Conflicts in Indonesia: A sociological review

Conflicts in Indonesia: A sociological review

Ignas Kleden
Sociologist,
The Center for East Indonesian Affairs
Jakarta

Poso is the latest example of the inter-ethnic conflicts that
have strikingly characterized political reform and the new
millennium in Indonesia. Poso, however, is only one item in a
long list that includes Pontianak, Sambas, Ambon, Sampit, Aceh
and Papua.

At the end of 2001 one cannot avoid the tempting question: If
all those conflicts are so difficult to overcome, how can one
understand them analytically? To do this a series of critical
questions needs to be answered, either empirically or
hypothetically.

First of all, why have those conflicts occurred so often and
so easily? If the occurrences are due to social discrepancies or
cultural incongruities, are the local communities so vulnerable
to misunderstanding and social maladjustment? If this is the
case, one must be able to explain what has made them so
sensitive in the last two to three years. Or, should one assume
that they have long been so vulnerable without our being aware of
it?

On the other hand, if conflicts occurred following deliberate
instigation by provocateurs, were those troublemakers really well
organized to provoke people to conflict and violence? What
financial support did they have that gave them so much mobility
from place to place and from one island to another?

If they do really exist, why on earth is it so difficult for
the Indonesian government to find them and to bring them to
justice? Why are the state agencies, which always succeeded in
capturing student activists, suddenly so powerless in detecting
the provocateurs?

Second, it has become increasingly clear that once a conflict
occurs, it is very difficult to resolve. Sociologically speaking,
communal conflicts have always occurred since time immemorial.

However, people involved in conflict and mutual killings have
always been able to bring to an end the destruction and return to
a peaceful situation, this being done through local conflict-
resolution institutions, without which they would have long since
perished.

The process and the ritual of reconciliation often serve as an
opportunity to enlarge the scope of one's community by means of
turning the once-opposing clan or family into new members of
one's community after a peace agreement has been established. In
Maluku, people say, "We are used to conflicts and killing, but we
are also used to peace and reconciliation thereafter."

One can further pose the question as to why the traditional
conflict-resolution institutions suddenly became so ineffective.
Is this ineffectiveness due to the lack of resilience of local
communities in the face of rapid social changes or is it the
result of active destruction?

If the first possibility is true, can one identify social
changes so that are detrimental to local conflict-resolution
institutions? Why have local people lost their capacity to adjust
themselves to ongoing social changes?

Conversely, if the ineffectiveness is due to deliberate
destruction by unknown forces, what is the aim of this
destruction? Why are some people so interested in destroying
other people's lives by means of shattering their social
institutions? What do they aim to achieve?

One can learn some lessons from experience in earlier years.

First, conflicts usually originate from trivial issues, then
quickly escalate to wider violence and killing. The initial stage
of conflict is usually ignored at worst and neglected at best, so
much so that even the smallest misunderstanding is not eliminated
early enough to prevent its progression toward violence.

There have always been comments regarding possible
provocateurs, but very little has been done to capture the
alleged offenders and bring them to justice. In the case of
Sampit, the Dayaks categorically refuted they had killed the
three Madurese, this being the casus belli of direct retaliation
of the Madurese.

With hindsight, it is difficult to understand why efforts have
not been made to clarify who might have been the real murderers.
Why were the people from both sides left to wallow in mutual
suspicion, with very little attempt to find out the truth?

Second, conflicts usually occur between two limited ethnic or
religious groups, without much of an multiplier effect on other
groups, as if ethnic groups could be clearly defined in terms of
physical boundaries. The "boundaries theory" is now being
seriously discarded among the theorists of ethnicity.

Furthermore, those involved in conflicts usually come from two
groups with a relatively equal position in terms of both
demography and culture. No serious conflict has so far occurred
between majority and minority groups or between a dominant
culture and a subculture. In other words, the conflicts were too
limited to have been spontaneous. Muslims in Ambon also have
Catholic relatives and so do the Christians. However, the
Catholics were rather kept away from involvement in the conflict.

In the case of Sambas the Malays must also have had many
relatives among the Dayaks, and yet the conflict was limited to
the Malays and the Madurese, without any involvement of the
Dayaks.

Third, on the basis of the above considerations one must
examine the nature of those conflicts more seriously, whether
they were really ethnic or more political in nature, although
they happened (or were made) to take the form of ethnic
antagonism.

This is important, because the wrong analysis will lead to
efforts that might have been made with the best of intentions but
which ultimately fail. This is because the approach to conflicts
has not corresponded with what is at the bottom line: competition
for political power, resentment of economic domination, or merely
dissatisfaction and miscommunication owing to cultural
differences.

Power differentials in politics and the economy can only be
settled through government policy and policy implementation,
whereas cultural differences have something to do with the sense
of being recognized and respected, despite possible
misunderstanding.

Indonesia has been an example of cultural differences for many
centuries. The world largest civilizations are all present in
this archipelago. However, there was very little war and conflict
due to mere cultural differences or what has been termed
Huntington's clash of civilizations. The fact that nowadays
cultural differences so easily lead to conflict and violence
cannot be explained historically, but should be better accounted
for politically.

The term inter-ethnic conflicts might be misleading. Efforts
should be made to tackle the existing conflicts politically,
because otherwise it will be well-nigh impossible to understand
why cultural differences have had such a powerfully destructive
political impact. This is very true, given that the Soeharto
hegemony sidelined cultural differences, making them a nonissue,
or a political taboo, for three decades.