Are we witnessing Indonesia's destruction?

Whether or not the country disappears from the world map could be determined within the next few days, writes analyst J. Soedjati Djiwandono.

JAKARTA (JP): During a meeting of around a dozen members of the UN secretary-general's Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters in New York in the early 1990s, I remember calling the U.S. assault on Iraq a pointless exercise.

It would amount to suicide for Saddam Hussein of Iraq to launch a nuclear attack against Israel, I argued, for the nuclear explosion would destroy the whole Gulf region, including Iraq itself. So we should not exaggerate Iraq's nuclear threat. It was a debate on the nuclear policy of President Saddam Hussein that had provoked U.S. military action.

An envoy of a Western country responded by saying that it was indeed not inconceivable for the leader of a developing nation to do exactly that because of his pride, even if it might mean suicide for himself and his whole country. In other words, a nuclear weapon in the hands of a leader of a developing country is more dangerous than in the hands a western democratic country. I became enraged, saying I could not stand this expression of moral arrogance on the part of westerners when talking about poor and developing nations.

Now, however, I feel ashamed and equally enraged when signs are that the politicians of my own country, including the President, appear determined to pursue what may be called a scorched-earth policy in order to defend their positions. On the one hand, members of the legislative bodies seem set to sacrifice anything, the country and its people, to prove that they are on the right side of the confrontation with the President, and therefore determined to convene a special session to demand an accountability report by the President, clearly with the expectation that it would not accept the report, and hence force him out of office.

On the other hand, the President seems equally determined not to give his accountability report to the special session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) and thus to avoid impeachment, come what may. He has set July 20 as a deadline, by which in the absence of a compromise, he will issue a decree declaring a state of emergency, which will enable him to dissolve the legislature and the MPR, thereby avoiding the special session.

He has brushed aside the lack of support for such a policy by the police and the military; he has ignored the possibility of increasing violence and communal strife that most likely would split the nation. Indeed, none really seems to care less!

Indeed, these politicians, supposedly coming from a highly civilized and richly cultured nation, seem to stand along the ill-defined border between sanity and insanity. I may now be mellowed and ponder again over what I have often judged as "western moral arrogance".

Are we really about to witness the destruction and devastation of our nation? In just a week's time? When traveling abroad, I often hear a casual question from fellow countrymen, "How is Indonesia?" And I usually respond, also casually, "It's still there!"

I never thought seriously of history when engaged in the start of such increasingly banal conversations. Now, however, I do. After all, is it not true that throughout history, one nation after another has really disappeared from the map?

Remember the city states in ancient Greece; Babylon and Assyria in Mesopotamia in the Middle East; even great empires, such as the ancient Chinese and Indian empires in Asia; the Roman, Byzantium and Russian empires in Europe; in Indonesia, the Majapahit and Criwijaya empires; the Mataram and Demak kingdoms; the list is endless.

Over a little more than a decade, we have witnessed the disintegration of a number of East European countries under a communist regime such as Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. And last but by no means least, just a decade ago we witnessed the disintegration and disappearance of a superpower, the Soviet Union, which had succeeded in developing a military might in strategic parity with the United State, after less than 75 years in existence.

I am no longer joking now when I say, much to the chagrin and wrath of many friends, that we may well be a generation of Indonesians, who are so unfortunate, or perhaps in historical perspective, so fortunate, as to witness the disintegration and disappearance of our own nation and nation-state.

Nor will I joke, again, when I say "It's still there" in response to a query of "How is our country?" Hopefully I will continue to be able to say so for a long, long time to come.