Rieke casts her philosopher's stone

Rieke casts her philosopher's stone

Emmy Fitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Kekerasan Negara Menular ke Masyarakat

(State violence infects the people)

Rieke Diah Pitaloka

pp 210

Galang Press

The latest work of Rieke Diah Pitaloka should have been titled
"the study of Hannah Arendt's analysis on the origin of violence
and the banality of evil" and not Kekerasan Negara Menular ke
Masyarakat, or State violence infects the people.

Kekerasan is Rieke's second book after a poem anthology
Renungan Kloset (Toilet musings).

Rieke -- a popular television star and stage actress -- wastes
chapters exploring Arendt's thoughts on the political
philosopher's synthesis on violence and banality of evil. She
could have finished at her first and second chapters where she
permeates into why totalitarianism is always actual.

In applying this theme to Indonesia, Rieke cleverly limits her
focus to the New Order regime and its major crimes, including the
aborted September 1965 coup or G30S, the 1960s mass killings, the
Aceh atrocities and later, the spree of violence in other regions
like Poso and Ambon.

No one will argue that Rieke supports the theory that a
totalitarian government resorts to use violence and logically,
the violence will spread to the people as they are exposed to
this extensive use of violence.

That is all. Everyone knows that totalitarian leaders,
including the country's second president Soeharto, assume they
are the patriarchs of their people -- figures to look up to. As
such, their methods of maintaining control over the people and
retaining power are the first things the people will ape in their
lives at the micro level.

Borrowing Arendt's analysis on totalitarianism and the origin
of violence, Rieke brings readers to believe this is the only
true explanation as to why people resort to violence and
therefore, the state is responsible for this phenomenon.

Arendt was a daring philosopher, and usually drew upon
emerging cases for her theories, including the well-known
Eichmann case that led to her theory of the banality of evil.

Who is the "Eichmann" in Rieke's application of this theory at
home? Is it those who are behind bars for petty crimes?
Corruptors? Military generals or the soldiers involved in the
killing sprees in Tanjung Priok, Irian Jaya, East Timor, Aceh or
Maluku? Or is it those who went on a rampage -- looting, killing
and raping -- during the May riots?

It is almost impossible to piece together the scattered,
abundant incidences of violence in Indonesia in which the state
was directly or indirectly involved. The same goes for the myriad
cases involving people and violence in their their daily lives.
The first step in following Arendt's example slipped here, as
Rieke does not identify a single case to support her theory.

Even in the epilogue, she failed to come up with a clear
explanation justifying her lengthy discussion on Arendt and its
relation to what has happened here.

If only she had stopped exploring and analyzing Arendt's
theory, Kekerasan could have been her milestone, a masterpiece
that could have earned her a postgraduate degree in philosophy
from the prestigious University of Indonesia.

While Arendt examined the historical and social forces that
had a great deal of influence in the political realm, Rieke
busies herself with juggling theories (to parry with or challenge
Arendt's) and forgets to explore her own thematic context.

In speaking of violence and state violence in Indonesia, Rieke
could simply take an historical view on the nation's
establishment.

Oddly, however, Rieke doesn't challenge the popular knowledge
that, long before the New Order, the people of this country were
closely connected to violence and that Indonesia has traced a
long bloody course through its history.

People are exposed daily to violence -- both vertical and
horizontal -- while the country's bloody history extends backward
in time to traverse the expansive and imperialist spirit of the
ancient kingdoms and empires of Java and Sumatra, the
independence struggle, the 1960s and the ensuing bloodbath, and
the sectarian and communal conflicts across the archipelago
through the late 1990s to the present.

Her accomplished study of Arendt's theory would become ever
richer if Rieke really invests some extra effort to expand her
thesis to be more versatile and down to earth to Indonesia's
context.

However, one must be brave to light a candle to reflect upon
the country's past. Our history is at times too long, winding and
painful to look at, and particular episodes perhaps too shameful
even to acknowledge. In her study of philosophy, Rieke might
discover one or two theories that apply to the Indonesian
context, but why not be more pragmatic and allow the people see
their painful and appalling past in a more bona fide approach?