Contest of power is absurd

Contest of power is absurd

From Rakyat Merdeka

Mass radicalism will find fertile ground if groups in favor of
and against President Abdurrahman Wahid are allowed to mobilize
their followers. Those who will be gripped by the greatest worry
will be the common people, who have never bothered about the
controversy surrounding Gus Dur. Common people only want a
peaceful life, to earn enough to eat and to send their children
to school.

The people in general do not need democracy if the process
takes place without heeding ethics and politeness. Mass
mobilization is tolerable only during election campaigns. On
other occasions mass mobilization must be considered an absurd
and primitive show of force.

All parties must realize that mobilizing the masses in the
streets at a time when there is no election campaign is a serious
threat against the sense of security of the community and the
normalization of the political process. I hope our political
elite refrain from making use of innocent people to support their
narrow interests. Give the people education, not uniforms. Give
them jobs and do not exploit them in the name of religion and
ideology.

It really saddens me to see villagers being recruited not to
be educated and economically empowered, but just to be provided
with uniforms. Why have they only been given such political
masks? Why the use of uniforms resembling military fatigue while
we say that we dislike uniformity and that we do not want to see
the military involved in political affairs?. Or, perhaps, other
groups in uniform have been invited to take part in political
activities?

I suggest that Banser -- the militia-like multipurpose task
force of Anshor, the youth wing of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) -- should
consider carefully their plan to mobilize its members. This is
not the time for an election campaign. What if the people demand
that Banser be disbanded? What is the use of playing hero in
military fatigues in Jakarta?

Better abort the plan.

ARI WIBOWO

Jakarta