Sielding Pancasila from inflationary devaluation

Sielding Pancasila from inflationary devaluation

By Franz Magnis-Suseno

JAKARTA (JP): Fifty years of Indonesian independence also
means 50 years Pancasila.

On Aug. 18, one day after the Proclamation of Independence,
Indonesia's first constitution, the famous 1945 Constitution
still enforced, was ratified by the Commission for the
Preparation of the Independence of Indonesia.

The last paragraph of its preamble contained the five
principles of Pancasila: belief in one God, just and civilized
humanism, the unity of Indonesia, people's power in wisdom
through common deliberation/representation, and social justice
for the whole Indonesian people.

Since then, Pancasila has functioned as the philosophical
foundation of the Republic of Indonesia.

Foreigners are often baffled by the unending reference to
Pancasila in speeches by Indonesian officials at seminars and on
every occasion. Pancasila's five principles look both dignified
and innocent. They contain, in an elegant and well balanced way,
the founding values of the generally recognized fundamental
principles of political ethics (except environmental ones which,
in 1945, were not yet within the horizon of humanity).

Indonesians are often fed up by talk of Pancasila. Especially
the increasingly skeptical youth. Fifteen years of Pancasila
courses (P4), almost from cradle to the grave, induces immediate
drowsiness upon hearing the word Pancasila.

The editor of a book I wrote on Pancasila Democracy insisted
on scrapping the word Pancasila in the title because he was
afraid it would negatively affect its sales. Students become
cynical when observing how clamp downs on democratic freedoms, on
workers rights, or on critiques by the media are all justified by
referring to Pancasila.

Therefore it seems to be the time to stress that Pancasila is
not just verbal mumbo-jumbo. The fact is that without Pancasila
this country would not have come into existence and could
continue to exist if Pancasila was scrapped or replaced by
something else.

At the end of May 1945, the Preparatory Assembly for
Indonesian Independence had reached a dangerous impasse: should
independent Indonesia become a secular nationalistic state, or
should Islam become its ideological basis?

In this situation Sukarno proposed five principles of what he
called "Pancasila", in fact similar to those which later became
official, but in different wording and sequence.

Sukarno's proposal was enthusiastically received by all sides.
It still took more than two months until Pancasila got into its
definite form.

First, a sub-commission put belief in God in first place and,
in order to make Pancasila more acceptable to Moslems, added the
words "with the obligation of its adherents to observe the
Islamic syariah (law)".

But after Christians from Eastern Indonesia had objected that
mentioning the majority religion in the most fundamental document
of the state would position non-Moslems as second rate citizens,
these words were unanimously scrapped on Aug. 18 (this
elimination proved to be a bone of contention in times to come).
Thus Pancasila came into existence.

It is worth noting that Pancasila was later inserted in an
identical form in the two other constitutions Indonesia once had,
the "Constitution of the United Republic of Indonesia" in 1949
and in the " Provisional Constitution" of 1950 (the 1945
Constitution of was restored by President Sukarno in 1959).

Pancasila is, therefore, the result of a "noble covenant of
the whole nations". It is the foundational compromise or
consensus of the Indonesian state. Those aspiring to an Islamic
state declared themselves ready to sacrifice this ideal for the
unity of the country. Those hoping for a state based exclusively
on Indonesian nationhood -- almost all of them Moslem too --
renounced a secular model and accepted statehood on the basis of
the belief in one God.

Pancasila, therefore, refers directly to its five principles,
all of them deeply rooted in the traditional values of the
different Indonesian cultures.

But these principles get their relevance from the fact that
Pancasila means the fundamental consensus on which the
willingness to join the common Indonesian state is based; that
this state belongs to all Indonesians, regardless of their
religious affiliations. Therefore, there shouldn't be any
discrimination as to basic human and civil rights on terms of
majority versus minority.

The fundamental importance of Pancasila is obvious. Shaking
Pancasila would imply shaking the very foundations on which the
unity of the Indonesian state is based, the fundamental consensus
underlying the willingness of those hundreds of tribes and
communities of very different cultural and religious
orientations, spread over thousands of islands, to unite into one
Indonesia.

During the first 20 years of independence, Pancasila was used
mainly to counter repeated moves to make the Indonesian state
more Islamic. When the new order was established, it undertook
far reaching political and ideological reorientations. Against
the ideological hotchpotch of the later Sukarno years, the new
order chose the obvious strategy to legitimize its new direction
back to Pancasila.

Thus, Pancasila is appealed to in order to prove the
legitimacy of the new order policies. Except in cases of pure
omong kosong (blabbering), reference to Pancasila has always an
exact meaning although, in order to retrieve it, one must be able
to read between the lines.

In this context it is particularly helpful to remember the
four "ideologies" rejected by the new order : communism,
"rightist (meaning Islamic) extremism", western liberalism
(originally including everything from human rights to
parliamentary democracy); and "class struggle" or confrontational
labor relations.

On the first two points there exist a broad consensus
throughout the political spectrum. Communism, with its
totalitarian understanding of power and its atheism, cannot be
accommodated within a Pancasila state seems to be obvious.

While the option of an "Islamic state", even the need for
Islamic political parties, are increasingly regarded as out of
date also by Moslem intellectuals and politicians.

But the same cannot be said on point three and four. On the
contrary, the discussion about democracy and human rights grows
and then is cut back, like the banning of Tempo and two other
journals last year, which increases the sense that, 50 years
after independence, the time has come to give Pancasila democracy
more substance.

The same is true for labor. If we want to develop a higher
quality labor force, workers will have to be treated as partners
and be able to organize. The still unresolved murder of Marsinah
has, in fact, become a catalyst for more openness on the labor
front.

Pancasila is and remains the basic consensus upon which the
unity of Indonesia and her dignity as a civilized state is based.
In order to shield Pancasila from inflationary devaluation, a
more careful, less self-serving use of Pancasila language by
those in power seems to be well advised.

Dr. Franz Magnis-Suseno SJ is professor for social philosophy
at Driyarkara School of Philosophy in Jakarta.