Aug. 17 and New Order: Nation-building problem

Aug. 17 and New Order: Nation-building problem

Max Lane, Center for Asia Pacific, Social Transformation Studies
University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia,
max_lane@telstra.com

Indonesia was in a state of constant revolutionary motion from
the beginning of the 20th century until Sept. 30, 1965. All
around the world the modern nation state was created through
revolutionary processes. The French Revolution, with its slogan
of "liberty, fraternity, equality" has probably made the greatest
impact on the popular mind although other European nations also
experienced great revolutions.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the concept of a modern
nation state called Indonesia was non-existent. What is now the
Indonesian archipelago comprised a wide range of societies. There
were strong and highly developed kingdoms and societies organized
along tribal lines.

There were no modern nations, that is, communities with clear
geographical borders, a common language, common currency and
shared economic life, and a shared cultural outlook.

Like the struggle in Europe against despotism under kings and
princes, in the archipelago, the political struggle associated
with the struggle to create and establish the modern state was
related with the struggle against colonial despotism; which often
utilized aspects of the old, feudal despotism of the sultans and
kings that dominated the islands before the arrival of the Dutch.

The struggle cannot be separated from the struggle for freedom
of despotism of all kinds. Most leaders of the anti-colonial
movement, figures such as Sukarno, Mohammad Hatta, Syahrir, and
the one who started it all, Tirto Adhisuryo, were all democrats,
opposed to despotism.

Their answer to colonial despotism was the idea of "Indonesia
Merdeka" -- a "free" and "independent" Indonesia. Tirto
Adhisuryo, the subject of the series of four novels by Pramoedya
Ananta Toer (the "Buru Quartet"), founded the first newspaper
that struggled against colonial despotism. The newspaper's slogan
was "voice of the governed".

It was the cry of the governed against despotism that
triggered a great revolutionary process, leading to the idea of a
multi-ethnic nation, "Indonesia", that brought into being the
great mass movements of the 1920s and 1930s, such as the Sarekat
Islam and Sarekat Rakyat; and that inspired the proclamation of
independence on Aug. 17, 1945 and the political, guerilla and
diplomatic struggle between 1945 and 1949.

Indonesia was, and therefore is, the product of a conscious
struggle for democracy and not a manifestation of a cultural,
ethnic or religious unity. Later, various leaders and movements
sought to give more specific content to the call for "Indonesia
Merdeka". Some did seek to draw ideas for this purpose from
stocks of ideas from pre-existing cultural traditions.

These included various trends in Islam and from Javanese folk
as well as aristocratic philosophy. But never was any of this
thinking far away from one or other of the streams of thought on
modern democracy. Sukarno could draw on Thomas Jefferson and
Karl Marx, while using Islamic and Javanese folk concepts.

The anti-colonial movement developed great streams of Islamic,
social democratic, and socialist thinking. The proclamation of
independence followed by intense struggle until 1949 ended Dutch
colonialism and formal transfer of authority from the Netherlands
to the Republic of Indonesia. The Indonesian state was
established, a huge step in building an Indonesian nation. But
formal independence did not complete the formation of the nation.

The Indonesian language needed to be spread to the population
and to be developed into the real language of the people.
Political institutions that would convince the people that they
were real owners and participants of the new country had to be
established. A national culture had to be developed that was more
than just a conglomeration of traditional cultures; a national
literature had to be established. The economy had to be
restructured out of the hands of the Dutch and developed as an
instrument of the welfare of the Indonesians, and not a small
group of Dutch, British and U.S. companies.

The process of nation building, of completing all these tasks,
was characterized by struggle between the ideological
perspectives that had developed during the previous decades. This
process, including up until 1965, despite various distortions,
was essentially democratic: All the major ideological streams in
society were able to participate. Political parties were the main
engines of nation building; ideological struggle was the essence
of its democratic character.

In 1965, Maj.Gen. Soeharto suppressed all struggle between
ideologies, imposing a single formal "ideology", "Panca Sila".
The New Order also introduced, by both force and money politics,
a single real ideology combining extreme obedience to authority
and desire to be obeyed (gila hormat), worship of money and
vulgar economic growth and consumerism. We can call this ideology
"Golkarism".

Parallel with this was a suppression of the political parties
of the Left, the purging of centrist parties of their Left wing
and the gutting of the right-wing parties of the ideological
life. Soeharto's suppression of ideological struggle and his
gutting of the political parties also ended key elements of the
natiion-building process itself. President Sukarno regularly
stressed right up until 1965 that the national revolution was not
finished. Soeharto destroyed the revolutionary process before it
could be completed.

None of the political institutions, neither the parties that
survived during the New Order nor the parliamentary institutions,
developed as genuine instruments of participation and ownership.
Even now the mass of the population is alienated from these
institutions and the political elite that inhabits them. Not
surprisingly, local rather than national sentiment is
strengthening. Even in Java, people are demanding provinces of
their own, such as Cirebon.

The trend towards localism and the alienation from political
institutions, including parties, will only be reversed if
ideological life can be restored. Nation-building can only be
resumed and completed with a conscious effort to redefine once
again what is meant by "Indonesia Merdeka".

In the political institutions, Golkarism still prevails. In
the mainstream parties, one form or other of Golkarism dominates.
Many new parties have been formed but none yet have been able to
launch a new ideological offensive to redefine and give content
to the "Indonesia Merdeka" that was proclaimed on Aug. 17.

Where will such a dynamic come from? The New Order created a
political elite rolling in money whose ideology is Golkarism. The
New Order also created a mass of tens of millions of poor people,
alienated from the institutions of the political and conglomerate
elite.

In the 1920s, Sukarno told the story of how he watched a poor
farmer work his land with a single buffalo and no matter how hard
he worked remained poor. The man's name was Marhaen. Marhaenism,
or an ideology of prioritizing both the needs and the
organization of the poor developed as a popular outlook during
the national revolution between the 1920s and 1965.

Now very few speak of the "Marhaen": But there is more talk of
the "rakyat miskin", the poor. Now there is no great "poor
peoples movement", but everywhere the poor protest their
conditions and grumble about the elite. If the elite has created
Golkarism, then a poor peoples movement, when it develops, will
surely also produce ideologies of its own.