New Order's responsibility

New Order's responsibility

From Tajuk

The share of the same fate under foreign colonization in the past caused all existing ethnic groups in Indonesia to unite to establish the Republic of Indonesia. That happened at the beginning of the nation's struggle for freedom. As time went by, the sense of one nation and unity began declining, resulting from a gap and discriminative treatment done by the central government toward the provinces. This state of affairs prevailed during the New Order era.

What makes things worse is that transmigrants were not integrating themselves with local people. On the other hand they had a strong tendency to group themselves into a new community. So, by and by, conflicts arose between different ethnic groups, as in the cases in Kalimantan and Ambon. They no longer feel they have common interests, like the founders of this republic.

Who, then, is to be held responsible for all this chaos? The answer is: all of us. But if we try to find the real source of the disorder, we will discover that the culprit is the central government, which was too centralistic in nature and only concerned with the interest of power holders and their cronies. The central government here is no other than the New Order that ruled the country for 32 years. I wonder whether the New Order rulers can live peacefully nowadays.

WISNU AJI

Jakarta