Johannesburg Summit: Rethinking old practices

Johannesburg Summit: Rethinking old practices

Yanuar Nugroho, Director, Business Watch Indonesia, Lecturer,
Sahid University, Surakarta, Researcher, Unisosdem, Jakarta,
yanuar-n@unisosdem.org

The World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) will start
in Johannesburg on Aug. 26 and end on Sept. 6. The summit is
hoped to be able to make major corrections towards the way
development has been taking place -- at least after the Rio
Summit.

The preparatory talks or PrepComIV held in Bali, the final
stop before Johannesburg, was considered to have failed to
address some important issues. It seems that we are forced to
believe that there is only one way the development of our world
should be conducted.

It is this development that worships growth and whatever means
are used to achieve it, that fools the mainstream of the
definition of valuable, a life-style of capital gain and
financial reward. This does not apply only to private lives and
advancement but also to public life and governance which tend to
marginalize those who are considered not able to bring about
growth -- it happens almost everywhere in the world, including
Indonesia.

Recently, 40 peasants, representing 244 families, were
fighting for their right to their "promised land" before they
were moved under the PIR-Trans (People's Plantation Program and
Transmigration) in West Kalimantan. In order to announce their
fight, assisted by the Advocacy Service for Justice and Peace
(PADMA), they camped for more than 10 days in the front-yard of
the Agriculture Department in Jakarta (Kompas Daily, Aug. 1
2002).

They had been told seven years earlier that each family would
get two hectares of land and could become small sub-contractors
for the palm plantations managed by PT. Antar Mustika Segara
(AMS) and the Benoa Indah business group. They are still waiting.
And they are not the only ones.

There are 3,938 families being neglected by PT. Polipant
Sejahtera in similar circumstances and in total there are nearly
21,000 deprived peasants of the PIR-Trans program in West
Kalimantan being mistreated and ignored. How can we understand
this situation, let alone take any action?

It seems that the concept of our shared-life has to be
renewed. Taking the recent conditions of the "shared-life" into
account should be appropriately accompanied by a careful
examination of the concept of power. Why? Because, issues like
sustainable development and eviction of the marginalized assumes
the existence of power in our "shared life" called society. What
should be in mind?

First, in fact, the center of power in society is not single
or monolithic. The assumption that power lies only in the hands
of the state apparatus is no longer acceptable. In the existing
structure of political economy, for instance, business society is
many times more powerful than local government.

Here lies the issue of globalization and economic power as the
proof. Unless the remarkable economic power is taken into
consideration as a shaping force of society, the discussion on
globalization -- as it would color Johannesburg's summit -- or
recklessly neglecting the lives of the marginalized -- as it
happens with the PIR-Trans' case -- makes little sense.

Second, the notion of "democracy" seems to be based too much
on the democratic and accountable exercise of state power. This
account shows that what is absent from this notion is the status
of economic power. In this term, the "neo-liberalism" is then
defined as the uncontrollable economic power seeking profit in
any area of the market system.

It is therefore emerging into the concern to espouse the
extension of the democratic criteria to some other centers of
power in society. In particular, if we talk about the dark side
of neo-liberalism, we cannot but also touch upon the issue of
economic power, or more practically, business power. And here
comes the not so black-and-white arena of ethics.

Now, it might be confronted by the question of "how to
democratize business power". Then, when people talk about
democracy, what they (or we) have in mind is usually the
parliamentary character, in the form of many representative
bodies (DPR, MPR, Union, etc). And any discussion on this issue
is likely to hit a wall because we are all captured by the
traditional concept of "democracy", i.e. democratizing the state
power and governance. So, we have to go beyond this:
democratizing the economic and business powers.

Surely it demands imagination to translate this vision into a
series of concrete steps. What seems clear is that "power" is
elusive, and the nature of uncontrolled power to be held
accountable shifts as historical contingency. The target is now
balancing three societal forces, i.e. public agency, community
and market. Thus, in this light, it also becomes clear, that the
concept of "civil society" is not "anti-state", but anti any
"unaccountable exercise of power" regardless of whether it is
practiced by public agencies (state apparatus, military bodies,
monitoring groups, etc), communities (religion, ethnic,
primordialistic groups) or market (corporations, business, TNCs,
MNCs).

Where does rethinking business power lead? Formulating the
idea and delivering it to those groups which have access to
promote changes in society, the concern is to cultivate several
possibilities of preliminary steps to change the paradigm of
democratization and civil society empowerment.

Then, at a practical level -- in the light of this new
paradigm of power -- some creative, collaborative work might
eventuate. For example, by forming, expanding and intensifying
watchdog organizations and networks for monitoring any power
abuses, especially by state and business powers in the issue of
regional autonomy, expanding and intensifying the unionization of
laborers, but now with a new agenda of linking them with local
communities within which the workers are situated.

The other possibilities are pushing the DPR (parliament) at
all levels (central, province, district) to have a committee for
monitoring business malpractice -- within the context of
decentralization -- with close cooperation with watchdog
organizations specializing in business malpractices.

Last but not least, there is urgency in NGO's activities for
combining the "negative logic" (i.e. advocacy logic) with a
"positive logic" (i.e. developmentalist logic). It is here that
the "advocacy logic" meets with the "developmentalist agenda".
The term "developmentalist" may arouse suspicion, but its
substance is simply to do real organizing of the production of
daily needs of people at the most practical levels (say,
networking for the marketing of organic farming, fair-trading,
"green" business, etc.).

Also, by encouraging those groups who have access to written
communication and writing, to publish their reflections and
analyses on the issue of poly-centrists of power, their
(un)accountability to the public, their virtues and vices in
relation to the welfare of the local population, and the like.

Therefore, it is clear that the "new paradigm" (if it can be
called as such) is so moderate, not anti-market, not anti-power,
not anti-business. It is also clear that it is not blindly anti-
government. It is only a foregone view to apply the democratic
criteria to the new power centers in society. And in terms of
logic, the existing excuse for excluding the criteria to business
powers has no solid ground.