The democratic tendency lingers on in Asia

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