396 b o o k r e vi ew s

of the first of these, in all-Indonesia as well as Gayo terms, is the most nuanced
and perceptive of its kind to have been published in recent times. Jurispru-
dentially cognizable within Islam, adat (Arabic (6:da) is defined by the author
as ‘practices, norms and claims about social life that draw their force not from
scripture, nor from a positive-law-like process of enactment but from their
source in the [local] past’, and ‘carry a predictable and morally weighty set
of obligations’ (p. 29). Though not necessarily in conflict with Islamic precept,
adat can of course be so, and was seen by the colonial Dutch as a useful jural
counterpoise to an Islam that at times threatened colonial rule. Creation—or
as was said contemporaneously, ‘discovery’—of an elaborate structure of
Adatrecht (Adat Law), divided into numerous distinct regional particularities
across the Indies, underpinned Dutch administration, especially in relation to
institutions of kinship, marriage, inheritance, and land transactions, allocating

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to Islam a subordinate role where it could be regarded as having been ‘received
into’ local practice. At independence, Indonesia retained much of the colonial
legal structure, including many aspects of adat law to cater for local norms
and sentiment, within new national civil and Islamic court structures.
As Bowen notes at the outset of the long section devoted to ‘Reasoning
legally through scripture’, adat’s emphasis on the fixedness of place contrasts
sharply with Islam’s ‘intrinsic affinity with movement’, and its emphasis on
universal laws governing social and economic transactions wherever occurring
(pp. 67–8). Conflict of laws is unavoidable for those wishing or required to
navigate between the two. It is here in these four chapters, following a histori-
cized account of the works of the Islamic courts, that a great deal of Bowen’s
most interesting and informative case material is presented, as judges, jurists,
and litigants grapple with the complexities of legal pluralism. Most cases turn
on the post-mortem disposition of landed property, and illustrate fluctuating
divisions between customary and Islamic precept and practice, and issues of
gender and other inequalities. Throughout, Bowen is careful to situate the
discussion of his case material in the wider context of the development of the
nation state, which has had its own imperatives, and the contested politics of
Acheh’s often violent relationship with the national government.
Rich in acutely observed (and heard) detail, unobtrusively aware throughout
of the theoretical implications of its material, this is a model study that has
much to teach Islamicists, Indonesianists, jurists, and social scientists alike.
William R. Roff
University of Edinburgh

Suharto: A Political Biography

By R. E. ELSON (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001),
410 pp. Price HB £27.95. ISBN 0–521–77326–1.

There have been many books written about Indonesia under the New Order
regime of Suharto, a period that began immediately after the fall of Sukarno
 b o ok r e v i e w s 397
in the mid-1960s and lasted until the political demise of Suharto in 1998.
For over three decades Indonesians knew only one president—Suharto—who
was elected to the presidency no less than seven consecutive times (1968, 1973,
1978, 1983, 1988, 1993, and 1998) by the People’s Consultative Assembly
(MPR). Given Suharto’s dominant position throughout this long period
of Indonesian history, studies or analyses about different aspects of the
New Order policy and practices will invariably also focus on Suharto. Yet
despite all this, the figure at the centre of so many scholarly analyses and
popular reporting has remained one of the least known among world leaders,
and even to most Indonesians Suharto has remained a remote and enigmatic
figure.
R. E. Elson’s Suharto: A Political Biography, published shortly after
Suharto’s fall from power, is to be commended not only for its timeliness,

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but also for its detailed and scholarly analyses of Suharto’s military career
and his long tenure as president. Unlike many books written immediately after
a major event, which are often poorly researched and full of superficial and
spurious explanations of why such an event took place, Elson’s biography of
Suharto is clearly the result of long and painstaking research, as evidenced
by the wealth of details provided in the book. The abrupt ending of Suharto’s
rule on 21 May 1998, barely two months after he was re-elected unchallenged
as president for the seventh time, has made it possible for Elson to present
a much more comprehensive and rounded explanation of Suharto’s life, work,
and legacy than might have otherwise been. The book recounts and explains
not only Suharto’s and, ultimately, Indonesia’s many achievements, but also
his fundamental weaknesses and failures, which contributed to the myriad
problems that have beset Indonesia in recent years. (Elson would probably
publish this biography even if the ending saw Suharto still firmly entrenched
in power.)
In the immediate post-Suharto years, when Indonesians and most outside
observers blamed on Suharto every misfortune that had befallen Indonesia since
the 1997 financial crisis, it has been difficult to take an objective and detached
view of his achievements. The New Order, the term coined by Suharto to
differentiate his regime from Sukarno’s turbulent ‘Old Order’, once had only
positive connotations such as order, political stability, economic development,
and modernization. In the past five years, however, the term ‘New Order’ has
become almost wholly pejorative, signifying authoritarianism, corruption, cen-
tralization, and human-rights abuses. Suharto, once given the title of the Father
of Development by a grateful nation proud of the country’s remarkable eco-
nomic achievements, came to be viewed almost entirely in a negative light as
Indonesia plunged into a multidimensional crisis.
Yet in recent times, perceptions of the past have begun to change to some
extent, for memories can be short. Dissatisfaction with the past five years’
long drawn-out transition period under weak civilian leaders, during which
Indonesia has been wracked by political instability, communal violence,
separatist movements, and terrorist attacks—thus making it difficult for the
country to recover fully from the economic crisis—has again made many
398 b o o k r e vi ew s
Indonesians nostalgic for the ‘good old days of the New Order’. (It has been
jokingly said that many Indonesians now suffer from SARS—‘Sindrom Akut
Rindu Suharto’—‘acute syndrome longing for Suharto.) This can be seen
in the resurgence of Golkar’s popularity, the New Order’s political organ,
and the emergence of new parties affiliated with New Order figures, includ-
ing one that supports the candidacy of Suharto’s eldest daughter, Tutut, as
president.
Given these extreme contrasts in how Suharto’s presidency is viewed,
particularly within Indonesia, it is clearly important to have a thorough and
unbiased analysis of the man who dominated and shaped Indonesia’s lives
for more than three decades. Elson’s book goes a long way towards fulfilling
this need by providing a well-documented and detailed account of the major
events in Indonesia’s historical development in which Suharto played a central

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part. Elson employs a historical narrative approach, so that Suharto: A Political
Biography is as much a political history of Indonesia, tracing the major turning
points, challenges, triumphs and tribulations that the country experienced in
the past three decades.
As noted by Elson, Suharto was both an extraordinarily complex and
an extraordinarily simple man (p. 297). His family background was humble,
coming from a lowly Javanese peasant family (though Elson recounts the
rumours that Suharto might have been an illegitimate son of a nobleman), his
childhood unstable due to his parents’ divorce, his education limited and his
horizon narrow. Suharto joined the military under the Japanese military occu-
pation with its fascistic ideology. All of these factors helped to shape Suharto’s
personality and world view. Elson makes much of the role of Suharto’s
unhappy childhood in turning him into the tough and resilient personality he
was to become, one who never exposed his emotions in public, and who relied
on close families and friends in his work. Unlike Sukarno, who was a voracious
reader and strongly influenced by various thinkers and scholars, Suharto hardly
read anything beyond newspapers, magazines, and the reports prepared for him
by his staff. According to Elson, Suharto’s world view was strongly influenced
by Javanese aphorism.
Suharto’s achievements were the more remarkable given his unremarkable
past and his not-too-brilliant military career. Suharto rose to prominence after
the killing of six army generals in 30 September 1965, an act blamed on the
Indonesian Communist Party, which had the backing of President Sukarno.
Elson recounts the action taken by Suharto, first haltingly as he was unsure of
his way, but later with increasing sureness and confidence, in easing Sukarno
out of power and asserting his control of the country.
As Elson mentions, there was no evidence that Suharto was a politically ambi-
tious man. He had seemed to be content to pursue the career of a professional
military officer before the cataclysmic events of 1965 catapulted him onto
political centre stage. Yet within a relatively short time Suharto succeeded in
enforcing security and order, and in transforming Indonesia’s basket case
economy into one of the economic miracles in East Asia. Suharto did this by
combining a policy of tight socio-political control with a growth-led economic
 b o ok r e v i e w s 399
development. His long-term successes, however, convinced Suharto that he
was a man of destiny, and towards the later stage of his presidency, like
Louis XIV, Suharto regarded himself as the state and that Indonesia could not
do without him.
In the last chapter of his book Elson explains the factors that contributed
to Suharto’s success. These include luck, for Suharto happened to be at the
right place at the right time; skill, particularly his ability to attract people of
talent and to retain their loyalty; patronage and ruthlessness, rewarding those
who supported him generously and punishing those who could not be bought;
and political and strategic skills, showing patience until he was ready to move
and never crushing an opponent if there was a chance of winning him over.
Suharto also succeeded in corporatizing Indonesia, ensuring that political
dissent had no place in Indonesian politics.

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Equally important, Elson explains aspects of Suharto’s attitude and policy
that in the end contributed to his downfall. Chief among these were Suharto’s
inability to distinguish between private and public wealth and his indulgence
of his children, so that the New Order regime was characterized by corruption,
collusion, and nepotism, factors that in the end alienated support for Suharto
and made the Indonesian economy inefficient. Despite his professed devotion to
the people, Suharto also fundamentally distrusted the people—thereby justify-
ing the restrictions imposed upon them for their own good. In Elson’s words,
Suharto’s vision of Indonesian society was one of flaccid tranquility or passivity.
Suharto’s continuing view of Indonesian society as being childlike, ignorant,
and malleable—thus necessitating his firm and paternalistic guidance—failed
to take into account the fundamental social changes that had taken place as
a result of the success of his modernization drive. Like so many authoritarian
leaders before him, including Sukarno, Suharto outstayed his welcome by
failing to grasp the opportunity of exiting the scene when he was still respected;
in so doing he has forced his country again to undergo a precipitate radical
and painful change. Despite his undoubted achievements Suharto has, as Elson
points out, done great damage to Indonesia’s social and political development,
by causing the Indonesian political system to atrophy, thereby leaving the
nation adrift in his wake.
Dewi Fortuna Anwar
Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Jakarta

Malay Political Leadership

By ANTHONY S. K. SHOME (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002), 264 pp.
Price HB £65.00. ISBN 0–7007–1629–7.

The core of this book is the political history of Malaysia, through the activi-
ties of the first four Prime Ministers in five chapters. It focuses on a number
of important aspects like race politics, nationalism, economy, party politics,