Tingkah Laku Politik Panglima Besar Soedirman

by Abdul Haris Nasution, S.I. Poeradisastra, Roeslan Abdulgani

134 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

General Dr. Abdul Haris Nasution was an Indonesian Army officer and political figure. He was Chief of Staff of the Indonesian Army 1949-1952 & 1955-1966, and from 1959 to 1966 was also Minister of Defence and Security. General Nasution was elected in 1966 to the People's Consultative Assembly, of which he became Speaker. He served in that position until 1972, at which point he was removed at the behest of Suharto, his former subordinate, who had become "Acting President" of Indonesia in 1967 after Sukarno was stripped of power. General Nasution had already been forced into premature retirement from the Army the previous year, also of course on the orders of Suharto. For the next two decades, General Nasution was a vocal political opponent of the Suharto regime. In the 1990s, however, he did meet with then-Minister of Technology BJ Habibie, and ultimately the dictator himself, and he called for national reconciliation during the last few years of his life.

Reviews

[Rerintik Hujan · Rating 4 out of 5]

buku yang sempat di bredel di zaman orba, karena isinya menunjukkan tentang keberpihakan PB Jenderal Sudirman pada Persatuan Perjuangan (PP)yang selama ini tidak banyak diketahui orang. di buku juga terdapat sanggahan dari Moh. Yamin terhadap kesaksian PB Jenderal sudirman bahwa dirinya tidak terlibat dalam 'coup' yang dilakukan oleh PP. dengan membaca buku ini, kita bisa melihat PB Jenderal Sudirman secara lebih lengkap, seorang pejuang tangguh dengan segala pendiriannya. beliau tidak selalu 'putih', tetapi, dengan membaca buku tipis ini, setidaknya kita bisa mencoba mengerti alasan2 yang melatarbelakangi pendirian dan keputusan2 beliau.

[Ulfah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I respect Jendral Soedirman, one of the biggest heroes of Indonesia. But the story of his which I listened growing up, really makes him quite 2-dimensional. Like a perfect hero. Which is fine, but human beings have nuances, and things that are not as simple as it seems. While trying to find banned books to read, this somehow came up. And I was like, why, a book about Jendral Soedirman would be banned? What is there to hide? So I searched for this book, banned during Soeharto's dictatorship, got one, and started reading. And I immediately understood why. This relates to my own exploration of our more socialist past, Soekarno, but more than that, Tan Malaka's role during early years of our independence.

The book describes Jendral Soedirman relation with many of his peers before and after 1945 independence declaration. It describes his relationship with Tan Malaka (not fully documented, but to some extent, they are of the similar ideology of refusing to have dialogue with the occupiers and rather, fight for true independence), and most prominently the event of 3 July 1946, when Sjahrir was kidnapped and they asked Soekarno to revise the way Indonesia negotiate with the Dutch. While reading this book, I finally knew about the duo that we never had, Tan Malaka-Soedirman, that Sjahrir was also a socialist (different socialist compared to Tan Malaka), and how Hatta disliked Tan Malaka. It also partly questions Soedirman's motivations. Was he a coward for putting the blame to his underlings? Or actually, based on his historical conducts, he was trying to do what deemed to be better for Indonesia (respecting Soekarno's authority).

This is an important note of our history, and I hope more people will read it. Or start somewhere else, e.g., from Tan Malaka writings. We used to have giants. Too bad now it's filled with spineless cowards.