Learning from the transfer of power
Controversy over whether or not the government should continue with its plan to hold a seminar to discuss the last public speech made by the late president Sukarno in 1966 continues. The speech titled Nawaksara (nine points) is an accountability of his administration a year after the communist putsch. J. Soedjati Djiwandono, a political observer from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, takes a look at the controversy.
JAKARTA (JP): History can never be explained to the full. Different versions and interpretations are presented. And these often change in the course of time. Indeed, historians thrive on this. They never run out of arguments.
This is not meant to be cynical. The point is that new records and new facts keep coming to light, while many more may remain unearthed or banned for a period of time or for good. This is true with such historical events as World War I, the Russian Revolution, World War II, Pearl Harbor, the revolution in Eastern Europe, and the Vietnam War.
It is likely even more so with more recent history such as the communist coup attempt of 1965 (Gestapu) in Indonesia. And the fall of president Sukarno formed part of the aftermath of the Gestapu.
So if a single seminar on Nawaksara, a speech delivered by the late president Sukarno three decades ago which led to his downfall, is expected to provide the young generation with an adequate understanding of what really happened, it may not be worth the effort. If it is to reaffirm the government's version, it may be counterproductive. In any event, what is the urgency, anyway? What is the relevance to today's pressing problems?
All sorts of tricky questions may arise in such a seminar. President Sukarno was accused and found guilty of violating the constitution, and thus stripped of all his power. But was the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly (MPRS) itself legal and constitutional in the first place?
After all, the 1945 Constitution does not allow for a provisional consultative assembly, except in the form of the National Central Committee created after the proclamation of independence and the enactment of the 1945 Constitution pending a general election.
Originally, the members of the MPRS were personally appointed by president Sukarno himself, after he dissolved the Constituent Assembly and the House of Representatives resulting from the general election in 1955.
But in the wake of the Gestapu, new members of the MPRS were appointed by the New Order government to fill the seats left vacant by members, supporters and sympathizers of the banned and persecuted Indonesia Communist Party and its affiliated mass organizations.
These new members were certainly supporters of the New Order. Perhaps no one remembers exactly how many there were. But it must have been enough to ensure victory for the New Order and defeat for president Sukarno in the event of voting when a special session of the MPRS was convened.
Was the MPRS then any more legal and constitutional? Was it therefore competent to demand accountability from president Sukarno and subsequently to depose him?
Perhaps there are no easy answers to any of those or similar questions. One may be accused of siding with the Old Order and of opposing the New Order just for raising those questions, even today, and thus of being "against Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution." But judging by the emotion of the times, with overwhelming anti-Communist and anti-Sukarno sentiments, such questions most probably never crossed any one's mind.
However, the right lessons should be learned from back then: to reject any tendency toward any form of absolute power and to prevent any less-than-peaceful way of leadership change. We should not repeat history. Constitutional or not, the changing guard from the Old Order to the New Order was anything but peaceful.
The coming general election is an opportunity to start a new tradition of a peaceful change of national leadership. Otherwise we may again bear a historical burden, in which case we would get what we deserve.