---------------------------------------------------------- Visit Indonesia Daily News Online HomePage: http://www.indo-news.com/ Please Visit Our Sponsor http://www.indo-news.com/cgi-bin/ads1 ---------------------------------------------------------- SUPANGKAT'S COLUMN: HABIBIE, GENIUS OR IMBECILE: BETRAYED HIMSELF AS A MILITARIST When someone wrote in this website that Habibie is a Naziist, I brushed it aside as nonsense, because he lived for decades in democratic Germany not in Nazi Germany. However, nobody knew exactly with whom he was associated intimately during his student years and nobody knew either what kind of books he read beside his engineering textbooks. But judging from his thinking and pronouncement in the past two decades during his career as minister of Indonesia, I never heard a single word about German philosophers or musicians in which the classic German culture excelled during the past three centuries before Word War I and II. Habibie never said a single word about great German philosophers: Immanuel Kant, Goethe, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Karl Jaspers, to name a few. He even did not quote a single sentence from them. Neither did he mention the German classical music of Bach, etc. His cultural background is apparently very shallow, he knows nothing but engine- ering, and nothing about the great German culture of the past prior to Naziism. But I never condemn him as such until he betrayed himself as a militarist, *) close to Naziism when he said that for the next 25 years Indonesia needs leaders who is able to meet a lot of challenges which need special attention from them who has been educated to think strategically and win over all kinds of wars and menaces. "And are not the superior people has to come from military education?" This statement proved Habibie to be most naieve if not plain imbecile in intel- lectual life. Where is his genius? Military education as such is not the only foundation for mastering the military tactics and strategy in war and in peace. You can master the art of war from a truckload of books available in the West notably where Habibie used to live for decades. The German miltary genius wrote a classic textbook in German and translated to world languages, Carl von Clauswitz: Vom Kriege (On War) . Other classics: The Art of War by Sun Tsu, the Seven Military Classics and Military Methods are antiques but still availabe in bookstores all over the world. And so are other contemporary books about war. Apparently he is ignorant about this simple fact. Very tragic for a genius like Habibie! There is a great difference between being educated in military schools and self- education in military strategies. AS a military man you are educated to kill the enemy, as a military strategist you avoid the kilings. Why didn't a man of Habibie's calibre failed to conceive the historical facts how the Indonesian military keep on killing and committing massacres of civilians in Indonesia in general and most recently in Aceh and in East Timor and Ambon? What kind of a leader is he wanting to perpetuate the attrocities of civilians by the military? The mainstream in Indonesia right now is against militarism and what in heaven is Habibie doing by going against his own people and againsts the whole world by championing the disgraced militarism whose generals are about to indicted by the United Nations Commission of Human Rights for their attrocities in East Timor? Habibie proved himself not only to be an imbecile but also an evil mind. Could you imagine what will Indonesia become if he is reelected as President? New York, October 14, 1999. *) Detik as quoted by Apakabar 10/13/1999. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 14 Oct 1999 jam 19:24:41 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
