Power rivalry is Asia's evil

Power rivalry is Asia's evil

By Onghokham

JAKARTA (JP): We are now watching leadership rivalry befalling two organizations. Within both the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) the legitimately elected leadership is being challenged by claims of contending leaders.

For the moment the rival leadership in both organizations do not look promising and is no threat to either the present leadership of Abdurrahman Wahid of the NU Moslem socio-religious organization or Megawati Soekarnoputri of the PDI political party. However, the rise of rival leadership within one organization is an interesting cultural phenomenon.

Every organization, whether it is a state, government, political party or whatever, always has some dissenting members, a group with different opinions, interests or ambitions, within its leadership. In modern countries this is usually found in the form of loyal oppositions and sometimes when things get really out of control this dissenting group splits the organization and a new organization is found.

Is the rise of rival centers of power and legitimacy within an organization a typical or even a Southeast Asian phenomenon?

According to some historians like M.Addam and others this seems to be the case. According to these historians, next to the great centers of Southeast Asian "palace-capitals" such as Majapahit, Ayuthia, Ava or Angkor Vat, there was always a rival "royal" or even rebel "princely" capital contending for legitimate and ultimate power. Majapahit, for instance, had Daha for a contender.

Indonesia's classical example of a contending center was the existence of the four keraton (royal centers) in Central Java: The sunan and mangkunegaran (both rulers) in Surakarta and the sultanate and Paku Alam in Yogyakarta. In total there were five keraton: Kasepuhan, Kanoman, Kecerbonan, Kepatihan, and Keprabon but since the beginning of the 19th century they were divested of all political power yet retained their adat (traditional) social-cultural functions and therefore were still of some importance.

However, the Central Javanese keraton all originated from the single Mataram dynasty and sunan of Central Java (around Yogyakarta-Surakarta) area.

In 1755 the one single kingdom of Mataram, founded in the late 16th century, was divided among two claimants of the throne: the legitimate sunan of Surakarta and the newly recognized, legitimate claimant, Prince Mangkubumi who became the first sultan of Yogyakarta. Both were of the same dynasty and were closely related. Then a few years later another rebel prince -- also closely related to both sunan and sultan -- Raden Mas Sahid was pacified by being granted an independent princedom: Mangkunegaran, in the town of Surakarta.

Although the original rivals were sunan and sultan eventually mangkunegaran, which proved to be a very vigorous princely dynasty -- in fact until now -- joined in all the rivalry to become the number one keraton.

The Dutch prevented all physical confrontation but they could not prevent cultural and social rivalries which continue until today in dancing, music, batik and other cultural and art activities.

When Thomas Stamford Raffles ruled Java between 1811 to 1816, he faced a recalcitrant Sultan of Yogyakarta. The English lieutenant-governor of Java stormed the sultan's keraton and exiled him. Raffles later found the arrangement of power split in Surakarta between the sunan and mangkunegaran who watched each other and reported on each other as very useful. Hence, Raffles created the Paku Alam in Yogyakarta, who was head prince of the Yogyakarta-Mataram branch.

As we have seen from the examples above, rival centers can arise from internal dynamics of a kingdom or can even be brought into existence because of outside manipulations. In the case of the traditional polities such as Cirebon and Central-Javanese courts they can continue to exist far beyond their original functions. During colonial rule, perhaps due to this special historical circumstances, the rival centers were able to persist. Meanwhile the physical rivalry of violence became one of cultural competition and rivalry.

When Indonesians started to have modern political organizations, the dissenting tradition, not surprisingly, again found itself in contending centers. To some extent the so-called Green Sarekat Islam (Islam elements) and its rival Red Sarekat Islam (communist elements) were contending organizations bearing the same name.

A better example of this phenomenon was given by the split between the Partai Nasional Indonesia (PNI) of Sukarno-Sartono versus the PNI of Hatta-Syahrir. No real principles of an ideological nature were involved here. But the differences were things like style or small technicalities.

As far as the history of the republic is concerned the last real big issue of contending power was the years of transition between the Old Order and the New Order governments (1965-67). Even the names of the rivals suggest the nature of its rivalry and competition for supreme legitimacy and power. Recently we see it has risen again among NU and PDI.

Interestingly enough NU is one of the oldest Indonesian organizations dating back from pre-independence days and is usually referred to as an orthodox "native" Moslem organization based in rural areas. Hence, NU is thought of as traditional. Whereas PDI claims to be a modern political party.

In both organizations, however, we do find the phenomenon of rival leaderships. Indeed, this should not surprise us at all for we have seen how typical this phenomenon is for expressing Indonesian dissenting views.

But why are Indonesian dissenting views expressed by rivalry in leadership rather than in other ways such as secession or loyal opposition?

One could put this to political behavior, like the scourge of latah (duplicating) ailments or other action that gets the parties nowhere. One could also say that culturally and socially we always focus on the center and it is this framework of centrist thinking that even in opposition one makes a rival center rather than a movement for change and reform. There is too much focused on personalities, hence the rival centers are rivalries between two charismatic leaders.

However, this form of opposition, the setting up of a rival center, is also caused by the loosely organized polities of today which are easily exploited by would- be opponents in the current leadership. Nothing is easier than to withdraw from the institution and set up a rival organization.

Meanwhile, today's cultural norms which do not recognize opposition or the absence of rules to accommodate dissenting views further encourages this sort of political behavior.

The writer is a senior historian and a former professor at the University of Indonesia.