Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis

by Jared Diamond

Like Chile but unlike Finland, Indonesia illustrates the breakdown of political compromise that produced the log jam and secessionist movements of the early 1950’s, leading to Sukarno’s installation of “guided democracy,” then to the Indonesian Communist Party calling for arming the workers and peasants, which led in turn to the army responding by committing mass murder. Also like Chile but unlike Finland, Indonesia illustrates the role played by unusual leaders. In the case of Indonesia, those were Sukarno, blessed by charisma and cursed by overconfidence in that charisma; and Suharto, blessed by patience, caution, and political skills, and cursed by his policy of murderous cruelty, by his blindness to the corruption of his own family, and by his lack of faith in his own countrymen. Finally, as for reconciliation after killings provoked by the breakdown of political compromise, Indonesia stands at the opposite extreme from Finland, with Chile intermediate: rapid reconciliation in Finland after the Finnish Civil War; much open discussion and trials of perpetrators in Chile, but incomplete reconciliation; and very limited discussion or reconciliation, and no trials, in Indonesia. Factors responsible for Indonesia’s lack of trials include the country’s weak democratic traditions; the fact that post-Pinochet Chile’s motto “a fatherland for all Chileans” found less echo in post-Suharto Indonesia; and, most of all, that Indonesia remained a military dictatorship for 33 years af...