Permesta: Half a Rebellion

With the conclusion of Indonesia's long and arduous struggle for independence most of its people believed there would be a rapid improvement of social and economic conditions. During the early years of independence some progress was made in this direction, most prominently in education, and for the time being at least Indonesian society did become somewhat more egalitarian than in the colonial period. But the degree of improvement fell far short of expectations, and disillusionment and frustration led increasingly to an understandable tendency to blame the central government in Jakarta for the inadequate measures taken to meet the expectations that had been aroused during the revolution. For several years, in Java as well as in the Outer Islands, disenchantment with the central government was moderated by the widely held belief that the first national democratic elections-finally actually held in 1955-56-could be counted upon to produce a genuinely representative government disposed to take, and capable of implementing, the decisive actions required to attain social and economic progress. But in fact the elections brought little change; cabinet membership was largely the same, the political parties no more disposed to cooperate with each other, and governmental capacity to bring about social and economic progress no greater than before. Once this became clear, dissatisfaction and criticism of the central government was no longer restrained and became more forcefully articulated and pointed. Especially was this so in the highly politically conscious areas of Sumatra and Sulawesi that felt slighted and discriminated against by what they perceived to be an increasingly Java-centric cast of national leadership in Jakarta. The several movements for increased regional autonomy-culminating in open rebellion in Sulawesi and Sumatra-dominated Indonesia's political history from 1957 to 1959 and constituted a major watershed in the country's political development. As Dr. Harvey points out, they link the period between the last phase of parliamentary government and the subsequent more authoritarian and centralized system of Guided Democracy, and their ultimate failure paved the way for the firm establishment of the latter system and more generally for a substantial change in the overall pattern of power. - George McT. Kahin