Sukarno, President of Indonesia Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Sukarno, President of Indonesia - Essay Example Deborah Rhode wrote an entire book studying the growing discussion about what global moral values there might be without coming to any actual conclusions (2006). However, there is a consistent need for a moral leader to be interested in providing the greatest good to the largest number of people, taking on a utilitarian approach to leadership. How that might be accomplished is a matter of individual values, beliefs, and political/social/economic climate. Taking a closer look at a leader such as Sukarno of Indonesia may help us to understand more about how individual values and beliefs can combine or collide with the climate to create the moral leader. Sukarno was born in 1901 to an aristocratic family and was given the best of educations, starting at boarding schools by the time he was 11 years old. When he graduated high school, he married the daughter of the man who owned his boarding house and then moved on to college. By the time he graduated college, he had divorced his first wi fe and married the ex-wife of his new boarding house's owner (Adams, 1965). He reportedly was very creative and had a photographic memory, which made it easier for him to become fluent in a number of different languages (Ludwig, 2004). After he finished his schooling, Sukarno went on to divorce and marry another woman and to start his own architectural company with a partner. His designs were shaped by his politics and vice versa. According to Rudolf Mrazek (2002), Sukarno was a very modern leader and believed the future would be blind to race, would be neat and Western in style, and would be anti-imperialist. While in high school, he had been influenced by Tjokroaminoto's nationalist ideas, but he also studied Western, communist, and Islamic political philosophy while he was in college (Adams, 1965). He eventually developed his own style of leadership which he called Marhaenism, based on concepts of socialist self-sufficiency. He was also irritated with the mostly Dutch-dominated s ocial clubs he encountered at college and organized his own study clubs for Indonesian students. By the time he was 26 and graduated, Sukarno and his friends created a pro-independence party called the PNI (Adams, 1965) or the Indonesian National Party. As the party leader, Sukarno played a major role in establishing the party platform which advocated Indonesian independence and fought against imperialism and capitalism because these systems did not add value to the lives of the Indonesian people. In keeping with Sukarno's modern beliefs, the party also advocated a secular system of leadership that ensured unity among the various different races of the region. The party was very quickly populated by members from the university who wished to gain greater freedoms and opportunities which had not been available under the Dutch colonial occupation (Adams, 1965). Within three years, it had gained more than 10,000 members, forcing the government to react. They arrested Sukarno and seven o f other party leaders and put them on trial for threatening the public order. Sukarno received four years of jail sentence and the party subsequently dissolved (Ricklefs, 1982). Looking at this party and Sukarno's historic defense speech on the day of his trial helps to reveal some of the values that Sukarno stood for at his most idealistic phase and illustrates the kind of moral leader he was. When Sukarno was arrested for his involvement with the PNI, he was permitted to deliver a speech in his defense. This speech has since