Democracy only comes after prosperity, says expert

JAKARTA (JP): Democracy will work well only in a prosperous nation, political expert Nazaruddin Syamsuddin said here yesterday.

Nazaruddin, a professor at the Jakarta-based University of Indonesia's School of Social and Political Sciences, told a seminar held by the Moslem Students Association (HMI) that hungry people tended to exert their democratic rights in careless ways which in turn caused conflicts.

"Prosperity will allow people to remain levelheaded so that democracy is encouraged. People who struggle for food cannot exercise their political rights properly," he said.

Nazaruddin said certain developing countries in Asia were good examples of this. "They applied political democracy only to suffer endless internal conflicts," he said.

But Nazaruddin failed to explain what measures of prosperity were needed before a government could let its people use their democratic rights freely.

The two-day seminar was organized to mark the association's golden anniversary which falls on Feb. 3.

Chief of the Armed Forces' socio-political affairs Lt. Gen. Syarwan Hamid, who was scheduled to speak at the seminar, failed to turn up. He sent his paper instead.

Syarwan said Indonesia's political culture was pregnant with the "seeds of behavior vulnerable to conflict." Such a culture derived from the colonial period which saw nothing but oppression, he said.

"Our political culture emphasizes rights more than obligations," Syarwan said.

Nazaruddin said Indonesia was in the process of building up a democracy after recording impressive performances in its economic development.

But he criticized the government for introducing political openness early in the 1990s and then leaving its implementation up to the public.

"Political openness exercised on an unprepared society will bring about apathy," Nazaruddin said.

He said the government should have applied political openness to organizations rather than to individuals. This approach, he argued, would enable control of the exercise of democratic rights.

Global era

Nazaruddin suggested the government prepare a political system to give the nation the power to face the incoming global competition.

"The government needs to improve efficiency and decrease its intervention in the business sector through privatization," he said.

At the same time the political system should empower legislative and judicial bodies to keep private companies under control, he said.

Syarwan said the future Indonesia should be founded in line with the principles of civil society.

"Civil society is different from civilian society, in which the country's elite political group comprises civilians only," he said.

"The 1945 Constitution does not stress who rules, but who does what and how," he added.

Therefore, the constitution does not distinguish civilian from military, according to Syarwan. Instead, the two sides have to accommodate each other in the spirit of cooperation.

Another speaker, economist Adi Sasono, said if stability was maintained, Indonesia would emerge the world's fifth economic superpower after China, the United States, Japan and India in 2020. (amd)