Contending with a climate of fear<\/p>\n
The international community recognizes four fundamental
\nfreedoms: Freedom of speech, of religion, from fear and from
\nwant. In Indonesia, all four are guaranteed by the 1945
\nConstitution. As this nation is still in a feverish festive mood,
\ncelebrating the country's 50th anniversary and the long list of
\nits achievements, The Jakarta Post looks at the issue in the
\nfollowing story and five others on Page 5.<\/p>\n
By Johannes Simbolon<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Fear is inseparable from our daily lives. There
\nis the fear of being mugged, fear of fire, fear of losing our job
\nor loved ones. There is also fear of the unknown, such as ghosts
\nor even death.<\/p>\n
The latter also includes what philosopher Franz von Magnis
\nSuseno describes as government-related fear, that is, when the
\ngovernment and its apparatus, the protector of the people, become
\nthe source of fear itself.<\/p>\n
Indonesians once lived under such fear during the Dutch and
\nJapanese occupations. There was the fear of forced labor, forced
\nprostitution and arbitrary imprisonment. People lived an
\nuncertain and anxious life because civil rights were not fully
\nrecognized.<\/p>\n
Sukarno, then a young man of 29, best described this latter
\ncategory of fear in his defense statements during his trial at
\nBandung's colonial court in 1930.<\/p>\n
"... Are there rights here, where the penal code has a chapter
\non hate mongering, which provides the government unlimited power
\nto annihilate any movement and imprison anyone it doesn't like?
\nAre there rights here where critiques launched in front of the
\npublic easily incur rebuke and stoppage; where each meeting is
\nfilled with intelligences; where each leader is tailed by
\ndetectives wherever they go; where meeting prohibition is easily
\nissued; where the secret of correspondences are often violated,
\nas we witness by ourselves? Are there rights here, where only
\ntips from spies or anonymous letters are considered as enough
\nreason to stage raids everywhere, lock up tens of leaders in
\njails, send leaders into exiles?..." he said in his fiery, famous
\nspeech entitled Indonesia Accuses.<\/p>\n
The question now: Is the fear our founding fathers had towards
\nthe tyrannical colonial governments in the past already buried in
\nhistory?<\/p>\n
With the country's 50-year-long independence, many kinds of
\nfear have unmistakably disappeared. There are no longer any cases
\nof forced labor or prostitution. Many countries are being torn by
\nwars, but here people live peacefully despite its cultural
\ndiversity, thanks to well-maintained stability. Fear of crimes is
\nstill there, but within tolerable limits. More and more women,
\nfor example, are seen working until late at night and if there
\nare crimes against them, the number is still thought of as
\nacceptable.<\/p>\n
Such are the country's achievements, which strive to provide a
\npeaceful and prosperous life for its people.<\/p>\n
It is not baseless at all if the government often proudly says
\nIndonesia is one of the most secure countries in the world.<\/p>\n
Magnis noted that as far as the freedom from government-
\nrelated fear is concerned, Indonesia has also made considerable
\nachievements. There is no all-encompassing fear as in police
\nstates. The public in general does not feel afraid of the police.
\nNone are afraid that their conversations are being monitored, or
\ntheir telephones being bugged by the police. Some of the
\ntelephones may be bugged, Magnis said, but none seem afraid that
\ntheir conversations will be stealthily overheard.<\/p>\n
"In the (former communist) East Germany, people in restaurants
\nalways first looked to their right and left before they talked,
\nafraid of the secret police. Here people never talk in
\nrestaurants in fear," he said.<\/p>\n
However, there are still incidents which indicate, strongly,
\nthat fear, notably government-related fear, still reigns in
\ncertain areas of the lives of Indonesians.<\/p>\n
First, there is the fear of being ill-treated in police
\ncustody, despite innocence or guilt. As many cases have shown,
\npeople suffer police beatings although they are later proved
\ninnocent. This fear is especially felt by the common people, who
\nhave no money or connections to guarantee their safety in the
\nhands of the police, Magnis said.<\/p>\n
Second, Magnis said, is the fear of being expropriated, which
\nis mostly felt by common people. Many people in towns and rural
\nareas live in fear of the prospect that arrival of certain
\nprojects in their area will mean the loss of their residences and
\nlivelihood.<\/p>\n
Third, is the fear related to democratic freedom, that is the
\nfreedom of speech and organization. People are afraid to talk
\ncritically, gather in groups of larger than five without a
\npermit, or set up new organizations, he added.<\/p>\n
Fourth, is the fear that the government apparatus may kill
\npeople if they demonstrate. This belief originates from such past
\nevents -- the Tanjung Priok, Dili, Haur Koneng, Nipah, Lampung
\nincidents -- where the government apparatus ended up killing
\nprotesters just because they could not professionally handle the
\ndemonstrations, according to Magnis.<\/p>\n
"This wrongly implies that the country is not yet stable. In
\nfact, after 50 years of independence and 30 years of successful
\ndevelopment, such measures are not needed any longer," he said.<\/p>\n
Loekman Soetrisno of Gadjah Mada University shares Magnis'
\nviews. In a recent discussion in Jakarta, he said that after
\nindependence Indonesians have enjoyed a brief egalitarian life.<\/p>\n
Now, under the New Order administration, time seems to be
\nreturning to the "colonial" era. The fruits of independence are
\nonly enjoyed by a small elite group of society, while the
\nmajority of the people, the "common" people, remain powerless,
\nneglected, anxious before a super-strong state.<\/p>\n
As development becomes the ideology, the common people are
\nrequired to make sacrifices, often forcibly, such as giving up
\ntheir property for the sake of development. In most cases,
\nLoekman said they cannot fight for their rights because the
\ngovernment feels "it can do no wrong", a principle exacerbated by
\nlegal uncertainties. As a result, people fear being accused of
\nanti-development or anti-stability.<\/p>\n
Despite many critiques, the New Order administration still
\nbelieves in its stability-cum-development-centered policy as a
\nmeans toward national prosperity.<\/p>\n
"As a means, national stability is an approach in our endeavor
\nto realize the national goal, that is, a secure and peaceful
\nnation," Armed Forces Chief Gen. Feisal Tanjung once said.<\/p>\n
To add to this, Lt. Gen. Moetojib, governor of the National
\nResilience Institute once said: "Some truths are best left unsaid
\nif revealing them could cause unrest and disrupt national
\nstability."<\/p>\n
But men like Loekman believe that unless the government takes
\nthe necessary measures to reverse the current situation, large-
\nscale disturbances will take place, as has happened in the former
\ncommunist bloc, also known as super-strong states.<\/p>\n
"Russia and ex-communist bloc countries were super-strong
\nstates to their peoples. But once the peoples were angered,
\nbecause the states never acknowledged their rights, Russia and
\nEast Germany fell in the blink of an eye," Loekman said.<\/p>\n
Indonesia's history itself clearly shows how the fearful
\nauthority of the Dutch brought birth to the angry generation of
\nSukarno in the past -- and, not long after that, the Dutch
\ncolonial regime fell.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/contending-with-a-climate-of-fear-1447893297",
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