Is ABRI losing its sight of history?
Is ABRI losing its sight of history?
Reactions to the startling remarks made by the Army Chief Gen. Hartono recently that every member of the Armed Forces is a supporter of Golkar have continued unabated. Political scientist J. Soedjati Djiwandono argues that the Armed Forces may have lost sight of history.
JAKARTA (JP): Certain points need to be highlighted in the current debate on the appropriate link or relationship between the Armed Forces (ABRI) and the functional group Golkar. What lessons can we learn from this episode?
The remark of Gen. Hartono's that sparked off all this fuss, namely the assertion that ABRI members -- not just the Army, of which he is Chief of Staff -- are Golkar cadres, created the impression he was speaking on behalf of the Armed Forces as a whole. At first sight it may appear to be only a minor point.
That his authority to do so may have been questioned may be one reason behind the seemingly contradictory and confusing comments. One ABRI leader commented that Gen. Hartono's remark represented his personal view. In the mean time, no word has been heard from any of the chiefs of staff of the other services.
One cannot help but ask, what has happened to the leadership of ABRI, which, in the words of Article 28 of Law No. 20/1982, "as a social force shall act as the dynamizer and stabilizer, which along with other social forces shall perform the task of safeguarding and ensuring the success of the national struggle in ensuring independence and promoting the welfare of the Indonesian people"?
Worst of all is the argument in support of Gen. Hartono's view, that after all it was ABRI that gave birth to Golkar. This, surely, is not wrong in itself. But it is wrongheaded. It has lost sight of history. Memories are too short.
One cannot help but ask, who then gave birth to the other two political parties, the Indonesian Democratic Party and the United Development Party? In point of fact, each came into being as a result of a forced merger of like-minded political parties. And who was the motivating, driving force behind these mergers, conceived to simplify the multi-party system? It was ABRI.
Indeed, one may argue that ABRI was simply acting as the "midwife" assisting the birth of these two political parties. But the same may be said of Golkar. It was not Golkar itself, but its predecessor, the Sekber Golkar (Joint Secretariat of the Functional Groups not affiliated to political parties), the root of the present Golkar, whose establishment ABRI helped initiate.
On that basis, strictly speaking, Gen. Hartono's remark should be reversed. Golkar members are "cadres" of ABRI, not the other way round! And so are members of the other two political parties. But surely, this would be a further distortion of the term "cadre", which has been distorted and grossly misunderstood all along, anyway. And to assert that ABRI members are cadres of Golkar and are therefore committed to its electoral victory is, to put it mildly, worrisome. It is intimidating. ABRI members themselves don't have the right to vote, so what may be the implication of such a commitment?
The point is that the three political organizations (parties) are all the result of ABRI's social and political engineering, for good, noble and therefore justifiable purposes, that is not only to simplify but more importantly to re-orient the party system towards the Pancasila state ideology. This was to be confirmed in 1983, with the introduction of the azas tunggal (sole ideological) basis of Pancasila for all social and political groupings.
Therefore, for ABRI to take side with any one of the political parties is tantamount, as it were, to a "father" taking side of his favorite "son". Whatever may the reasons, such an attitude does not befit a good and wise "father", especially for reasons of vested interest. What kind of a "father" is ABRI in that sense? What kind of a leader? What kind of a 'stabilizer and dynamizer'? Is ABRI losing its sight of history as well? Is it losing its capacity for strategic thinking? Is it losing sight of its leading and strategic position as the mainstay of national stability?
Indeed, the truth sometimes hurts. But we ought to be honest with ourselves. At least for a long time to come and in a crucial way, this nation will continue to depend on ABRI's leadership.
The writer is a member of the Board of Directors of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.