Repressive despot, or enlightened reformer? What are we to make of Suharto, four years after his fall? Was his prolonged rule an inevitable outcome of the Indonesian political process and of the mistakes and chaos of the Sukarno years? Or was it an illegitimate and corrupt militaristic venture, which has now been replaced by a genuine democratic political system, whatever its flaws and bloody dissensions? Is it too early to draw firm conclusions?

At its close, Sukarno’s Guided Democracy looked like an aberration, just as the New Order looks like an aberration now. But an aberration from what? Suharto’s reign poses the question of the normal legitimate structure of the Indonesian state. Looking back on their modern history, Indonesians see their politics as a series of tragically failed experiments. Even basic rules of the game now seem unclear. Pancasila, the five principles devised by Sukarno as the ideological cornerstone of the Indonesian state, was, despite its vagueness, an excellent start in conceptualising the basis for a just and plural society. But it was only a start, and the tight control by the Suharto government over all aspects of life, including ideology, vitiated serious attempts to give it more substance through any free and intelligent debate. Now Pancasila is hardly discussed.