Sukarno, President of Indonesia - Essay Example

Sukarno, President of Indonesia The United s is a place that wants to take pride in its leaders by pointing to the things they have done right, but they are also not afraid to analyze and criticize the things they have done wrong. A lot of times, the concepts that these value judgments are based on have to do with issues of morality. But trying to define what a moral leader is may not be as easy as it seems. Although we may all possess a moral sense, we don't all share the same moral standards. Deborah Rhode wrote an entire book studying the growing discussion about what global moral values there might be without coming to any actual conclusions (2006). However, there is a consistent need for a moral leader to be interested in providing the greatest good to the largest number of people, taking on a utilitarian approach to leadership. How that might be accomplished is a matter of individual values, beliefs, and political/social/economic climate. Taking a closer look at a leader such as Sukarno of Indonesia may help us to understand more about how individual values and beliefs can combine or collide with the climate to create the moral leader. Sukarno was born in 1901 to an aristocratic family and was given the best of educations, starting at boarding schools by the time he was 11 years old. When he graduated high school, he married the daughter of the man who owned his boarding house and then moved on to college. By the time he graduated college, he had divorced his first wife and married the ex-wife of his new boarding house's owner (Adams, 1965). He reportedly was very creative and had a photographic memory, which made it easier for him to become fluent in a number of different languages (Ludwig, 2004). After he finished his schooling, Sukarno went on to divorce and marry another woman and to start his own architectural company with a partner. His designs were shaped by his politics and vice versa. According to Rudolf Mrazek (2002), Sukarno was a very modern leader and believed the future would be blind to race, would be neat and Western in style, and would be anti-imperialist. While in high school, he had been influenced by Tjokroaminoto's nationalist ideas, but he also studied Western, communist, and Islamic political philosophy while he was in college (Adams, 1965). He eventually developed his own style of leadership which he called Marhaenism, based on concepts of socialist self-sufficiency. He was also irritated with the mostly Dutch-dominated social clubs he encountered at college and organized his own study clubs for Indonesian students. By the time he was 26 and graduated, Sukarno and his friends created a pro-independence party called the PNI (Adams, 1965) or the Indonesian National Party. As the party leader, Sukarno played a major role in establishing the party platform which advocated Indonesian independence and fought against imperialism and capitalism because these systems did not add value to the lives of the Indonesian people. In keeping with Sukarno's modern beliefs, the party also advocated a secular system of leadership that ensured unity among the various different races of the region. The party was very quickly populated by members from the university who wished to gain greater freedoms and opportunities which had not been available under the Dutch colonial occupation (Adams, 1965). Within three years, it had gained more than 10,000 members, forcing the government to react. They arrested Sukarno and seven of other party leaders and put them on trial for threatening the public order. Sukarno received four years of jail sentence and the party subsequently dissolved (Ricklefs, 1982). Looking at this party and Sukarno's historic defense speech on the day of his trial helps to reveal some of the values that Sukarno stood for at his most idealistic phase and illustrates the kind of moral leader he was. When Sukarno was arrested for his involvement with the PNI, he was permitted to deliver a speech in his defense. This speech has since been published as a historic book within Indonesia's history as it helped to touch off the revolution that finally freed Indonesia from the colonial rule of the racist and oppressive Dutch. The speech is called Indonesia Menggoegat or Indonesia Accuses in English and it highlights the complaints the Indonesian people had against the Dutch imperialistic control and their desire for a better future for themselves. It also helped to elevate Sukarno's popularity among the Indonesian populace, preparing him to take his future place as the first president of Indonesia. Within this speech, Sukarno reveals his study of Marxism as well as his ability to weave together various complex ideas to create his own form of philosophy. While he accuses imperialism, which is synonymous with colonialism in his writings, of pure greed and lust, he proposes a middle way between Asian concepts and Western concepts of self-sufficient social organization. He wanted to see Indonesians directly benefitting from the work they did and the products they produced at the same time that he wanted them to be able to participate in and take pride in their own traditional cultural values. Within this speech, Sukarno took great pain to ensure his ideas were well-defined and appealed to the emotions of his people. He discussed the harsh ways that the Dutch rule had stripped the Indonesian people of their pride and kept them from pursuing the best that they had in them (Paget, 1975). He discussed how imperialism had enabled the Dutch people to come into the country and pillage it with the enforced assistance of the people who would receive no proportional benefit from their labor. Capitalism maintained the system since it was designed to place the greatest amount of wealth into the hands of the fewest numbers of people, mostly just the owners of the companies. This is where his ideas meshed with the ideas of Marx in that he claimed the working class had been separated from the means of production, reduced to commodities for the Dutch people to profit from (Tandirerung, 2011). This appealed strongly to the people's sense of oppression and their frustrations in trying to gain recognition for their own accomplishments. Throughout his speech, Sukarno kept discussing the richness of the Indonesian heritage, the beauty and length of its culture, and its strong connection to its indigenous roots. This emphasis continued to make it clear to the people who were listening that it is the people with this history, these traditions, and this connection to the land that should have the right to rule themselves without an outside group of people coming in and depleting them of all this wealth. Using this method, Sukarno made sure it was very clear that the only motive the Dutch could have for their actions was greed for themselves whereas the Indonesian people had a moral obligation to take care of their own the best they could. Sukarno's speech reveals him to be a moral leader not only because of the humanitarian emotions he included in it, but also because of his ability to shape these ideas within a rhetorical structure that would resonate with the people who heard it. The speech is structured according to the classical argument style used effectively for more than two millennia (Corbett, 1971). The classical argument consists of the introduction, the narration, the confirmation, the refutation and concession, and finally ends with the summation. The introduction is intended to capture the audience's interest, establish your authority, and set out your point of view. Sukarno captured his audience's interest by addressing his speech not just to the people in attendance, but to everyone. He established his authority as an Indonesian man standing on trial for doing nothing more than seeking the same kinds of opportunity and freedoms as his Dutch counterparts. The narration establishes the context for your argument and Sukarno used the section of his speech called "Imperialism and Capitalism" to define what he meant by these terms, the two systems that steadily reduced human beings to mere commodities to be exploited until depleted of all value. This led naturally into the next section, "Imperialism in Indonesia," which corresponds with the confirmation section of the classical argument structure. In this section, Sukarno used facts and examples to illustrate why it was morally imperative that he and his countrymen have a say in their government. The refutation portion of the classical speech can be found in the section of Sukarno's speech about "Political Movement in Indonesia," showing how the only movements that had been allowed were those that continued to harm the Indonesian people in favor of profiting the Dutch imperialists. The only way to truly take care of the Indonesian people was through the development of the Indonesian Nationalist Party, a group that would champion the needs and values of the true people of Indonesia regardless of race or class in a section that forms the conclusion of the classical rhetorical argument structure. In analyzing this speech, it is clear that Sukarno was a moral leader because he acted on his innate moral sense to support his culture's moral standards and bring about positive change. According to Ayala (2010), there is a distinct difference between moral sense and moral standards. While all humans possess some form of moral sense, they don't all share the same moral standards. Moral sense is a biological sense of ethics which was required in order to be able to anticipate the consequences of actions and to envision an idea of the future in order to make a choice among possible actions. Moral standards are a set of cultural codes developed by a society which includes specific ideas of how things should be done such as religious or ethical traditions. Since moral behavior is defined as "the actions of a person who takes into account in a sympathetic way the impact the actions have on others" (9015), Sukarno's defense of himself and his countrymen's right to receive equal opportunity as the Dutch in their own land epitomizes moral behavior because he is not just thinking of himself. In establishing his stance and beliefs, both through the formation of the PNI and through the ideas expressed in this historic speech, Sukarno evokes an altruistic attitude in which he seems ready to sacrifice himself and his possibility for the betterment of his entire nation. Ayala says a group of altruists would likely benefit the population much more than a population of selfish individuals, but mutations favor the selfish over the altruist because the behavior of the altruist implies a cost (9019). Sukarno exhibits these traits and aligns them with the moral standards most likely to assure tribal success including patriotism, courage, and sympathy although he struggled some with fidelity and obedience. Although Sukarno had his weaknesses as a man and as a leader, he nevertheless stands as a good example of a moral leader because he put the needs of his people first and was willing to sacrifice his own welfare fighting for their benefit. He demonstrated the basic essentials of moral reasoning in his ability to assess the consequences of his actions, to envision an abstract future that hadn't yet happened and his ability to make a decision regarding which action to take to benefit the greatest number of his own people. Sukarno consistently acted in ways that attempted to gain additional freedoms, recognition, opportunity, and distinction for his fellow countrymen in spite of the oppression and restrictions placed on them by the imperialistic rule of the Dutch system. In making his speech, he demonstrated his knowledge of classical rhetoric and used it effectively to speak to a much wider audience. He argued against the morality that was sentencing him to serve jail time and argued in defense of the moral imperatives that his people should be allowed to pursue their own path according to their own set of morals and values. In doing this, he is a strong example of a moral leader. Works Cited Adams, Cindy. Sukarno, An Autobiography. Bobbs-Merrill, 1965. Print. Ayala, Francisco. "The difference of being human: Morality." PNAS. 107, 2, (May 11, 2010). Print. Corbett, Edward. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Oxford: Oxford, 1971. Print. Ludwig, Arnold. King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2004. Print. Mrazek, Rudolf. Engineers of Happy Land: Technology and Nationalism in a Colony. Princeton UP, 2002. Print. Paget, Roger. Indonesia Accuses!: Sukarno's Defence Oration in the Political Trial of 1930. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1975. Rhode, Deborah L. Moral Leadership: The Theory and Practice of Power, Judgment, and Policy. San Francisco: Wiley, 2006. Print. Ricklefs, M.C. A History of Modern Indonesia. Macmillan Southeast, 1982. Print. Tandirerung, Lidya. "The Influence of Marxism as Critical Discourses in the History of Indonesia." (2011). Web. Read More