Sanctity of Pancasila: Myth or reality?

Sanctity of Pancasila: Myth or reality?

J. Soedjati Djiwandono, Political Analyst, Jakarta

People have been wondering why President Megawati
Soekarnoputri, Vice President Hamzah Haz and People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR) Speaker Amien Rais did not attend the
annual Pancasila Sanctity Day celebration on Oct. 1. Surely, I
cannot claim any foreknowledge about it. Nor do I know if they
did not show up for the same reasons.

By Presidential Decision of September 1967, Oct. 1 was made
Pancasila Sanctity Day. Pancasila is the state ideology
consisting of five principles: belief in God, unity, humanity,
deliberation for representation and social justice. It is of
relevance to note, as will be clear below, that some time later
the birth of Pancasila, which previously was celebrated on June 1
(the day in 1945 when Sukarno delivered his extemporaneous speech
on the philosophical basis of the future Indonesian state before
the Committee on Preparation for Indonesian Independence, later
published as The Birth of Pancasila), was also changed by
Soeharto to Aug. 18, the day after the proclamation of Indonesian
independence, when the 1945 Constitution containing the five
principles in its Preamble, if not the word Pancasila itself, was
promulgated.

In fact, the Indonesian word kesaktian is richer than the
English equivalent "sanctity". While the English word means
something like "sacred" or "holy", sakti means something like
"supernaturally powerful". The idea behind the "sanctification"
of Pancasila seems to be the belief that Indonesians survived the
tragedy of the Gestapu (posed by anti-Pancasilaists) because of
the sanctity of Pancasila. Soeharto also justified his emerging
"New Order" as a "total correction of all the deviations from
Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution" by Sukarno's "Old Order".

Given that an ideology simply means, among other things, a set
of ideals or das Sollen, formulated by men, to regard Pancasila
as something sacred or holy, as having sanctity, goes beyond
rationality. It is not an untypical Javanese way of thinking,
which is often marked by some form of animism.

Perhaps of greater significance, however, is the possibility
that it was part of Soeharto's political maneuver not only to
justify his policies and to give legitimacy to his own rule -- by
what looked like a democratic process rather than a coup d'etat
-- but also to further discredit Sukarno. Soeharto's decision to
"sanctify" Pancasila and to change the date of the birth of
Pancasila, if indirectly -- I suspect through a book written by
the late Nugroho Notosusanto, reportedly the official historian
of the Indonesian Military (TNI, then ABRI) -- after Soeharto was
appointed acting president by the provisional MPR at its special
session in early 1967, which had led to Sukarno's impeachment.

If that should be the case, then it seems understandable that
President Megawati, a daughter of Sukarno, stayed away from this
year's Pancasila Sanctity Day celebration, if she looks at it the
way I do. I have no idea of the reasons for the absence of Vice
President Hamzah Haz and MPR Speaker Amien Rais.

Indeed, history is often not much more than what we know of
the past based on "facts" available to us, some probably just
"myths", and understand it through a certain method or approach.
That's why history will never be completely revealed or fully
understood.

The record office in London, for instance, opens to the public
official documents that have been kept for 30 years. So we should
not be surprised if books on history continue to be published
with new facts and in new versions.

Then comes the question of what writing history is for. Hence
the importance of a philosophy of history, or history as a social
science, which helps determine the way we construct or write and
rewrite history, to serve a special purpose.

In the context of nation building in the early years of
Indonesian independence, books on Indonesian history for high
school students, for instance, were focused on the stories of
"national heroes", as if such people really made history.

Thus cynics often refer to history as "his story". A Russian
proverb says that a historian is "an expert in predicting the
past". And what about versions of history?

A joke after the revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1967
describes what I have in mind: Three prisoners shared one cell.
One of them asked another, "Why are you here?" The man answers,
"I am here because I supported Dubcek". Then he asked back, "What
about you, what are you here for?" "I was opposed to Dubcek", was
the answer. Finally both of them asked the third man, who had
been quiet till then. They shouted together, "Hey, who are you,
and why are you here?" He said, "I am Dubcek".

Recently there have been calls for a review of Gestapu (the
Sept. 30 Movement) affair of 1965; for the lifting of the ban on
communism (MPR Decision No. 25/1966; for national reconciliation
and the rehabilitation of political detainees alleged to be
members of the now banned Indonesian Communist Party (PKI); for a
rewriting of Indonesian history, particularly as regards the
alleged communist coup attempt.

And a number of books have been written for the purpose of
"setting the record straight" or for "straightening out history".

What is there to believe, then, especially for the young
generation of Indonesians? From the outset, the Gestapu affair
was controversial. Sukarno insisted it was Gestok, or the Oct.1
Movement. The well-known "Cornell Paper" argued it was an
internal affair of the Indonesian Army.

On the basis on an article a long time ago on the affair, The
missing link in The Journal of Concerned Asian Scholars, a
professor from Bombay wrote a dissertation (published as
Indonesia under Soeharto, 1988) which argues that Soeharto was
the dalang or mastermind of the affair, a version now supported
by the writings of former senior officers such as A. Latief,
former foreign minister Subandrio and others. The list of
publications on the matter is endless.

I would suggest that we leave it to the young generation of
Indonesians to make up their minds. Make available to them all
possible sources of information, let them learn independent
thinking and analysis, and let them make their own independent
conclusions.