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.