Spell of power in RI politics

By Ignas Kleden

This is the second of two articles on the political culture in Indonesia.

JAKARTA (JP): The shortcoming of Indonesian politics in the 1950s was that the politicians were so overwhelmed by freedom of expression that they seemed to forget the necessity to come to a common consensus from time to time.

Political conflicts became the order of the day and political stability turned out to be an impossible project. No wonder, when Sukarno declared the dissolution of the Konstituante (the Old Order Parliament), there seemed to be no big backlash to that action. People were fed up with political hustle and bustle leading nowhere, and politics appeared to be a battlefield where no party was allowed to win.

Politicians kept talking from day to day without doing anything for the improvement of the economic and political situation. This situation has, to certain extent, justified the Soeharto regime in that politics was made a business notorious and allegedly incompatible with the new elan for development, management, technocracy and pragmatism.

Needless to say this is a successful trick because in propagating it, politics should be treated as only a secondary affair, the whole monopoly for doing politics was assumed by the government.

In the same manner, while persuading people to get rid of ideological idle debates and exhausting conflicts, the government took all liberty to implement ruthlessly pragmatic developmentalism and made it a full-fledged ideology without naming it so. The actual situation was that pragmatic developmentalism was the only ideology allowed and pursued, whereas doing politics became the monopoly of Soeharto's government, while people were persuaded and even forced to restrain themselves from using their democratic rights of political participation.

If one wants to embark upon a political reform in the present political situation, one cannot escape a big question as to how to define another modus vivendi of consensus and conflict. The tension between the two cannot be done away with and is, therefore, constitutive of democratic political culture.

One cannot build democracy on the grounds of conflict alone, as was the case with the Old Order, nor can one do this on the basis of consensus alone, as was the case with the New Order. It seems that democracy can only work in a condition where political space for differences of opinion and conflicts of interest are controlled by the willingness to compromise and the ability to have consensus.

It is also a condition, where a political consensus will not prevent political initiatives of finding new ways of pursuing political interest and new modes of expressing political opinions, as long as this occurs within the confines of the rule of law.

We are now living in a political situation full of difficult complications. It is not easy to say where best to start. The question is: should we settle the problem of political structure first, in which law enforcement can work, or should we assume that law enforcement should be treated as an effective means of political restructuring? Can law function at all in an unjust political structure?

If the power holders still believe that they are beyond the law, as was the case with the New Order, law becomes nothing but a legal means for political oppression or political justification of human rights violations and offenses against social justice.

Conversely, it is very unlikely to build a more just political structure without putting it on a legal ground. The case of Megawati Soekarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) is particularly interesting in this respect. Megawati is doing her best to go a long legal way to regain her political and democratic rights.

In so doing, she is putting to the test, intentionally or unwittingly, both Indonesia's political system and Indonesia's legal system.

Is the present government no less untouchable in comparison to the Soeharto regime? Is Indonesia's legal system a means which is liable to be used not only by the power holders but also by those who are victimized by the abuse of power?

This will be an important case, which can exemplify a new modus vivendi of consensus and conflict. Megawati seems to stick to her stance that everything which has been done to dissolve or to bring PDI to total fractionalizing should be examined and judged according to the law.

On the other hand, her opponent, Soerjadi, and his friends are more inclined to have a reconciliation without much ado about what has happened before. This is also the basic attitude of government officials such as Syarwan Hamid and Feisal Tanjung.

What these people want is: let PDI start anew with two separate wings reunited, and let us simply forget everything which has happened. After all, many actions were taken, so it is argued, not on their own initiatives but because these were mandated by other people higher up.

We have learned a good lesson in this controversy. What is the meaning of reconciliation? Does it mean forgetting every wrongdoing which has been committed? Or does it imply a forgiving attitude despite full knowledge of the evil one has suffered? Soerjadi seems to take the first option, while Megawati definitely takes the second one.

To make a point: unity and harmony are certainly beautiful but they should never be made a hiding place for social injustice and political violence, nor a pretext under which to cover up human rights violations.

Reconciliation is indeed delightful but it should not imply an intentional ignorance of the political evil which has been done. It only means, to quote an ancient saying, knowing everything in order to forgive all.

Democracy is a permanent tension between political knowledge of every possible evil and political disposition and decision to look forward to a better future.

Luckily enough, the tension can never be totally overcome because otherwise, we will only have an authoritarian boss who forbids any conflict and his underling is only able to give his consensus.

The writer is a sociologist based in Jakarta.