Precious lessons from Marcos' downfall

Revolusi Damai: Belajar dari Filipina (Peaceful Revolution: Learning from the Philippines); Greg Soetomo; Kanisius, 1998, Yogyakarta, 192 pp.

YOGYAKARTA (JP): The Philippine revolution synonymous with Manila's main Edsa thoroughfare, just like a country that God bestows with revelation in abundance, seems to demonstrate God's intervention which may not be explained in terms of a living person's experiences. On the other hand, it shows that the human beings that brought about this event cannot just be forgotten.

This book discusses a peaceful revolution -- launched without the spirit of violence -- to bring down Ferdinand Marcos' 20-year corrupt and authoritarian government (1965-1986) in the Philippines.

This peaceful revolution manifested the spirit of nonviolence. Or, in the words of philosopher Hannah Arendt -- whose perspective is used as a frame of reference in this book and who believes that a revolution is not "an event that is made to happen" but rather "an event" itself -- it fundamentally opposed the arrogance displayed by the Marcos regime.

It ultimately gave birth to a sovereignty securely in the hands of the people, a power established on the basis of loving kindness, nonviolence and always siding with public interests, particularly the weak groups in society. And in the name of the popular wish, the civilians bestowed the mandate on Corazon "Cory" Aquino.

According to Arendt, the collapse of an authority constitutes the most important happening that will precede a revolution. A revolution will occur if there are enough people to bring down the authority and at the same time move toward a common goal.

Arendt's thesis has both academic support and historical evidence. The thesis finally brings us round to the conclusion that there is something in the nature of "the beyond" which colors Arendt's ideas.

Many observers believe the peaceful revolution in Edsa for four days was closely linked to the brutal murder of Ninoy Aquino at the hands of NPA members, or that it would not have happened without violence if Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos, then respectively Philippine minister of security and defense and chief of the armed forces, had not defected from Marcos' camp.

Or they will put it down to Jaime Cardinal Sin or the month of February, which is the Filipinos' summer, a time when the masses could freely assemble. They may say that it would not have been successful without Radio Veritas, which disseminated information about the political situation then in the Philippines; and there are many other ifs. If all the stated ifs had not taken place, Marcos would, perhaps, have been able to remain in power some time longer.

They are opinions which may hold some truth, but not the whole truth. As Arendt said, a revolution is not made to happen, but is a happening itself which involves the interference of God, as the main conductor, and human beings, that lead it to happen.

Nietzsche once said that history is not the mentality of storing decayed items from the past but of looking after a new life. Which leads to the question: What can the Indonesian people learn from the collapse of Marcos' corrupt and authoritarian rule in a four-day peaceful revolution finally marked with the installation of Cory Aquino, Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino's widow, on Feb. 25, 1986?

The Edsa revolution may offer a good lesson to the Indonesian people. The Philippine experience may be regarded as the universal experience of humankind, which will teach all nations in the world not to fall into new-style Marcosism.

What about the Indonesian people's experience on July 27, 1996, in the government-backed, violent takeover of the Indonesian Democratic Party headquarters in Jakarta by a breakaway faction. Many political observers and analysts believe this incident can be considered a trigger factor, the same as the murder of Ninoy Aquino, on Aug. 21, 1983, for the Filipinos. If, according to political observers, Ninoy's murder was due to Marcos' gross recklessness which finally dug his own grave, then the July 27 incident could serve the same function to Indonesians.

Marcos had attempted to cling on to power by introducing a number of policies -- including enforcement of martial law on Sept. 22, 1972 -- to close the door to ideas about democracy. Through his Sagittarius Operation, Marcos tried to keep control of the country in his own hands. He prepared everything to make the enforcement of martial law legitimate, simultaneously creating chaos and terror by scapegoating particular people in order to win the community's sympathy.

After 20 years in power, Marcos could not bring himself to realize that his power was only a mandate entrusted to him by his people. He could not see that this mandate was God-given. He believed the greatest wealth should be in his hands and that nobody else could share it with him.

In this regard, Ibn Khaldun, a noted Moslem thinker, was right when he said: "If the government of a state is in the zenith of its glory, be prepared to witness its tendency to degenerate into a corrupt and authoritarian state so that it will finally become decadent and its power will later be taken over by another regime, which will rebuild the state from its ruins."

Ibn Khaldun's echoes the famous statement of Lord Acton, a British historian: "Power tends to corrupt, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.

On the eve of a better future, Indonesia will hopefully stick to the spirit of democracy: from the people, by the people and for the people.

-- Chusnul Murtafun

The reviewer is a student at Ushuluddin School of Sunan Kalijaga State Higher-Learning Institute of Islam, Yogyakarta.