Talk:Suharto/Archives/2005/October

Ibu Tien
OOOps - !!! apologies, I should have left you guys to whatever it is your are trying to solve in the totalitarian dictator issue.

The issue that fascinates me, is that when I was living in Indonesia in the mid 90's, the death of Ibu Tien (a very important factor in what he was up to) was a turning point clearly in Suharto's life. None of you guys seem to even acknowledge or write about this? ?User:SatuSuro

In fact the more I go through the article, is there is very little at all about the cultural elements, its reading like a politics 101 essay, and not a reasonable assessment of a javanese peasant who makes good - with all that entails about family, children and how all that complicates some of the more curious issues that arise from suharto's use of javanese culture and the people of java in his making himself and his family wealthy! oh well, hope you guys get good grades in your politics exams,User:SatuSuro 05:26, 27 September 2005 (UTC)


 * This is a collaboratively-written article, developed by many, many people over a period of over two years. If it's missing something, please feel free to add it, or point out sources that might help others add it. People write about aspects of the man that they're interested in. There's no "you guys" here.  CDC   (talk)  17:18, 27 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I'll chime in that while I welcome contributions on Suharto's family life, etc., this is becoming a rather large article (I just got the 32k warning today). Part of that, of course, is my own interest in trying to cover the period of 1965-67, which becomes this whole mess thanks to Suharto's propaganda, the Western governments' secresy, and the sheer scale of the atrocities committed.


 * So I'll take the blame for that (and I'm thinking of spinning off a lot of it into its own separate entry. See below). Nevertheless, we are talking about a dictator -- bicker however much you want on whether he's an authoritarian or totalitarian one, but he was a dictator -- and one who held onto power for some 30 years. You'll have to forgive me if I tend to concentrate on the political decisions of a politician with such longevity, and not the pop-psychology analysis of the man.--Daniel 07:57, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Lead section
Does the lead section have to be so one-sided in condemnation? --Dpr 07:44, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
 * No, it doesn't. Suggestions? CDC   (talk)  17:00, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
 * It went too far the other way. Let's not forget that he was responsible for the deaths of quite a few people. I have rebalanced it somewhat.


 * To the Anonymous IP's who have taken to editing the summary in the most hyperbolic terms possible: please stop. There's a reason why NPOV is there, and it's to maintain Wikipedia's integrity as an objective source that doesn't subjectively editorialise in its articles. The summary in a biographical article is meant to give the barest exposition of
 * who a person is (e.g. Suharto is a former president and strongman of Indonesia), in the most general and unbiased terms.
 * what they're notable for (e.g. directing the Indonesian state for 32 years) in the most brief and dispassionate manner possible.


 * The rest of the article can deal with the gory details ( the when, where, why, and how) of what the person is notable for, and furthermore with the evidence supplied.


 * And before anyone accuses me of being a Suharto-crony, please review the number of additions I've made to this article. If anyone's done as much research for this article putting together meticulous research putting together such limited sources on Suharto's various atrocities, by all means introduce me to them and I'll shake their hand. --Daniel 18:48, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I fail to see how it is notable to lead Indonesia through a sustained period of economic growth, but not notable that he killed many thousands of people. Please do explain.

The [Joseph Stalin|Stalin] article does not ignore what he did, so I'm not sure why you imagine this is inappropriate in an introduction.


 * Yes, but look at the Stalin article's history, and you'll see that it's chronically suffered NPOV disputes. I'd prefer to avoid that.

Further, I'm not sure what you are impying in terms of with the evidence supplied


 * I implied nothing. I simply stated a guideline. Do not take it personally.

Points added to the introduction:

1. He added Irian Jaya and East Timor to the country. Non-controversial.


 * That first point (Irian Jaya) could be considered very controversial, since Sukarno was in fact the leader who militarily invaded it. The Act of Free Choice happened under Suharto. Indonesia, from its beginnings, regarded Irian Jaya as part of its territory; Suharto simply "sealed the deal" with the United Nations, Dutch, and Americans.


 * Moreover, considering the man's 30 year grip on power, on one of the most widespread nations on the globe, East Timor and Irian Jaya come across as too specific for the lead, which is supposed to be general. Why list East Timor and Irian Jaya in the lead, when Suharto was just as brutal on Java, Sumatra, the Moluccas, Bali, and thousands of other islands as well? Why not just say that he "maintained political stability in the diverse Indonesian archipelago through suppression of political dissent and regular use of the military to preserve control," which was already stated, and leave the particulars to the body?

2. He entrenched the army in political life. Actually stated in the article below he 'set aside 100 seats' for the army. Other sources available, e.g.,: http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/BG1397.cfm


 * I have no major quibble with this point, except that this is already covered by "use of the military to preserve control."

3. He killed tens of thousands in East Timor. Pretty well accepted, and again stated below 'It was estimated that 100,000 people, roughly a third of the local population, were killed by the Indonesian army.'


 * He personally killed them? No, he did not. The military did, as well as local paramilitary groups, as well as pitched fights between pro-integrationists and the pro-independence forces. And btw, thank you for pointing that quote in the article; I'll edit it for accuracy.

4. Reduced the number of people classed by the World Bank as living in absolute poverty from 60% in 1970 to 15% in 1990. Source provided, World Bank URL added to references.


 * No quarrel from me on the general point (that he reduced absolute poverty), but again: specifics in the body, not the lead.

5. Indonesia fared far worse than any of its neighbours. Again, pretty uncontroversial, the currency crashed further than any other SE Asian country and is still worth only a quarter of what it was before.


 * "Fared far worse" is totally POV. Anyone could come along and say, "Well, Indonesians have wayang kulit theater, and I don't -- they're better off than I am!" And they'd be totally correct in doing so.

6. Suharto became the sixth-richest man in the world. BBC reference to Forbes source provided previously.


 * Again, I don't quarrel with the general point, but you don't need to be specific in the lede.

The seventh point that Indonesia's corruption caused it to do so badly is the only non-NPOV statement there, and could be removed.

So I really don't see what you are getting so upset about. The deaths are pretty significant if you were involved, or indeed if you consider that the PKI were the third-largest Communist party in the world and were wiped out by Soeharto. Do you not think this was significant? Do you think that the introduction should read like a biography of Gerhard Schroder? In fact, Wikipedia's own article on PKI has, under the rather bald headline 'Genocide' 'In terms of the numbers killed the anti-PKI massacres in Indonesia rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century...'


 * As I've stated before, I think Suharto happens to be one of the most brutal dictators of the 20th Century, that he should face trial and if need be executed, and that his ill-gotten gains nationalized and redistributed to victims of his regime. But that's my opinion. We have to deal with the most basic facts. Even more basic and general in the lede!

And you think this shouldn't go in the introduction?


 * I think the introduction should state that Suharto is a former president of Indonesia, give a very broad outline of what his policies were, and leave all the details to the rest of the article.

Similarly with East Timor, deaths of a large part of the population seems pretty important to me.


 * Pretty important to you, but not as important to the wider audience, which is the criterion. --Daniel 01:12, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

On the issue of wealth, does becoming President and not making a few million dollars like you might expect, but becoming on the of the richest men in the world seem like a key fact about the man? Does the Bill Gates article not have in its opening paragraph 'According to Forbes magazine in 2005, Gates is the wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of around US$46.5 billion'.

So please do tell me what part of this I'm wrong on.

Thanks

Trimming the Fat
Like I said before, I really have to apologise for the bloat in this article. My college recently got licenses for some really good resouces for looking up very old NY Times stories, and I'm afraid I got a little wrapped up in getting to finally see how Suharto emerged, little by little, from a pariah Maj. Gen. to assume the presidency.

To address the embarassment of research riches I've been digging up (and there's some really good -- disturbingly good -- stuff on the period), I think I am going to spin off the sections on the Indonesian civil war period of 1965 to '67, as well as one on the "The New Order" (Orde Baru).

On that first note, I'm kind of stuck on titling such an entry. I was thinking of "Indonesian Civil War" - but I've never seen the '65-'67 period "titled" as such. On the other hand, there's "G30S" (Movement of September 30), which is the way Suhartoists like to phrase it - which, in my opinion, is one reason not to title it as such (since it's a blatantly loaded propaganda term).--Daniel 08:31, 2 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Daniel, thanks for the great work in incorporating the new material: the writing is great!  As for spinning off the 65-67 period, I suggest calling it "the rise of the new order" or something.  The term "the new order" was once also a propaganda-loaded term, but nowadays is often used to refer to Suharto's era even by the reformists.  So roughly speaking Indonesia has gone from the "old order" era to the "new order" era to the "reformasi" era. Julius.kusuma 15:11, 2 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Another option would be tighten this page down so it's limited strictly to Suharto's biography, and refers to History of Indonesia or a subpage of it for broader context. I realize, of course, that it's tricky to separate a lot of the important things that happened in '65-'67 from Suharto himself, but on the other hand most events were much bigger than being just about Suharto, so might belong somewhere else. History of Indonesia is pretty thin, and would definitely benefit from some of the excellent content here; a sub-page about the '65-'67 years would be warranted soon; maybe Creation of the New Order in Indonesia, or 1965 attempted coup d'etat in Indonesia? By the way, this article is indeed looking great lately - way to go.  CDC   (talk)  16:51, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions and encouragement. After trying to edit History of Indonesia, I can see that the problem is not just with the G30S/New Order era, but also that there's not much unity to History of Indonesia and related pages. I've outlined how I am approaching these problems in an announcement on Wikipedia_talk:Indonesia-related_topics_notice_board. --Daniel 21:26, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Update: I've transplanted chunks of the text in Suharto into Indonesian Civil War, New Order (Indonesia), and Indonesian Revolution of 1998. Each of these shares a bit of text with History of Indonesia, so now the only major problem is that there's a ton of stuff on Pre-colonial Indonesia that needs to be synthesized and made into its own page. I'm not too sure I'm the person for that job, as frankly I don't know a Majapahit from a Nasi Goreng.

Anyway, on Suharto: there's no longer a warning about article size, which is good. I think this could really be enhanced by some contributions on Suharto's public persona, some trivia on his personal life. Speaking for myself, I think I've given all I could to this particular article, being a poli sci kinda guy. --Daniel 08:20, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Vis-à-vis the current edit war
Some of you should read this: NPOV. Its not that others love Suharto, its that even if you loathe him, your edits must be NPOV.--Ezeu 00:55, 11 October 2005 (UTC)