Bumpy road towards democracy

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): Talk about restoring democracy is again pervading our society. Researchers at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, for instance, have argued that the Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI) should minimize its political role to allow democracy to flourish and political reform. They recommended the military gradually reduce its political role from control to participation and eventually to a back seat role.

Ruslan Abdulgani, a senior statesman of the 1945 generation, said in late February that ABRI should not expand its dual function role to a multifunction one. Such an expansion would only endanger the Armed Forces' role as the protector of Indonesia's political stability and security. "ABRI should never become a tool to steal people's basic and political rights," he said, because ABRI was not established to oppress and intimidate the people for political ends.

Understandably, the Armed Forces has rejected such ideas. Two generals recently declared in a seminar that "ABRI's role in politics was a 'historical fact' guaranteed by Law". Vice Marshall Tjokong Tarigan, one of those two high-ranking officers, maintained that "there is no evidence or indicators that the military's presence in sociopolitical matters has wrought havoc on our (political) system." He added that the Armed Forces' participation in non-defense matters had never been a hurdle to democracy: the Armed Forces, too, loves democracy, and is committed to defending it. "Democracy will be left behind only, when we are on battlefield," he said.

Despite conflicting opinions regarding the political meaning of the Armed Forces' performance thus far, it can be construed that no one wants democracy to die in this country. Everyone wants to defend democracy.

The crucial question in this respect seems to be: What kind of democracy do we want to foster in our society? The official answer is, of course, Pancasila democracy. Against this answer we can ask: How does Pancasila democracy manifest in our daily life? And where are we now in this regard? At the beginning, in the middle or at the end?

In this political climate I received an invitation -- which, to be honest, I found very surprising -- to take part in a meeting aimed at reexamining our understanding of Pancasila. It is stated in the memorandum for this meeting that deliberations to this effect are deemed necessary in light of the oncoming new era, the third millennium. It is feared that our present understanding of Pancasila won't suffice as an ideological torch with which to guide ourselves through the turbulent period brought about by the onslaught of global economic and political changes. Without a readable ideological "road map" we can easily degenerate into a semi-democracy or other lesser forms of democracy: Cesaristic democracy, delegative democracy, abridged democracy, etcetera.

The list of questions and problems mentioned in the memorandum strongly suggests that the organizers are genuinely concerned with the present state of our democracy. It stresses the need for a more rational national ideology and the need for a national leadership that exhibits greater wisdom and greater openness. The memorandum asks how can we become a modern nation without losing our character as a pluralistic society and without being impaired by it. And it reiterates the ideological benchmarks that a Pancasila state must be a state of the people, and that a Pancasila political system must be a system which purposely involves the people's active participation.

Coming from a government advisory office at the highest level of the bureaucracy, I find this kind of pronouncement very encouraging. What remains to be seen is whether the format that it has adopted for redressing our understanding of Pancasila is congruent with the complex realities of the democratizations that have taken place in many countries.

We can use several studies to develop an insight into the nature of democratization. Norbert Lechner from Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales in Mexico points out that democratization is hampered in many Latin American countries by (economic) modernization. He argues that modernization creates anonymous markets and the dominance of technocratic bureaucracies, and this makes society incapable of supporting vital democracy. The result is semi-democracy in which the state is trapped between the demand for enhancing the competitiveness of national economy on the one hand, and the demand for reining the economy on the other for the sake of safeguarding the societal bases of democracy.

Samuel Huntington of Harvard University calls the democratization that has been going on since 1974 the third wave of democratization. It originated in Southern Europe and moved later to Latin America and Asia. In general, this democratization is characterized by the lifting of martial law, expansion of electoral competition, increasingly vigorous legislative debates and elimination of press censorship. He points out that besides having to overcome the old problems of democratization -- communal conflict, foreign war and social decay -- these new democracies have to face four new threats: that is, "the red return", antidemocratic ideologies, executive arrogation and abridgment of political rights and civil liberties by governments.

The result is, according to Samuel Huntington, that in general these new democracies tend to become something other than fully democratic. Citing Larry Diamond he pointed out that out of the 22 new democracies in Latin America, 15 fall into one of the four intermediate categories: "partially illiberal democracy", "competitive semi-democracy", "restrictive semi-democracy", and "semi-competitive partially pluralist authoritarian".

In Asia the choice has been "Asian authoritarianism". This system has been adopted by South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Under this system, economic modernization took place and the ensuing economic prosperity, social order and general well-being has been fantastic. This makes Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew's belief that what developing countries need is not democracy, but discipline. And the validity of this view seems to be reiterated by Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and most recently China, which duplicated this system.

One question which has to be answered is: How long can this system last? Three decades? Two generations? Can it provide good government for a sustained period of time? To answer these questions, Huntington reminds us of Reinhold Niehbur, who once said: "Men's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but men's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary."

How should we understand Pancasila to sustain good governance? How should this understanding accommodate economic modernization without sacrificing democracy?

The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.