Monitoring the rumbles

The Armed Forces has confirmed that alert command centers to monitor situations and rumors that could incite social unrest will be established nationwide on Jan. 30. Creating the alert centers, first announced by President Soeharto some 10 days ago, is an effort to prevent the recurrence of riots like those in Situbondo and Tasikmalaya near the end of last year.

The centers will be stationed in district military command (KODIM) posts nationwide and will be headed by KODIM chiefs. People can pass on information about rumors of possible unrest to the centers, which will then investigate the agitators. Reports drawn up by the centers will be brought to provincial administration council meetings. The centers will be permanent establishments but they will not take over police functions and will only take preventive measures.

Given the heavy losses in the recent riots, and particularly considering their impact on the nation's psyche and sense of unity, one could agree that we must stop riots from recurring. Nobody wants to see this nation disintegrate. The question is, will the centers be able to prevent riots from happening?

One would think that monitoring the situation was a daily task of the authorities, either the bureaucracy or the military. The fact that they failed to detect the forewarnings signaling the unrest in Situbondo and Tasikmalaya is an indication that something is wrong with the existing monitoring system. News reports said that prior to the riots a number of people had tried to report the potential for an outbreak to occur to the authorities, but somehow officials failed to respond properly. If this is true, it indicates a breakdown in communications that must be immediately remedied.

We believe the establishment of alert centers could indeed help prevent outbreaks of unrest in society -- up to a certain point. A quick response from the authorities could possibly prevent riots by stopping rumors from spreading, or even by arresting suspected agitators before they can do harm. But we do not think establishing the centers is really the answer to preventing social unrest.

The basic idea behind establishing the riot alert centers is apparently the belief that the riots were instigated by a "third party". Thus far the authorities have accused numerous groups -- from "dissidents" and "Maoists", "subversive extreme leftist and rightist groups" to "hoodlums" -- of masterminding the riots, although the authorities have yet to provide hard evidence to back up their allegations. But could it not be possible that the riots were spontaneous outbreaks triggered by genuine grievances against perceived injustices?

We believe that what should first and foremost be tackled is the root of the problem: the cause of social unrest. Social unrest should occur only if the elements for unrest prevail, be it social disparities, social injustice, disharmony among religious groups, a crisis of confidence in the authorities or a distrust of the legal system. And as many political analysts have acknowledged, at the moment there is widespread dissatisfaction regarding those issues. "They are like dry leaves which are easily burned", as one observer described the people.

In such a situation it is regrettable that rather than tackling the problem many officials prefer to shift the issue by seeking, for instance, scapegoats. Have they become so alienated from the people that they no longer sense the widespread disillusionment? Have their hearts become so calloused that they fail to hear the heart-beat of the masses?

Monitoring the people's real feelings is actually not such a difficult task. Anyone who is sincerely willing to put his ear to the ground would certainly be able to hear the distant rumbling. And we believe that nobody in this country wants that rumble to grow into a roar, or a thunder, or let the dry leaves ignite and cause a bush fire -- something that might happen if nothing is done immediately.