Is RI set to become a 'junk nation'?

By Mochtar Buchori

VANCOUVER (JP): "Junk nations," according to Christopher Dickey (Newsweek Nov. 27, 1995), are "bits and pieces (which) are falling away from old states without quite managing to form new ones."

Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia -- the remnants of Yugoslavia -- are among examples he cited in the article along with Kurdistan in Northern Iraq which, according to Massoud Barzuni, a Kurdish leader, is "part of Iraq on one side, but separate from Iraq on the other".

There is just no known legal status for this kind of situation. Think of the new republics within the former Soviet Union -- Ukraine, Cechnya, Georgia and Kazakshtan, among others -- which declared independence after the Soviet Union officially dissolved on Dec. 26 1991. In Dickey's view, these republics are also "junk-nations".

Is Indonesia undergoing a "Balkanization process"? This was a question posed to me at a recent lecture here, hence the disturbing image in my mind of Indonesia disintegrating into a number of "junk nations".

Clearly referring to violent cases in East Timor, Aceh, Irian Jaya and also Ambon, the audience wondered whether these cases are symptoms of a disintegration process.

My response outlined that the cases they were referring to do not signify the breakdown of Indonesia as a state and as a nation. The East Timor problem can indeed be looked upon as a case of national separatism, but all the other examples are of a different nature altogether.

Whereas not every person in East Timor has the feeling that he or she is part of the Indonesian nation, people in Aceh, Ambon, and Irian Jaya have always had positive feelings about Indonesian nationhood.

The protests in Aceh and Irian Jaya are triggered primarily by practices of bad governance perpetrated by the military and civilian bureaucrats within the central government in Jakarta.

The riots in Ambon are counterreform acts aimed at aborting the reform movement. If and when the coming general election succeeds in generating a legitimate government, I think that the termination of practices of bad governance will restore a feeling of nationhood among the majority of the Indonesian people.

Jean-Marie Guehenno (The End of Nation-State, 1995), argued that "nation" and "state" are not the same thing and that "a nation's only definition is historic. It is a place of common history, of common happiness and common sadness".

Dickey wrote that "A nation, in a sense, is about romance; something you carry in your heart. A state, on the other hand, is about the passport you carry in your pocket. It is defined by borders and the government within them, with a flag and stamps. taxes, international recognition and an army".

I added that the sense of nationhood among Indonesians was initiated in 1928, that is when representatives of miscellaneous youth organizations pledged that they belonged to one nation, the Indonesian nation; that they belong to one country, Indonesia; and that they spoke one language, the Indonesian language. Our nationhood has been cultivated for more than five generations; it has faced and overcome innumerable critical events in its history and cannot possibly be washed away by government mismanagement perpetrated by one generation.

But what if the next general election fails to produce a capable and legitimate government?

Then, the danger of disintegration will become real, I think. The danger that the current unitarian state called the Republic of Indonesia will become splintered into a number of "junk- nations" is not unimaginable. This possibility is partly a consequence of the fact that Indonesia is a pluralistic society, in terms of ethnicity, religion and language.

In this kind of situation, the most effective way to prevent the breakup of the Indonesian state and nation is, according to Senator Moynihan (Pandaemonium: Ethnicity in International Politics, 1993), to draw a clear line between matters of ethnicity and matters of nationality.

As long as we are willing to perceive the current chaos and lawlessness as expressions of ethnic and religious discord caused by intolerance and not as manifestations of national conflict, we will be able to overcome all disturbances in a wise manner.

We will be able to end all violations of humanity without resorting to violence. But if we see our current problems as a conflict of forces within our nation, then we will be forever entangled in a vicious circle of violence and counterviolence. We will never find a peaceful solution to our present crisis.

"Junk nations" have no future. Their viability is very low. According to Prof. Gidon Gotlieb of the University of Chicago, "junk states" are basically "the conclusions of despair". In modern diplomatic lingo they are "entities" created to satisfy a given set of needs for a short duration and rest on a very shaky support system. "Junk states" or "entities" are created because they are the only proposition left to save the lives of hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of human beings.

Perhaps we should ask ourselves at this juncture whether we are indeed a nation in despair and whether breaking up our nation-state is indeed the only way left to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of our people. I think it is high time our political elite pondered this question.

The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs based in Jakarta.