The 'musyawarah' spirit<\/p>\n
Whatever happened to the spirit of musyawarah? This question
\nabout an age-old Indonesian tradition of settling differences
\nthrough deliberations was asked by Minister of Defense and
\nSecurity Edi Sudradjat during a hearing with the House of
\nRepresentatives on Wednesday. As reported in this newspaper
\nyesterday, the retired Army general complained during the hearing
\nreviewing the security situation with the House's Commission I
\nabout the fading spirit of musyawarah. The concern was widely
\nshared by many members of the commission. Gen. Edi reflected that
\nmusyawarah is what keeps people together in a group, organization
\nor community. It acts like a glue.<\/p>\n
Nobody can deny that musyawarah is preferred over other
\nalternatives in resolving differences; certainly over the use of
\nvoting, or worse still, the use of force and violence. Our
\nfounding fathers recognized the virtues of this principle when
\nthey inserted musyawarah untuk mencapai mufakat (deliberation to
\nreach consensus) as the fourth of the five principles in the
\nstate ideology Pancasila. In a country as diverse in terms of
\ncultural, ethnical, racial and religious backgrounds as ours,
\nmusyawarah becomes the cornerstone of our democracy.<\/p>\n
It is through musyawarah that opposing parties work out their
\ndifferences. The act of deliberation is an expression of goodwill
\non the part of the conflicting parties to work towards a
\nsolution. Musyawarah is a give-and-take process in order to come
\nto an arrangement agreeable to all parties. There are no
\ndifferences, however sharp they may be, that cannot be resolved
\nthrough musyawarah, as long as all parties show goodwill, so the
\nproponents of the concept argue.<\/p>\n
Gen. Edi made no reference to any particular case when he
\nraised his concern on Wednesday. But he did say that the current
\nbickering in many organizations stems from the members' inability
\nto resolve differences through deliberations.<\/p>\n
We could not help but link his statement to the conflict in
\nthe Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), if only because the calls
\nfor musyawarah by senior government officials over the past two
\nweeks have been directed at the bickering leaders of this
\nminority party.<\/p>\n
It is apparent that both camps in the conflict have neglected
\nthe musyawarah principle. We recall that just as the breakaway
\nPDI members were preparing to hold their congress to oust
\nMegawati Soekarnoputri from the leadership last week, a number of
\nsenior statesmen were making eleventh-hour appeals for them to
\npursue the musyawarah course. They ignored the appeal and went
\nahead with the congress, with support from the Ministry of Home
\nAffairs and the Armed Forces.<\/p>\n
Now that the PDI rebels have elected Soerjadi to lead the
\nparty and the government and the military have given their
\nrecognition in preference over Megawati, the chorus for
\nmusyawarah from government officials was renewed. This time,
\nMegawati and her supporters ignored the appeal and announced
\ntheir intention to sue the government and the Soerjadi camp.<\/p>\n
At this late stage of the PDI conflict, the question to ask is
\nnot about what has happened to musyawarah, but rather whether
\nmusyawarah had been given a chance to work in the first place.
\nThe hasty official support of the congress and recognition of its
\nresults clearly indicate that musyawarah was never given a chance
\nat all. Now that the damage is done, it would be unreasonable to
\nplace the burden to start the process of dialog solely on
\nMegawati and Soerjadi when third party interests seem to have
\ncontributed to muddling the current conflict.<\/p>\n
As stated above, for musyawarah to take place at all, there
\nmust be goodwill on behalf of the conflicting parties, and this
\nmeans not only the two rival PDI camps, but also those third
\nparties who may have had a hand in the conflict. Without this
\ngoodwill, musyawarah cannot be expected to work, and the best one
\ncould hope for is for an appearance of musyawarah. This will
\ncompound rather than solve problems.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/the-musyawarah-spirit-1447893297",
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