The communist specter

Raising the communist specter was a favorite pastime of the previous regime of president Soeharto. Time and again, the regime played up the threat of a communist revival to rally public support, and thus sustained its power for more than 32 years. Even with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) long dead and gone and the teachings and books of Marxism-Leninism banned, Soeharto used the communist ghost until the end of his rule.

This raising of the dead, as it were, was employed effectively by the Soeharto regime to quash and silence political opponents. A person accused of being a communist earned the wrath of almost the entire society. It was a policy that killed many careers, both political and professional, and lives. In the early years of Soeharto's rule, hundreds of thousands of innocent people were summarily executed because of their perceived connection to the communist movement.

Today, as Indonesia marches toward democracy and as President Abdurrahman Wahid tries to bring the nation to terms with its collective guilt for the deaths of many innocent people, the communist specter is being raised once again. Some religious leaders and politicians have warned of the dangers of the President's complacency toward what they see as a communist threat. They oppose the President's call to lift the 1966 ban on communism, Marxism and Leninism, singing the same old song that because the nation was threatened by the communist movement in 1948 and 1965, Indonesia should never let down its guard.

Just as in the Soeharto years, those who postulate the communist specter are overstating their case. They must have been either brainwashed by the past regime, or they are afraid their past guilt will catch up with them. The way they have been attacking the President also suggests they are also using this issue to undermine his credibility and power.

According to their argument, the communist threat remains very much alive in Indonesia today, 34 years after the movement was crushed, and when the teaching has been abandoned even by those countries which once professed to be die-hard communists. The Soviet Union has now been broken up and Russia is firmly heading toward liberalism. China is a communist state in name only as it reaps the profits of liberalizing its economy.

As an ideology, communism has been discredited and does not hold the same romantic appeal it once commanded among young people in Third World countries. The only scenario, although not a realistic one, for a communist making comeback in Indonesia today would be one mounted by the few very old and sick remnants of PKI.

Lifting the ban on Marxism-Leninism would not likely lead to any significant threat to society. In spite of the ban, Marxism has already found its way back into Indonesian universities over the past few years as a subject in political science courses. Scholars have finally realize the study of political and historical sciences is incomplete unless one reads Marxist theories.

The danger of a return of communism essentially exists only in the minds of those who fell under the sway of the deceitful Soeharto regime. The current debate about the communist threat is academic, and has little political implication in today's Indonesia. Therefore, there is no real urgency in lifting the 1966 ban, but the reaction the President's call elicited has exposed the depth of the communist specter in the minds of many people. That is disturbing, but thankfully it is a trait commonly found only among the older generations.

By overstating the dangers of a communist revival, however, the nation may be overlooking clear and present dangers, as it did during the years Soeharto was in power. A return of the abuse of Pancasila ideology and the 1945 Constitution clearly poses a more immediate danger to society than the return of an internationally discredited teaching and ideology.

In the final analysis, however, there is little sense in allowing the question of a communist revival to divide the country when it faces much more pressing matters. Lifting the ban on communism, although now a mere formality, can wait a few more years.