Expert renews call for morality in politics
Expert renews call for morality in politics
People are still yearning for quality leadership a year after
President Abdurrahman Wahid was installed. The following is an
excerpt from an interview with political historian Azyumardi Azra
who recently launched his book Islam Substantif: Agar Umat Tidak
Jadi Buih (Substantive Islam: Ensuring the Ummah Never Become
Flotsam).
Question: Abdurrahman Wahid is approaching the first
anniversary of his presidency. You have disagreed with the
suggestion that Indonesia is currently 'governmentless' but how
about 'nongovernance'?
Answer: I would say so. I don't think we can say
'governmentless' as we do have a government, but an ineffective
one due to a number of factors. The first is friction between the
old political forces with the nascent, not yet solidified, new
political force.
Among the old political forces is the Indonesian Military
(TNI) which still tends to maintain its old political privileges.
There's a reluctance to follow through with its recently stated
repositioning. On the other hand, some of the new political
forces still hang on to TNI, as proven by their success in
ensuring that the military stay on in the legislature until 2009.
The second cause to our ineffective government is Gus Dur
(Abdurrahman) who has yet to show his leadership, as seen in his
inclination to take on controversial issues and policies. The
second proof of his lack of leadership is his tendency to ignore
standing administrative procedures.
As an individual, Gus Dur can become as egalitarian and
accessible to the public as he wishes, but he should also mind
the procedures and not bypass people.
We can see how many problems have emerged because he has
neglected procedures. The controversies surrounding the
replacement of the police chief, for instance, were a matter of
procedure and not the substance of the matter.
These all affect the government's effectiveness, which in turn
affects the effectiveness of other organizations such as law
enforcers, the military, the supreme court and others. We can see
how minimal law enforcement has been over the past year.
Your suggestion for the President?
Gus Dur has no grand strategies in two important fields:
economic and politics. Because of his personalized style, he
tends to adopt ad hoc and incremental policies, but not clear
strategies.
He does not have clear programs for economic recovery. His
wish to develop democratization is something that we all support,
but often the steps he takes are counterproductive to that aim.
One last thing I wish to note about Gus Dur is his recent
challenge that legislators hold a special session of the People's
Consultative Assembly in which he could be removed if the
legislature was dissatisfied with his answers about two financial
scandals. That is his right, but surely his response is out of
proportion because this could be a bad precedent.
What if a succession takes place in that special session? We
have always had "abnormal" successions. Soeharto replaced
(founding president) Sukarno in an abnormal way, B.J. Habibie
replaced Soeharto in similarly abnormal way.
When Gus Dur was elected last year, we reached a milestone
where we laid a firm foundation for democratization. Now if Gus
Dur is replaced in such an abnormal way, it would be a bad
precedent for our democratization.
What's your view on Muslims' place in the political decision
making process?
Indonesian Muslims are the majority suffering from a minority
complex. We are dominant in number but not in decision making
processes.
Now our biggest challenge is how to contribute to development
commensurate to our numbers. This depends very much on the Muslim
leaders. We have national top leaders from among the santri
(Muslim scholars) such as Gus Dur and Amien Rais, but when it
comes to decision-making these leaders are still entangled in
campaigns to further their own group's narrow interests.
Your arguments to support that statement?
We can judge this from the conflicts arising in the top layers
of the national leadership. The use of paramilitary groups such
as Banser and Pam Swakarsa in their conflicts does not encourage
a good climate for the institutional development (of Indonesian
politics.)
Really, those santri leaders should refrain from using
physical and psychological pressure (in solving conflicts).
Rather they should display stances that support democratization.
The use of paramilitary groups is certainly not exclusive to
Muslims.
No, of course not. Many other groups have them, and call it by
different names. The PDI Perjuangan, for instance, have a task
force (Satgas PDI). This phenomenon is a cause for concern
because it is counterproductive to our wish for democratization.
Muslims should empower themselves by developing political
parties (rather than developing such paramilitary groups).
Now your concept about substantive Islam.
What I mean by that is the actualization of Islamic values --
which stand as universal such as Al-'adalah (justice), Al-musawa
(egalitarianism), respect and tolerance -- into political
programs.
There are many substantive concepts in Islam which should
become the soul of political activism. This is substantive Islam.
In Indonesia, what we need now is a political morality which
is actualized into people's lives. Because of their majority, the
position of Muslims becomes very important.
For instance, if Muslims practice political ahlak (good
conduct), than many of our problems can be solved. (swe)