People have yet to adjust after a change of regime

The following is the second part from an interview with Greg Barton Ph.D, senior lecturer at Deakin University, Australia, who is also the authorized biographer of Indonesian President Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid.

An expert on liberal Islam in Indonesia, Barton started writing the biography a long time before Gus Dur became President last October. He expects to finish the book toward the end of this year. Barton, who is a regular visitor to Indonesia, talked to The Jakarta Post's Harry Bhaskara in Jakarta early this week.

What are other typical elements in a country undergoing a regime change?

Another element is euphoria in the initial stage and a sense of high expectation, followed by a period of big disappointment. We saw this very clearly with Russia.

There is a natural euphoria associated with change and there is a natural desire to push things ahead faster than perhaps might be the best course of action.

The lesson for us is that expectation tends to be unrealistically high and there is the danger that when this expectation fails, people become embittered and look for some way of countering that. I think the lesson of such circumstances is we need to be patient about the pace of change.

I think one of the strengths of Gus Dur is his personal orientation toward evolutionary rather than revolutionary change. Revolutionary change as a political mechanism has a very poor track record. It almost always fails to produce what people hope for. And the aftermath is a disappointment. The cost of getting there is often very high as well.

A third element is that countries that are coming out of very authoritarian rule almost invariably experience their institutions being distorted and eroded. Individuals responsible for certain tasks in the public sector, bureaucrats and so forth, have in some ways been compromised and corrupted but even more insidiously than that the culture has been a culture that has ill-prepared them with the new era.

An obvious problem area is the legal system that just does not function properly. One of the sad ironies of regime change is that often its legal system that works after a fashion within certain limitations and certain prejudices and malicious intents under authoritarian rule proves to be very unsatisfactory in a more open government.

Could you cite an example?

In Indonesia we can see this clearly in that even though we know that in democracy we need to have ministers who are capable to take initiatives, the people who are in a situation that makes up government ministers today for the most part have no experience to take the initiatives.

Under Soeharto it was the natural cultural orientation that the president gave you guidelines and told you what to do. So it is a great irony that one of the criticisms of Gus Dur's government is that he is not giving enough direction.

But this is not unique to Indonesia, this is another facet of regime change.

You said you don't subscribe to the theory of Balkanization of Indonesia, what is the basis of your view?

For all of the failings of Sukarno's and Soeharto's governments, there is today in Indonesia, a sense of being Indonesian. For Indonesians who were born after Soeharto became president, their first identity is Indonesian and their second identity might be religious or ethnic. This is a very positive thing.

There are also things that I can't put my finger on but I feel in my heart to be true, like the existence of a natural resilience in Indonesian society. Despite all the awful things that have happened, there is a desire to make things work.

You said people need to have patience in a regime change, why do you think so?

Well, there are at least three reasons.

One is that a lot of awful things are happening now and it is understandable that people want to see them stop. We would all like to see the violence in Maluku stop tomorrow. There have been several thousand people killed already. We would like to see that death toll stop right now, not even increase by one person. But we know that is not realistic. Yet it is a legitimate desire.

Similarly if you walk around Jakarta and see people who find it hard to feed their children and you say poor people should not be like this. Poor people should have enough to at least eat. Kids, all kids whether they come from rich families or poor families should go to school. But we are feeling the effect of the economic crisis still. So it is a very legitimate desire to hope things will get better.

The second reason, something we have touched on earlier, is the lack of experience of a regime change. We don't have an effective yardstick to use in measuring the rate of progress. If you use the yardstick of international experience with Latin America or Eastern Europe we would see that actually the progress of this government is not too bad. But we all lack this experience. Most Indonesians today were born after Soeharto came to power.

The third factor, is there are some individuals whether for party political reasons or because they are linked directly or indirectly with the former regime who are trying to destabilize this government.

They are playing upon people's natural and quite understandable feelings of concern and impatience and they inflame those concerns for their own purposes.

And of course they use the language of concern for the poor, concern for change. But it is cynical and manipulative because they are not concerned for the poor. They are only concerned about their own futures and their own possibilities of being taken before a court of law or losing wealth or whatever.

You touched on the military withdrawal from politics earlier, how long will it take this process to arrive at a point of no return?

The only way of being certain of this is to have a strong civilian government in place that gives no excuse for military intervention. Even a fairly reform minded military if it sees a civilian government that is not performing would be tempted to intervene, right or wrong.

But there needs to be cultural change from the military itself, a change in mindset so that over a period of years people quite naturally say dwifungsi (dual function) belongs to the past, that is not the future. Now we are concentrating on doing professional duty. That takes some years, although I don't know how many years.

It also takes time for interference from the counter- reformation forces to be completely overcome. I think in the early years of change that will be a factor. Only over time do they begin to loose their power.

I think through the course of the five-year time of Gus Dur this will be a factor but I would like to believe by the time we have the next elections, the military will accept that its role is not to intervene directly in politics.

How do you see Gus Dur's health?

His present health is excellent. He is considerably overweight from a medical point of view and he has a history of stroke. But his blood-pressure has been stable for some time. He is not anywhere near the danger zone. And because it has been stable for some time there is every reason to expect that it will continue to be stable, in which case we need not fear for another stroke.

Although his health seems slightly worse perhaps than his peers, his level of energy and stamina is extraordinary. He also has much more fire of intelligent and much greater power of memory than his average.

Some of his critics, furious over occasional moves they consider confusing to the people, say the President can no longer change. Do you think Gus Dur can learn from his mistakes?

This is a question of a relative nature. Can he make a dramatic change physically and drop 20 kilograms? I don't think that will happen.

He could try to be a good manager and a good administrator, but I don't think he is going to either and I don't think he will.

In certain ways, Gus Dur will stay as Gus Dur. But we shouldn't go to the other extreme that he won't change because there is a lot of evidence that shows here is somebody who is a very genuine individual. As part of that, he has got a very genuine humanitarian outlook and concern and a lot of personal integrity.

For that reason he has been open to change. All of his life he has been a student of human nature. And his love of literature and of studying politics and studying biographies make him acutely aware of human nature.

He still tends to be a man who finds it hard to take advice, particularly from younger people, but I think he is more open now than he has been in years past.

Bear in mind the background he comes from. And the pesantren (Muslim boarding school) where he comes from and it is not average. It does not necessarily equip one to be emotionally expressive and open to taking advice and so on.

I think in that context he has made changes. He is more easy going and relaxed, emotionally demonstrative and open person than he has been in the past. And I think that gives reason to hope that he will continue to change in a moderate way.

Some think Gus Dur has a different yardstick to decide things right or wrong due to his pesantren background. For example, when he accepted money from the Sultan of Brunei or received money from people prior to his overseas trip...

I think there are two factors to consider here. One, we need to reflect if we make the statement that Gus Dur's style of doing things is like a kyai in a pesantren.

I think in certain respects this is true but it is not completely true by the way. Pesantren is said to be very feudal and authoritarian. In some respects pesantren is more democratic than we expect.

Even if it is true that in many ways Gus Dur's style is like a kyai and pesantren we have to ask the question, okay, so it's not like a modern approach to governance. But is a modern approach to government necessarily and automatically successful in a period of regime change?

To put it practically, Gus Dur got a soft-loan of US$ 2 million from the Sultan of Brunei and rather than put it through the government's account it goes through an account he has personal control over. That gives the wrong impression.

On the other hand if he would have put it in a government account, it could be a little bit like putting a loaf of bread, in a cupboard while we know full well that at the back of the cupboard there is a large hole. You can be fairly sure that the loaf will be nibbled away by the rats.

I think that it is practically difficult to work in an entirely legislative and normal way at the moment. Because you can't trust the institutions, you can't trust the law courts, you can't trust government departments necessarily.

So that's one issue. In some ways, it is idiosyncratic, a sort of pesantren style, may be more appropriate for a regime change than we acknowledged. I am not saying perfectly appropriate but we need to give credit when the credit is due. We are not in a period of a normal governance here.

The second factor of this, Gus Dur as a kyai from pesantren to consider, is that as irritating as it may be, inappropriate as it may be, there is a positive side to it as well.

Good kyai, not all kyai are good, many kyai in their lifetime handle million of dollars but they don't become millionaires because they are stewards of the money. And their fear of God automatically stops them from enriching themselves. They channel that money through the pesantren which may be in their names illegally but they don't regard it as personal property. And many poor people get education.

There are good examples and bad examples. But at its best a pesantren tradition is a tradition of stewardship. And I think it is quite clear with Gus Dur, whenever he is failing he is not an avaricious individual, he is not greedy for money. And his motivation is sound, even if the application or the implementation is not always appropriate.

You seem to be optimistic about changes taking place which appear to be in contrast to what most observers here think. Does distance matter?

To some extent my distance does help because I can stand by and ask, "well how is Indonesia compared with other countries? How would things look in the longer term?"

Looking at contrasts with other countries and looking at the longer term, it is easy to be optimistic. Another reason for my optimism is I know Gus Dur very well. People, of course, quite reasonably, would be critical of me saying that I am just defending him or I am just too one-sided. That may be true but I seek to be objective in my analysis. But I get the privilege to know him in a way that other people don't.

And the advantage of this privilege is that I have a sense of confidence about his moral integrity and purpose that others may not have, simply because I know him. But I think there are plenty of external factors that support this analysis.

Some critics have gone as far as to suggest Gus Dur has to go. Suppose we put ourselves in their shoes, what alternative of leaders do we have?

At this stage it is very hard for me to imagine that we will get somebody necessarily better. I can accept that if we change Gus Dur we would get somebody better in certain areas, maybe a better manager, maybe more efficient, maybe a better communicator, less mysterious, whatever, but I am not convinced that we would get somebody who is better overall.

But there is another factor about change. If we call ourselves democrats and committed to reform, that means that we can't lightly accept the possibility of change of government unless it is done in a constitutionally legitimate way.

Democracy very seldom produces a result that is completely satisfying but we have to live with what we get. We should think about ways which we can help him, strengthen him rather than allow energies channel into undermining him.

Even if there was somebody better and even if there is a democratic way to undergo a leadership change, the human cost is likely to be very high. Such changes very likely would destabilize the whole country.

Maybe this is providential that he is here at this point in time when we need a rather unusual leader, perhaps even a maverick leader to deal with regime change.

In some ways it reminds me of Winston Churchill. Churchill may have been a very strange prime minister or a very strange man but in the middle of World War II he was exactly the right man for Great Britain.

In what way should sections of society strengthen him?

Well, strengthening him may be put a bit too narrowly because part of our role should be strengthening society. For example, if there was a large conference organized involving the leading intellectuals on issues of regime change and international experts were brought in, not necessarily academics but people who have lived through the experience themselves.

Invite people from Latin America or Eastern Europe or wherever, and they could share with us their experiences. That is not focused on changing Gus Dur but on educating ourselves and educating society.

In terms of helping the government directly, a big challenge facing Gus Dur is thinking about the issue about consolidating, restructuring or perhaps streaming down significantly, perhaps changing substantially his cabinet toward the end of this year.

For example, even now, it is possible to help somebody like Marzuki Darusman talking with him about his vision and difficulties and give him a chance to talk about this to the general public. In that way civil society can really strengthen the government.

In some way it is like the relationship between husband and wife. Any successful relationship involves a degree of mutual change.

Some of the changes that can occur not just from the level of government ministers and the President but also civil society. For example, in the legal system, it is certain that civil society can make a contribution there. Also in terms of reform of the military, if it is mature, sensitive and intelligent. The establishment of strong NGOs for specific tasks can be very constructive and we have seen that in the past.

If there were groups who were intelligently and articulately agitating for better basic wages, better conditions for factory workers, I think that it is quite likely to help the government bringing some change. So there is scope for taking initiative without saying it is just a question of changing the government.

One of the minor tragedies of this whole process of regime change is that many civil society groups have been so focused on the condition of the reformist regime they are almost like caged birds.

Once the door of the cage has been opened, they don't know what to do. And they surely don't feel like flying out of the cage.

Slowly, I think, NGOs and other elements of civil society will think about the new possibilities to have under this government. And those new possibilities include and go well beyond just criticizing the government. There are actual projects that they could be doing. And they can now do it in a way they couldn't do it in the past.