The communist specter

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.