Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 27 October 2014 issue)

Dear Kam,
Is it my imagination or has Indonesia got itself a new president?
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Last week saw the inauguration of the 53-year-old Joko “Jokowi” Widodo as Indonesia’s new president. With the peaceful transfer of power from one directly elected leader to another, Indonesia has come very far and very fast since the collapse of Suharto’s dictatorship in 1998.

Suharto had held power for 30 years, and when I was working in Jakarta in the 1990s, I saw him make a speech that lasted about 30 years. Also, when I was in Jakarta, I saw how the Suharto family seemed to have a stake in virtually every business, even small businesses. It felt strange to me that the Suhartos had a compulsive need to own absolutely everything. Didn’t they have enough money already? I guess the temptations of power are too great for some. The Suharto family tentacles were everywhere, and they had the backing of the military, so they were firmly entrenched. I was there just a few years before the downfall of the Suharto “New Order” and there was no hint that there would ever be a change.

Businesses appeared to be booming. I was shooting TV commercials and we were busy every single day, working on productions with budgets far larger than anything in Malaysia. New factories and highways were being built and it looked like the economy would keep Suharto in power forever. But what did I know? I was 25 years old and was being fl own around in business class, so everything looked great. I saw the signs of financial inequality because they were obvious, but I assumed that Indonesians enjoyed having an authoritarian leader and that a continually growing economy would eventually solve the problem anyway.

I failed to recognise that the wealth was being kept by a tiny minority who fundamentally distrusted everybody else. Surrounding the small middle-class areas, where each house was blocked off from the outside world by high walls, was a sea of poverty. I remember seeing one thing that probably no longer happens and which you would never have seen in Malaysia. Oil tanker trucks were exiting a depot very, very slowly and running behind each truck were men with buckets. They would jump onto the back of the truck, turn the tap on and pour oil into their buckets before jumping off. There was almost nothing about Jakarta that reminded me of Malaysia.

The reasons for the fall of Suharto are complex but the main spark was the Asian financial crisis in 1997. The crisis began in faraway Thailand but the happy days were suddenly over. Distrust in the Suharto economy became exposed and capital flight was so intense that the Indonesian rupiah collapsed from IDR2,600 per US dollar to IDR14,800 in six months. Suharto had to call in the International Monetary Fund. The hope of capitalism is that economies, wages and opportunities will ascend forever without break, but the sad reality is that there will always be sporadic crises and collapses, and whenever they happen (and they most definitely will happen), they expose an economy’s weakness, its basis in graft and the sheer stupidity of investments (Suharto was trying to develop a high-tech aircraft industry and yet there were people stealing oil from the back of tanker trucks). Each crisis claims at least one authoritarian and kleptocratic regime, even one as iron-fisted as Suharto’s.

Indonesia/the Dutch East Indies has a tragically long history of politically motivated violence. Suharto’s ousting of President Sukarno in 1965 led to the death of perhaps 500,000 people, and way back in 1740, the Dutch massacred 10,000 ethnic Chinese in Batavia (present-day Jakarta). There is simply no equivalent to these (and many other) massacres in the history or psyche of Malaya/Malaysia. When the end came to the Suharto regime, it was bound to be bloody and as many as 5,000 people were murdered. There is ample evidence that the violence was instigated by the military in a desperate attempt to save the regime. It’s an old trick: create the problem and then step in to “solve” it. Unfortunately, the demand for change (led by the middle class) was so intense that Suharto had to step down.

And now, Indonesia has inaugurated President Jokowi (favourite bands: Metallica and Napalm Death). He is a political outsider who beat the ex-army general (and Suharto’s former son-in-law) Prabowo Subianto in an election where 133.5 million Indonesians voted. Indonesia still faces big problems. Income inequality in Indonesia remains monstrously large, but at least in their new president they have somebody who can legitimately claim to be on the side of the poor. He comes from poverty and he doesn’t wear expensive watches or go on lengthy expensive holidays. The established elite will no doubt do everything in their power to destroy him but he could bypass them by making friends with the rapidly growing middle class. Evidence of the growth of the Indonesian middle class can be seen in Malaysia in tourist arrivals, especially in medical tourism.

Jokowi will probably fail to live up to expectations in the same way that Barack Obama’s initial promise has been an anti-climax. But this doesn’t negate the important lesson: people, Asian people, want inclusive representation and they reject authoritarianism. During the election campaign, Prabowo essentially promised a return to authoritarianism and an end to Indonesia’s democratic experiment. A total of 46.8% of the electorate liked what he said but 53% did not. Personally, I wish President Jokowi the best of luck. He’s going to need it.

Dear Kam,
What’s going on with this “I want to touch a dog” thing?
Bow Wow

An event was recently held in Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya, where people were invited to, well, meet some dogs. Some might be threatened by this, but I think it’s a terrific idea. I don’t have a dog now but I grew up with dogs and I loved them. If they’re well treated, then you’ll never have a more unquestioningly loyal friend than a dog. Not like cats. I had a cat (she died last year) and I absolutely adored her, but being a cat, she was elusive and cool. She would allow me to feed her and to live in the same apartment and occasionally, she would let me scratch her, but she’d push me away when she’d have enough. I’m fairly certain that she considered me to be her servant but I was happy to serve.

Dogs and humans have been living together for at least 15,000 years (32,000 years, according to a recent study) while cats have only been around us for 9,000 years. I think that as far as cats are concerned, we’re still on probation — they haven’t quite made up their minds about us. Not like dogs. Dogs are always ready for attention and exercise. Dogs are so full of trust and you learn to never betray that trust.

The human relationship with dogs goes back so far that we have become attuned to each other. Dogs and humans instinctively understand each other’s emotions, which is unlike our relationship with any other animal. If you’re excited, then they’re excited, if you’re scared, then they’ll defend you. Not like cats. Cats couldn’t care less. Cats are like, “Whatever”. But I miss my cat like crazy.

Reprinted with the kind permission of