The latent dangers of extremism

By Sidhesh Kaul

JAKARTA (JP): Conditions in Indonesia are just right for extremists to come goose-stepping into the theater -- high unemployment, economic disparity, a divided society, a bickering polity and an unstable government.

Throw in a dash of restless youth and a pinch of religious fervor and you have successfully cooked up a volatile dish that has the potential of replacing one form of tyranny with another.

Revolutionary extremism does not take shape overnight. It goes through several stages, as experts say. It starts with the decay of the Old Regime. During this stage, the administration breaks down, taxes rise, corruption shamelessly manifests itself in all walks of life and the common folks lose their faith in the government.

Intellectuals pontificate endlessly about idealized systems of governance. The government maneuvers for legitimacy whilst the polity undergoes polarization. This scenario sets the ground for a revolution.

During the first stage of the revolution committees, networks, cells and conspiracies are formed with the single-minded focus of overthrowing the regime. Discontent amongst the masses becomes overt, the general mood turns rebellious and the political players draw up battle lines.

The government then calls out the troops to quell such rebellion -- this move typically fails, the army losing its' courage at firing on their own and this event signals the beginning of the end for the Old Regime. The Old Regime is kicked out, popular exultation breaks out and the next stage of the revolution sets in.

The stage following the exit of the Old Regime is transitory in nature. Leaders, having opposed the Old Regime in the past (though still connected either directly or indirectly with the deposed powers), man the government typically during this stage. Replacements to the Old Regime are generally moderate.

The moderates initiate middle-of-the-road reforms (the typical elitist struggle of balancing pretensions to change versus preservation of effective power) and their energies are dissipated between initiating reforms at a pace that is acceptable to the general polity and hanging on to power.

This stage witnesses the second wave of discontent among the masses as general impatience with the slow pace of reform rises, even as it becomes increasingly difficult for the moderates to placate the expectations of the general public.

During this next stage, the impatience of the populace with the perceived slow pace of the moderates and the yawningly wide expectations gap, sets the ground for extremists to step in savior-like. The extremists are better organized and focused on their objectives than the moderates -- an aspect of great appeal to the populace in general.

The extremists oust the moderates and along with it everything "Old" is thrown out as well. The extremists lay down canons for "good" and "bad" and propagate an "idealistic society" -- by force, if necessary. The public's initial exultation on the hastening of the reforms is soon replaced by fear as the extremists reveal their own agenda.

A reign of terror is unleashed, cloaked in high flown idealistic canons and in the name of the revolution and gradually madness sets in and as Brinton elegantly says: "The revolution devours its' children".

Its' only a matter of time before a "Thermidor" (named after the French Revolutionary month in which, Robespierre, the demagogue-revolutionary, himself was guillotined) sets in and typically, and history is witness to this, a dictator is born once again. The country goes back to square one.

The problem with revolutionary extremism is that although they set out with the intention of bringing about change but in the end little is achieved. All that it does is replace one kind of tyranny with another.

French Kings were replaced by Napoleon. The despotic Tsars by an even more despotic Stalin. The Batista Regime by Fidel Castro. The unpopular tyranny of the Shah by the unpopular tyranny of the priests from Qom.

Simon Bolivar, the liberator of South America, sums up his despair about the inefficacy of revolutionary extremism when he says, "He who aids a revolution ploughs the sea". In general, revolutions are disasters.

Some critiques to this stand are quick to point out the success of the American Revolution as an important exception. In my opinion, it was not a revolution but merely a war of independence -- purely political and devoid of social issues.

The French Revolution on the other hand was deeply involved in social matters, became a bloody mess and ended in a dictatorship. The degradation of a revolution is inevitable.

A glance at this model should alarm every Indonesian. What is happening in the political-socio arena seems to be following the Brinton script. Let us step back in time and examine the recent developments in Indonesia within the framework of this model.

The "New Order" regime wrote its' own death sentence. Decades of corruption, cronyism and collusion had withered the backbone of the Soeharto administration and coupled with the skewed developmental, fiscal and monetary policies (all aimed towards growth at the expense of inequitable distribution of wealth) the regime soon found its' legitimacy evaporating.

The growing, but deep-seated, resentment against the government was crushed. With the advent of the Asian Crisis the New Order's problems got exacerbated and the misleading veneer of growth peeled away (and the decades long chorus of applause from International Financial Institutions gave way to a cacophony of new found outrage) with the first shower of economic catastrophe, to reveal a country ravaged by poverty and economic disparity and mechanisms of government that were mired in corruption and inefficiency.

By calling out the troops to quell the protests, Soeharto's regime ignited the populace into a mad frenzy of revolt. The New Order thus laid the foundations for the first stage of the revolution.

With the demise of the New Order (and if one discounts the brief appearance by B.J. Habibie as the flickering and dying flames of the New Order) the country witnessed a polarization of forces. True to the Brinton script, the classic study in revolutions, the moderate Abdurahman Wahid walked into the Presidency, a representation of the compromise amongst the bitterly divided polity.

Unfortunately, the crown sits precariously on President Abdurrahman Wahid's head. The pace of reforms is slow, corruption is still rampant, if not worse than before and the government seems to be stumbling from one scandal to another. The people are impatient for change and frustrations are slowly manifesting themselves again in the form of protests that hold the promise of violence.

Indonesia, if examined through Brinton's eyes, is thus ideally poised for extremism. The shaky and reluctant governance of President Abdurrahman, in the face of socio-economic frustration, is an open invitation for extremists. The recent show of strength by political parties who did not hesitate to mobilize their storm troopers (during the recent spate of protests and demonstrations) is evidence to the fact that Indonesian politics is very close to the brink.

Strong-arm posturing is symptomatic of the erosion of the government's effectiveness and legitimacy. Politicians have been quick to cast away secular pretensions as they harness the momentum of the masses for their own political ends.

Toying with sectarian and religious polarization as a means of mass mobilization is a one-way road to hell and akin to holding aloft a welcome banner for extremism.

The recent spate of pronouncements by zealots as well as the dangerous experiment being conducted by some sections of the polity to use the scepter of religious fanaticism as an instrument of change is a journey that is fraught with irreversible perils.

The polarization of the Indonesian masses along religious lines to bring about a change in the system of governance is too radical an approach and would bring about irreversible and retrograde changes whose effects it would take decades to undo.

President Abdurrahman is left with few choices and the die is cast. By hastening the pace of the reforms single-mindedly and matching the people's expectations, the President can choose to don the protective shield of the legitimacy armor that the people will bestow on him and pursue the path of democracy -- or preserve the ineffective status quo and unwittingly roll out the red carpet for extremists.

The writer is a commentator on regional economic and political issues based in Jakarta.