How to combat barbarism
How to combat barbarism
After sixty years of independence, the question on everybody's
lips is not how much does kerosene or gasoline cost in Indonesia?
Nor whether the Indonesian police and military will win the
battle against terrorists. But it is the question of whether
barbarians are growing in number -- without the Central Bureau of
Statistics being aware of it.
The beheadings of the three schoolgirls in Poso, Central
Sulawesi, recently, certainly could not have been the work of one
or two barbarians. How large is their number? Where are they
hiding? Why have they become so barbaric so suddenly in an ideal
society such as Pancasila society like ours?
It is easy for the President to order the arrest of the
perpetrators, dead or alive, but it will not be as easy as
catching street criminals. For those with extreme ideologies
should be classified as belonging to or being heavily influenced
by terrorists' way of thinking. And how many of these that belong
to this category are still at large?
The Mahdi religious sect, for instance, seems to belong to
such extreme or radical groupings. It is very sad to see that the
Police, without gathering enough intelligence, have lost more men
in a sudden confrontation (three killed among them and only one
loss among the enemy). Intensifying patrol activities by more
troops in suspected areas would only scare away the terrorists or
the barbarians without addressing their basic grievances.
Many analysts are wondering whether the barbarians are not
cooperating with the terrorists and rather radical elements to
discredit the central government. Improvements in the country's
general economic and social conditions are now more than ever
called for. It seems in this connection that distributing money
to the poor is not enough.
Perhaps what the majority of the "have-nots" are wishing is
the price increases do not look too "barbaric" to them by an
increase of 100 percent or more. Alas, we cannot prevent
historians from writing that the Pancasila society has become
more violent and that way of life now is killing people or
killing money (corruption). The task of the government now is to
prevent barbarism, extremism and terrorism from spreading further
is through initiating more welfare projects, reducing
unemployment and eradicating poverty.
Hopefully, the government can prevent sectarianism to develop
into barbarism this way.
GANDHI SUKARDI, Jakarta