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.