Democracy not the cure-all for what ails society: Brennan

Democracy not the cure-all for what ails society: Brennan

Father Frank Brennan SJ AO is director of Uniya, a social
justice research and action center based in Sydney, Australia,
which focuses on justice for marginalized groups as well as for
refugee rights, the bill of rights and human rights in Australia
and East Asia.

A noted Australian lawyer as well as a Jesuit priest, Brennan
visited Indonesia recently at the invitation of the Australian
Studies Center, University of Indonesia. He was a speaker at a
conference, jointly organized by the center and the Australia
Indonesia Institute, in Jakarta on Jan. 28.

He was on a panel with noted Muslim intellectual Nurcholish
Madjid, the rector of Paramadina University. The following is an
excerpt from an interview with Brennan which covered a wide range
of issues, including human rights, interfaith relations, East
Timor as well as the conflict in Maluku.

Question: Indonesia has been ravaged by a prolonged series of
riots and conflicts, including religious ones. How do you view
these disturbances?

Answer: In a society as complex as Indonesia, wherever you
have groups who identify themselves differently and identify each
other differently, then if there are causes which could be
causing tension, inevitably there will be an element of that
tension which is then identified with the differences, which
might be religious or ethnic as well.

In this case, what you need is a way of ensuring that the
interests and the world view and the aspirations of the different
groups have been accommodated.

For a long time there was the idea that the dwifungsi
(sociopolitical role) of the military would help to provide a
wall of protection between different groups, and that sometimes
minority groups would see themselves being protected from the
majority by the intervention of the military.

But obviously military and police activity is not the best way
to be able to effect social reconciliation.

What's going on in Indonesia now is that you are moving toward
a new democracy where there is a concern for the rule of law, or
for insurance that the rights and the interests and the
aspirations of the different groups are given equal protection.

The riots and the clashes attest that we don't have that as
yet.

You are just moving toward that, and so you have to be depend
very strongly on the charismatic reputation and the charismatic
power of your President Gus Dur (Abdurrahman Wahid), who when it
comes to religious matters people can say, here is a man who as
leader has a proven record of being inclusive and of being
equally respectful of the rights of different groups, including,
for example, the Christian minority.

You said the military "dual function" in a way protects the
minority.

It does, but I mean, for example, I have met some Catholics in
Indonesia, particularly some Chinese-Indonesian businesspeople,
who would say that when you have a strong military, then that
provides the guarantee that even the minority can be engaged
freely in their business enterprises and their property can be
protected.

While conceding that, I would say that the dwifungsi of the
military is a poor second option, offered against ultimately
developing the proper operation of the rule of law in a
democracy.

You mean in the absence of the rule of law the military
was ...

From what I have heard from people in Indonesia, one of the
benefits of the New Order was very rapid economic development.
And maybe that economic development could not have occurred so
rapidly if there had been a full-blown democracy with the
protection of the rule of law.

But there comes a stage in the development of society, where
there has been rapid economic development and then also some
increasing education of the society generally, where there will
be demands for proper protection of the liberty of everyone.

And there also will be the demand for some equitable
distribution of the benefits of that economic development. Now I
think what happened in Indonesia at one and the same time was,
particularly with the currency crisis, was heightened concern
that the benefits of economic development were being unfairly and
at times corruptly distributed. But, secondly, that there was
very inadequate protection of the liberties of persons,
particularly from minority groups.

How would you describe Indonesia in this transition period?

As a foreigner and a Christian, I can say without causing
offense that Indonesia does not yet have a fully developed
democracy with the rule of law, with a fully independent
judiciary which is able to give full protection to all groups,
including unpopular minorities.

But that is to be expected because with the level of economic
development for a country with 200 million people, that
(democracy) can only come very slowly.

Nurcholish Madjid said at the conference that Indonesia's
democracy is still only a year old.

I also think free discussion here is only one year old. When I
was here last year doing the language course in Yogyakarta, I
remember speaking with one of my students and she said to me that
Australia is a federation ...

Now she thought federation was a bad thing because she
identified it with the Dutch period. But for me as a
constitutional lawyer, I know that the advantage of a federation
is that it gives the possibility for different groups in
different areas to be more self-governing while being part of a
united nation. That is the whole theory of the federation.

In your conference paper, you said the greatest religious
challenge will be the relationship between Muslims and
Christians, something that Indonesia is facing right now.

One of the things that we saw at the conference was that there
was respectful complementary dialog between myself as an
Australian Christian and Prof. Madjid as an Indonesian Muslim.

And as I said, yes, I think if he and I had come together 50
years ago, then each of us would have doubted the possibility
that the other one could be saved, and we would have been very
righteous about our own salvation.

But coming together today, what we do in terms of our
religious dialog is that we are very happy to conceive that the
other person can be saved.

I as a Christian can say in good faith to the person who is
Muslim that, of course, we believe in God and we believe in the
same God, and so I think what is essential for this sort of
dialog is a humility for each of us before God and before each
other.

And as Indonesia is moving toward the adoption of many of the
international human rights instruments, there will be insights
which people who are Muslims and Indonesians can bring those
instruments which would be different from the insights that I
have as a Westerner and as a Christian. But the insights can be
equally valid.

But there are Muslim hard-liners who detest Madjid.

Yes, and I am sure that those Muslims who detest him would
have no time for me and would not want to have this sort of
discussion.

But our role as religious people in a public forum in civil
society is to create a greater space, and a respectful space, for
the dialog between people like myself and Dr. Madjid to occur.

For other people, who may not have tolerance, may be able see
that this tolerance is something which is not only socially
useful, but it is also true.

Of course, there are also people who are intolerant Christians
who would say 'we want nothing to do with people who are Muslim'.

I think we have to admit that the answer is not to be found by
simply comparing those who are the least tolerant in each
community, neither in the dialog with those who are the most
tolerant.

In your paper you referred to a conversation with an Eritrean
Catholic priest who said "whenever Christians and Muslims are
found in equal numbers, there is trouble because people who are
not truly Christian nor Muslim are able to exploit religious and
tribal differences".

In any social situation, if there is some difference which is
being made worse because of the situation, like poverty or lack
of economic opportunity, that difference will come into play.

For example, if I am a Christian, as a member of a minority
group in a local community where the majority is Muslim, I would
think that most of the jobs or most of the money is going to the
Muslims. Then what starts as a conflict and misunderstanding
about the inequitable distribution of opportunity becomes a
conflict about religion.

And then those within the different groups are able to use the
label of religion in order to make the conflict worse. What all
of us who are religious have to admit is that it is the wrong
exploitation of our religious identification because all of the
great religions teach about the need to respect the other, the
dignity of the other and the equal worth of the other.

An interesting twist concerning religious identification was
when people said that perhaps one of the reasons Australia was so
involved or concerned with East Timor was that the people in East
Timor were Catholic.

Over 25 years, many East Timorese moved to Australia. Within
the Catholic community in Australia there were many personal
relationship established between East Timorese and Australians,
and I think that definitely contributed in the democratic process
in Australians being concerned about the situation in East Timor.

But it is a mistake for Indonesians to think that because the
East Timorese are Catholics, then the Australian government
wanted to commit troops in order to protect these Catholics.

I don't think the religion of the East Timorese has anything
to do with this in that sense. Rather, it is a community of the
people who were close neighbors of Australia. And one very strong
emotional factor in Australia has always been that during World
War II the East Timorese had hoped to defend the Australian
soldiers against the Japanese.

What fueled the spirit of the Australian people about this was
exactly the same as the spirit of the Australian people in
supporting Indonesian independence from 1945 to 1950.

The whole idea in Australia is about what we called the fair
go and sticking up for what we call the underdog, the smaller
person. I think that is a more accurate description of the East
Timor situation.

But Aceh did not get as much attention from Australia.

The situation in Aceh is very different because that is more
as an internal Indonesian affair. Aceh has always been part of
the Republic of Indonesia.

There may be moves in places like Aceh for greater autonomy or
greater protection of human rights, and I have sympathy with
those things, but they are more internal Indonesian matters.

East Timor was never just an internal Indonesian matter, but
we had a government in Australia who wanted to treat it as an
internal Indonesian matter. And that's the way it remained until
president Habibie said he would allow the people of East Timor to
have a plebiscite.

Well, in a sense, that was like breaking open the dam wall and
then allowing the will of the Australian people that has been
there for 20 years to say, right we have to make sure that the
voice of the people of East Timor is heard.

Could we say that Australians think in a more legalistic way
than Indonesians?

For some it would be legalistic, but for others it would not
be legalistic. It would instead be the simple proposition that
Aceh was always part of Indonesia. Many of the East Timorese have
always said that they don't want to be part of Indonesia.

As the coauthor of the book Finding Common Ground and
Reconciling Our Differences, which addresses the issue of
reconciliation between the Aboriginal people and whites in
Australia, you could perhaps shed some light on a similar issue
at our end, say the Maluku conflict.

I have to say to myself it is obviously very complex; I cannot
pretend to understand it. I can spell out some principles which I
think should be followed, but the application of those principles
has to be done by the people who are experts, that is those in
the local situation.

In Australia we have not had that sort of complexity about
religion, but we have had that sort of complexity about our
relationship with our Aboriginal people. And so that is where the
issue of reconciliation has been focused in Australia, where for
200 years since the arrival of the Europeans there has been a
situation of a radical lack of reconciliation.

Why?

In part because there was no recognition either of rights of
the Aboriginal people to their lands and to sustain themselves as
self-determining communities, so we have wrestled with it and it
has been very difficult. This is particularly with the Howard
government, which has been less sympathetic to the Aborigines
than was the previous Labor government. Then there have been two
things to be done.

The Aboriginal people have always said reconciliation can be
likened to what we might say in religious terms is "cheap grace"
-- just trying to paper over the differences and saying forget
about your just claims, let's just pretend everything is now
over, let's just pretend we now have a level playing field and we
will forget about the history, forget about your claims.

The Aboriginal people have said you need three things for
reconciliation: respect, recognition and justice. The only thing
that can ever work is if we are at the table. The only outcome
which is worthwhile is one which follows from a process where we
are equal participants. So reconciliation does not work if the
government from above says, 'this is the answer, this is what you
will do'.

What other lessons could be learned from the Aboriginal issue
in Australia?

The lesson to learn is that when people do have legal rights,
then there is far greater capacity for reaching a compromise that
people can own together. And that's what reconciliation is about.

Some say the Maluku conflict is in a way a legacy from 16th
century Western colonial powers, when they forcibly converted
Muslims to Christianity. What do you think?

It is not unlike what also used to go on in Europe at that
time, where the people's religion would depend on the religion of
the king.

What we can say nowadays as we look back was that was very
untheological, that it was ridiculous and no one now would
suggest, for example, that I would be a Christian because John
Howard is a Christian.

Religion is an intensely personal thing, but with this history
what we have is the name of religion, of religiosity being placed
upon individuals and groups who then are engaged in political and
military combat. But in a sense the labels of Christian and
Muslims were often simply that, labels.

In the 16th century that was people's world view, but it's
definitely not our world view now.

In any historical situation, we can always look back and say
we blame history or the colonial power, but in the end for any
human society it is about saying that we now have to take the
responsibility of the situation, including our historical
inheritance.

We are taking responsibility for it, we then have to shape it.
Now maybe if out of that historical situation there has been an
entrenched historical conflict between groups, the net then is
where the idea of reconciliation becomes critical, where the two
groups come to the table and say it is a complex history, we can
not revisit it.

But now we must draw the line together so we own our past. We
can come together in the present so that we can shape a future
together which is better than the past.

So it has much to do with the locals today as the ones who
experienced the history themselves?

Reconciliation must always have to come from the local
situation. And for those who are not really in the local
situation, the only thing we can contribute is a more
dispassionate step of the principle in the hope that those who
are then embroiled in the conflict can embrace those principles
more readily and come to a reconciliation themselves.

Of course, when you had that sort of conflict the only two
outside forces which could be productive are the independent,
dispassionate articulation of the principles and, secondly, the
charismatic leadership of someone like Gus Dur who can be a
catalyst. Without that catalyst, there would not be the prospect
of bringing the people together.

In Uniya's leaflet, it is said the most important voices in
political debates are those who suffer discrimination, injustice
and prejudice. How do you make those voices heard? Perhaps in
liberal Australia these voices could be easily aired.

Oh no, it is very difficult. My work at Uniya has something to
do with the rights of the Aboriginal people, but also the rights
of refugees and asylum seekers, the boat people that turned up.

Very strict laws are being made in Australia about boat
people, and there are Australians like myself who are very
concerned about situations of three-year-old and four-year-old
children who may be from refugee families being held in custody
in remote places.

Some of them may be put there for a long time. We are very
concerned about these people, and we often don't get a good
hearing from the major political parties or from the government.
They think we are very soft, romantic liberals, they don't
realize there should be better recognition of the human rights of
these people. They say that we would have boats turning up all
the time in Australia.

So even in a liberal democratic country, it is still very
difficult to defend the underdog?

Oh yes, always. And this is why democracy is always hard work,
and democracy can never be simply 50 percent plus one wins the
day, because if you say 50 percent plus one wins the day, then 49
percent can miss out.

In democracy majoritarianism, 50 percent plus one is very good
for protecting the rights of those who are in the majority, but
as well as a democratic election, you also need a strong system
of the rule of law, with an independent judiciary and the strong
legal system which can protect the rights of the minority.

So that the majority has to say that, even if we have strong
majority support for crushing the rights of this minority group
because we don't like them, 'no you cannot do that'.

Life in a democracy is about ensuring that even those in the
unpopular minorities have their rights as well protected as those
who are in the majority. So that is part of the work of our
organization.

If it is difficult for a liberal country, it will be even more
difficult for an emerging democracy like Indonesia. What did you
do in overcoming these challenges?

The good thing about democracy is that you have the
opportunity to participate and it is through that participation
that you make a difference.

But in a country like Australia, you still have to accept that
on many issues money talks, and if you are there trying to
represent the poor or the marginalized then it can be very
difficult to get a hearing.

I have always been very strongly of the view that you work on
two fronts. One is chipping away at the government and the
courts, getting the rights, and the other is educating the public
to accept and to understand and to embrace the need for these
special laws for the benefit of the Aboriginal people.

The goal you want to achieve is not just like the improvement
of the situation of the Aboriginal people. You want improvement
of the situation of the Aboriginal people with public acceptance
because, particularly like the Aboriginal people who live in
small country towns, they have to live side by side with whites.
So what you want is a situation of good relations as well as the
protection of their rights.

So democracy is definitely not a panacea?

I don't want to sound depressing for those who are reforming
in Indonesia, but let's make no mistake -- once you have a
democratic system of government, it does not mean that heaven has
arrived on earth.

It just means that you have a better system of trying to work
and live together in the community. (hbk/anr)