Government initiates only half-hearted change

By Adrianus Meliala

JAKARTA (JP): A foreign friend asked me once what does reform actually mean to most Indonesians. Since it was then only about a week after Soeharto was toppled on May 21, 1998, I still had the courage to say that it was a mini revolution.

Change would be the sole word which has any meaning. We could only say that change has occurred if not only Soeharto and his government, but also the whole structure of understanding on almost everything which the New Order government monopolized is transformed. The mini revolution would be on two levels: ideas and actual change.

Five months into this reform era, I am unable to be as energetic as I used to be in responding to the same question. And it is probably true that more and more people feel the same way. Is what we are experiencing the reform we dreamed about? Are we going in the right direction to get out of the economic crisis and political turbulence?

Change has undoubtedly taken place in the last five months. However, the remaining number of social, political and economic issues which are regarded as unfair or even illegal, still outweighs the number of changes that have been implemented. To examine why that is the case we should refer first to why there were changes in some areas. It would easy to be suspicious that those changes were not induced by people's demands for reform, but merely government-initiated efforts to attract public support.

How far reform has progressed at the empirical level can be calculated and it is still taking place. Of more concern is that with regard to ideas we have failed to really progress.

Yasraf Amir Piliang wrote in the Kompas daily (Sept. 10, 1998) that the campaign to root out the old structures plagued with corruption, collusion and nepotism, never stopped and seems to have good prospects of continuing. The similarity of demands raised by almost all elements of society, according to Yasraf, can be regarded as a model of thinking called deconstruction.

With this, we revitalize the old structure by rethinking the formal, conventional and traditional meaning of all structures which occupied our minds for more than 30 years. And because of that, Yasraf concluded, there are a lot of aspects of our nation and state which ought to be deconstructed.

He quoted Jacques Derrida's concept of "deconstruction" from his book Of Grammatology (1993). Derrida meant this as an intellectual strategy to destroy and ruin any kind of established structures either in language, ideology, the economy, politics, law or culture. Those structures, in this country, were built on such categorical foundations regarding their function and limitations that there was no space for more than one interpretation.

"Construction" would be the next logical step following deconstruction, in order to create new structures which would gain the people's support, be more democratic and more open- minded. That is the essence of structural reform.

However, what has happened in Indonesia so far is clearly at odds with Derrida's expectations. In some ways, we seem to be on the deconstruction track, as can be seen by the end of things like the Pancasila orientation course due to its indoctrinating character.

But in many more ways, people's concept of deconstruction tends to be more of just an attack on the symbols they perceive to be unfair, dishonest or induce suffering. That is what happened when people damaged and burned luxury cars and houses during the May riots in Jakarta and in other towns around Indonesia.

Unfortunately, deconstruction is not synonymous with attacking. At the least, deconstruction does not require physical destruction. People can regard as successful deconstruction the government's attempt to create a new jargon by dispensing with the old one. The broadening of political power by allowing new parties is clearly another indication of the new construction of the people-government relationship.

Back to my pessimism regarding the deconstruction that has happened so far; how can we construct a new meaning of "society" as a political or economic power after cars were burned, shops destroyed and Chinese-Indonesians hounded out of the country? Nothing has changed. The situation is in fact getting much worse. As universities have rejected the Pancasila courses, the press has rejected such jargon as "a free but responsible press" and the East Timorese have rejected the idea of "full autonomy" for their territory, what does the future hold?

The danger is that the more the government procrastinates over the handling of issues on which most people have already decided what they want, the greater is the possibility we will end up with blurred solutions. The other danger is we will forget that there are many other "old" issues still unresolved.

Observers across the country, as we can read in foreign media reports, have expressed deep concern about Indonesia's current situation. On an empirical level they see that we are still struggling with the economic crisis. We are also suffering from political turmoil mostly because of the government's unresponsiveness to people's aspirations. Assuming that all these problems are basically caused by the persistence of the old government system, promises of reform are hard to take seriously.

The same situation is also found at the ideas level, as discussed above. So what's wrong with us?

This situation was predicted by many because there are still a large number of Soeharto's ministers in power. The new government seems to reject the idea of deconstructing the foundations of the structures created by the previous regime.

It is unfortunate that we have this half-hearted government. In many ways it controls the speed of deconstruction. Outdated theories regarding state control based on the introduction of the decree on freedom of expression and also the controversial way the government is handling the PDI conflict are two examples of its lackadaisical attitude toward change.

On the other hand, the public is also to blame for being half- hearted about its commitment to seeing through reform. It is clear now that not all people are committed to change. An obvious example is the low-ranking public officials who were arrested for corruption linked to the distribution of basic foodstuffs.

We have also witnessed disputes among high-ranking officials, both in the military and civilian circles, leaving a big question over what is actually happening.

The greedy businessmen and bankers awaiting trial are also another indication that we are not as homogeneous as we think we are. Finally, have we really rejected the idea of improving our lot by looting others' property or by inciting riots? Do we have to end up like this?

The writer is a criminologist at the University of Indonesia, who is researching his doctorate in Queensland, Australia.