Encourage public dialog

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.