Ethnic conflict or policy failure?

Ethnic conflict or policy failure?

By Sidhesh Kaul

JAKARTA (JP): The recent spate of violence in parts of
Indonesia, be it secessionist or ethnic in nature, are the result
of relentlessly pursuing years of lop sided developmental
strategies. To dismiss these flare ups as isolated bursts of
local temper gone overboard is to over simplify the situation.

To demonize these conflicts as secessionist stirrings or
movements that challenge Indonesia's integrity is an empty
political exercise that solemnly blesses state sponsored
brutality.

The government of President Abdurrahman Wahid is today torn
between the confusion of playing up to democratic expectations
and at the same time pandering to the nationalistic centripetal
forces that advocate the use of state sponsored repression as a
means of preserving territorial and national integrity at any
cost.

The continued use of force by the state is not a solution --
it is part of the problem. The time is ripe for dissecting the
issues within a framework that is acceptable within democratic
norms without abandoning pragmatism, whilst at the same time
respecting the aspirations of the struggling peoples for a
distinct identity.

During the course of the past several decades, the blood that
has been shed is a result of the power struggle in which
ethnicity has become merely an excuse in the absence of a more
compelling ideology .

Societies all over the globe have ethnic diversity but some
nations seem to manage the diversity better than others. Since
1945 history reveals there have been 415 major episodes of
political violence in different parts of the globe and of which
411 have erupted in countries that had recently shaken off the
colonial yoke and could be further classified as either
developing or economically backward countries.

A closer examination of the 411 conflicts reveals that almost
25 percent of the violence is ethnic in nature and has inevitably
happened in the post-independence period. Although statistics can
be misleading, these numbers yield a pattern that cannot be
ignored.

Most of the ethnic violence has happened in areas where there
is a diverse mix of ethnicity (with a single pre-dominant ethnic
group); where democratic institutions are in the early stages of
formation or altogether absent, there is a high incidence of
economic backwardness and where the level of development is low.

Ethnicity merely becomes an excuse for the use of state force
to quell violence and historically the Indonesian government (and
the politicians) has been quick to seek refuge behind the veil of
"ethnic conflict" without addressing the real issues.

To use ethnicity as a means for political polarization is a
dangerous game for an ethnically diverse nation such as
Indonesia. A traditional Java-centric and myopic view to the
ethnic problems could have repercussions that could spell mayhem
in the years to come.

Any resistance, whether political or otherwise, to a more
humanist approach that is devoid of centric connotations would
succeed in creating irreversible damage and fuel secessionist
ambitions.

The recent episode of "ethnic violence" in Kalimantan is a
case in point. There has been a long history of conflict between
the Dayaks, the indigenous people of Kalimantan, and the
Madurese. The first Madurese arrived in Kalimantan in the 1930s
(the transmigration program was initially started by the Dutch
colonizers) but these numbers increased dramatically in the 1970s
as a direct consequence of the Indonesian government's
transmigration plan.

Under the transmigration program the government hoped to ease
the pressures of the growing population in Java and populate
those areas of Indonesia that were less densely populated.

Indonesia's transmigration program has gone down in world
history as one of the largest movements of peoples in this
century. Independent reports have put the number of transmigrated
families at about 2 million since the program started.

The main target areas for the Indonesian government were
Kalimantan, Irian Jaya and Lampung in southern Sumatra.
Kalimantan was targeted for two reasons; its low population
density and the abundance of natural resources.

The government's experiment to brutally mix diverse cultures
without the support of adequate developmental policies or
delivery mechanisms, institutions and infrastructure that
guaranteed equitable distribution and protected and respected the
indigenous peoples' sensitivities and the sheer lack of sincerity
in promoting real growth, was a recipe for disaster.

This was a powder keg waiting to be ignited.

This was colonization happening a second time around and was
met with indigenous resistance that has grown over the years. The
transmigration exercise has obviously backfired and has left, in
its wake, a host of other problems including the recent spate of
gory ethnic clashes.

The transmigration program in Kalimantan resulted in the
rainforests being replaced by palm oil and coconut plantations.
The Dayaks soon found themselves at the bottom of the economic
pile and unable to pursue their traditional means of existence.
Traditionally the Dayaks are wedded, in more ways than one, to
their forests, which are an inextricable part of the Dayak way of
life.

The government appropriated Dayak lands whilst no efforts were
made to give them a chance to share in the exploitation of their
traditional resources, nor were adequate efforts made to provide
opportunity for upward mobility.

The transmigrated Madurese have become the soft targets for
the Dayak's in their expression of anger and dissatisfaction. The
deployment of skewed policies, with active help from the World
Bank, is the biggest contributor to the unrest in Kalimantan.

This pattern of misery has been replicated in other parts of
Indonesia. The recent picture of the thousands of Madurese
fleeing Kalimantan is enough evidence of the failure of this
policy.

The government, and the World Bank, would have to be
accountable to the angry Dayaks, the re-displaced Madurese and
the Indonesians at large for this disaster.

There are no universal policy prescriptions available to
counter ethnic conflicts and every nation state has its own share
of ethnic diversity.

The size, geographic distribution and degree of mobilization
of the diverse segments, number; the relationship of ethnic
diversity to other forms of social differentiation and hierarchy;
the cultural definition of the state -- all these are pointers
for formulation of policies that would lessen ethnic tensions.

Ethnicity by itself is not dangerous -- it is the destructive
manifestations and the propensity of ethnicity to be exploited in
the repressive political context that needs to be addressed.

The last time Indonesia collectively put aside ethnicity was
during its fight for independence. The post-independence period
has witnessed succeeding governments that have consciously
followed a path, stemming from political considerations, of
building a centripetal structure. The almost fanatical obsession
with Javanization has led to a permanent mindset within the
minorities of maltreatment.

Instead of choosing to preserve and respect ethnic diversity
outside the realms of governance, succeeding governments have
unwittingly laid the foundations of a sharply divided country.

Today we see the combatants in the several ethnic conflicts
around Indonesia, whether they are in the majority or not within
their respective communities, using and highlighting their ethnic
diversity as a justification for mobilizing support.

The solution lies in adopting policy based initiatives whilst
shunning the colonial "police-the-minorities" approach.

The Indonesian government would actively have to pursue and
practice the concept of "state neutrality" as a means for
promoting ethnic accommodation and preventing ethnic conflict --
but this is easier said than done.

Reversing decades of policies that promoted internal
colonization, as a means of promoting trust and respect for the
unity of Indonesia is a gargantuan task. Perhaps some of the
problems would be resolved with the recent moves by the
government to decentralize governance and to give a degree of
autonomy to regions.

The autonomy efforts would have to go hand in hand with
electoral reforms so that minorities can rely on the system for
fair representation. The danger of disintegration will once again
loom large if these autonomy efforts are badly or insincerely
executed.

The writer is a regional commentator on political and economic
affairs based in Jakarta.