Let's keep our calm

Let's keep our calm

With April 30 approaching, political tension in Jakarta is
reaching close to boiling point. April 30, one may remember, is
the date on which the House of Representatives (DPR) is slated to
convene a plenary session to pronounce its judgment on President
Abdurrahman Wahid's response to a memorandum of censure that the
DPR issued in February.

As has already been widely reported, with most factions in the
House having already expressed their dissatisfaction with the
President's response, expectations are that the DPR will reject
Abdurrahman's reply as unsatisfactory and subsequently issue a
second memorandum of censure, which would technically open the
way for impeachment procedures against the President to start
rolling.

Over the past few weeks, therefore, Jakarta has been abuzz
with speculation that, as a result of such a possibility,
violence could be in store. For certain, Abdurrahman's fanatic
supporters in Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) -- an organization he led for
15 years before he became President and whose members are
estimated to number about 40 million -- will not take such an
insult lying down. It should be noted that to them, Abdurrahman
is not merely president of the republic; many of them regard him
as a man chosen by divinity to lead, and so to dethrone him would
be tantamount to sacrilege.

By Saturday, thousands of Jakarta's residents have been
reported to have fled the city for nearby mountain and beach
resorts to escape the expected violence. Obviously Jakarta is in
the grip of angst, the reason for which is not difficult to
comprehend. Jakarta, it must be said, has had traumatic
experiences with mass trouble of this kind. Still, are such fears
really warranted or necessary?

Some of us may remember how last month similar worries, fed by
rumors and speculations of an impending clash between protesting
supporters and opponents of the President, kept the Indonesian
capital on its toes for days. Banser, NU's paramilitary branch,
and Ansor, its militant youth wing, were said to be sending
hundreds of thousands of their members to Jakarta to back up the
President and counter his increasingly vocal adversaries on the
capital's streets. As it turned out, Banser and Ansor members did
come to Jakarta, though not in the huge numbers that people
expected. Nor did they cause much trouble apart from obstructing
traffic and causing some minor damage here and there. The same,
however, could also be said of the President's antagonists. How,
then, did this as yet baseless environment of fear manage to
materialize in Jakarta?

Certain elements of our society, it seems, must share the
responsibility for helping to stoke the all too normal tendency
of people in this city to prepare themselves for the worst. First
to take the blame must be the media. For weeks, for example,
Jakarta's newspapers and television networks have been awash with
reports of sensational acts by the President's most avid
supporters who underwent combat training in East Java, for which
tens of thousands of people have volunteered. Men have posed
before their cameras brandishing sickles and machetes to
underscore their readiness for battle. Visitors from East Java to
Jakarta, however, report that the situation there is far from
what it is made to appear in press photos and on television
screens. In fact, the situation in general is quite normal and
far from warlike.

Then there is the military. Jakarta Military Commander Maj.
Gen. Bibit Waluyo has let it be known that he will not hesitate
to take stern measures against troublemakers and that troops
under his command have been instructed to support the police to
secure the capital. A show of force was displayed at Medan
Merdeka Square, complete with armored vehicles -- a challenge to
battle, as it were, to troublemakers and not, it would seem, the
most judgmatic way to maintain calm in conditions of peace.

Although the overwhelming majority of Indonesians profess to
be Muslims, it seems that a widespread misunderstanding exists as
to the meaning of the term istighotsah. In essence, the term
means to gather for prayer in the full recognition that there are
things that man cannot solve by themselves and divine assistance
is necessary. In this case, as NU leaders have repeatedly
explained, the motive is to pray for the well-being of the nation
and for an end to its adversities.

It is of course to be deeply regretted that all this has been
used by President Abdurrahman Wahid to blackmail the nation into
accepting his arguments for remaining in power -- for example by
saying that 400,000 of his supporters will be traveling to
Jakarta, or that several regions of the country, including
Madura, would secede if he ceased to be President. All this goes
to show that Indonesians still have much to learn about democracy
and its processes. As for now, all that can be said is that
Indonesia obviously has a long way to go toward achieving the
democratic reforms it aspires to. Whatever the case, though, all
this is no reason for us to be discouraged. As they say, even a
journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.