Expert highlights ABRI declining political influence
Expert highlights ABRI declining political influence
JAKARTA (JP): The country's emphasis on economic development and the growing clout of technocrats are both causing a decline of Armed Forces (ABRI) control over policymaking processes, says an expert.
Indonesia-watcher Howard M. Federspiel from Ohio State University in the United States said here Saturday that the change of the political map has contributed to the fact that the military can no longer determine the running of many things simply by giving or withholding its approval.
According to the professor of political science who has written a number of books on Indonesia, in the 1970s many institutions would have simply submitted to ABRI's will.
"Today ABRI can't do that. If they do, businessmen will say, 'o...no, no' and the technocrats will say 'we have to repay our loans'," Federspiel told participants in a discussion on Islam and politics at the Center of Community and Islamic Studies here.
Public order is the area where the military's authority remains stable, he said. It has control over East Timor, for instance, because there is security problem in the territory.
"But does the military have control over Jakarta? Hardly, because there's no security issue here," he said.
He explained that the changes were brought about by rapid development. He pointed out how the buildings of financial institutions, such as banks and companies, now dominate the appearance of Indonesian cities.
"Ten years ago, if you drove to an average-sized city in Indonesia, the first things you'd notice would be government offices and military structures," he said.
Among Federspiel's books are Popular Literature of the Koran in Indonesia and The Renewal of Islamic Thought in Indonesia: Perception of Islam.
Moslems
Federspiel also described the increasingly close relations that Indonesian Moslems enjoy with the power holders.
He pointed out that, in the beginning, the New Order administration gave the community only limited opportunities to express their political aspirations because of the Moslems' own failure in establishing political clout.
Islam could have emerged as an "extraordinary political power" had it seized the opportunity created by the downfall of the now- banned Indonesian Communist Party in the mid-1960s, he said.
Now that Moslems have come full circle in their relationship with the power holders, with both parties now willing to accommodate one another, Islam in Indonesia will solidify its social and economic power.
Led by Moslem intellectuals and professionals, the community will now place greater demand on the government to recognize their interests, he said.
He admitted that the rapid development will somehow affect Moslems' way of life, but not to a great extent. "Indonesian Moslems will not turn out like the West within the next twenty years," he said.
"They'll find some way of saying, 'stop, this is far enough. No further'," Federspiel is also the director of the Indonesian- Canadian Islamic Higher Education Project at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. (31)