Lawlessness worse than disintegration

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?