RI should be no place for scourge of bipolarity

By Amir Sidharta

JAKARTA (JP): The notion of multiculturalism became tremendously trendy in the United States in the 1990s because Middle Americans were long used to thinking bilaterally.

Issues to them had always evolved around simplistic opposing polarities -- the Wild West was about cowboys and Indians, the Civil War about a battle between the North and the South, and Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X and Rodney King about Black versus White. Even issues about general elections centered on Democrats and Republicans.

In terms of ethnic issues, whenever more than two ethnic groups emerged, the issue would somehow be interpreted in a bipolar way. Complexities were avoided and simplified into bipolarities, so much easier to handle and manipulate. But 500 years after Columbus' discovery of America, in an age of globalization of information, it was no longer possible to simplify the complexities of culture, ushering in the concept of multiculturalism.

Indonesia, with its many different ethnic groups and languages, has used Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity) as its national motto almost from the beginning of its founding, and its people certainly do not need to be introduced to multiculturalism.

But facts show the New Order government over and over again pitted one group against another through bipolar means. Its main game, which it seemed to have learned from Indonesia's colonial past, was to set the privileged against the disenfranchised, or vice versa. By maintaining bipolarity in the center stage, the government managed to stay clear of the political arena and was able to continue to hold complete control of the political situation.

From the very beginning of the regime, Indonesians were steered to think bipolarly. First, it was the New Order versus the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Then, it came to an issue of the center versus periphery. The government claimed that the periphery was unsafe due to the existence of many dangerous security disturbance groups (GPK), particularly in Aceh, Lampung, Irian Jaya and East Timor. It was tantamount to them saying the civilized center was endangered by savages of the periphery.

Rioting and mass rapes last May and a series of previous incidents of violence indicate the New Order government clearly banked upon the pribumi (indigenous) versus non-pribumi (nonindigenous) and Islam versus Christian bipolarities. Whether it is a result of thinking bipolarly throughout the New Order regime, or more likely done intentionally to uphold thinking bipolarly, many discussions centered on the rioting and mass rapes have dealt with the issue in bipolar terms.

Most recently, on Aug. 2, Republika published an article written by Sri Muryono of Antara, titled Is It True That Mass Rapes Occurred? on its front page. The writer made it seem as if the reports about the rapes, most of which were regarded as unverifiable, were spread systematically to discredit Indonesia.

Instead of looking at the reports about the rapes as a humanitarian matter which needed to be approached sensitively, he chose to politicize the issue and further strand Indonesians in bipolarity, setting Chinese-Indonesians against Moslems.

He also mentioned the Indonesia Committee for the Solidarity of Islam's (KISDI) complaint to Minister of Information Muhammad Yunus against Jakarta-Jakarta's publication of rape victim Vivian's testimony, which was spread through the Internet.

In her account, she mentioned her rapists exclaimed Islamic praises. Most interesting is that KISDI only filed its complaint when the story appeared in Jakarta-Jakarta, a magazine owned by the Catholic-labeled Kompas-Gramedia group, but did not do the same when other magazines published Vivian's story.

There is little doubt that while they were unable to do so previously, KISDI was banking this time on creating an Islam- versus-Catholic issue out of the whole thing.

There is no verification of Vivian's heartwrenching story, and publishers should not have used it. But more disturbing is that Muryono doubted the reports of Ita Nadia and her Tim Relawan (Team of Volunteers), who had been working so hard for two and a half months with the rape victims.

On July 30, Medan's Waspada also published an article picked up from Antara, titled The Reports of Mass Rape with Hundreds of Victims are Illogical. Muryono's article seems to be an elaboration on this piece.

But Republika version was enriched with quotations from Megawati Soekarnoputri, which seemed to suggest that she also doubted the rapes happened because of the seeming indifference of one victim when visited by police.

On the one hand, this suggests Waspada's reluctance in complicating matters with Megawati, especially since her camp of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) is gaining tremendous political strength in Medan.

On the other, Muryono's article in Republika seems to be an attempt to discredit Megawati and to alienate her from her growing women and Chinese-Indonesian supporters, fomenting bipolarization among them as well.

In fact, according to a friend who attended Megawati's dialog from which the quotation was taken, Megawati actually intended to point out it was hard for rape victims to speak out and therefore it was unnecessary to demand they do so.

According to my friend's account, Megawati also asserted that the occurrence of systematic rapes must be admitted, disclosed and handled comprehensively, without focusing on the issue of testimony of victims, which would only exacerbate their pain.

One of Republika's editors, Nasir Tamara, explained that Sri Muryono's article did not necessarily reflect the views of the paper. He said the publication merely wanted to provide room for the voicing of various opinions. Although Republika is known to be the newspaper of the Association of Indonesian Moslem Intellectuals (ICMI), and its general manager, Parni Hadi, has just been appointed director of Antara, Nasir's word on this matter can be understood.

Inclusivity is indeed an important aspect of multiculturalism. In a country where there has been little freedom for expression, the opportunity for voicing of opinions is especially necessary. It is decidedly satisfying that several newspapers are starting to provide this forum.

However, this opportunity should be approached rationally and intellectually. Therefore, the kind of inclusivity should not include simplistic articles trapped in bipolarity, like Sri Muryono's piece and that of Masli Arman in this publication recently.

From now on, Indonesians should avoid thinking in bipolarity, let alone advocating bipolar thoughts, and start to deal with the complexities of multicultural coexistence.

After all, there may well be a few lessons we can learn from the concept known as multiculturalism.

The writer is a curator of the museum of Pelita Harapan University in Lippo Karawaci, west of Jakarta.