Precedence: bulk
WHY IS INDONESIA NOT FALLING APART?
(part 1 of 4)
by Waruno Mahdi
For many weeks already, the international press has been wondering
out loud, when Indonesia would fall apart. Policy makers around the
world have been discussing scenarios to cope with an anticipated
Indonesian meltdown.
This is, of course, not really surprising. The political crisis that
was ushered in by mysterious kidnappings, the shooting of Trisakti
students, and the apparently manipulated outbreak of violence May 12-14,
1998, has developed into a protracted state of national agony. It is a
nationwide breakdown of civil order and communal solidarity, in which
the violence in Ambon or the Sambas region only are two particularly
spectacular episodes.
Observers and analysts are finding themselves swamped with a flood of
phenomenologist data of a somewhat baffling nature. On one hand, it
suggestively lends itself to being neatly sorted out into clichee
pidgeonholes (ethnic, religious, and racial conflicts, generally
subsumed under the Indonesian acronym SARA). On the other, this does
not seem to lead to the kind of insight into underlying processes
that would facilitate adequate policy formulations.
For, just to pick up a particularly contrastive example, why do muslim
Malays in the Sambas area get along with (at least nominally) christian
Dayaks, yet be in conflict with Madurese who are also muslims, and with
whom they share an either settled rural or urban economic culture?
Our perception of Indonesian current history is perhaps still dominated
by traditional views that have overlooked some important details in the
process of emergence of this multi-ethnic national community. Apart from
that, the preparedness to accept required sacrifices to solve problems
understandably depends upon realising the seriousness of the situation.
The following essay inspects the various factors and tries to elicit
some underlying tendencies, which will perhaps help understand the
current developments.
1. ARE THE SELF-SUSTAINING FACULTIES OF THE STATE STILL FUNCTIONING?
Before going into the significance of the individual outbursts of violence,
the implications of the political instability for prospects of a meltdown
should perhaps be inspected under a more general aspect of the durability
of the state itself.
Vladimir Lenin was a Russian revolutionary whose teachings one will perhaps
consider with more skepsis after we have all seen the socialist state
he set up crumble before our very eyes. Yet, one thing one will have to
concede this leader of the bolshevist revolution: an uncanny feeling for
timing. When is a state ready to plunge into revolutionary chaos like a
ripe apple?
A "revolutionary situation", he once wrote, requires not only that the
lower strata of society are no longer either capable or willing to live
by the old order. It also requires that the upper strata too are no longer
either capable or willing to abide by it.
The logic behind this unexpected proposition seems to be, that the state
is equipped with elaborate mechanisms to contain even extremely eruptive
social convulsions. A revolutionary, intending to topple the state, may
only count upon those mechanisms to fail when a fundamental breakdown of
solidarity within the upper social strata actually brings the mechanisms
into disarray.
In how far this logic is valid in reality is not so important, if we are
not planning to topple a state. Interesting for us is that it provides
convenient comparative criteria for characterizing the functionality of
self-sustaining mechanisms of a state.
The first of Lenin's two conditions for a "revolutionary situation" one
may consider already fulfilled since months. Not only does rampant mass
unemployment, severe poverty, and ever-widening areas of starvation
bear testimony to this. The slightest sparks have been provoking violent
explosions all over the country. People have stopped being receptive to
appeals of public figures and religious leaders to abstain from violence.
This seems to be exactly what is causing anxiety among foreign observers
noted at the beginning above. But these have not generally applied the
second condition. What is with that? Well, the establishment too seems to
have already been signalizing for months, in a small and also on a large
scale, that it no longer necessarily feels bound to reason of state.
That the tapped phone conversation between President B.J. Habibie and
attorney general Andi Ghalib was apparently leaked by own intelligence
agents is only a trivial sign of disintegration of internal solidarity
and dependability.
The notorious campaign of "ninja" death-squads in Banyuwangi cannot be
grouped among the trivialities. It is one of a series of actions that
are being ascribed to unidentified "rogue groups" believed to exist in
the armed forces, of which the minister of defence claims not to have
any knowledge. Apparently, competing lines of command are clandestinely
reaching deep into vital sectors of the armed forces without insight or
control of the central command.
At the same time, the army is deeply comprimized and demoralized by exposees
of past excesses, and that part which remains within reach of the nominal
central command seems not even to be always effective. It is increasingly
hesitant and ineffective in coping with riots.
Just as alarming as rogue infiltration and disruption of army command
hierarchies are persistent reports from credible sources that outbreaks
of violence all over the country are being orchestrated by influential
circles in the establishment. This is a fundamental abandonment of
state-upholding mechanisms by a part of the establishment, aimed at
destabilizing the state and at disavowing both the government and the
armed forces.
More vicious attempts to disorganize state-upholding solidarity in the
establishment is hardly imaginable. Nevertheless, one cannot say that
Lenin's second condition is already fulfilled in Indonesia.
The massive economic growth during the last two decades preceding the
crisis led to a considerable rise in significance of the middle class.
Only a small part of it found access to the regime, e.g. when former
president Soeharto allowed for an opening towards a part of the Islamic
movement in the late 1980s. A small part also found representation in
the regime by nestling into niches in the Golkar ruling party. But a major
part identified with the opposition instead, and stood behind the movement
which finally brought about Soeharto's downfall last year.
At present we can witness a factual solidarity of wide reaches of the
middle class, politically represented either in the opposition movement,
or in constructive factions striving with variegated degrees of success
to extract themselves from a previous involvement in the regime. This tacit
solidarity is factually maintaining continued functionality of the state,
and is thus ensuring that Lenin's second condition is not fulfilled.
This can probably be seen as constituting one important indication, that
Indonesia is in all likelihood not yet about to fall apart.
Two circumstances will determine the chances for continued stability in
this respect. The first is whether the indicated civil solidarity will
succeed in compensating the retreat from state-upholding solidarity of
rogue elements of the outgoing regime in the long run. The second is the
validity of the logic behind Lenin's proposition (this too is of course
by no means guaranteed).
But apart from that, the country may break up geopolitically without a
central meltdown. One way this could happen, is that the establishment
becomes divided in its solidarity on principles of confessional, ethnical,
or territorial adherence. The next sections will inspect the implications
of the various outbreaks of violence for perpsectives of the country's
falling apart.
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Before that, some notes will perhaps be in place on the role of ex-president
Soeharto, about whom suspicion has been expressed of either inspiring or
actually organizing the rogue elements in the establishment.
The severity of Soeharto's draconian style of government, euphemized
as representing specifically "oriental" custom, purported to ensure
the phenonenal economic growth during the two last decades before the
crisis. One may question this, but to err is human, and the judgement
of history has always tended to be lenient on ruffians who achieved
success.
His subsequent downfall together with the collapse of the country's
economy has meanwhile greatly diminished his perspectives for a
favourable place in history. This he will probably have to blame on
himself. Till up to half a year before his downfall, he could still
have averted this by seeking reconciliation and cooperation with the
opposition movement, and in this way opening the way for the reforms
the country is still waiting to see realized. He could then have
stepped down as a national hero.
Not only was this solution the only possible one by the basic principles
of harmony and cooperation inherent in the country's constitution and in
its basic principles of Panchasila. It was actually quite explicitly
indicated to him at that time. That, of course, is now just spilled milk.
Soeharto's rule had been lined by a continuous series of violations of
human rights, repeated campaigns of mass killings (after those of 1966-1967:
the massacres in East Timor, the "Petrus" mysterious killings, the secret
burials in Aceh, the massacres in Irian Jaya, etc.) and of long-term
detentions without due process. This one has seeked to justify by asserting
that the victims had in some way endangered national stability. Complicity
in the earlier mentioned rogue activities would now place Soeharto in the
same category as those victims of repression by his own standards.
... to be continued in part 2
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