NGOs' experience could help the state

A national workshop on human rights has been held this week. NGO activist Aswab Mahasin looks at the significance of the gathering.

JAKARTA (JP): It is a good political gesture that the President himself opened the Second National Workshop on Human Rights this week. The president also suggested that the National Commission on Human Rights, established early this year, should be supported so that it may function properly.

Another good sign is the acknowledgement that external influences are not necessarily bad, a fact which is self-evident from our history and which shows our ability to absorb other influences from world civilizations.

This indicates a more open-minded attitude towards human rights which, up until now, has had the stigma of "western individualism" or something which is alien to our native understanding of communal harmony and cooperation.

These two opposing opinions -- the native and the foreign, East and West -- have haunted public discourse in our search for a genuine Indonesian identity for decades. In the 1930s there was a lengthy polemic on modern Indonesian culture, which pit the "high moral values" of the East against the idea of progress with its notions of rationalism, individualism and modern science. In the 1950s a group of writers and poets declared themselves children of world civilization open to world ideas, yet remaining Indonesian in identity. In the 1960s president Sukarno urged the nation to return to the true Indonesian identity, ridiculing western pop music in favor of Guided Democracy based on "indigenous" cultural heritage. In the 1970s there was another polemic over modernization and westernization, along with discussions on cultural impediments to development.

Naturally, the debate on human rights has also been influenced by the dichotomous myth. When drafting the 1945 Constitution, the prominent lawyer Soepomo had an argument with the foremost nationalist leader Mohammad Hatta who had proposed some kind of constitutional guarantee for freedom of association and expression. Soepomo argued that such a guarantee of "basic rights" is typical of an individualistic concept of politics. Our idea of state, on the other hand, is "integralistic", where there will never be any conflict between the state and the individual. As Soepomo and his idea of the integralistic state has been officially revitalized recently (perhaps to replace Sukarno's revolutionary ideas), one may imagine the fate of human rights under such a conception of the state.

New hope

But a new hope seems to be dawning with the President's latest gesture. And much of the new hope lies with the National Commission on Human Rights. However, the question is: Can such an advisory commission shape policies? Will it be effective and instrumental for image building? Only time has the answers, as one year is too short a period to evaluate its performance.

Another question revolves around the absence of representatives from human rights NGOs in the workshop. We are told that the reason is purely technical. This is unfortunate, as the presence of human rights NGOs would improve the image of such a workshop.

The familiarity of NGO's with communities may enrich participants with information based on real cases of human rights. And the fact that some of them have been engaged in articulating such interests may justify their representation. Their credibility is further enhanced by their independent position, their autonomy and sincere dedication to the plight of the underprivileged.

They are indeed critical and if it comes to human rights violations many of them dare to take risks. This does not mean that their purpose is political campaigning against the government. Being realistic, none of them would involve themselves in such an endeavor. On sensitive issues like East Timor, many of them would avoid slippery discussion. Many would define this as an issue of international law, which is beyond their reach. However, many would speak up when it comes to such issues as the plight of the weak, missing persons, unlawful detention, defending a defendant in court. All of these are more moral or legal in nature than political and they know the limit.

If such human rights NGOs are denied of meaningful participation in a national human rights workshop, then one may wonder what the workshop is all about. It would be no wonder if the media were to come up with even more intriguing questions.

The writer is a jurist by training and an NGO activist.