Lawlessness worse than disintegration

Violent outbursts threaten to break down social trust, throwing national unity in limbo and unleashing chaos and lawlessness. Political scientist J. Soedjati Djiwandono thinks the latter is more dangerous than disintegration.

JAKARTA (JP): The slogan unitariness and unity of the nation (persatuan dan kesatuan bangsa) has been on the lips of most leaders in this country since Soeharto came to power. Now it seems even more often and more readily uttered than before, not only because of the threat to national unity, but also what is generally perceived as the danger of disintegration.

Many people do not really seem to care about the difference between the two words. In fact, the term is incoherent. Persatuan (unity) refers to Indonesian nationhood, whereas kesatuan (unitariness) refers to Indonesian statehood, that is, the form of the state.

Indeed, national unity in this country has been set back for some time, particularly in religious and racial terms, if not so much in ethnic terms. However, at this initial stage of reform, ironically, it has suffered a further setback. At least on the surface, religion seems to have been made the main dividing factor.

I, for one, am more concerned with national unity than with disintegration, if the former should mean the unity of the Indonesian people, and the latter the falling apart of the unitary state. Admittedly, no government since independence has been able to properly manage this country, the largest archipelago and the fourth most populous, and probably the most diverse nation in the world.

One government after another has bungled, most notably in Aceh, in Irian Jaya, and since 1976 in East Timor. For these provinces and perhaps some others as well, to be part of this huge unitary republic is no big deal. Minorities do not fare better.

Interestingly, when one talks about the majority of the people in this country, one inevitably refers to the religious factor, not the ethnic, say the Javanese that have constituted a large majority of the population since well before the advent of Islam. Only when speaking of minorities, then, would one refer not only to religious, but also to ethnic and racial (particularly Chinese) backgrounds.

In point of fact, to over-emphasize the dichotomy between majority and minorities runs counter to the idea at the inception of the Indonesian nationhood expressed so enthusiastically in the youth pledge of 1928, the date of which, October 28, the nation celebrates every year with nostalgia.

With all due respect to the founding fathers of this republic, the spirit of the original draft preamble to the 1945 constitution, before the present one was promulgated on Aug. 18, 1945, was already a betrayal of the spirit of the youth pledge in that it began to make a distinction between the religious majority and the rest of the population in reference to their religious obligations. Despite the removal of the famous seven words, restoring, in effect, the spirit of the youth pledge, religious issues have marked the life of the republic from the beginning.

It is hard to understand why we should stick our necks out in defending the unitary state or even further in maintaining the existence of just a single nation-state of Indonesia, if in that unified state we are forever fighting with one another over the philosophical foundation of the state, ignoring the general welfare of the people, for which it was established in the first place. To struggle for the dominance, let alone the imposition of a religion, even that of a large majority, if that's what the issue is all really about, is not to struggle for the general welfare of the whole people.

Granted that the teachings of that religion are meant to be universal for the entirety of humanity, so are those of the other religions. So such an effort is diametrically opposed to the concept of Indonesian nationhood, the very foundation of this republic, which recognizes no privileges for any religious, racial, ethnic, linguistic or cultural backgrounds or affinities.

Worse still, it is an abuse of religion to use it basically for no more than narrow political ends, which serve only the interest of a certain group of people, no matter how large that group may be.

Certainly, we cannot expect anyone or any group of people to enter into any kind of unity or integration, if by so doing they will suffer some form of discrimination or injustice. Separatism would be an attractive alternative, if that unity or integration does not deliver the goods.

I am deeply concerned not so much over disintegration or separatism as over the violence that usually marks its process with frightening costs in terms of human lives. We can learn from the experiences of such cases as Northern Ireland, Bosnia Herzegovina, and Chechnya, in which religion supposedly plays an important role, and for which a solution is not in sight in the foreseeable future.

How many more lives are to be sacrificed?

A religious conflict is in itself a contradiction in terms, for religion and peace go together. Moreover, history has shown that in a so-called religious conflict, which is usually a cover for much more mundane interests, nobody actually wins.

Are we really facing the threat of disintegration in the sense of separatism? Probably not. But the alternative is no better. We are already disintegrating in terms of national unity.

Worst of all, lacking in leadership, what we find ourselves in now is a state of lawlessness with the breakdown of law and order. This is far worse than a revolution or disintegration. Quo vadis Indonesia?