The democratic tendency lingers on in Asia

By Martin Woollacott

LONDON: Indonesia today stands at a gate at which many other countries have presented themselves in recent years. It is the one which leads to democracy, but it is a tricky gate to open and the road beyond is trickier still. Pakistan, which has passed through it rather too often, is perhaps the most extreme proof of that, as it slips once more into military rule.

That democracy disappoints has become almost an adage for our times. In the last quarter century, about a quarter of the world's states have moved from authoritarian rule to democracy. Of recent recruits, some, like Indonesia, are making their first experiment with democratic rule since the 1950s. Others, like Nigeria, are turning from the army to elected civilian leaders for the third or fourth time in their existence as independent states. Pakistan, at the opposite position in the cycle, watches the scrambled egg hats of military saviors come into view as they swear on television that this time it will be different.

In few cases has democracy brought a complete break with the authoritarian past nor swift solutions to social and economic problems. In Southeast Asia, for instance, the fall of the Marcoses and the triumph of "People Power" in Manila in February, 1986 represented a high point for those who saw, in advance of the revolutions in the eastern bloc, a "third wave" of democratization sweeping the world.

But Manila's revolution was not quickly followed by similar changes in Jakarta, Rangoon, and Seoul, as some expected. Change did come eventually to South Korea, and Thailand's last military episode in 1992 was followed by a consolidation of democracy in that country. But Indonesia had to wait until now for a new start, and the peoples of Burma are still waiting. Still, there was a chain reaction of sorts.

What was more sobering was that some of the changes in these societies were less fundamental than they had seemed, at least to the more euphoric observers. As Benedict Anderson, the great student of political development and nationalism in the region, has pointed out, Corazon Aquino's victory was as much a restoration of the rule of the old Philippines oligarchy as it was a victory for democracy. Marcos had been a member of that oligarchy who had come to dictate to it and he had centralized and personalized political power.

That was partly reversed, but the balance between the classes was not greatly affected, except that a more populist political style came into fashion. The president of the Philippines now is effective in that style, and he is also a man with strong Marcos connections. It is worth remembering that Marcos's assumption of special powers was initially popular because it was believed he would be a great reformer. In other words, the same kind of hopes were invested in the autocrat Marcos as were invested in the democrat Corazon Aquino. Those hopes were wholly disappointed under Marcos, and only very incompletely realized under Aquino. It raises the question of whether some problems remain obdurate whatever the form of rule, whether democratic, civilian autocratic, or military.

That is a question equally pertinent for Indonesia. In Jakarta, after much fumbling, a grand bargain has emerged. It links one of the two major Muslim groupings with the main secular opposition party under Gus Dur and Megawati Soekarnoputri. But this partnership is in place, and Gus Dur is the senior rather than the junior partner, thanks to the military, to the old government party, and to the other big Muslim movement. The government is truly a creation of all the serious political forces in the country, including those once linked very closely with Soeharto's New Order regime. Just as in the Philippines, one family is being discarded, but elements, including dubious elements, of the old system will remain. Yet things have changed all the same -- for the better in that the system is now more representative, and for the worse because for that very reason the expectations of ordinary people will now bear more heavily on it.

The difference between this last wave of democratization and earlier democratic phases is supposed to be that economic change has prepared the way for democracy in a way that it had not in the 1950s and 1960s. The theory suggests that the larger middle classes created by economic growth and by the expansion of state service form a firm foundation for democracy. Matured, even when partly trapped inside dictatorial societies, by travel, higher education, and the free flow of information, they eventually emerge as the nemesis of autocratic regimes. Certainly, in Indonesia, it has been surprising to see how much in the way of democratic habits survived under the carapace of New Order rule.

The trouble with the bourgeouisification approach is that, as the pessimistic analyst Robert Kaplan recently wrote, in many societies an impoverished urban underclass is growing even more rapidly as population pressure and the depletion of resources accelerate. Pakistan, with its 135 million people and its dwindling resources of good land and water, may need, he suggests "a new, more authoritarian regime to prevent either breakdown or rule by extreme Islamists". That is a dismal thought. A glance at Pakistan's past suggests the problem may lie more in the repeated attempts, by leaders in and out of uniform, to dominate the whole political structure of the country by placing their own people in every position. The difference between Gen. Zia and the Bhuttos in this respect was not great, and Nawaz Sharif showed the same tendencies. The impulse to total control usually ends by creating a coalition for your removal, and then, sadly, the process begins all over again.

Indonesia is luckier than Pakistan. The same strictures on overpopulation and resources apply, but it is a richer country. It does not have a long-standing relationship of enmity with a big neighbor, which has distorted Pakistan's development, inflated its military, and wasted its revenues. Habibie has performed the useful function of taking much of the blame for the renunciation of East Timor. It is important that, under the New Order, the country's Islamic political culture, developing a carefully oppositionist role, came to place a high value on democracy and tolerance of diversity, both ethnic and religious, both within Islam and outside it. That is a legacy, unlike others from the New Order days, which is worth having and which will be tested. Pakistan is in a more difficult position, yet, even at the worst times, Pakistan's sense of itself as a free society has been tangible, and remains a real political asset. So if we cannot, like EM Forster, manage three, it is still worth raising two cheers for democracy.

-- Guardian News Service