PKI: Opening a new chapter, without closing book

Revoking the ban on communism is urgent to turn a new page in the country's traumatic history, writes political analyst Kusnanto Anggoro, senior researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, and lecturer in the postgraduate studies program at the University of Indonesia.

JAKARTA (JP): President Abdurrahman Wahid has again put himself at the center stage of controversy. His call to revoke People's Consultative Assembly Decree No. 25/1966, on the banning of Marxism-Leninism, has provoked discussion.

Responses have ranged from fear that revoking the decree would promote atheism, to the potential rebirth of a communist party. Other criticism is politically motivated, accusing the President of exceeding his authority. Sentiments against communism and power struggles appear to be in the background of the controversy.

It signifies many things. First, it is likely that our understanding of Marxism-Leninism has been limited to what best can be called fetishism in an irrational devotion to views that have been spoon-fed to us.

The New Order tradition of rejecting parties and ideologies has become so embedded in society that people make no distinction between ideology and politics.

Second, many consider it a one-dimensional issue of restricting communism. It is a collective memory of winning, and perhaps, fear of revenge.

The President, given his background and political status, appears to be basing his opinion on more comprehensive and multidimensional aspects, politically driven or otherwise.

The battleground is therefore asymmetrical, on different wavelengths, of opposing mind-sets. It is a game of chicken.

Indeed, the potential for a communist rebirth remains remote. The significance of communism can never be measured by the number of Communists.

Lenin's slogan was "fewer but better"; a long-established slogan is "the party grows strong through purging itself".

The theory of communism is of the chosen few who are organized, disciplined, dedicated and equipped with superior intelligence and understanding of the laws of history -- that is a power struggle, and, if necessary violent conflict.

Even acute observers, while noting the numerical weakness of the Communists, realize how they are able to rally into their service multitudes who are completely unaware that they are serving the communist cause.

In the virtual age, one can easily find the teachings of Marx, Lenin, Gramsci and Togliatti on websites.

Nevertheless, an understanding of Marxism-Leninism, the crux of the above decree, cannot be easily summed up in political violence and terror.

Vladimir Lenin was no Eduard Bernstein, who favored democratic changes. Yet, communism is not beyond economic, political and cultural analyses.

The Russian Communists, like their Chinese counterparts, pursued violence and terror not because of their ideological allegiance to Marx, but due to social conditions in their own country -- an agrarian society, a long tradition of authoritarianism and the balance of power between the rival Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.

Communism immediately conjures up images of violence, terror and the work of intelligence services, all of which releases loathing and anger. Stalin's Gulag was as bad as Hitler's Holocaust. Anticommunist Augusto Pinochet used DINA to suppress his political opponents, as communist Lavrenty Beria did with the KGB.

By calling for revoking the decree, the President may be trying to break the chains of fetishism. It will serve to desacralize state apparatuses as tools of political repression.

Indonesia needs a rational, not Orwellian, anticommunism. It should be an ideology of antipoverty, against disparity and injustice.

Perhaps Abdurrahman may also be unlocking the secrecy of evil in society. It also is an issue of promoting human rights, opening the way for national reconciliation, uncovering the cemetery of truth. One might even find the issue of the mind, the conscience, and the moral of our epoch in his statement: "democracy makes no distinction between communist and noncommunist".

In developing a discourse on truth and reconciliation, the President also appears to believe that acknowledgement of past wrongdoing is even more necessary.

For sure, it is not without risks. The political stakes involved in settling accounts with the past are extraordinarily high.

A fully satisfactory outcome can hardly be expected. Social tensions brought about by the legacy of human rights violations could linger on for a long time, in civil-military relations, in state-society relations and in the dynamics of multiparty systems.

Political meddling would be unavoidable. More importantly, if the purpose is to appease victims of the events of 1965 referred to as Gestapu, Indonesia should establish an ad hoc tribunal and/or commission of inquiry.

While maximizing gain may be a luxury, the strategy could well be a matter of minimizing risk.

Indonesia is now in a catch-22 situation. There is a growing awareness of the fabrication of history for a plethora of self- serving reasons.

Yet, the overwhelming ignorance of the truth has fanned fears about a new point of concern. A refined understanding of the past is critical in moving our fetishism from the reductionist view -- that the biggest threat to our national unity is Marxism-Leninism -- to comprehension of social disparity, relative deprivation and political opportunism.

Granted, nothing will be sufficient without economic recovery, institutionalization of democratic practices and the supremacy of law. Some may argue there is little sense in opening the Pandora's box of a communist revival to divide the country when it faces matters that are much more pressing. Still, constructing the future requires liberating the past. We may have to open a new chapter without closing the book.