Observers raise fears of national disintegration
YOGYAKARTA (JP): Disintegration is the biggest threat currently facing Indonesia, according to sociologist Loekman Soetrisno.
The Gadjah Mada University professor and director of its Center for Research on Rural and Regional Development told The Jakarta Post earlier this week that poorly planned development policies had robbed many groups in society of their ancestral territory. The resulting strain made people prone to violence.
The situation has been aggravated further by various flaws in society, including corruption so widespread the country could be called a "vampire state," Loekman said.
In separate interviews, Moslem scholar Ahmad Syafii Maarif and military analyst Yahya Muhaimin seconded Loekman's opinion. They also discussed the unrest that has rocked the country for the past few months, as well as the political climate as the nation prepares for the May 29 general election.
"The biggest threat is disintegration," Loekman said. "Unless we take affirmative action to help isolated ethnic groups such as those in Irian Jaya or Kalimantan, I'm afraid the possibility of disintegration is great.
"The unrest in Sanggau Ledo, West kalimantan, that claimed five lives is an example. It was actually a clash over living space between the native Dayak tribesmen and the migrant Madurese. Because the Dayaks are predominately Christian and the migrants mostly Moslem, the resulting violence was also sectarian in nature.
"Can you imagine how much smaller the ethnic group's living space would become once multinational corporations enter the region?" he said, referring to planned foreign contractors' involvement in the Busang gold mine in East Kalimantan.
He blamed the situation on, among other things, "the absence of thinkers with long-term vision. What we have are only those who think of development policies over shorter terms such as five years."
Yahya Muhaimin, who is also dean of Gadjah Mada University's School of Social and Political Sciences, said Indonesia's biggest threat is the growing social and economic disparity. "The country is definitely getting more prosperous. The rich are getting richer and the poor are becoming less poor, but the speed of their respective prosperity growth differs markedly.
He said the government and other leaders in society need to handle the question of growing disparity with social, cultural and economic approaches. "We can't handle (unrest caused by social disparity) with physical and military approaches alone," he said.
Syafii identified the major threat to Indonesia as the deficit of people with adequate skills to ensure the country survives the cutthroat competition of the coming free trade era. He also named a number of other, equally dire, threats; the depletion of natural resources such as forests, the absence of good role models in society, poor law enforcement and rampant corruption and collusion.
"Our conglomerates, for instance, are good at exploiting situations through collusion with officials. But because of this all-consuming characteristic, they are ill-equipped to face competition from, say, South Korean or American businesses," he said.
The deputy chairman of the 28 million-strong Muhammadiyah Moslem organization also blamed what he described as "political satiety." "The situation should be fixed in a constitutional way. For instance, there should be a limitation on the number of presidential terms one person can run for," he said.
Loekman said Indonesia could avert the possible catastrophe of national disintegration by establishing a clean government. "The vampire state has to be replaced by one marked with clean governance," he said, adding that the rampant corrupt practices should be fought against in a "cultural revolution."
"We can't go on like this," he said.
He suggested that the government also makes sure that "real decentralization" takes place so that regional administrations can function independently. (swe)