Decentralized education a must

Decentralized education a must

By A. Chaedar Alwasilah

BANDUNG (JP): All human rights are universal, indivisible,
interdependent and interrelated. It stands to reason that the
United Nations Organization has long established the UN Human
Rights Commission. The belated establishment of Komnasham
(National Commission for Human Rights) in Indonesia suggests that
the Indonesian government did not fully recognize human rights as
a political agenda until the world strongly recommended the
government to do so.

At home the cases of slain labor activist Marsinah, missing
political activists, and military operation policy on the
province of Aceh constitute stains on our rights history. The
military involvement in the brutal murder of alleged separatist
rebels In Aceh (The Jakarta Post, Jan. 13, 1999) indicates that
the military simply do not understand the social psychology of
primordialism.

Such violations by the government and the military have
brought about a series of primordial radicalism definitely
threatening national integrity. The main reason is that people
have lost trust in the central government who in the past lost
sight of the importance of decentralization. Aceh and East Timor
separatist movements are factual examples of radicalism motivated
by primordialism. As such they generate the greatest amount of
sympathy, and produces the most extreme forms of fanaticism.

Recent infighting and communal clashes in Lampung,
Lhoksemauwe, Karawang, and Ambon are evidence enough of
primordial radicalism. Observers are sounding alarms over the
spate of these violence and unrest and demanding the government
take concrete measures to prevent further violence. In the era of
reformation anti transparency military solutions will even
generate massive flare-ups.

It is public knowledge that in the last three decades national
developments were concentrated in the Western part of Indonesia,
thus creating recurring conflict potentials: marginalization,
displacement, and dispossession. It is a note that these conflict
potentials are defined in ethnic, religious, linguistic, and
other primordial terms. Now the desire for liberation among
elements in the nation is in sight, practically to redeem the
violated rights during the New Order regime. Never before was the
country socially conflicted such that the government and
especially the military should develop the highest sense of
national crisis.

It is high time for the government and the military to review
and redefine the current policies of centralization, nationalism,
and military roles in politics. Primordial affiliations are
mutually reinforcing. Apter (1987) observes that "the more
primordial a terrorist movement, the more fundamentalist, and the
more difficult to deal with". The Tamil movements in Sri Lanka,
Hindu-Muslim conflict in India, and Kurdish nationalism in Iraq
are manifestations of primordial radicalism in which separatism
is ritualized. All of these are a good lesson for Habibie's
administration and the military.

As always education in its broadest sense is a panacea of
social and political ills. Religious education as part of
national education should also be redefined to maximize its roles
in building the nation. Educators, bureaucrats, informal leaders,
social workers politicians, NGO activists, and religious
propagators are held responsible for resurrecting the nation;
therefore, they have to develop a holistic understanding of
education.

The rampant radicalism across the country calls for a
redefinition of education for human rights, which is aimed at
developing in every individual a sense of universal values and
the types of behavior on which a culture of living together
peacefully is predicated. Those values comprise equality and
justices loving and caring, respect for self and others, freedom
of speech expression, belief and worship; protection of the
rights of children, women and labor; human dignity responsibility
and security.

In a multicultural society like Indonesia, education for
nationalism presupposes education for human rights. The
hypothesis is that respecting human rights which are universal
among all the ethnic groups will necessarily develop a culture of
living together peacefully. It is through education that
primordial fanaticism is gradually minimized, where common
languages history and universal values are taught. This is
crucial because nationalism depends on some degree of political
and economic consensus of the ethnic groups. Education for
nationalism does not mean any domestication or eradication of
primordial potentials at all.

The United States is an outstanding example of highly diverse
racial and ethnic groups trying to live together. Bringing the
"hyphenated Americans" -- German-, Chinese, Afro-, to mention just
a few -- into the mainstream has been a central concern of recent
times. The only vehicle available for this assimilation is public
school education. By the same token, national education should
provide all Indonesian citizens-regardless of their ethnic
backgrounds religions, and gender -- with equal opportunity to be
part of the mainstream. Given all the analyses above, nationalism
that all Indonesians strive for is to based on cultures of the
mainstream consisting of and bolstered by all the ethnic groups
with all their primordial terms.

Following are listed major observations and their educational
implications.

* Primordial radicalism not only creates individual heroes but
recalls previous radicalism. Teachers especially of religions and
social studies should present value analyses and explanations of
heroes. Heroism should be defined broadly in terms of
nationalism, namely its contribution and significance for people
in general not an exclusive group of people in a particular area.
Heroism is not limited to politics, but also to other areas such
as economy, education, and other humanitarian endeavors. Teachers
should also encourage fair academic discussions on radicalism as
part of critical thinking development.

* Primordial radicalism in a particular area inspires other
types of radicalism in other areas. Recent radicalism in Aceh,
Lampung and Ambon exhibited religious overtones, and all of these
might inspire and generate similar radicalism in other areas
across the country. Anticipating this tendency, local governments
across the archipelago should be vigilant of any similar
radicalism so that it can be prevented as early as possible.

In most cases, the local traditional and religious leaders,
rather than the military or the formal leaders that could solve
the situation in effortless ways. Educationally, current
primordial radicalism should be explained and handled by
redefining the concept of "local content" curriculum policy.
Education is essentially to inculcate the students with sense of
shared responsibility among diversity, and to empower students to
solve their own problems.

The fact that people now can be easily fueled by unfounded
rumors to fight suggests that national education has failed to
empower the local potentials and local genius to solve social
problems in immediate surroundings. The reason is that
centralized education as practiced up to now has domesticated
local potentials and local genius to develop to the full.

* Most primordial radicalism aims at independence, autonomy,
or a state of one's own; or at least at purification within the
ritual boundaries of primordial affiliation. We are reminded of
resentment of the Balinese who threatened to create an
independent state as an emotional reaction to a minister's
statement on Megawati's religious commitment. This social
phenomenon indicates that as a nation Indonesians are not used to
differing opinions and psychologically are not ready to
appreciate freedom of speech.

It is high time for us to recognize the roles of informal
leaders in the society and to reposition education as a
decentralized but deliberate and continued effort to empower the
local genius and potentials to solve social problems in their
immediate environment. Basic to this decentralized education is a
political will of the central government to provide provinces
with autonomy to run their own governance.

The writer is a lecturer at Graduate School of the Teachers'
Training Institute (IKIP) Bandung, West Java.