Archipelagic Indonesia: Land of infinite promise

Archipelagic Indonesia: Land of infinite promise

Tan Chee Leng, Senior Researcher, Centre for Political Studies,
Jakarta

More than 30 years ago, notable anthropologist Clifford Geertz
described Indonesia as "a country which, unable to find a
political form appropriate to the temper of its people, stumbles
on apprehensively from one contrivance to the next." The term
"contrivance" is quite improper. We shall call it "democratic
project". Still, Geertz's point is very salient here and begs the
question: Just how do you go about "finding a political form
appropriate to the temper of its people?

And one might well further ask: Just how do you take the
temper of a people as diverse as Indonesians? The last time an
Indonesian leader attempted to do so, it led to the cataclysmic
event of 1965-1966.

Indonesia has been undergoing democratic transitions since the
birth of the republic: The transition to Guided Democracy with
first president Sukarno and the Army as principal architects, the
transition to Pancasila Democracy with Soeharto, the Army, and
American trained technocrats as principal architects. The failure
of the attempts at nurturing democracy in this country must hold
sobering lessons indeed, as Indonesia embarks once again on yet
another democratic transition since the fall of Soeharto in 1998.

It has been more than four years in what must be the longest
democratic transition in Indonesian history: The current
democratic project is still very much a work-in-progress. "But we
are getting there," said an Indonesian scholar.

This article is prompted by comments made by two Indonesian
brothers, one Indonesian politician and an Australian ex-diplomat
in an edition of the Far Eastern Economic Review (Oct. 10).

Andi Mallarangeng, secretary-general of the new National
Democratic Unity Party, said "We have to show that it is possible
to develop a modern party based on issues." The magazine article
then counterposed Andi's comment with the remark of his brother,
Rizal, "Indonesian people don't change that much. Political
loyalties stay basically the same," said Rizal, executive
director of the Freedom Institute who frequently writes the
President's speeches.

How would a concerned scholar anxious that Indonesia gets this
democratic transition right go about deigning the temper of
Indonesian people by first deciphering the temper of two brothers
with such contrasting perspectives on whom their people are? And
then there is the comment by the Australian ex-diplomat Kevin
Evans: "Avoid the issues. Personalities, emotional attachments
and broad ideological principles remain more important than a
'middle-class fetish' to campaign on issues. Stick to a populist
script."

This is an Australian who has had six years of diplomatic
experience in Jakarta, speaks the local language fluently and is
rather thoroughly Indonesianized. So, his pithy comments cannot
be casually dismissed.

So, broadly speaking, there are two approaches here on how the
political parties would campaign the 2004 direct presidential
elections. In the possible absence of the all-powerful People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR) to decide the presidency, mass-based
politics would dictate the tempo of electoral campaign.

The proverbial genie would be let out of the bottle and mutate
in either the benign or malign form, depending on whether the
political parties here emphasize on rational issues-based policy
platforms or play on primordial loyalties.

Let us hope so. This is not to say that the issues are not in
themselves emotive. They clearly are. The key is to find a non-
emotive channel with which to express differences of opinion.
Televised debate of presidential candidates is one possible way
of doing it.

One would hope that the current democratic project which the
Indonesians are now crafting tends toward the development of
modern and inclusive political parties with policy agendas that
set clear directions for this nation of infinite promise, given
its vast natural and human resources. In the end, a properly-
functioning politic comes down to good governance.

And that is vitally linked to how the Machiavellian (the term
is used here in the good sense) is educated: Professionally for
the state of his nation and morally for the soul of his nation.
The test case here is whether the public would be well-served by
their governance. For the masses at large, there is no better way
to determine that than to watch televised debates among those
presidential aspirants who claim to represent their aspirations
before they cast their vote to determine the fate of their
country.

Any political leader attempting to take the pulse and temper
of his people must note the Rousseau distinction between "the
general will" and "the will of all." It is the difference between
"judgment about the common good" versus the "mere aggregate of
personal fancies and individual desires." The Indonesian
statesman who best understands this Rousseau distinction was the
late former vice president Mohamad Hatta who noted the difference
between cabinet persatuan (unity) and persatean (divisions into
small pieces like pieces of meat roasted on skewer). When the
cabinet, which supposedly leads the nation, is not united as one
singular force advancing the national interest, how can the
country advance as one united people? That was Hatta's principal
concern.

As has been said earlier said, this must be the longest
democratic transition yet, especially as no government, from
Habibie onward, has been in power long enough.

They have all been interim governments in a sense, not yet a
regime that, according to the philosopher Leo Strauss, is "the
order, the form that gives society its character." So far, the
only regimes that Indonesians have tasted have been the Sukarno
and Soeharto versions.

Let us hope better versions await the future of Indonesia.