MISLEADING ATTRIBUTION

After the visit of former Singapore Premier, Lee Kwan Yew, the Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah and former Malaysian Premier Mahathir Mohamad also came to see Soeharto on Monday (14/1). What I can understand is their visits do not only reflect their respect to their counterpart when they all are in power but also their recognition to the former Indonesian president’s contribution to the creation of relatively stable and economically vibrant Southeast Asian region. But, amid the honor given by various elements in his society as well as his three best friends, certain foreign news media have different attributions to name him. The Australian, ABC, and Reuters, for example, do not only call him “the former Indonesian president” or “the five-star general”, but they also name him “former Indonesian dictator”. The latter attribution triggers me to find out the denotative meaning of the word “dictator”. Does it represent the empirical fact of Seoharto during his 32-year leadership? Due to the fact that I am just a journalist, not a linguist or political scientist, I refer to an English dictionary and an internationally-renowned scholar to test whether or not the attribution to Soeharto that the foreign media have given is correct or incorrect and misleading. According to an online English dictionary (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dictator), the word “dictator” means:

- A person exercising absolute power, especially a ruler who has absolute, unrestricted control in a government without hereditary succession

- A ruler who is unconstrained by law

Do the above meanings show us the reality of the Soeharto regime? Well, I guess not. Political analyst of the Australian National University Greg Fealy also disagrees on the attribution that certain Western media have given to Soeharto. As quoted by ANTARA news service, Fealy argued that Soeharto did not hold the state’s power alone. Instead, he often attempted to balance the power belonging to the society or military. He cannot push his own will beyond the political and state systems so that his cannot, for instance, be compared to the absolute governments of Idi Amien of Uganda, Pol Pot of Cambodia or Stalin of Russia. Therefore, calling him a former dictator misleads the public.