Hatta remembered as nation amends Constitution

Berni K. Moestafa and Febiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

"Every group is competing with each other in a scramble for profit. One's own group comes first, the community as a whole is forgotten."

Words that aptly describe today's political scene, yet were spoken 42 years ago by disgruntled vice president Mohammad Hatta just days before he resigned on Dec. 1, 1956.

Hatta was born 100 years ago today, but his message is still apt at a time the nation he helped found tries to kickstart a faltering democracy with an amended 1945 Constitution, which he helped to draft.

On Sunday, lawmakers completed the amendment of the 1945 Constitution, achieving what their predecessors some 50 years ago tried, but failed.

"Hatta would have had supported the amendment," said historian Anhar Gonggong over the weekend.

Bung Hatta, as people call him affectionately, ushered the nation through independence, and put an end to 350 years of colonial rule.

Together with his long-time partner, founding president Sukarno, or Bung Karno, Hatta was the driving force behind the struggle for freedom.

His thoughts remain particularly relevant today, when Indonesia, for a second time, is experimenting with democracy following 32 years under Soeharto's iron-fisted rule and when public confidence in the country's political system has been put to the test by what analysts have called short-sighted politicians neglecting their voters.

"What we must do now is repair our damaged political morality, and have it built on honesty," Hatta said in one of his writings, at a time when legislators were wrestling to draw up a new Constitution.

Few took note of his message, and political parties were soon brushed aside by the "guided democracy" of an increasingly authoritarian Sukarno.

Now the same type of politicking has reemerged and a second generation of the Sukarno family, his daughter President Megawati Soekarnoputri, rule the country.

Over the past few weeks, the fear that history will repeat itself has arisen, as bickering lawmakers risk bringing constitutional reform talks to a standstill.

"Democracy requires fairness, which is to recognize beliefs other than one's own, and to bow to the majority decision without surrendering one's own beliefs," Hatta added.

Hatta stuck to his guns. In 1945 he signed the Jakarta Chapter, which demanded the Constitution include a phrase calling for the imposition of sharia (Islamic law) for Muslims.

But upon complaints that it would upset the predominately Christian population in eastern Indonesia, Hatta agreed to drop it.

Today, a few outspoken lawmakers continue to insist on the sharia, while analysts dismiss such demands as simply a campaign by Islamic parties.

"Hatta dared to delete it (the sharia). He had the vision it took to keep this nation together," political analyst Soedjati Djiwandono said. "Vision, not narrow ideology, was his driving force."

Sukarno was a nationalist. His belief in a unitary state of Indonesia became a dogma among the nationalist parties that now rule the legislature.

By contrast, Hatta suggested federalism, reasoning it would fit with Indonesia's archipelagic state. He also coined the idea of decentralization empowering the people, and had demanded a professional military that would bow to its civilian rulers.

Hatta was born on August 12, 1902 in Bukittinggi, West Sumatra into a family with a strong Islamic background; his grandfather, Syekh Batu Hampar, was a prominent local ulema. His mother came from a respectable business family.

The family of Hatta's father wanted him to attend Islamic schools but they eventually bowed to the wish of his mother's family who sent him to secular, predominately Dutch schools.

His father's family again gave in when Hatta continued his studies in the Netherlands, instead of Mecca or Egypt where a person in his position would have been expected to extend his Islamic studies.

As one of the few who could afford higher education, Hatta took a serious interest in the plight of his people under Dutch rule.

In the Netherlands, he joined the Indische Verenigeng (East Indies Association) where he met like-minded Indonesians and Dutch people.

Upon his return home in 1932, Hatta led the New Indonesian National Education, where, as its chairman, he first met Sukarno. At that time, both were already prominent staunch critics of Dutch rule.

In the years after, they were arrested several times separately for their political activities, which were deemed to undermine Dutch authority.

The Dutch feared Sukarno's powerful charisma, which he used to call upon Indonesians to rise against their colonialist rulers. Hatta, meanwhile, laid the groundwork for more intellectuals to enter the resistance and turn the struggle for independence into a sophisticated campaign.

Hatta and Sukarno's real break came in the early 1940s when the Netherlands were preoccupied with World War II and when the idea of independence had gained a hold across the country.

By 1945, few Indonesians would have accepted anyone other than Sukarno and Hatta to declare Indonesia's independence.

The energetic president and his rational deputy led the young nation in its first 11 years.

Their contradicting characters were an asset during the independence struggle. But in the years after independence, it grew into a liability.

"For Sukarno, the revolution never stopped. It was Hatta who said it was time to stop thinking about revolution and start building the nation," said historian Anhar.

Soon Hatta came to also disapprove of Sukarno's personal life.

Deliar Noer in a 1990 biography of Hatta, wrote that he was irked by the glamorous life Sukarno led, which he thought was improper for a president. The differences became more apparent in politics where Sukarno became too dominant in the government.

In 1956, Hatta tendered his resignation over unreconcilable differences with the president.

"He was the first official at this level to voluntarily resign, after holding the post for 11 years," Soedjati said.

Hatta died on Friday March 13, 1980. Anhar said he had showed Indonesians the true value of leadership in a democracy. "Virtue, modesty and not to think of power as something one must hang on to," he said.