Moral movements can have great political impacts
JAKARTA (JP): Controversial Moslem scholar Abdurrahman Wahid told students yesterday that activism in the name of ethical issues is often more effective than political activities.
To comfort students complaining about the inferiority of "moral movements" to "political movements", Abdurrahman said student movements for democracy or against corruption, for example, often have a greater impact than they realize.
"Moral movements are better, they are focused more on values and on what's right and wrong," he said. "Political movements, by contrast, are more vulnerable to engineering..more prone to be changed into something which is impure, unfair and dishonest."
Abdurrahman, more popularly known as Gus Dur, told a discussion with Moslem youths here yesterday that they did not have to feel inferior.
"Actually, it's a mistake, it's stupid if you try to call yours a political movement rather than a moral movement. What counts is the essence and the impact of the movements," he said.
Example
Abdurrahman was explaining how the government pigeonholed movements according to group in order to better manage them.
"Moral movements have greater political impact," Abdurrahman said. "By wishing to change yours into a political movement, you're then trapped" into thinking like the power holders.
Abdurrahman cited the student movement in China, which led to the Tiananmen Square Massacre, as an example of a moral force that has had a great political impact.
The discussion was held yesterday by the Indonesian Moslem Students Association to commemorate Indonesia's 50th anniversary. Other speakers included political researcher Muhammad A.S. Hikam and former student leader Sumarno Dipodisastro.
In his speech, Hikam explored questions of empowering the people, whose feelings of inferiority have led to apathy in the face of political exploitation.
Quoting President Soeharto's state of the nation speech on August 16, Hikam pointed out the importance of the people in economic development efforts.
The issue of people's empowerment, however, is inseparable from their political position, Hikam said. "By acknowledging the need to empower the people, we have recognized their inferior political position," Hikam said.
Hikam, who is a researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said the "subordinate position of the people before the state is the consequence of the early political strategies of the New Order administration."
A strong state was then considered critical to national economic development. Otherwise, he said, the state would not be able to check potential conflicts that could affect stability.
"Under the (early years of the) New Order administration, the state became strong especially because of the support of strategic elite factions which used (the administration) as a venue to fight for and protect their own interests," Hikam said.
"The people, especially those in the lower layers, have been engineered (in such a way) that they became passive and were treated as mere objects by the elite groups," he said.
In later development, the people became more "marginalized politically" and lost their ability and strength to control the running of the state. Consequently, the state apparatus could easily penetrate and intervene into areas which were not their affairs in the first place.
The increasingly narrow space granted to the people will cause at least two reactions, he said. "The people either become apathetic or they will become even more vulnerable to politicking activities launched by external forces." (swe)