Does Soekarno really have a bule grandson?
Given the choice, most Indonesians would probably claim to be a relative of our founding father and first President Soekarno, arguably the most revered man in our nation, dead or alive.
And given Soekarno’s reputation as an absolute player (he married 9 women in his lifetime), it wouldn’t be surprising if he has grandchildren and great-grandchildren that many of us haven’t heard about.
The Indonesian media is widely reporting that American journalist Chris Kline is Soekarno’s grandson. Kline is supposedly the son of Rukmini Soekarno, who lived in New York and married American actor Franklin Latimore Kline after her family was banished from Indonesia during former President Suharto’s New Order regime.
Kline actually revealed himself to be Soekarno’s grandson way back in 2008, when he wrote this scathing criticism of Suharto – the man who overthrew and exiled his grandfather – after his death.
In the piece, Kline described some of the horrors the Soekarno clan faced after Suharto rose to power:
“Much of my family that hadn’t been purged after the coup remained in Indonesia, where Suharto held them hostage. Some in the family changed sides willingly, but for the sake of “national unity”, and out of fear of retaliation, the rest of us had to play along, even if we lived in exile. It was particularly loathsome for my mother, haunted all her life by the fate of her cousin, Brigadier General Sabur, who was slowly hacked to death in one of Suharto’s dungeons.”
Even though he worked as a foreign correspondent for the likes of CNN and Fox and has thus traveled extensively, Kline wasn’t able to set foot in Indonesia during Suharto’s rule. Now that Soeharto is gone, Kline wrote, “I will be able to embrace my own heritage at last.”
We’re not sure why this 7-year-old story has become so widespread in the Indonesian media right now, but it appears the first recent story about Kline being Suharto’s grandson appeared on Merdeka on Thursday and it spread from there.
