'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)