SYAHNAN Nasution was taken aback when his uncle, Gen. Abdul Haris Nasution, handed him a banknote to buy a razor blade. It was not the small amount that surprised him, but the fact that Syahnan did not recognize the note. “Turns out it was old currency,” he told Tempo at Nasution’s home on Jalan Teuku Umar No. 40, Jakarta, on Thursday, July 24, 2025.

That incident took place one afternoon in the mid-1980s. Syahnan, now 71,