Lifting ban on communism

Lifting ban on communism

From Tempo

I am of the opinion that there is no reason for us to object to the revocation of the Decree of the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly (MPRS) No XXV/1966 concerning the ban on Marxism and Leninism and the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). It is really a positive step towards creating a true democracy.

Democracies are invariably open to opposing views and ideologies.

The most saddening thing was that so many people were branded as traitors because of their involvement in the September 30/Communist movement in 1965. Subsequently, their rights as Indonesian citizens were abolished without any legal justification. Those considered as suspects and their families, including their grandchildren, were continuously harassed and could not live normal lives. What a discriminative and unjust policy!

Is that what we call democracy?

President Abdurrahman Wahid said that if you don't like communism, why don't you educate people in such a way that they'll change their minds. I think that's a wise statement. The new order regime manipulated the facts and provided very little information, if any, about what happened in 1965, with the intention of keeping people ignorant and in the dark.

Yet in fact, it is the right of every citizen to be knowledgeable of such matters. But they, the old regime, intentionally denied people their basic rights and justified it by saying that they did not want to threaten the "existence" of the New Order.

To do such a thing is to sacrifice democracy. All ideologies have their positive and negative angles, so why should we not take the positive values and develop them in our efforts to establish a prosperous society?

JOSHUA ANDREW

Jakarta