Hopes and fears
Hopes and fears
As 1998 ends at the stroke of midnight tonight, it brings to a
close easily the most dreadful year Indonesia has experienced in
decades. What will the new year bring? Indonesians are awaiting
the answer with a mixture of hope and apprehension.
Scattered civic unrest sparked by a crippling economic crisis
notwithstanding, up to May few Indonesians conceived the
possibility that anything could come to shatter the calm and
relative prosperity which three decades of government-imposed
stability had brought to the nation.
Tens of millions of Indonesians were not even born when an
Army lieutenant general called Soeharto crushed a communist-led
coup at the cost of an uncounted number of civilian lives -- some
say hundreds of thousands -- to end forever, as it seemed, two
decades of political strife and insecurity, and usher in a new
era of growth and prosperity.
Incredible as it may have seemed at the time, the monetary
crisis that began in Thailand in mid 1997 and spread rapidly
across the region exposed the rotten core of the self-serving
system that Soeharto had built and protected with an iron fist.
Spearheaded by the nation's students and intellectuals, a
snowballing reform movement, hardened by the fatal shooting of
four Trisakti University students by unidentified troops during
protest demonstrations in early May, forced Soeharto to
relinquish his presidency in favor of his then vice president,
B.J. Habibie, on May 21.
Hailed by some as marking the dawn of a new era for the
nation, that moment is seen by many as the beginning of a
protracted period of crisis brought about by the new government's
perceived lack of credibility and legitimacy. Habibie, after all,
was Soeharto's favored protege and could hardly be counted on to
successfully complete a democratic reform process which, under
Soeharto, he was known to oppose.
Most members of his Cabinet are former Soeharto ministers and,
his critics say, many policies are molded in his mentor's style
of power politics even though he has been compelled by
circumstance to make real concessions to the democracy movement.
Many skeptics see Habibie as a mere extension of Soeharto and
suspect he might, if given the chance, prefer to return to the
old Soeharto style of authoritarian governance. In other words,
at the heart of the current antagonism between the government and
a sizable part of the population is what analysts see as a crisis
of confidence that is being left to fester.
To return to the question of what the coming year will bring:
1999 presents Indonesia with the golden opportunity to resolve
its internal conflicts once and for all by bringing them into the
open through a general election. That, however, presumes that the
conditions that make it all possible exist.
First and foremost, there must be no gnawing uncertainty about
the holding of a general election that is truly fair, honest and
transparent. This principle must be ensured in the political laws
that are at present being debated in the House of
Representatives. Unfortunately, while in their public statements
all the parties involved have displayed a good understanding of
this necessity, the bickering that is at present holding up the
discussions is proof that the party factions concerned -- the
ruling Golkar in particular -- are placing their own interests
above those of the nation.
Many analysts fear that those who want to see the status quo
maintained -- the military included -- are still willing to
resort to whatever means necessary to ensure their interests are
served. This may augur that true democratic reform through a fair
and honest general election still remains a dream, or worse, may
be indefinitely postponed, since the House of Representatives is
still dominated by Soeharto-era politicians.
Add to all this the smoldering discontent and the intergroup
rivalries that are rife at the moment, and it does not bode well
for the nation in the year to come. Granted, many of these
assumptions may be based on a lingering distrust of the
government, the bureaucracy, the military and politicians.
If so, a good first step to make toward ensuring the dawning
of a better era is by removing the public's distrust of the
government. A national dialog would help. But given the obstacles
that seem to be still in the way of holding such a meeting of
minds, it might be easier for the government to simply begin by
abandoning its penchant for invoking controversial policies, such
as creating a civilian militia. All it takes is to better listen
to the voice of the people.