Left Flank

No one offers such solid advice when a decent human being dies, but Muslim clerics struck a humble chord on the occasion of the death of Suharto, Indonesia's second president:

As he lay dying in hospital, Indonesians across the archipelago debated his legacy and whether the government should push ahead with legal proceedings against him for graft.

At the hospital, some people tried to cling on to the ambulance as Suharto's body was placed inside to be driven to his house in Jakarta's leafy Menteng district.

Hundreds of journalists and well-wishers, including former ministers and religious leaders, were gathered at the house.

"For humanity's sake, we should forgive him. Based on religion, his crimes and his deeds on earth will be subject to God's judgment only. The living can't do anything," Amidan, a member of the Indonesian Ulema Council, a grouping of Islamic clerics, told reporters at the house.

Two issues will consume debate about Suharto's 32-year tenure as Indonesia's leader: human rights violations and development.

Strabo at Kos also brings up Naomi Klein's recent arguments about Suharto's relationship to "disaster capitalism":

Suharto's Indonesia plays an important role in Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine:  The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.  As Klein documents in her book, Indonesia was the testing ground for Disaster Capitalism where the modern tactics of violent repression and capitalist takeover were first implemented.  At the behest of his Western supporters, Suharto targeted for violent suppression communists, leftists, and anyone else in the population who dared resist the corporate takeover of their country.

(…)

Throughout Suharto's rule 30 year rule, he would alternatively shun or fawn over the Berkeley Mafia, telling them to go away in good times so that he, his family, and his cronies could rig the economy in their favor, and then calling them back--along with the IMF and World Bank - whenever things got bad.  Meanwhile, the repression continued.  Suharto's rule cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians.  Perhaps even millions.  It had a great effect on Suharto's wealth though.  Recent estimates put his family's holdings around fifteen billion dollars.

Guilt is in God's hands, the rest is very important for the rest of humanity.

Naomi Klein suggests perhaps, not Leo Strauss, but Milton Friedman, one of whose ardent admirers was Donald Rumsfeld, deserves more attention for issues, ranging from Latin American debt, Iraq, and disasters because of his argument about using crises to impose a neo-liberal agenda on compromised societies and states. These arguments Klein draws from her latest book, The Shock Doctrine.

I might have to reappraise Naomi Klein, but this is a must-see interview.