More autonomy 'key to keeping nation united'

JAKARTA (JP): Scholars provided on Tuesday different explanations about what constitutes the threat of national disintegration, but agreed that more autonomy for regions would be among the best measures to keep the nation unified.

Moslem scholar Nurcholish Madjid said that what some analysts considered recent signs of disintegration were actually the venting of people's participation in social and political life.

"The way to deal with the 'explosive' participation is to accommodate it. Look at Aceh... or Irian Jaya," he said at a gathering of student activists from 44 universities across the country. "Their natural resources have been exploited 'dry', then people suggested (that Indonesia be changed from a unitary state) into a federal state."

"It's not a problem of a unitary or federal state. The most important thing is to give (the provinces) greater autonomy."

He said Indonesia was designed at its founding in 1945 to become a modern nation state which was open and egalitarian.

"This country lacks nation-building values," he said.

"The late president Sukarno had a deep sense of nation building, but he derived it from books, so became a romantic. As a result, we had to go through 20 years of trial and error before we found the right model of a modern state."

He believed former president Soeharto did not possess the same trait but was extremely intelligent. However, his lack of the sense of nation building contributed to his many blind spots and the blunders he made, including letting his children interfere in his job. "This would not have happened if he had a strong sense of nation building...," Nurcholish said.

One way to ward off the danger of disintegration, he said, would be to give provinces more opportunities to develop.

Minister of Justice Muladi, who was also a professor in law, rejected calls that the country change from a unitary to federal state. Much homework needed to be done for the country to improve its "unity", he acknowledged.

Indonesia has so far failed to eliminate primordialism, there is the tendency to view the Constitution as almost sacred and above change and the government deals with problems in regions in a fragmented manner, Muladi said.

He also identified centralization of power and violations of human rights as other problems.

"We have failed, for instance, in integration which is horizontal in nature. Many people still see their brethren from outside of (the more developed) Java as stupid."

President B.J. Habibie's economic advisor Frans Seda also said that a unitary state was the best format for the country in facing the impact of globalization.

"Even the European countries want to unite themselves. Why would we go and break ourselves up?"

The student gathering, opened by Minister of Education Juwono Sudarsono, is scheduled to end on Wednesday. Student participants had the opportunity to meet not only their seniors, but also government officials they have criticized in various demonstrations. They met with Armed Forces Commander Gen. Wiranto and questioned him about the Armed Forces (ABRI) dual-function doctrine, which endorses its roles in both security and political affairs. (edt)