Conditions in Indonesia put SE Asia at stake

Conditions in Indonesia put SE Asia at stake

By Marvin Ott

SINGAPORE: Since the fall of Soeharto's New Order regime, a question has been heavy in the air: Can Indonesia survive as a viable, coherent nation?

The bloody secession of East Timor, followed by communal warfare in Maluku and elsewhere, put the issue into high relief.

Now comes the murder of four United Nations relief workers in West Timor by a militia gang while Indonesian security forces stood by -- virtually advertising the collapse of Jakarta's authority in that province.

The concerns over Indonesia's future are shared by its neighbors, and for good reason. The future of Southeast Asia is at stake.

Imagine the region over the next decade with a cohesive, politically stable and economically successful Indonesia. Contrast that with an Indonesia that continues to exhibit the current systemic disarray.

The unease in capitals from Bangkok to Washington comes from the realization that the latter scenario cannot be ruled out and has become realistic enough to warrant serious analysis.

What forces have held independent Indonesia together and what is the state of those critical variables?

The fact that Indonesia exists at all is something of a miracle. This sprawling archipelago with 17,000 islands and several hundred distinct ethnic groups is an unlikely country.

Providing all this complex diversity with a distinct national identity would be a daunting challenge.

The consolidation that Indonesia has achieved can be traced to a number of factors.

Colonialism: The Netherlands bequeathed Indonesia's independence generation the concept, and the reality, of a single archipelagic state ruled from Java.

Nationalism: The great achievement of Indonesia's first president, Sukarno, was the creation and nurturing of nationalism. He understood that a common nationality could not be built around the Javanese language. Nor could it be built among non-Muslims around a formula that enshrined Islam as a state religion.

He persuaded his colleagues in the independence movement to adopt a market language from the small Riau Archipelago as the national language and to embrace an essentially secular formula (Pancasila) that honored religion without giving sectarian preference.

This process has left a consensus among elite opinion that Indonesia must remain one, undivided whole.

Political acumen: In 1965, Sukarno had to relinquish power to Soeharto who also proved to be a master of the political game. Indonesian unity came to be embodied in one man.

The army: With the defeat of the Indonesian Communist Party, the Indonesian army became the strongest, most influential institution in the country.

The army was Soeharto's primary instrument for the exercise of government authority and protection of the regime. The army repressed armed secessionist movements in the "outer islands"in the 1950s, as well as a militantly Islamic insurrection (Darul Islam), and established what was effectively a parallel structure of authority alongside the civilian government.

Economic development: For the first two decades of his rule, Soeharto used a formula of military control combined with technocratic, Western-oriented economic policies to put Indonesia on the road to modernization.

By the mid-1980s Indonesia was on everyone's list as one of the Third World's economic success stories. Soeharto struck an implicit bargain with the Indonesian populace -- unchallenged regime authority in return for improved economic circumstances.

International support: A key part of the New Order formula was generous economic assistance from national aid providers like Japan and the United States, as well as international financial institutions. The Soeharto regime enjoyed genuine goodwill -- and deference -- from its Southeast Asian neighbors.

Communal tolerance: There was a pervasive climate of "live and let live" when it came to sectarian and ethnic differences. Key to this was the character of Javanese Islam which produced a syncretic, absorptive culture very different from the Islam prevailing in much of the Middle East with its sharp distinctions between believers and infidels.

It was this Javanese ethos that enabled Sukarno to implement Pancasila.

Anyone who assessed Indonesia in the mid-1980s by these criteria would have found little to criticize.

But arbitrary centralized power is ultimately subject to Lord Acton's dictum: "All power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

By the mid-1990s, the cancer of corruption had penetrated to the heart of the Soeharto regime. The Asian financial crisis provided the spark that set the whole rotten edifice aflame.

So where do things stand today? If we apply the same criteria, most of the key indicators are negative. Since 1997, the army has demonstrated repeatedly a toxic combination of brutality and ineptitude. A once-respected national institution has been discredited.

Since 1997, the economy has not only stopped growing, but also contracted dramatically.

The dreams and aspirations of millions of Indonesians have evaporated. Communal tolerance has been eviscerated. Many of the key pillars that have supported Indonesian unity have been weakened severely.

What is there left?

International and regional support remains solid. Indonesia benefits from the fact that none of its neighbors is interested in fomenting disunity in the archipelago. But private foreign investment has been a major casualty of the tumult of the last three years.

What about nationalism -- the pervasive consensus among most of the 210 million inhabitants that they are in fact Indonesians? No one knows how strong that sentiment still is. A great deal rests on the answer.

That leaves one final element -- the political factor.

In a fragile, but highly centralized polity like Indonesia, the political skills of the President are a key to national cohesion and stability. When President Abdurrahman Wahid was selected, no one thought Indonesia was getting a leader expert in economic policy or military affairs. It was hoped that he would demonstrate political skills of a high order.

But the predominant image has been of a leader who is erratic and arbitrary. The picture is complicated by the fact that Indonesia has been thrown into the deep waters of democracy. After 35 years of authoritarian rule, instituting democracy is like removing the lid on a pressure cooker -- explosive.

The factors that support Indonesian national unity are far weaker today. At the same time, Indonesia has made the painful and necessary transition towards democracy. Whether this transition will produce a stable, unified Indonesia or not depends heavily at this juncture on the political performance of President Abdurrahman.

The writer is professor of National Security Policy at the National War College. The views expressed are personal.

The Strait Times/ Asia News Network