State's role too strong, scholars say
State's role too strong, scholars say
KUPANG, East Nusa Tenggara (JP): A number of political
scholars said yesterday that Indonesia's government is
domineering at the expense of the development of society itself.
Members of the Association of Indonesian Political Scientists
scrutinized the role of the state at a seminar yesterday and
found that the central government is too strong for the nation's
own good.
They found that there is still too much central government
control over regional administrations and political
organizations.
Two prominent academics, Syamsuddin Haris and Kris Nugroho,
underlined the meddling in the internal affairs of political
organizations to support their argument that a civil society was
still elusive.
They said the laws hinder the public from being creative and
freeing themselves from interference -- the prerequisites for the
development of a civil society.
Syamsuddin, a researcher from the Indonesian Institute of
Sciences, said that state domination is strengthening in newly
industrialized countries in the Third World.
"The New Order government is enjoying enormous power to
control the people's economic and political activities," he said
in the three-day seminar opened by the Governor of East Nusa
Tenggara, Herman Musakabe.
Legislation passed in 1985 virtually gives the government the
option to intervene in the internal affairs of any political
organization, although the law justifies intervention only if the
organization challenges the state ideology Pancasila and means to
replace it with other doctrines, such as communism.
"The fact is that none of the conflicts that have riddled the
Indonesian Democratic Party, the United Development Party and the
government-backed political grouping, Golkar, over the past
decade are ideological in nature. It's simply a battle for
leadership," he said.
The system that justifies the state's meddling proves to have
crippled political organizations as a means for the people to
channel their aspirations, he added.
"Therefore if the democratization drive only results in the
government's tightening control over society, there won't be
democracy in the foreseeable future ...," he said.
Kris Nugroho, a lecturer at the Surabaya-based Airlangga
University's school of social and political sciences stressed
that an overly-strong government was to blame for the weakening
of political organizations in Indonesia.
The might of the government is not balanced out by strong
political parties that play the role of check and balance
mechanisms.
"This makes a flimsy foundation for the development of a civil
society. Besides, the strong state over the weak society creates
a political climate which is unfavorable for change in the top
national leadership because the ruling elite considers any move
to change the system a challenge to their establishment," he
said.
The overly strong government, he said, makes the
transformation into a civil society a longer process. (pan)