Habibie's communism comment anachronistic

Habibie's communism comment anachronistic

Marhaen was the name of a farmer ex-president Sukarno put into
the political lexicon under "Marhaenism", the Indonesian
alternative to Marxism. Curiously, President B.J. Habibie touched
on this dormant ideology in a statement last week. Political
analyst J. Soedjati Djiwandono looks at this issue.

JAKARTA (JP): President Habibie's recent statement on
communism, Marhaenism and socialism sounded like a pathetic
symptom of his frustration with his dismal failure either to
understand, let alone resolve, the numerous social, political
economic and security problems facing the nation.

His inclusion of socialism and Marhaenism may have been
directed particularly at the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) under Megawati, whose challenge to his
position and that of his own party, Golkar, he perhaps feels
unable to face. And his later explanation and elaboration serves
only to reveal a confused mind and a shameful lack of knowledge
and understanding of what he was talking about.

For one thing, it is anachronistic under the circumstances of
today's world to speak of a communist menace as an ideology.
Communism as a political movement may be a threat, but only if
the existing political system fails to promote justice. Yet it is
wrong to accuse any critical view of the existing system, even to
the extent of seeking an alternative system by democratic means,
of communist leanings or influence.

Besides, to mention communism, socialism and Marhaenism in one
breath is not really coherent. The idea of socialism developed
well before the time of Marx, who then developed the concept of
socialism of his own variant which he called "scientific
socialism", in contrast to the previous variant, which he
dismissed as "utopian socialism".

The kind of communism as we know it today is "Marxism-
Leninism", after being added with Lenin's contribution, one of
which is the idea of a "communist party" as a vanguard to lead
the "socialist revolution".

Engels, Marx's friend and confidant, did not seem to bother
about terminology. In his preface to the 1888 English edition of
Communist Manifesto, he wrote to the effect that he chose the
term "communist" simply because it had, at that time, come to be
commonly used and that it sounded more "radical" and more
"revolutionary".

For another, it is everyone's right to hold a political view,
in so far as doing one does not encroach on the rights of others
or disturb public order. It may be recalled that when Gen.
Soeharto banned the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) on March 12,
1966, for its alleged involvement in the Sept. 30 Movement
(Gestapu) of 1965 on the basis of the March 11 Order (Supersemar)
-- if such an order ever did exist -- the ban did not include
communism as an ideology. Only later, months later, did the
Provisional People's Consultative Assembly (MPRS) issue a decree
banning the spread of Marxism-Leninism.

Nor was communism as an ideology banned after the Madiun
Affair of 1948, which was alleged to have been led by the PKI. In
fact, even the PKI was not banned, which perhaps it should have
been. Interestingly, the Islamic Masyumi Party and the Indonesian
Socialist Party (PSI) were both banned by president Sukarno for
their supposed involvement in rebellions -- rightly or wrongly --
and their leaders arrested and detained without trial. Yet
neither Islam nor socialism were banned. In the former case --
detaining dozens of people without trial -- Sukarno was wrong.
But in the latter case, he was right.

To set the record straight, Gen. Soeharto let hundreds of
thousands of suspected communists be killed mercilessly and many
more hundreds of thousands detained for years on end without
trial. Indeed, some were tried before the court and sentenced to
either death or long years of imprisonment. Many of those
detained without trial have been released, but they have had to
bear a stigma on their names until today.

Thus under both the Old Order and the New Order, this nation
has an outstanding debt to humanity. Indeed, most but probably
not many of us -- admittedly not this writer -- have thought
about those black leaves in the history of our country in this
light when those horrible events took place. I believe for many
of us it has been a long, painful and bitter process of learning.

Successive Japanese governments have made amends for the past
"sins" of their nation during World War II by publicly
apologizing to a number of Asian countries. The French government
under president Chirac also expiated the wrong of his country
against the Jews during the war in Europe.

We, Indonesians, however, have remained silent about what
happened relatively not so long ago, which may now be described
as no less than "sins against humanity". To be sure, it has not
been as long ago as World War II. Still, it is beyond
comprehension that we should continue to allow ourselves to
wallow in vengeance even against those whose guilt is yet to be
proved beyond any reasonable doubt. Perhaps we need more time. It
is never too late to learn.