How do we define political reform?

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): The word reform has become very popular these days, to the extent of becoming a household word.

Initially, this phenomenon made me feel optimistic. I thought that the thinking class in our society sincerely wants reform. If that is the case, then there should be no problem whatsoever for our nation to introduce political and economic reforms.

But this sense of optimism vanished immediately after I read an explanation about how the Armed Forces (ABRI) is going to carry out its reform, and what its notion is regarding "political reform".

The April 3 edition of Kompas daily carried a small report on it. According to the chief of the Armed Forces' Sociopolitical Affairs, Lt. Gen. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, "the political attitude and view of ABRI regarding reform is that it should be carried out in a constitutional, conceptual, and gradual manner, it should be aimed at the right target, and carried out according to the priority of urgencies. ABRI is also of the opinion that reform has already been carried out in the process of nation building.

"The mechanism of reform is already prearranged in our political system. There is mechanism at the DPR/MPR level, there is also a set of established processes of implementing development programs, and there are proposals about political life, programs to increase political communication and programs to increase the quality of the general election. All those things constitute the mechanism of reform, and they are constitutional."

At this point, I lost my appetite to read any further. It became very clear to me that if this is the way the Armed Forces looks at and thinks of reform, then the gap between ABRI's notion and that of the demonstrating students and the academics regarding reform is as wide as ever, and is still unbridgeable. I do not see any common element between the two positions that can be used as a point of departure for formulating a reconciliatory position for the two sides.

If I am not mistaken, all the things that were mentioned by Yudhoyono as the "mechanism of reform" would be considered by the students and the academics precisely as the impediments of reform.

In my view, it is precisely the things the general mentioned in his explanation to the press that have made our political life deteriorate.

If the general elections that have been conducted after 1972 are considered to be "gradually qualitatively better", then it is really a tragedy. Is ABRI really serious in maintaining that the general election of 1997 was qualitatively better than that of 1992 and the preceding ones?

It is also self-deceptive, in my opinion, to think that our political system has become qualitatively better. What is the criterion? In my view, the way the government removed H. Jaelani (John) Naro from his throne as boss of the United Development Party was much gentler than the way the government marginalized the Indonesian Democratic Party's Megawati Soekarnoputri from the formal political system and make her existence as a political leader illicit.

Again, if we are really honest in viewing our political condition, it would be utterly impossible to assert that we have made significant progress in our political life. To me, political progress is indicated by the presence of greater respect for the people's sensibilities, by greater transparency in conducting public affairs, and significant reduction in the use of violent methods in bringing about public order. Do we have these indicators in our current political life?

I agree that during these years regulations have been constantly made concerning our political system. I also have no objection if ABRI wants to call these regulations "reforms". But this kind of reform is different, I think, than the reforms that the students and the academics have in mind.

Those reforms, conducted by the government since 1973, are "retrogressive reforms", that is, reforms that have taken us to a backward, more inferior or more primitive condition. Whereas the reforms the demonstrating students and the academics have in mind are, in my reading, "progressive reforms", that is, reforms that will take us to a condition better, more democratic, and more humane, than the one in which we live.

We can learn much in this case from the Chilean experience. The political reforms that were carried out during the Unidad Popular Government (1970 to 1973) under President Salvador Allende, and during the 17 years of military rule (1973 to 1990) under Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte were retrogressive reforms that caused a breakdown in the existing democratic system which was then still weak and embryonic, and ultimately brought the country into the status of an "authoritarian" state.

But the institutional reforms that were introduced during the administration of President Patricio Alwyn were progressive reforms that did not only rehabilitate, but also strengthened the Chilean democracy.

Since 1994, Chile has enjoyed the status of a "true democratic" country, the second-highest in a hierarchy of eight categories of democracy.

Let us, in this connection, thus be aware of the pitfalls of reforms. Let us remember that throughout the history of humankind the idea of reform has always created controversies.

John Stuart Mill wrote in 1859: "The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people."

And a more contemporary writer, Irving Howe (1920-1993), wrote in his A Critic's Notebook (published in 1994): "One great flaw in the reforming passion is that in its eagerness to remedy social wrongs it tends to neglect, certainly to undervalue, the experiences of those whose lives it wishes to improve."

This wisdom should prompt us to check constantly whether our agenda of reform really corresponds with the needs of the people. The Armed Forces, the students and the community of students and academics should ask themselves the following question: "What is my agenda of reform? Will it really improve the lives of the people whom we are supposed to serve?"

If each of us is willing to look honestly into ourselves and answer this question equally honestly for ourselves, I think we will then be able to avert a clash between two concepts of reform which, at the moment, seem to be at loggerheads.

The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.