Scholar warns nation of bloody coflicts

Scholar warns nation of bloody coflicts

DEPOK, West Java (JP): Political scientist Mochtar Pabottingi
has warned that "bloody" conflicts could take place if power
holders continue to ignore the pressing public demand for
political reform.

"Indonesia may not disintegrate totally (as other observers
have feared), we're strong enough to survive that," he said here
yesterday.

But he added that the conflicts could erupt into "something
bloody" between those seeking to maintain the status quo and
groups who wanted to see change and believed that Indonesia has
reached a point of no return.

"By resisting change, the government is taking a dangerous
step... it's risking conflicts of great magnitude, between those
who believe that they have everything to lose and those who have
nothing to lose," he told The Jakarta Post.

Mochtar was speaking on the sidelines of a discussion marking
the launch of Evaluasi Pemilu Orde Baru (The Evaluation of
General Elections under the New Order Government), a journal of
the University of Indonesia's School of Social and Political
Studies. Military scholar Z.A. Maulani also spoke in the
discussion attended by Indonesia's doyenne of political studies
Miriam Budiardjo.

The senior researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Science
was referring to a 1995 study, commissioned by President
Soeharto, on the possibility of Indonesia changing its general
election system from the current proportional representation to
the district system.

Mochtar led the team of researchers who suggested a set of
gradual political reforms that the government should take and
eventual replacement of the current poll system. In the end,
however, the government ruled that there would be no changes to
the current political format.

Mochtar said anarchy in economic and political lives was an
early sign of a situation which could lead to conflict. The
current economic crisis was anarchy, as was the toppling of
Megawati Soekarnoputri from the leadership of the Indonesian
Democratic Party (PDI), he said.

The researcher, however, said he was still optimistic that
change would come within the next 10 years, pushed by people who
want "rationality in politics".

"And democracy is political rationality par excellence," he
said. "If the power holders resist change, they risk being
sidelined, or becoming irrelevant to people's lives.

"The government should learn before it is forced to learn from
societal coercion," he said.

Mochtar and Maulani spoke about the various riots that marred
the campaign period and the May 29 general election this year,
and agreed that the unrest signified a demand for change.

Maulani said that most of the riots took place in small towns,
far from Jakarta's social and political control. He said the
worst incident was the May 23 riot in the South Kalimantan
capital of Banjarmasin, a city with a population of 650,000
people, which saw the death of 123 people.

"The farther (the sites were) from (Jakarta), the farther they
were from control institutions, and the more the demands were
felt," Maulani said.

He identified several complicated, interrelated causes for the
riots, including "arrogance of the power holders", social
injustice, the economic supremacy of nonindigenous people over
indigenous people, and the combination of religious sentiment and
social envy.

Mochtar, however, said the riots were actually people's way of
questioning the current government's legitimacy.

He said the anarchy originated from the New Order government's
fixation toward political stability. Calling the narrow-
mindedness "a dwarfish perspective", Mochtar cited how the power
holders sidelined the country's transcendental values for
economic growth.

He also criticized the government for interpreting political
stability as "governmental stability" which in the end leads to
"the stability of the head of state" which makes it difficult for
people to replace the head of state. (swe)