Clamor about Marxism

Clamor about Marxism

As could have been expected, President Abdurrahman Wahid's
proposal to rescind a decree issued by the (then provisional)
People's Consultative Assembly (MPRS) in 1996 to ban the
dissemination of Marxism-Leninism, as well as the Indonesian
Communist Party (PKI), has caused a good deal of controversy.
That none of the many controversial issues the President has so
far tackled have come under so much fire from so many quarters of
Indonesian society is understandable.

For more than 33 years -- that is, ever since the rise and
consolidation of the military-dominated New Order regime in 1966
-- communism, and hence the Marxist-Leninist doctrine, has been
held responsible for every possible evil that has plagued
Indonesian society in the past, from atheism to social frictions
arising from class antagonisms in the community.

During all those years, not only have communism, Marxism and
Leninism been touted as being among the most dangerous of
ideologies that any God-fearing society or individual could face,
it was -- and to a certain measure still is -- one of the most
effective weapons someone could use to effectively destroy an
opponent.

The banning by the New Order of PRD, the Democratic People's
Party, in 1996 is a good illustration of how those in power at
that time used communism, Marxism and Leninism to try to ruin a
political opponent. That many academics and nationalist
politicians of this country's early independence movement
regarded Marxism as a clever intellectual exercise was a point
which the New Order authorities chose to ignore.

It is not surprising, either, that those who at present are
against the repeal of what is formally known as the MPRS Decree
no.25/1966, see Abdurrahman's move as ill-advised, irresponsible
and even shortsighted. Many or most, or in any case the most
outspoken in this camp, are leaders and activists of Islamic
parties and organizations. After all, during the bloody upheavals
that broke out in the wake of the aborted 1965 coup d'etat,
Muslim activists of all sects and persuasions were in the
forefront fighting the "atheists" in a battle of ideas in which
hundreds of thousands of lives, Muslim and nationalist as well as
Communist, were lost.

Given such a background, current moves to take the President
to account in the upcoming August session of the People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR) -- or even in a speeded up special
session of the assembly -- must be seen as a natural outflow of
past historical events. Even so, a number of important facts
should be considered.

The tide of criticism notwithstanding, quite a number of
analysts and observers believe certain points deserve to be
considered as far as the ban on communism, Marxism and Leninism
is concerned. While most appear to agree that even in a true
democracy it is justified to ban political parties and
organization that clearly pose a danger to democracy itself, to
ban an ideology is a different thing altogether.

In the first place, it is impossible to ban an idea. Secondly,
as President Abdurrahman Wahid has correctly pointed out, the
Indonesian Constitution guarantees freedom of thought. From this
point of view, the President has so far done nothing wrong with
regard to the Constitution. It would be difficult on those
grounds to impeach him from merely proposing that MPRS Decree
No.25/1969 be revoked.

Making too much of a clamor over the issue could send a wrong
signal to the business world and would-be investors. Rather than
indulging in blind emotional outbursts, it would be much more
helpful to start a meaningful, level-headed, public debate about
the matter. In that way our government leaders and legislators
could arrive at a better sense of what needs to be done. For
certain, it is time that the grave injustices that have for
decades been done to thousands of innocent relatives and
descendants of those accused of involvement in the 1965 coup be
undone.