'Reconciliation needs an end to prejudice'
'Reconciliation needs an end to prejudice'
JAKARTA (JP): Renowned scholar Nurcholish Madjid said on
Wednesday that national reconciliation would require an end to
discrimination, including the stigma on political prisoners.
"We can't keep being suspicious toward them all the time,"
Nurcholish said.
A sense of alertness did not translate into constant
suspicion, he added.
The nation is grappling with the meaning of reconciliation
following the end of the authoritarian Soeharto regime. Activists
and families of political prisoners have demanded their release.
The government set up last Friday a National Reconciliation
Team intended to avert national disintegration.
Under the current administration, 73 political prisoners have
been released, but 130 more remain jailed. The government
maintains it must be wary of those accused of Marxist leanings.
"History has proven that Marxism did not survive in Indonesia,
so we don't have to worry too much about it," Nurcholish said.
He addressed a discussion on Indonesia's political culture and
political reform, organized by the Indonesian Council on World
Affairs. It was set up in 1997 to foster global cooperation.
Last month, Nurcholish also stressed the need to accommodate
all groups in the search for national harmony.
"After 32 years of political stagnancy, people ought to learn
more about freedom and how to apply it in politics," Nurcholish
said after his address. Political freedom is a must to effect a
mature society, the rector of Paramadina University added.
He cited the banned Democratic People's Party (PRD), which
some have accused of communist sympathies due to its labor
platform and other policies.
"It's not really Marxist," Nurcholish said in urging people to
be tolerant toward divergent political views.
Without political maturity, he said, Indonesia could see a
return of a political culture centered on personalities.
"Sukarnoism" was followed by "Soehartoism", and "this must
never be repeated", he said.
A political system should be based on people's aspirations and
needs, he maintained, with political maturity a prerequisite to
its attainment.
He believed reconciliation would revive the nation-building
drive begun by founding president Sukarno.
Nurcholish said Sukarno recognized aspirations of all groups
in society, including non-Javanese and Chinese-Indonesians.
Soeharto's New Order, he argued, failed to accommodate
different groups, particularly ethnic Chinese and Moslems,
although overtures were made to the latter in the final years of
his rule. (01)