Indrawati Joe Instructor Mr. Bac Sierra English 90 2 July 2002 Former President Suharto Former President Suharto had held the power of government of Indonesia approximately thirty-two years before his fall from his presidential seat on March 21st 1998. Within thirty-two years, he had improved our nation from backwardness; he had moved the country forward to the prosperity. The Chinese society and the native lived peacefully. But as the reality, Chinese society had the standard of living better than the native that caused the exacerbation of social imbalance. This problem had been persisted for a long time. Patience was limited; the native had run out of patience. The tragedy happened and changed Indonesia forever.
I was born in 1984. My mom told me that within the year I was born until 5 years later; was the period of the victory of Indonesia. As Chinese society, my family and me lived happily and comfortably.
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English: Mr. Suharto presented his address of resi...We didn't face any of the difficulty at all, specifically on the economy. Former President Suharto and his cabinet had given power for Chinese society to play the important role on the economy. We were authorized to take control of businesses in Indonesia such as agriculture, fishery, and mining were three of the major source of finances of the country. Historically, Chinese people had known well on saving the money and run the business. Without any hesitancy, Former President Suharto gave this big opportunity to Chinese society so that we could increase the economy of the country. Certainly the opportunity advantaged the Chinese society better than the native.
However, Former President Suharto had a certain attitude toward the native. He was attempting to improve their standard of living by opening job field, public school, and public housing. But those didn't satisfy them enough; as we compared to what Chinese society had.
Intentionally, Former President Suharto made such as decision above because he didn't want Chinese society to be particularly involved in politic. We as Chinese society didn't have any rights to speak and be part of the government. As long as we didn't attempt to make such as correction and complainant toward they way he ruled the country; we were saved. With such as attitude, we know that something was up behind this. As we all know that corruption and nepotism were two common problems that often happened in this world. Former President Suharto and his administration had badly operated corruption and nepotism for thirty-two years during his regime. This custom had rooted all over the foundation of the government. With the result that corruption and nepotism were hardly to be vanished. Eventually, the society couldn't stand with this issue. They started to speak out. This was the beginning of reformation.
The tragedy happened on May 12th -14th 1998 where students from all over universities in the country gathered in the capital. They marched along the way showing their dissatisfaction toward the government of doing corruption and nepotism. They demanded Former President Suharto to step down from his presidential seat that he had just won throughout the campaign. His party, which was happened to be the biggest political party in Indonesia, had won him again to be the president of Indonesia. He showed how ridiculous he was by doing the nepotism of choosing the people for his cabinet. All of these caused strong reactions from various realms of society. Finally, Suharto' stubbornness for not stepping down had be overcome until six students died with bullets emerged across their body. Chaos had happened, the reformation had begun, and the dictatorialness had fell. The cruelty of Former President Suharto administration left a scar for everyone' heart; especially for the family of the patriot of reformation who died for the establishment of justice.
The next day after the tragedy, happened another tragedy. The second tragedy was intended for Chinese society with all their properties. Groups of irresponsible people made use of the chaos to express their jealousy that they had been buried toward Chinese society because of injustice that they had received during Suharto' regime. The irresponsible native plundered the property of Chinese society; they also burned building down such as stores, housings, and business. They sadistically and massively rapped Chinese women; they killed a lot of innocent Chinese society. This was a terrible and terrified situation the Chinese society had ever faced.
As a human being, we possessed the positive and the negative parts. Nobody was perfect. Former President Suharto was known as a father of establishment of Indonesia. But his greediness and dictatorialness led him to the destruction. Now I understand that people thought Former President Suharto was a deviant because they had experienced the unfairness of his regime, whereas Chinese society experienced his good quality. Overall, I had thought that even though Former President Suharto had done a lot of corruption and nepotism, but he brought the country up. People had a job, people went to school, and people had enough food to eat. Compared with today, Indonesian had suffered from joblessness, starvation, and educational problem. I thought that maybe sometimes-corrupt people are needed or we should be on the right way.
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