On lawlessness
I am writing in response to an interview with Sofyan Wanandi of July 17, in which he warned that continuing lawlessness throughout the country would scare businesspeople away from Indonesia. He referred to the seizure of land owned by developers and other companies by people now claiming that the land had been purchased at unfair prices. He is correct that lawlessness will hurt Indonesia. But he seems to gloss over the fact that this particular complaint may have a basis.
The past duress which some local groups are citing to justify their present, albeit unlawful actions, often did characterize the sale of lands to developers and business owners. A business owner or land developer in collusion with government or military officials often had the power to dictate unfair sale terms to small landowners. When a developer offers several hundred or thousand rupiah per hectare to farmers, then turns a profit of hundreds of thousands of rupiah per hectare, is it any wonder that the former owners later feel cheated?
If one wants to characterize this in terms of race, as Mr. Wanandi has done, then this type of transaction is a textbook case of collusion between Chinese business owners and indigenous officials, cooperating with heavy-handedness for financial gain at the expense of the small landowners. Other law enforcement activities have also been perverted by collusion.
One cannot sympathize with looters who from venal motives break into factories and warehouses and steal for private gain. But what about workers who have been employed year after year at marginal wages and in substandard conditions in factories and warehouses? What about white-collar violations of law perpetrated by factory and warehouse owners with the tacit approval of officials. e.g. violations of minimum wage laws, child labor laws, workplace safety laws, etc. Aren't these instances of lawlessness, too?
Too often only physical violence arouses the community's wrath. As long as no blood is shed we see no violations of persons, of rights, of law. For 30 years the international community praised Soeharto for maintaining peace and stability throughout Indonesia, conveniently closing their eyes to his government's corruption and other human right abuses. Was Indonesia a law abiding society all those 30 years? Aren't Indonesians now suffering the consequences of a very lawless past, where money rather guns was the usual medium of force? Chinese-Indonesians as a group have not resorted to physical violence to get what they want. But they have used money illegally to do this. This form of lawlessness also destroys the social fabric and political stability, as we now can see.
Mr. Wanandi casts the Chinese business community as victims of today's lawlessness, while seeming to ignore their past participation in law-breaking by evasion of laws through payoffs. This biased view will not do justice to either the Chinese community as a whole or the indigenous community. Lawlessness has not been one-sided, and amends are not the responsibility of only one side. Unless Mr. Wanandi and his colleagues from the business world will look calmly and honestly at the issue of adherence to law, and acknowledge the role of the Chinese business community in Indonesia's lawlessness, the problem they decry will elude solution.
The national lawlessness cited by him was denounced even more strongly in the same day's editorial. The point is correct, as far as it goes. But compassion for those Chinese whose lives were devastated in the May riots, and sympathy for the Chinese who have suffered discrimination and legalized indignity from their own government for generations, should not lead to a kind of "political correctness" that stifles honest discourse and collusive role that the largely Chinese business community has had in creating Indonesia's inequitable, lawless socio-economic system. If honesty yields to political correctness, interethnic resentments will not be extinguished, only buried alive.
DONNA K. WOODWARD
Medan, North Sumatra