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Sooner the Fly to God, Part II
Apropos Suharto’s death, I wish to point again to the post I wrote on the occasion of Augusto Pinochet’s very timely demise.
Suharto was a practitioner of genocide. A genocide, it is worth noting, that occurred with the tacit sanction and support of the United States.
He was a thug, a dictator, and a criminal, and deserves to be remembered as nothing more.
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5 Responses to “Sooner the Fly to God, Part II”
A wonderful insight Mr. Schraub. Could you please tell that to the vast majority of Indonesian Citizens whose average income soared, life span increased, and quality of life improved thanks to that thug, dictator, and criminal?
I'm sure that's fantastic solace to the 300,000 he slaughtered.
As I said in the last post — if this is what it takes to make the trains run on time, I'd rather they be a little late.
That is, if there are any trains in the first place! Indonesia before Suharto was one of the poorest places on earth; just read the local commentary in foreign media outlets and you will see that people there have a mixed conclusion about his legacy. Much like the country itself, nothing is easy to decipher from an outsiders point of view, unless one has traveled there and talked to the citizens. It has been my experience that nearly everyone I have talked to credits him from saving the country from chaos and poverty, and very likely prevented its fracture into a multitude of mini states and waring factions. No wonder the power-brokers of the West supported him; was there any serious alternative? In the end, Mr Schraub, Indonesians must solve their own problems by themselves, and just like us, do not take one-sided criticism well. A proper balance of pros and cons is always appropriate; isn't why this site called “The Moderate Voice”?
I guess I'm not moderately anti-genocide then.
Nope, and I suppose that I can't bring myself to ignore a mixed bag of results rather than focus on a black or white view of a person. Guess we shall have to agree to disagree…