Are we witnessing Indonesia's destruction?

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.