A voice of conscience must speak

By Marianus Kleden

KUPANG, East Nusa Tenggara (JP): Incorrect "input" in forming the conscience of Indonesians has inevitably resulted in erroneous "output".

In the continuing sociopolitical turbulence, a juridical question can be asked of someone's guilt. Its juridical answer depends on the judicial process, in which the judge makes a decision according to the strength or weakness of the argument set forth by both the accused and the accuser.

An ethical question as to whether a deed or action is good or bad is also applicable here. Are the never-ending student demonstrations sometimes demanding law enforcement intervention good or bad? Are the security measures of the Armed Forces, sometimes resulting in casualties, good or bad?

Answers to such ethical questions depend on the sensitivity of the Indonesian people's conscience.

Conscience is not an agency that automatically knows how to distinguish between the two. Conscience, extremely speaking, is a type of tabula rasa, a thinly wax-layered tablet upon which everybody can write. When the "writing" is done, the tablet becomes a frame of reference for human behavior.

A conscience full of regulations, instructions, norms and values is deemed the superego in Freudian psychoanalytic theory or authoritarian conscience according to Erich Fromm. The term to some degree is equivalent to "institutions" in the Indonesian social science terminology, which means a system enabling members of society to act in accordance with social expectations or to behave in a standard manner.

The "writing" process -- which is nothing but the process of internalization of norms and values -- can be compared to the "garbage in, garbage out" principle in computer programming. If the input is correct, the output is correct, and if the input is garbage, the output is inevitably the same.

Since a juridical answer is made with reference to inner disposition (i.e. the judge's conscience), juridical matters then become part and parcel of ethical matters. But since law and ethics have been dichotomizing each other, this article has little to do with legal matters. Instead, it has much to do with "input" used by bureaucracy in the engineering of a conscience that fits national policy, which it hopes will be employed by people as a social frame of reference.

In the last 30 years, there has been so much incorrect "input" in the giant programming of conscience formation in this country that it has resulted in erroneous "output" in conscience as a frame of reference. Here are some outstanding examples.

Input: As the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) is an outlawed organization, its followers must be "crushed".

Output: Butchering thousands of people is taken for granted as a heroic accomplishment to secure victory of good over bad. So- called personally as well as environmentally unclean individuals are denied access to occupations although they know nothing of the party.

Input: Cooperatives are the main pillars of the Indonesian economy.

Output: State intervention in crop distribution leaves farmers destitute and benefits an elite group of state-coopted people.

Input: Civil servants must vote for ruling political grouping Golkar because they are behooved to government money.

Output: Subjects saddled with a slave mentality are unable to execute their rights and freedom to choose from available alternatives; they uphold asinine loyalty and are a solid corps ready to be exploited by whimsical tyranny.

Input: The 1945 Constitution is the foundation upon which the state is built. Like a house crumbling when its foundation is demolished, the same fate awaits the state if there is any discussion of constitutional amendments. Thus, in order to maintain the continuity of the state, the Constitution must not be changed.

Output: An attitude deeming as sacred and even idolatrizing the Constitution in such a way that people are unable to see the drawbacks in a man-made legal product used to preserve the status quo.

Input: Mikul dhuwur mendem jero, a Javanese proverb meaning: "Bear what is good and bury what is bad."

Output: It is inappropriate to talk about weaknesses and misconduct of the deceased or personalities who made great contributions to the nation. In a like manner, it is also inappropriate to speak critically of a retired president.

President B.J. Habibie has just programmed new input:

A group of people is masterminding a plan to replace the current (read: legitimate) government.

Predicted output: Any demonstration can be accused of being rife with such plans and thus subject to government repression.

The immediate question is: Does the formation of conscience depend entirely on the internalization of norms and values from without and not have any independence from within? The answer is undoubtedly no.

Fromm calls it humanistic conscience that he describes as "knowledge within oneself" that pertains not only to cognitive ability (i.e. knowledge) but also to effective ability for it involves the whole personality.

When our mind, action and feelings are conducive to the realization of a self with integrity, our conscience would recommend it as something good. But whenever our mind, action and feelings offend our personality, our conscience would judge it as something bad.

Anyone will be happy with praise for success, and be angered by offensive profanities. These are spontaneous reactions that are nothing but expressions of humanistic conscience.

But are we not confronted with the fact that the voice of conscience is so feeble in so many people that it is hardly heard?

The question can be answered by saying that conscience can speak loudly insofar as someone has not lost his or her personality and become the prey of personal indifference and destructiveness. The more productive one's life is, the louder is the voice, and the less productive -- or, even worse, the more destructive -- the weaker is the sound.

What was done during the New Order regime and is now beginning to be imitated by the current government is to destroy humanistic conscience and to cultivate authoritarian conscience. The effort to engineer a prospective conscience is so villainous that a slap is to be believed as education, the muzzling of human rights champions must be accepted as tolerance, and a filthy prison should be regarded as a civilized institution.

If humanistic conscience can only develop in a climate conducive to productiveness and creativity, we then should ask what kind of climate it is.

First, it is not a homogeneous, but a heterogeneous atmosphere. The wind of this atmosphere is now blowing through the practicing of freedom of speech and freedom to assemble principles. The mushrooming of political parties and print media is indicative of this. We are grateful for the decision to discontinue the P-4, a quasi Pancasila-based doctrine for, by doing so, we have crushed the machine that produced authoritarian conscience. The next thing worth considering for the scrap heap is Pancasila as a single ideological basis for organizations and the uniforms still worn by kindergarten kids and schoolchildren.

Second, the government image as ing ngarso sung tulodo -- the ego ideal in Freudian terminology -- should be wiped out. The construction of the government image as a perfect self is so pervasive and, to some degree, ingratiates as faith even though there is a wide gap between what is constructed and what is real.

Witness that many retired civil servants, instead of blaming Soeharto for the disaster we are experiencing, blame his ministers for being unable to put his policies into practice.

Another implication of image construction as an ego ideal is that the venerated one is part to privileges envied by the many curious and thirsty to have them at their disposal. Biblical mythology of Adam and Eve and the story of the tower of Babel are typical examples of this primordial human desire to share divine privileges and the destructive results. In order to appease the deities, human beings had to offer sacrifices in the form of best cattle and best crops.

It also hold true for the government. The government as ing ngarso sung tulodo results in social jealousy in people who long for a share of its spoils -- power, wealth, prerogatives and perfection. This longing would certainly end up in repression unless people offer sacrifices (or tributes in past kingdoms) as an act of appeasement to worldly gods. The imitation of the ego ideal bred the celebrated corruption, collusion and nepotism (known locally by the acronym KKN).

The logic is simple but persistent: You cannot criticize a perfect personality. Soeharto made himself untouchable behind the shield barring "humiliation of the head of state".

Today, we find room for social controls, but not in its real sense because the channel for our criticism is opened reluctantly. Instead, we have gossip, blasphemy and social parody.

Yet, it seems necessary to pave the way for the growth and maturity of humanistic conscience.

The writer is a social science lecturer at Widya Mandira Catholic University in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara.