Jakartan empire faces structural change

Jakartan empire faces structural change

By Michael van Langenberg

SYDNEY: The Jakarta Post on Nov. 10 editorialized as follows:
"The central government must do away with its obsession with
national unity and start giving real autonomy to the regions. The
government must not offer half-hearted measures if it wants to
spare this nation from disintegrating. Barring complete
separation, the ultimate form of autonomy is federalism ...
Ultimately, the real threat to disintegration ... comes from
Jakarta."

The New Order regime from its inception in 1966 constructed a
state-system in which two factors predominated. First was an
idealized
nation conceived in the official motto of "Unity in Diversity"
(Bhinneka Tunggal Ika). Second were notions of an 'integralistic'
state resting on "family" principles, designed to protect an
archipelaegic unity (wawasan nusantara).

From its very beginning in 1945 there has been a crucial
contradiction in the Indonesian state-system between ideal legal
principles of regional autonomy, and the reality of an increasingly
centralized national state.

The collapse of the Soeharto presidency in 1998 may mark the
end of a century-long process of bureaucratic centralism in state
building. That process began with the consolidation of the
imperial state of the Netherlands Indies at the turn of the 20th
century.

In its later stage, Soeharto's presidency came to resemble the
imperial governor-generalships, supplemented with resonances of
pre-colonial divine kingship. Soeharto's presidency ended amid a
massive loss of popular legitimacy.

National government itself was perceived widely as corrupt and
nepotistic, responsible for abuses by the military, greedily
appropriating regional resources, and culturally arrogant.

In the past decade, coherent independence movements emerged in
several territories of the state. East Timor is now on the road
to full independence. Aceh seems destined to achieve either
independence or some kind of special "federalist" relationship
with Jakarta in the immediate future.

Irian Jaya has just been divided into three provinces,
creating increased local resentment against what is perceived as
a further example of Jakartan imperialism. Increasingly coherent
movements for regional "autonomy" are now also active in Maluku
(in two areas), Sulawesi (more than one!), Riau, West and East
Kalimantan, West Sumatra, and Bali.

How will the new government headed by President Abdurrahman
Wahid deal with these movements? Executive government is vastly
weaker than a decade earlier. The legislature is now more
powerful and more legitimate than at any time since the mid-
1950s. It has successfully restricted presidential incumbency to
two five-year terms, and made the president answerable to the
House of Representatives once a year.

The Speaker of the Peoples' Consultative Assembly (MPR), Amien
Rais, is a prominent advocate of a federalist state. Popular
legitimacy of the internal security functions and political role
of the military is now lower than at any time in the history of
independent Indonesia. The ruling oligarchy of the New Order
no longer dominates the economy to the extent it did prior to the
economic crisis of 1997-98. Conditions are ripe for a significant
dispersal of power within the Jakartan empire.

Supporters of Abdurrahman and Vice-President Megawati
Sukarnoputri present their political partnership as an
integrating leadership "duality" (dwitunggal), echoing that of
Indonesia's two independence proklamator, Sukarno and Hatta.

Like them, Abdurrahman and Megawati reflect a partnership
of Islamic identity and secularist orientation. Similar echoes of the
earlier dwitunggal are heard in Abdurrahman's stated preference
for a federalist Indonesia, while Megawati has emphasized
commitment to her father's vision of a centralized unitary state.

However, unlike the symbolic regional duality of Java/Bali and
Sumatra/"outer islands" of the Sukarno-Hatta dwitunggal,
Abdurrahman and Megawati constitute an emphatically Javanese
variant of national political culture.

The new cabinet has been designated the Cabinet of National
Unity. In reality it is a cabinet of compromise and coalition
building. It brings together conflicting political forces - rural
Javanese Islam, modernizing reformist Islam, secularist
nationalism, federalists, unitarists, military professionals,
internationalists, protectionists, liberal democrats.

It reflects the broad coalition that Abdurrahman built within
the MPR in October to gain the presidency. In a sense this was
less a coalition to ensure that Abdurrahman became president than
to ensure that Megawati did not.

Once the Abdurrahman-Megawati dwitunggal was in place,
the cabinet had to accommodate the wide range of interests behind it.
These negotiations saw the cabinet increase from Abdurrahman's
initially intended 25 to an eventual 35 portfolios. Policy
coherence might prove impossible. Executive government
instability is a distinct likelihood.

Alongside reformasi, "referendum" has entered the dominant
national discourse. The former emphasizes a new era of "moral"
politics, with national leaders seeking popular legitimacy as a
matter of priority. The latter discourse, on display most vocally
in East Timor and Aceh, has placed the debate about federalism
and secessionism at center stage. The "Jakartan empire" is facing
far-reaching structural change.

The writer is a private consultant and researcher on contemporary
Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and fractional employee in the
School of Asian Studies, University of Sydney. The above article
appears with the courtesy of the Inside Indonesia magazine, in
which it first appeared in the January-March edition.