Word: dukun
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...years of Suharto's dictatorship and 17 months of interim rule by Suharto's deputy B.J. Habibie, Indonesia was finally getting a reformist President who preached tolerance and democratic openness. But as the blind Muslim cleric and his family mounted the palace steps, a cry rang out. A dukun--a Javanese soothsayer--who habitually accompanies Wahid called the party to a halt. He said he could see the "big man," the spirit of Suharto, standing in the doorway at the top of the steps. He insisted on carrying out a prayer ritual before the President and his family could enter...
...nations whose people cling to revered traditions, the leaders can hardly afford to do otherwise. Calling in a dukun or a bomoh (medium) does, after all, please the masses. But in quite a few cases, it also gives a leader a feeling of added insurance...
...golf course, listens to his impressive array of American-trained economists, and keeps abreast of current trends via tape-recorded textbooks. Suharto also relies on his spiritual advisers. Since his youth, he has consulted an influential mystical teacher, Raden Mas Darjatmo, who serves as a combination dukun, kebatinan (medium) and guru. Suharto often seeks out his old dukun when he visits his home village of Wonogiri...
Following the abortive Communist coup attempt in 1965, Suharto ruled out a swift move against then-President Sukarno on the advice of a dukun. Instead, he whittled away at Sukarno's power; eventually Sukarno faded away as a political force. On the advice of another dukun, Suharto recently avoided a hard-line approach to student dissidents and sat down for a series of discussions with them until tempers cooled...
Last week the dukun's stock as a prophet rose even higher with Sukarno. At a prayer meeting in the presidential palace grounds, a Moslem fanatic suddenly rose from the assembled crowd, shouted "Allah is great!", and produced a pistol (steel, of course). He blazed away at the kneeling Sukarno, missed him, but wounded five persons around him. The Indonesians tried to implicate the Dutch in this fifth attempt on Sukarno's life in five years by declaring that the assassin's pistol was "Dutch made." But the ploy was as trans parent as the halfhearted invasion...