ethnic differences to unite in opposition to colonial rule. Although he was exiled in 1934, his memory lingered on in the minds of ordinary Indonesians who had heard him speak or been charmed by his charismatic personality or had simply heard of his heroic qualities from others.

  Two major issues were not resolved by the colonial nationalist movement but became major issues in Indonesian politics in the 1950s and 1960s. First there was the question of the role of Islam in Indonesia. The mainstream of the nationalist movement in the 1920s and 1930s was in agreement that an independent Indonesia should be a secular state. This position was adopted partly because of the religious diversity of Indonesia: although Muslims were in an overwhelming majority, only a minority of these were strict adherents to Islamic teachings and precepts. A secular state was seen as a way of avoiding conflict. Some Islamic political parties disagreed and, after independence, strengthened their demands for national laws to be based on Islamic teaching. In Indonesia today this is still one of the most sensitive issues.

  A second major unresolved issue was whether Indonesia needed a social and economic revolution, or whether political independence was a sufficient goal. The advocates of major social and economic reforms were in a minority in the 1920s and 1930s. The dominant view was that Indonesians should concentrate on achieving independence and concern themselves with these potentially divisive issues after this was achieved. Those who wanted more fundamental social and economic reforms revived their activities in the 1950s. Their criticism was then directed at an Indonesian government in the hands of those who had led the nationalist movement since the late 1920s.

  THE JAPANESE OCCUPATION

  The Japanese occupied Indonesia in March 1942, with little resistance from the Dutch. Initially, they were welcomed by many Indonesians, who were glad to be freed from Dutch rule and impressed by Japanese propaganda slogans such as “Japan the Light of Asia” and the “East Asian Co‐Prosperity Sphere.” However, it did not take very long for the Japanese to alienate themselves from all levels of Indonesian society. The romusha programme on Java, whereby all able‐bodied males were required to provide free labour for the war effort, affected almost every family. Most romusha labour was used within the colony, on projects such as building railway lines and ships and on infrastructure construction. But hundreds of thousands were sent overseas to work on the construction of the Thai–Burma railway and Japanese projects elsewhere in South‐East Asia. Rice production on Java fell, through Japanese mismanagement as much as any other cause, and food and clothing were soon in desperately short supply. Indonesians quickly learnt that despite Japanese propaganda stressing Asian solidarity against Europeans, they were treated as distinctly inferior people by the Japanese.

  However, Japanese occupation policies had some long‐term benefits for Indonesia. First, in removing the Dutch from administrative functions the Japanese elevated Indonesians to positions they would not have been able to obtain under colonial rule. This administrative experience proved useful after 1945. Second, they prohibited the use of Dutch and, while promoting Japanese, were pragmatic enough to realise that few Indonesians would be able to master that language quickly. They therefore promoted the use of Indonesian in schools and in government administration. This proved to be of help to the infant Republic of Indonesia after 1945. Third, they mobilized young Indonesians to support the Japanese war effort. Various schemes were created to provide military training for young people. This military training proved invaluable when Indonesia had to confront the reoccupying Dutch forces between 1946 and 1949. Fourth, they freed nationalist leaders from jail, including Sukarno, on the condition that they supported the war effort. Sukarno and other nationalists used every opportunity to nurture a sense of being Indonesian, using all the propaganda tools placed at their disposal by the Japanese.

  By the end of 1944 it was clear to the Japanese that they were losing the Pacific War. As a consequence, they determined to make it as difficult as possible for the Western powers to reoccupy their former colonies. In Indonesia, they began to promote moves toward independence, encouraging nationalists to work out a desirable constitutional framework. Some Indonesians were alarmed at the prospect of obtaining independence courtesy of the Japanese, believing that this would cause the Allied powers to view an independent Indonesia as a puppet regime, thereby playing into the hands of the Dutch, whose Netherlands Indies Administration had spent the war years in Brisbane planning to reoccupy Indonesia as soon as the war was over. When the atomic bombs brought the Pacific War to an end, these people prevailed on Sukarno and his fellow nationalist leaders to declare independence unilaterally. On August 17, 1945, at a simple flag‐raising ceremony in Jakarta, the Republic of Indonesia was born.

  THE REVOLUTION

  The Netherlands rejected this declaration of independence, asserting that it was the legitimate government of Indonesia. It began its reoccupation of the country in the middle of 1946 and quickly gained control of most of the towns and cities. The government of the Republic of Indonesia retreated to the principality of Yogyakarta in Central Java. Over the next four years, the Indonesians fought the Dutch on two fronts: in a guerrilla war which quickly bogged down thousands of Dutch troops and prevented the Dutch from holding the countryside; and with a diplomatic offensive that focussed on pressuring the United States to withdraw Marshall Plan aid from the Netherlands and on urging the newly created United Nations to support its independence. In December 1949, an agreement was finally reached between the Republic of Indonesia and the Netherlands, bringing the war to an end and formally recognizing the end of Dutch colonial rule.

  Many Western observers argued that Indonesia would not survive very long in the face of regionalism and cultural and ethnic diversity. In retrospect, they greatly underestimated the enormous sense of being Indonesian which had been created among a broad cross‐section of people by what Indonesians called their “Revolution.” Having to fight for their independence gave the Indonesian elites a strong sense of nationalism. Above all, the Revolution saw the emergence of a strong Indonesian army, with a firm ideological commitment to maintaining national unity and to taking a leading role in the development of their society.

  As a result of three years of Japanese occupation and four years of warfare with the Dutch, the Indonesian economy was devastated. The economic infrastructure was in tatters, most of the little industry that had existed in 1941 was in ruins, and productivity in the plantations and on the farms had regressed to well below prewar levels. Underemployment in the urban areas was a massive problem; essential services simply didn't work. In the countryside, growing population pressure on the land led to lower per‐capita outputs and a steady stream of migrants to the already overcrowded towns and cities. Added to this was the problem of what to do with the hundreds of thousands of people who had given years of their lives as guerrillas fighting the Dutch. They feared demobilisation when there was little prospect of gainful employment. In 1950, revolutionary élan was high and expectations of the fruits of independence were even higher. The tragedy was that no government in the 1950s could possibly have satisfied these expectations.

  INDONESIA AFTER INDEPENDENCE

  On the eve of independence, Indonesian political elites were agreed that Indonesia should be a unitary state and should have Bahasa Indonesia as its national language. They were united on little else. The 20 years between 1945 and 1965 was a period of decolonisation, where four broad groups struggled for control of the state. First, there were those who wanted a multiparty parliamentary democracy. Second, there were those who wanted some kind of consensus parliamentary system, arguing that Western liberal democracy was an imported idea not suited to Indonesian cultural and political values. Thi
rd, there were those who wanted some kind of Marxist state—the communists were the most visible and strongest but there were other groups who wanted a liberal Marxist state or a democratic socialist state. Fourth, there were those who wanted a state based in some way on Islam, ranging from those who wanted an Islamic state to those who wanted the state merely to reflect Islamic values. These broad divisions can be traced back to debates that had been going on within nationalist circles since the 1910s.

  The Indonesian army generally supported the second group among the Indonesian elite—those who wanted a consensus political system. The army leadership consistently saw the army as the major force behind the Indonesian Republic's defeat of the Dutch and, because of this, believed it had a special role in post‐independence Indonesia. From the early 1950s, its leaders spoke of the army's “dual function”—to defend the nation from external threats or internal subversion, and to be the engine of development and the protector of the Revolution. The army had always been suspicious of politicians. Its involvement in politics was very different from that of armies elsewhere in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, which, on seizing power, invariably promised to return to civilian rule as soon as possible. The Indonesian army made no such commitment. It venerated its origins as a people's army, was proud of its close ties with rural people during the guerrilla campaign against the Dutch, and believed that it was more able than any other group to generate and manage the transformation of Indonesian society.

  While the army was an important force in Indonesian politics in the 1950s, it became the dominant force only after the events of September 30, 1965—the so‐called “coup.” These events were a major turning‐point in post‐independence Indonesian history. There has been a great deal of debate as to what actually happened. The conflict between competing political groups in Indonesia since 1945 had become more intense by the 1960s. Many observers, both Indonesian and foreign, believed that the Indonesian Communist Party was becoming dangerously strong and might shortly be in a position to take over the state. Others were concerned about the growing strength of the armed forces, which had become more centralised and united in purpose by the early 1960s. The political instability was heightened further in 1965 with rumours of Sukarno being terminally ill and of both the PKI and the armed forces preparing for a coup. On September 30, a group of lower‐level army officers declared the overthrow of the Indonesian government. The next day, the PKI's official newspaper threw its support behind them. Within 24 hours, the strategic army reserve in Jakarta, under the command of General Suharto, had put down the coup and arrested its leaders. Over the next six months the army vigorously rooted out members of the Communist Party, whom it blamed for the failed coup and for the murder of six generals. At least 400,000 people were killed in that six‐month period, mostly in rural Java and Bali. In the aftermath of the events of September 30, the Communist Party, one of the principal political forces since 1945, was destroyed. After 1965, the military‐dominated government led by President Suharto restructured Indonesian politics. It called itself the “New Order” government, as opposed to the “Old Order” of Sukarno's presidency.

  Independent Indonesia began as a liberal democracy—with a multiparty parliamentary system, a free and diverse press, and with freedom of organisation for voluntary groups, including labour unions. However, its populist president, Sukarno, had argued against Western‐style multiparty parliamentary democracy (what he called “50 percent plus‐one democracy”) since the 1920s. He argued that it was not in accordance with Indonesian cultural values, which stressed harmony and consensus. Sukarno was a strong advocate of “democracy with leadership”; so, too, was the army. When parliamentary democracy faltered in the mid‐1950s—with widespread discontent at the failure of the revolution to produce prosperity for all—Sukarno marshalled likeminded forces. “Guided Democracy” between 1959 and 1965 balanced political party representation in parliament with representatives from “functional groups”—defined as the armed forces, workers, peasants, Muslim scholars, and numerous minority groups. The armed forces functional group—Golkar—quickly became the strongest.

  Suharto's New Order government openly fostered Golkar. Elections were held every five years since 1971, but they were carefully managed. Golkar was provided with government funds and the bureaucratic and military apparatus swung behind it. Candidates put forward by all political parties were vetted by a government committee and tough electoral rules applied. Not surprisingly, Golkar won two‐thirds or more of the votes in each of the elections through to 1997.

  Suharto's government insisted that pancasila become the sole ideological basis of all political and social organisations. Pancasila was the five principles first enunciated by Sukarno in 1945 as the basis for Indonesian public life: belief in one God; national unity; humanitarianism; democracy based on consensus and representation; and social justice. It was a vague, syncretic philosophy, but its very obtuseness allowed for many interpretations. With the Communist Party destroyed, the army, the government, and much of the Western‐educated elite saw a revitalised Islam as the greatest threat to their control of the State. Suharto's government was determined to inculcate pancasila philosophy throughout the country. The consensus political system, for example, was called “pancasila democracy.” All school and university students had to pass examinations in pancasila, as did civil servants and members of the armed forces. The intention was to remove from the Indonesian political agenda what the government saw as the evils of liberal democracy, Marxism, and militant Islam.

  The debate over pancasila from the early 1970s was not the first time the issue had been heatedly discussed. In mid‐1945, the committee of politicians preparing the way for independence after the defeat of Japan were most strongly divided on the role of Islam in independent Indonesia. Many Muslim politicians demanded that Islam be the official religion while others demanded an Islamic state. However, the majority of Western‐educated Indonesians, who dominated the nationalist movement from the 1920s, were philosophically committed to a secular state, a commitment strengthened by their understanding of the religious diversity in Indonesia. Not only is there a significant Christian minority and a small number of Buddhists and Hindus, but many of the 90 percent who are Muslims hold eclectic beliefs and even orthodox Muslims are divided by different theological positions and political affiliations.

  However, some Muslims have never abandoned their desire for Islam to be the basis of the Indonesian State. Others, while not wanting an Islamic state, have been increasingly critical of what they have seen as the moral pollution of Westernisation. There was an Islamic revival in the 1970s and 1980s which, in part, reflected the impact of the Iranian revolution and the general resurgence of revivalist Islam in the Middle East on Muslims throughout the world. Many tens of thousands of Indonesians make the pilgrimage to Mecca each year and, while there, are influenced by these revivalist ideas. It is important to see the great diversity of thinking within those Indonesians who identify themselves as part of an Islamic community. The vast majority accept that because of its religious diversity Indonesia can never be an Islamic state and, within this overall philosophical framework, strive to develop political, social, and economic policies which reflect their religious values.

  Suharto's government steadily de‐politicised Indonesian society. The press was subject to formal and informal controls and the state‐operated television network was under firm control, its bland news and information services reflecting government views. Magazine publishing was licensed and books could not be published without a government permit. The result was a system of self‐censorship whereby editors and publishers erred on the side of caution in order to avoid the risk of being closed down or having their books and magazines seized. On many occasions, the government withdrew right to publish for lengthy periods or permanently closed down publications.

  Despite this authoritarianism, Suharto was unable to close down debate on major social, economic, and political issues en
tirely. Writers and editors learned the art of subtlety and innuendo and of pushing criticism just so far. The carefully worded editorial or commentary in daily newspapers was a major method of airing sensitive topics. Cartoonists frequently made critical comments in pictures that could not be made in words—indeed, Indonesian newspapers and magazines fostered talented cartoonists able to make subtle but telling social comment. In the world of literature, critics of Indonesian society were also by no means silent.

  When the New Order government came to power in 1965, the Indonesian economy was in chaos, inflation was rampant, and the social and economic infrastructure had just about collapsed. Much was achieved in over three decades. Until the financial crisis of 1997, there was continuous economic growth, inflation was brought under control, the economic infrastructure was enormously improved, and sustained efforts were made to tackle some of the longstanding fundamental problems of the economy.

  For example, rice is the staple food in the Indonesian diet, yet Indonesia was a net importer of rice from the late 19th century until the 1980s. Despite the intricate rice terraces, large‐scale irrigation, and enormous labour inputs, the productivity of Indonesian rice farmers steadily declined in the 1950s and 1960s. With a relentlessly increasing population, the result was a reduction in rice consumption per person and the substitution of less nutritious foods such as cassava.

  All this has changed since 1979, with dramatic improvements in crop yields and per‐capita output. In 1983, Indonesia produced its first rice surplus for perhaps 100 years. The dramatic turnaround in rice production was a result of the Indonesian government's successful agricultural policies. While many developing countries ignored agriculture in favour of industrial and urban development, the Indonesian government poured money and expertise into improving agricultural output. The result was considerably increased productivity and the development of agro‐businesses for the export of primary products and processed foods.