Indonesia: Year of the Pragmatists

Abstract

Returning to Djakarta after an absence of almost five years is a heartening experience. The main streets have been widened and are cleaner, houses and public buildings have been and are being painted, traffic on main thoroughfares has been regulated and flows more freely, and people walking around streets seem to have more vitality and self-respect. To be sure, these are superficial observations. After one has had an opportunity to talk to a wide variety of people-private and official Indonesians, foreign diplomats and businessmen, scholars and journalists-it is apparent that many of creaks and groans which have long pervaded Indonesian scene still remain. It is difficult to look at any sector of Indonesian lifepolitical, economic, international or social-and say, with a sense of absoluteness, This is good. However, it is also difficult to point to any of these sectors of Indonesian life and not say This is better than in last years of Sukarno. In assessing events of 1967 in Indonesia in February 1968 issue of Asian Survey, Guy Pauker said that the Republic of Indonesia seems indeed to have entered age of reason. During 1968, in spite of a comparatively brief resurgence of violent emotional outbursts over hanging by Government of Singapore of two Indonesian marines, reason did, on whole, prevail. The Government of Indonesia and its leaders thought and acted on pragmatic basis of what was most likely to be effective in improving political and economic lot of people and not on basis of emotion or ideology. And Sukarno walked to and fro in garden of his modest home in Bogor and bit his nails.