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