The Earth Times Magazine

Shortly after he was arrested for orchestrating the assassination of a Supreme Court justice late last year, Hutomo "Tommy" Suharto, son of the former Indonesian strongman, filed suit against two aides to former President Abdurrahman Wahid.

Tommy wasn’t claiming false arrest. He wasn’t suing for defamation of character. He just wanted his money back.

The 36-year old heir to the multi-billion dollar Suharto fortune claimed he had given the middlemen a $2 million bribe that was meant to buy a Wahid pardon for an earlier conviction in connections with a real estate swindle.

Since the pardon was rejected, Tommy argued, it was only fair that he get his bribe back. Besides, after the assassination of one of their own, the other Supreme Court justices had overturned the conviction anyway, even though Tommy was a fugitive at the time.

Welcome to Indonesia in the post-Suharto era, a nation deep in the throes of political, economic and social transition punctuated by contradictions at every turn.

On one level, the saga of Tommy Suharto is a vivid example of business-as-usual in one of the world's more corrupt societies. But on another level, it masks the fact that Indonesia has changed in fundamental ways that could alter the very nature of its society.

For the architects of America's war on terror, the ability to penetrate the appearances and realities of the world's largest Moslem country will have a critical impact on the battle in the years ahead.

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In many respects, it would have been much easier for post-Sept. 11 U.S. foreign policy if Suharto had never been overthrown. The former general used a strong hand to hold together his necklace of 17,000 islands and 300 language groups. Any hint of rebellion in the provinces met with a violent response, as the agony of East Timor painfully demonstrated. Political opposition was bought off or silenced. Islamic sentiment was funneled into tame social movements. Clerics who raised the forbidden subject of Islamic rule were jailed or exiled.

Today, Indonesia is an ethnic quilt held together with fraying thread. Provinces at either end of the vast archipelago are in revolt, officials in oil-rich Aceh have established religious police to enforce an Islamic dress code, Moslem-Christian clashes have claimed some 10,000 lives, and the country has had four presidents in as many years.

There have been rumors of Taliban and al-Qaeda involvement in the anti-Christian jihad, several Indonesian clerics and their followers have been implicated in regional terrorist plots, a shadowy group called the Islamic Defenders Front has threatened foreigners who hold the key to reviving the devastated economy, and at least one suspected Indonesian militant has been directly tied to both the Sept. 11^th hijackers and the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen.

Against that backdrop, it would be easy for American architects of the war on terror to convince themselves that Indonesia’s interests coincide with those of the U.S.

History would seem to bolster their argument. President Megawati Sukarnoputri's own father, the nationalist Sukarno, fought to contain radical Islam, a job completed by the man who ousted him, Suharto. Surely the woman leader of the world’s largest Moslem country would do everything possible to prevent <I>al Qaeda</I> from fostering a fundamentalist resurgence that would oppose her very existence in office.

Megawati seemed to confirm that when she stood beside President George W. Bush in the aftermath of Sept. 11 and signaled her country’s support in the war on terrorism.

But behind that façade is another reality: To overtly confront the forces that could threaten her is to strengthen the forces that do threaten her.

Within days of returning home, Megawati was adjusting her message to Washington in the face of criticism from figures like her own vice president, Hamzah Haz of the Moslem-oriented United Development Party, who claimed the World Trade Center bombing would "cleanse the sins" of the U.S.

"Prolonged military action is not only counterproductive but also can weaken the global coalition’s joint effort to combat terrorism," Megawati said in a speech before parliament.

Westerners looking at Indonesia today are likely to see a young democracy, a free press and billboards for Citibank, and assume shared values. But the fact is that a few Western trappings have been hung on what remains a very Indonesian mannequin.

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Indonesia has always been a culture in which most things are best left unsaid. Confrontation is anathema. The word "no" is rarely used. Bapak, the father figure in business, the family or the nation, is always right.

Jakarta hotels in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s were jammed with Western businesspeople whose would-be Indonesian partners had nodded sagely at their proposals and promised to get back to them. Few ever did.

But globetrotting salesmen aren't the only foreign visitors to Indonesia who have been tripped up by a culture in which appearances are far more important than reality.

"Things were going fine until he saw that picture," a source in the Indonesian presidential palace told me in early 1998. "Then his attitude changed completely."

"That picture" was a photo showing IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus standing -- arms crossed -- looking down at President Suharto as he signed a $43 billion bailout package.

In the stylized culture of Java, in which respect for the ruler is paramount and body language speaks as loudly as words, crossing ones arms is, at best, a sign of arrogance, and at worst a conscious insult. Even to a Western eye, the picture begged for the caption: "Suharto signs articles of surrender."

"If only Camdessus had known…" IMF officials said when the media firestorm broke. Indeed. But the damage was already done.

The moment Suharto saw the photo, according to the source, the deal was dead. Within days, the Indonesia president was backpedaling. Within weeks, the flag of nationalism had been waved. Cynics might say Suharto's desire to protect the wealth of his family and cronies might have had a little something to do with his desire to duck financial reforms being forced on him by the IMF, but the photo gave him an excuse every Indonesian understood.

"We are talking about dignity," said a senior government official of the incident. "We are talking sovereignty. We want help, but at what cost?"

Four years later, that sentiment was echoed again as Indonesian officials reacted to criticism from Singapore founder Lee Kuan Yew, who claimed Jakarta was dragging its feet in the war on terror.

Foreign Minister Hasan Wirayuda called the comments "provocative," Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, a Moslem cleric who spent four years in jail under Suharto and who Lee charged was a major terrorist ringleader, filed a slander suit in a Jakarta court, and some politicians said Lee had done their country a service by sparking a new wave of Indonesian nationalism.

Indonesian security officials, meanwhile, maintained that Lee's criticism was unfounded.

"We can't publish it yet, [but] Indonesia has been effectively working to combat terrorism," insisted Chief Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

But such assurances were undermined by the country's lack of credibility, the natural legacy of a business and political culture in which decisions are routinely made behind closed doors.

That culture of secrecy -- in which candor is rare and transparency is a dirty word -- has long plagued Indonesia's relations with the outside world.

"I had no idea when I was here [last year] that there was $65 billion, or whatever the number is, of unhedged dollar borrowings and I don’t think the Indonesians knew," World Bank President James Wolfensohn admitted in early 1998.

The traditional Javanese shadow puppet play, in which the characters act out the story behind an opaque screen, is an overused but apt analogy for the veil of secrecy behind which business and government has long operated in Indonesia.

Decisions are handed down without discussion or debate. Inside deals are common currency. The most innocuous facts about a company are kept under wraps. Even annual reports are routinely issued a year or two late.

For many years, that shadow play -- which now complicates America's conduct of the terror war in Southeast Asia -- was extremely convenient for the U.S. government, and, in particular, American business.

Long before the dot-coms, long before Enron, it was on the bourses of Jakarta and a dozen other emerging markets that Wall Street perfected its ability to look the other way.

Underwriters like Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley could make millions orchestrating public offerings for feudal conglomerates, without causing the loss of face involved in demanding real financial transparency. Western brokers could promise clients staggering returns on the Jakarta Stock Exchange, without embarrassing Indonesian counterparts by mentioning rampant insider trading. Overseas investment banks could write blank checks for loans to Indonesian conglomerates, without uncomfortable discussions about the fact most were already overextended.

As long as no one asked too many questions, as long as everyone agreed appearance <I>was</I> reality, there were plenty of windfall profits to go around.

But when the Asian bubble burst and members of the newly-created middle class suddenly found themselves without jobs and began shouting that the emperor had no clothes, the ponzi scheme came crashing down.

The child of that revolution is a nascent democracy grafted onto a culture of secrecy, illusion and contradiction.

When FBI Director Robert Mueller arrived in Indonesia in late March to discuss the war on terrorism, he must have felt as if he had stepped through Alice’s looking glass. Some of the news filling the local papers:

The FBI director spent two days quietly meeting with the country’s security minister, national police chief and head of the national intelligence agency (in the safety of the Hindu-dominated island of Bali, far from potential Moslem demonstrators) as part of a regional tour to coordinate strategy in the war on terror.

As the meetings ended, the two sides issued all the usual public expressions of cooperation, but the Indonesians added one caveat:

"We have explained that Indonesia is committed to fighting international terrorism," said Security Minister Susilo, "but with different methods."

That was driven home just two days later when the foreign minister announced that Indonesia would "do its utmost" to protect the rights of three Indonesians detained in the Philippines after they were caught with explosives at Manila airport.

For the FBI director, the statement must have been final confirmation that the white rabbit had an Indonesian cousin.

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The irony of Indonesia’s emergence as an important front in the terror war is that it today stands as a model for the rise of a moderate brand of political Islam that gives voice to Moslem aspirations as part of, rather than in opposition to, the political process.

The 1998 Indonesian revolution succeeded because it brought together all strata of society – from the street beggars to the Mercedes class -- but also because it tapped the latent grassroots power of Islam.

Indonesian Moslems, most of whom practice an extremely tolerant brand of Islam, account for more than 90 per cent of the country's population. Yet under Suharto and his predecessor Sukarno, Islam never played a political role.

The foot soldiers of the anti-Suharto revolt may have come from the universities. The coup d’gras may have been inflicted by the Army's top general (see sidebar). But the field marshals of the revolution were men like Amien Rais and Abdurrahman Wahid, who flexed the newfound political muscles of the mass Moslem movements they headed. Suharto's former vice president and successor, B.J. Habibie, further strengthened the political power of Moslem groups by cultivating them in a failed attempt to win legitimacy.

"When, a few years from now, historians of Moslem politics look back at the end of the Twentieth Century, Indonesia will probably deserve to be given pride of place on a par with Iran," Robert W. Hefner, a professor of anthropology at Boston University, recently wrote. "Measured according to its intellectual vitality and prospective mass base, Indonesia in the late 1990s was one of the most vibrant centers for new Muslim political thinking that the modern world has seen."

It was his position as head of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), or Religious Scholars organization, with a power base of some 30 million Moslems, that propelled Wahid to the presidency. As reformasi took root in the wake of Suharto’s rule, the nearly-blind cleric formed the National Awakening Party (PKB) to leverage the NU’s existing grassroots network.

But like Rais, Habibie and other mainstream Moslem leaders, Wahid (popularly-known as Gus Dur) steered clear of using the political process as a vehicle for spreading Islamic beliefs.

"If the new parties want Islam to be a moral or educational force in politics, that's ok", he said in 1999, "but if they want to tinker with the laws of this country, then we must resist that".

Just as Nasser’s Egypt did for young Arab intellectuals in the 1950s, Indonesia offers a model that gives vent to Moslem political aspirations that might otherwise manifest as Islamic militancy. But where Nasser’s one-man rule meant mass participation was severely circumscribed, Indonesia’s political free-for-all -- with some 170 registered political parties -- gives voice to virtually all elements of society.

One example of how the structures of Islam are being used as a political base can be found in the emergence of Partai Keadilan, or Justice Party, popularly known by its Indonesian initials PK. Formed in July 1998, the PK seeks to add an Islamic spiritual dimension to political activism, but officially states that it is up to the individual to interpret the religious teachings of Islam. Party cadres are recruited primarily through local mosques, where students as young as 12 years old are organized into Koran reading and discussion groups then, after a year of participation, encouraged to form groups of their own. Through this tiered system, the party is building a long-term strategy by tapping youth often ignored by other political groups in a culture where age is revered. The stated goal is "to use power to serve others," not to implement Islamic law.

"We want the party to become a pioneer in upholding Islamic values and we want to do that within the framework of democracy, national unity and integrity," party chairman Hidayat Nur Wahid recently told an interviewer. "Even if you are Moslem, if you are unjust and oppress non-Moslems, you should be punished. This is how we view syariah (Islamic law).

But it was just such a network of mosques and Islamic schools in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Pakistan that funneled recruits to <I>al Qaeda</I>. Indonesia's homegrown terrorists seem to share similar roots.

With seven seats in parliament, the PK's success to date underlines both the value of such Islamic political organizations if they remain true to their stated mission and their potential threat if the parties, or individuals within them, draw on those infrastructures to plot a more violent course. And given that the PK was founded as an extension of the Arab grandfather of Moslem resistance organizations, the Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimoon or Moslem Brotherhood, such a possibility cannot be ignored.

For Jakarta in 2002 bears one other similarity to Cairo in the ‘50s: The threat from a cross-border movement seeking to create a pan-Islamic nation. Just as the Moslem Brotherhood sought to overthrow regimes across the Middle East and replace them with a single Islamic nation, so the militants of Jemaah Islamiyah seek to establish Darul Islamiyah Nusantara, an Islamic state incorporating Indonesia, Malaysia and portions of the Philippines.

The goal of preventing that is shared by officials in Washington and Jakarta. But that does not mean they necessarily agree on tactics.

A recent Gallup poll of sentiment in the Islamic world revealed that only 27% of Indonesians viewed the U.S. favorably, 89% said the U.S. military action in Afghanistan was unjustified, and 74% said they did not believe Arabs carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.

Given those numbers, any government would hesitate to overtly side with the U.S. That is doubly true of a president in a shaky coalition government that depends on several Moslem parties for its survival, including a vice president who once opposed the very idea of a woman in the country's highest office.

Further complicating the situation is an historic love-hate relationship between Indonesia and the U.S., viewed through a prism of nationalism, culture and religion -- all exploited at various times by the country's leaders for their own ends. Suspicion of the West -- and the U.S. in particular -- colors every aspect of the relationship.

A tendency toward conspiracy theories runs deep in Indonesian society, illustrated by the widespread belief that the devaluation of the rupiah in the early '90s was the result of a conspiracy between financier George Soros and the country's ethnic Chinese. Many Indonesians believe the West wants to break up the country or otherwise prevent it from becoming a regional power.

American criticism of Indonesia's human rights record (see sidebar) is widely seen as hypocritical in light of a U.S. foreign policy that is perceived as exploitative and biased, particularly when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, a subject that sparks anger at every level of society.

While there exists a voracious appetite for things Western -- from MTV to Coke -- there also exists the same kind of cultural backlash that fueled Osama bin Laden's rise, reflected in a spate of attacks on bars earlier this year and the increased appearance of Islamic attire even among the upper classes.

Moderate Moslem leaders -- and the vast majority of mainstream Moslems -- have almost as much to lose as Megawati by the rise of fundamentalism. If such a scenario ever showed signs of manifesting as reality, it is likely that all the power centers would close ranks against the threat.

But in the meantime, Moslem politicians will seize every opportunity to exploit public suspicions of the U.S. as a powerful weapon in their maneuvering toward the 2004 presidential elections.

"Everything that gives the impression that Indonesia is serving the American interest in its drive to fight terrorism will be opposed by the [House of Representatives], the press and the public," Lt. Gen. (ret) Zen A. Maulani, a former intelligence chief, recently told an interviewer. "This means that they will also oppose Megawati if she allows this impression to gain credence."

As always in Indonesia, it is the "impression" -- the appearance -- which is at issue. Most Indonesian Moslems are willing to look the other way as extremist elements are neutralized, but they don't want to be seen to be doing so. Indonesians are proud of their role as the world's largest Moslem society. They are not prepared to puncture the illusion of Islamic solidarity.

To expose the reality of their quiet support for the neutralization of extremists is to cause a loss of face across the breadth of Indonesian society, from the volatile Islamic schools of Central Java to the presidential palace.

Such miscalculations by American policy planners – or too-aggressive tactics by the terror warriors – could cause a backlash, undermining the anti-terror effort and potentially creating precisely the kind of instability upon which radical Islam breeds.

Which is why Indonesia's culture of appearances could yet prove a valuable tool in the terror war. The key is whether American terror warriors can simultaneously understand, deftly utilize and judiciously penetrate the shadow play.

Seated beside a smiling Megawati Sukarnoputri just eight days after Sept. 11, President Bush indelicately stripped the Indonesian president of her veil of deniability as surely as if he had yanked off the Islamic head cover she sometimes wears.

"Some nations will be comfortable supporting covert activities, some nations will only be comfortable with providing information," Bush told reporters. "Others will be helpful and will only be comfortable supporting financial matters, I understand that."

Whatever the U.S. president intended, the appearance sent much the same message as the crossed arms of the IMF's Camdessus as he stood looming over Suharto back in '98. Bush might as well have said, "She's going to do our bidding, but deny it."

Bush's wartime presidency thrives on bold headlines spotlighting dramatic action. In Indonesia, all the news is not necessarily fit to print. Nor does much appear in neat black and white.

Some elements of the Indonesian security services – who detained Ba’asyir, the controversial cleric, for four years under Suharto – are reportedly chafing at Megawati’s go-slow directive, but they are no strangers to operating in the shadows. Even as they were being criticized for their failure to arrest Ba’asyir, a move that would have set off a political firestorm, authorities quietly picked up another suspected terrorist and deported him to Egypt, where that country's intelligence service and the Americans were waiting with open arms.

It was a reminder that while the terror war may be played out with B-52s in Afghanistan, special forces troops in the Philippines and an overt political crackdown in Yemen, to succeed in Indonesia it must abide by local rules.