Monday, January 28, 2008

Rest in Peace: Pak Harto


The former Indonesian President, the father of development, and one of the Asian dictator, Suharto (or Soeharto?) just died. It was a strange feeling to see at television all of his picture and activities being flash back again. It was also a funny feeling when I saw morning newspapers showing black frame with his "smiling" picture. Even I feel more bitter that I have not yet know how I should put my self on his controversy.

I cannot deny that I am part of 'Orde Baru' cohort. That's mean that somehow I benefited from Suharto's economic success from his first day ruling the country. I saw and able to use the improvement in infrastructures. I could get better health services. I enjoy great economic stability. I could study well with improvement in most of education facilities (thanks God, I could reach quite enough high education attainment!). And many more. On the other hand, I also noticed that he was quite repressive. Simply, I learn about term 'dictatorship' based on many writings commenting about his way of leadership. Furthermore, after I more and more understanding my beloved country's politics I learned that he was not an ideal leader to my country. He is good as one person, but he is also bad as another one. I am not so good to analyze all of those kind of things.

But one thing for sure, Pak Harto is my second president. He is one of Indonesian leader who lead this country into several achievements that makes this country great (was and will). Meanwhile, he makes mistakes just like "not holy" human. Probably, a lot of mistakes. Let's do simple justice in mind and heart. Put his good and bad as a huge reference for our better country development. Take all of his good deeds and use them as improvement lessons, and understand all of his bad ones as warning that such things should not be happen again in the future.

After all, I would like to pray rest in peace for Pak Harto. Now, it's only between him and God.

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