Amien's recurring paradigm shift puzzling

Amien's recurring paradigm shift puzzling

By Rahayu Ratnaningsih

JAKARTA (JP): Amien Rais, recently elected Chairman of the
People's Consultative Assembly by less than 50 percent of the
votes (something worth noting for those keen on using the
'absolute majority' argument to stop Megawati Soekarnoputri
becoming president), seems simply to be a Muslim fundamentalist,
according to a reliable source.

His sudden paradigm shift during the time of his party's
genesis puzzled both his traditional Muslim-based supporters and
others as well. At that time he stated that "the Islamic outfit
was too small for him", so he started the National Awakening
Party (PAN) as an open party based on nationalism, though still
with his alma mater, Muhammadiyah, as its support base.

After his party's shocking loss in the election, he's now once
again wearing that "Islamic outfit" by forming the "axis force"
with other Islamic parties. This should be no surprise for anyone
familiar with his unreliability and inconsistency.

On the one hand, he has realized that only by shedding his
exclusive Islamic label can he be accepted by everyone --
including the Muslims, who are themselves mostly secular -- and
become one of the national leaders. On the other he is still
unsure about this new self image.

Unfortunately, this unpopular move has cost him his
reputation, even though current trends suggest that the axis
force is gaining strength. Three months after it was first
declared, public response is still so unenthusiastic that even
his number one man in the party Faisal Basri and other PAN
members from the secular nationalist side see him, and his move,
with unrepressed contempt.

In one recent seminar in Jakarta, Faisal stated with his
trademark eloquence that according to the electoral results, it
is clear that the Indonesian people are currently not veering
towards either the left (Islamic parties) or the right (socialist
parties), unlike in the 1955 election in which Islamic parties
such as Masyumi and Nahdlatul Ulama dominated the voting.

Indonesian people since then have clearly opted for non-
sectarian politics, so that those parties with inclusive
nationalism as their ideology have won around 80 percent of the
votes. It is clear, he continued, that selling Islam as a label
is no longer in demand.

Indonesian people choose the "middle way", he said, and he
quickly reminded the audience who were laughing that this "middle
way" was not in anyway the same as the axis force. The axis
force, he continued, is basically a third force which is rooted
in sectarian politics, in this case of the Islamic variety. It
was dwelling in futility by attempting to "sell rejected
merchandise".

This movement is also deceiving to the voters, he added, and
could happen because of the political elite's inexorable "libido
for power".

Everyone can predict that although on the surface the axis
force seems to relegate Habibie -- by "requesting" him to
reconsider his nomination for the presidency -- if another
scenario occurs (namely if Gus Dur retracts his nomination or
fails in the first round election) the presidency will definitely
go to Habibie if Amien doesn't actually run for presidency
himself (which is a strong possibility, knowing his ego and
wishy-washy mentality).

Many analysts have commented on the axis force, saying it is
an unreal power, unsustained by grass-root support and as having
an unclear agenda. It is simply a castle built on sand, the
product of an impulsive reaction stemming from the disappointment
of its founders' at their election loss.

These critics, including many Nahdlatul Ulama clerics and the
National Awakening Party (PKB) president Matori Abdul Djalil, who
is clear on his and his party's support for Megawati, have
questioned the seriousness and motive of the axis force's
nomination of Gus Dur for the next presidency.

Especially when so far it is only Amien himself who appears
keen on this nomination, while his colleagues in the axis force
appear reluctant to declare their open support.

What Amien shouldn't forget is, a few days prior to the June
election, he was the one who rushed to see Gus Dur and Megawati
to ask them to work together in resisting the status quo. He
declared loud and clear that he would support which ever party
was the winner of the election, and that this support would
continue to its candidate to be the next president also.

Ironically, Matori, who wasn't as loud as Amien before the
election, has proved himself to be much more reliable and "big"
enough to transcend his and his group's interest for the sake of
upholding the people's sovereignty. This even after Amien has
repeatedly -- and shamelessly -- questioned his commitment for
Megawati instead of Gus Dur. Two thumbs up for the shining newly
born statesman.

Although he was defeated by Amien in the election for the
Speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly, one can't help but
notice, that from now on he will be seen as one of the rare
politicians with a heart in this country, a category of which
Amien has unfortunately thrown himself out from.

In retrospect, people have speculated that in the past Amien
was so sure that he would win the election that it was mandatory
for him to get everyone's commitment. Various polls showed his
party's popularity to be over PDI Perjuangan (Indonesian
Democratic Party of Struggle) and Golkar. When victory didn't
materialize, he was thrown into phases of apparent submission,
depression and resistance.

He mentioned one of the reasons he couldn't support Megawati
for presidency was because of the latter's opposition to East
Timor's independence. This was in contradiction to his own views
published in Risalah magazine in August 1996.

There he clearly argued against the idea of an independent
East Timor. He described Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo as a
politician controlled by foreign agents, and that the
independence movement showed a shameful lack of gratitude to the
Indonesian people and their government's kindness.

The way he viewed the West, the IMF and World Bank was also
far from rosy. He repeatedly called them a manifestation of neo-
Imperialism or the capitalist machine. About the West, especially
the United States, his view was shared by fundamentalist Muslims
around the globe that the Christian West was conspiring to
destroy Islam. His other writings in Risalah were hostile to
secularism, branding it "poison to the (Islamic) faith".

He didn't hide his tolerance of Saddam Hussein -- calling him
a rational leader at one point during the Gulf Crisis -- neither
of the militant Hamas and the Islamic Jihad movement. Following
the then nauseating New Order administration's repressive stance,
he labeled Budiman Soedjatmiko's Democratic People Party (PRD)
which also contested the recent election, as containing extremely
serious symptoms of communism revivalism illness.

If in the last campaign he was eager in voicing his
egalitarian view regarding the ethnic Chinese issue, his earlier
writings didn't reflect that at all.

Moreover, in mid March this year, he paid a visit to US State
Secretary Madeleine Albright, IMF and World Bank officers.

What was even more odd was the fact that he even "invited" the
US to conduct a "moral intervention" to help overcoming the Ambon
crisis a while ago. This drastic paradigm shift from anti-America
(West) to an "America lover" inevitably drew a surge of harsh
criticism from his Muslim supporters.

A lot of PAN voters have expressed disappointment at his
current move which they think could endanger the change process
that has proved to be painfully slow and costly, even without
such suicidal maneuvering. This, once again, serves to show the
political elite's gross lack of maturity and sense of priority.

If the PKB, which is also heavily Islamic, can stay firm to
its commitment to join hands with the winning party, PDI
Perjuangan, to fight the status quo, what is stopping PAN, which
has promoted itself as a cross-ethnic and cross-religious party,
to do the same? Megawati, who wasn't known to be especially
friendly with Matori and the PKB, now seems to get along well
with him. What makes Amien so childishly upset other than his
lack of maturity?

The fact that Amien proposed Gus Dur, Nahdlatul Ulama's most
revered leader who is also PKB's figure head, as president posed
an unnecessary and unfair test for the PKB; to choose between
being loyal to their patron or to their principles.

This is of course is not an easy choice. What happened was
that Matori had to get his colleagues to take an Islamic pledge
of loyalty to their early commitment of upholding democracy,
which is more important that patriarchal loyalty.

This surely can be seen as a divide and conquer tactic from
Amien, but to what end and to what cost? We can only hope that
Gus Dur will soon enough come to his senses, as he was once known
as a very sensible man, to identify this unhealthy game and opt
to free himself from a certain power broker's dirty political
maneuvering. We will know the answer in the no doubt nerve-
racking coming days.