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“Asia is overcome by a tidal wave of common sense”
The quote is from Kishore Mahbubani, a learned and eminent Singapore citizen of Indian descent. He himself is making tidal waves in the media and universities by his books in which he castigates the West for arrogance, geo political incompetence and complacency, while at the same time he proclaims the ascent of Asian progress. While the US and Europe lack the capacity to understand the transformation the world is going through, Asia is marching to modernity with a huge, peace and stability loving middle class as result. In the process an ocean of new Asian brainpower – which always has been wasted- will become available and boost the developments.
As one might expect China is kind of a model to him. According to Mahbubani that country took two major beneficial decisions. One of them is that after the end of the cold war it didn’t copy the political system of the West (= liberal democracy), but only the economical one (free market economy). In that way it profited from the dynamics and vitality of the system, but could prevent the socio-political chaos the former USSR had and has to deal with. The other one is a geo strategic one: China offered a free trade agreement to the Asean and Asian countries and executed it. The outcome of that decision is that the Asian hemisphere as a whole benefits from a remarkable economic growth.
Indonesia, a Jilbab Democracy?
Henk Schulte Nordholt ends his book (“Indonesia na Suharto, reformasi en restauratie“, 2008;ISBN 978 90 351 31354 ) with a quote by Ben Mboi, ex governor of Nusa Tenggara Timur: “Indonesia is like the Titanic. The only difference is that Indonesia keeps on sinking without perishing“.
I can say it at the outset: this is solid but tasty contemporary history. Preceded by two chapters on the Sukarno era and the Suharto’s New Order, it is mainly about the last ten turbulent years of Indonesia. An easy, informative and pleasant read, despite the thorough and scrupulous scientific approach the author took. It contains a lot of relevant facts ( of course), quite a number of new and refreshing insights ( at least to this reader) and useful matter-of-fact debunking of a number of myths, plus a general conclusion which leaves a lot of doubt about Indonesia’s future as a democracy. Read More
He who finally died…
and still attracts lots of attention!!
I guess at this point, unless you have no TV, radio nor pc connected to internet, it was hard to miss the news that Soehart a.k.a Suharto passed away yesterday because of multiple organ failure. The eldest daughter of Suharto broke the news to the media.
Ever since that moment it is hard to read Kompas or Detik.com without a glimpse on who’s coming to Cendana to pay their respects. Even an unimportant figures, such as Mayangsari (the used to be not-so-populer actress-turned second wife of one of Suharto’s son).
Tribute to a Victim
While the ruling elite in Jakarta is paying their respect to the dying ex-dictator, in a far away provincial city in North West Europe, a kind, intelligent, friendly, industrious and modest Indonesian man passed away. He was only in his early sixties.
He was a good man and a victim. He will not be in the history books. His mighty compatriot will. Although that man was a tyrant and the culprit. Reading the papers, one can only conclude that he will be forgiven for his wrongdoings and be remembered for the political stability and economic boom for which he will get the credits. Yeah, “he was a honourable manâ€.
The kind man and the dictator had a confrontation long ago. A long distance confrontation to be precise, because they did not actually meet. At that time the dictator was a middle aged general and the kind man was a promising student. When the dictator was seizing power from the founder of the nation, the kind man was in his early twenties studying to be a civil engineer. But he was doing so in a historically wrong place.