Encourage public dialog

Tuong Vu, Ph.D. Candidate in Politics, University of California, Berkeley, USA

The recent outburst of protests against Lee Kwan Yew's comments in Jakarta quickly brought back to mind the massive anti-U.S. demonstrations last October. The similarity between the two events is striking. When the U.S. launched the war in Afghanistan in pursuit of al-Qaeda, waves of street protests by Muslim groups broke out in front of the American embassy, demanding that Indonesia severe diplomatic relations with the U.S. Moderate Muslim groups such as the Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest Muslim organization in the country, remained conspicuously silent, while not a few politicians jumped on the bandwagon to criticize the government and the U.S. The intense political pressure nearly threw the three-month old Megawati government into paralysis and forced it to withdraw its earlier support for the U.S.

The war in Afghanistan had hardly anything to do with Indonesia (how many Indonesians cried when the Taliban fell?), but the month-long diplomatic crisis caused by a small group of radicals did much to aggravate its fragile economy. The rupiah fell further as protesters scared away potential investors and tourists, wrecked international trust in the government, and diverted its attention away from far more urgent problems.

The anti-U.S. and anti-Singapore protests may be caused by democracy, but this is only partially true. Both cases are classic examples of special interests politics, when a small but well-organized group is able to get what it wants (in these cases not money but publicity) despite huge welfare losses to the whole country.

Special interests politics exists in every political system, authoritarian or democratic. Although the style (street protests or backroom deals) may be different, the same principle applies: Since the benefits the group reaps are concentrated whereas the costs to the public dispersed, the group clearly has the advantage.

In the anti-Singapore demonstrations, the scale of protests has remained small and damages insignificant, but this may have been caused less by the ability of Indonesian policy-makers to manage the issue, than by the status of the U.S. as the world's sole superpower that made it much more unpopular than Singapore. The point is: The danger remains when similar groups will attempt to conduct foreign policy on the streets at a huge cost to the Indonesian economy and its hard-working people.

In the short run, the government has no effective means at hand to ward off the danger. Authoritarian rule as practiced under Soeharto's New Order has been justifiably discredited and discarded. With a lively democracy after a 30-year dictatorship, Indonesia has also outgrown the Singapore-style internal security act. The government just has to learn how to live with demonstrasi.

In the long run, however, there are ways for the government to prevent small but vocal groups from using street protests to hijack its foreign policy for their special interests. The key is to develop alternative forums for public debates not only in the mass media but also in physical environments, especially universities, think tanks and public education organizations.

Physical environments serve not only to draw students from the streets but also to recruit moderate voices -- that would otherwise remain silent -- to participate in the debates. Physical events also do not allow street protesters to dominate media headlines.

Some alternative forums, such as the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), currently exist, but their activities are infrequent. Moreover, most of them are based in Jakarta and organized privately to serve the agenda of certain political groups. Most debates on public policies are held in Jakarta's five-star hotels with restricted participation and the interested public can only learn about them from media reports the day after the events took place.

The government should recognize that moderating and facilitating (but not manipulating or suffocating a la Soeharto) the development of sophisticated public opinion is in the public interests. Public debates therefore cannot be left to private (but in fact representing special interests) initiatives alone as they are now. More government-sponsored CSIS-style organizations have to be established, especially outside of Jakarta. Rectors of huge campuses in Jakarta, Medan, Makassar, Manado, Malang, Surabaya and Yogyakarta should be given incentives to arrange such forums.

Elections of rectors as recently implemented in certain public universities are an important measure to generate more dynamic college administrators. The lift of formal and informal restrictions on social research imposed under Soeharto should be the next logical step. It is ironical that democracy has freed the students to demonstrate on the streets as they wish, but their teachers still need permits to conduct research on certain topics.

In economics there has been an increasing recognition of governments' role in providing effective institutions to nurture a healthy market. Indonesia can show the world that governments can help nurture a healthy democracy as well.