The nation-state is not an end in itself

It is a sacred task to defend a heritage in the face of challenges, but political analyst J. Soedjati Djiwandono stresses the urgent need for a critical understanding of history.

JAKARTA (JP): Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs, Gen. Wiranto, recently stated that any solution of the Aceh problem must be within the framework of the unitary state. The unitary state of the Republic of Indonesia is final. It was designed as such by our founding fathers.

Such a way of thinking must have been the result of misleading, misled education and ossifying indoctrination by Soeharto's New Order, which was well known for its distortion of history. There is no logical or rational basis for such statements. Who has the right to determine such in the first place?

Let's look briefly at our history. Just a little over a year after the proclamation of Indonesian independence, Prime Minister Sutan Syahrir signed the Linggardjati agreement with the Dutch on Nov. 15, 1946. Article (1) of the agreement says that "The Netherlands Government recognizes the Republic as the de facto authority in Java and Sumatra." Article (2) of the agreement says, inter alia, that "The Netherlands Government and Republican Governments co-operate toward the setting up of a sovereign democratic federal state, the United States of Indonesia..."

That was an initial part of Sutan Syahrir's brilliant diplomatic efforts to gain international recognition for Indonesian independence. Under the circumstances, he had no choice but to agree to what, at that moment, was thought to be the most we could get. It almost cost his prime ministership but for Sukarno's and Mohammad Hatta's full backing of his policy.

Surely the Linggardjati agreement was never meant to be something final. Nor was the final agreement reached at the Round Table Conference in The Hague, the Netherlands, near the end of 1946, which led to the transfer of sovereignty from the Dutch to the new United Republic of Indonesia, envisaged by the Linggardjati agreement. Barely a year later, the federal republic was dissolved and replaced by the unitary republic of Indonesia that has lasted to the present.

The (new) unitary republic that had substituted the federation was based on a provisional constitution. Hence the significance of the general election of 1955 for a new parliament and the constitutional assembly to determine a new constitution. This is important to remember. The assembly was not to confirm the 1945 Constitution, which was itself a provisional one. Therefore it contains provisional and supplementary provisions.

Article (2), or the latter, provides that "Within six months after the People's Consultative Assembly has been formed, the People's Consultative Assembly shall convene to enact the Constitution."

That was never done, even after the Constitutional Assembly was dissolved by then President Sukarno's decree of July 5, 1959 for its failure to enact a new constitution. The decree not only dissolved the Constitutional Assembly and newly elected Parliament, but it also decreed the return to the 1945 Constitution -- still a provisional constitution.

Under the prevailing circumstances in Indonesia near the end of the 1950s, Sukarno's action was presumably justified. It was an emergency situation.

The point I want to make here is that neither the unitary state on the basis of the provisional constitution of 1950 -- as clear from the term "provisional" -- was never meant to be final. Nor was the ("new") unitary state on the basis of the 1945 Constitution, the return to which was decreed by Sukarno. And as was indicated earlier, the 1945 Constitution was also a provisional one.

Here lies a mystery of Soeharto's New Order. From the very beginning, the New Order based its legitimacy on its "total correction" to Sukarno's deviations from the 1945 Constitution. Ironically, it continued to claim the 1945 Constitution as its basis, a constitution decreed by President Sukarno, which was never confirmed by a series of People's Consultative Assemblies of Soeharto's own creation over three decades, and which the New Order claimed to adhere "purely and consistently", again despite the fact that it was a provisional constitution. Is this also to be a final constitution?

Did not our founding fathers argue long before independence on what should constitute the boundaries of an independent Indonesia? Did not Sukarno and Hatta differ on whether or not West Irian should be part of independent Indonesia? Did our founding fathers also envisage the integration of East Timor, which we used to affirm that the integration of East Timor was final and therefore as a domestic affair of ours not negotiable?

We can look into the history of some other nations for comparison. France has had it first, second, third, fourth, and fifth republic. When the American federation of states declared their independence more than 200 years ago, they started with 12 or 13 states. Was it meant to be final? Of course not. In the course of its history, the USA has added Alaska, Texas and Hawaii, among others, to its federation. Hardly anything in this earthly life is final and permanent.

Lest anyone should get me wrong, I must say at this point that I am not against a unitary state as such. Nor am I for or against a federal state. As a matter of principle, however, I am against, and strongly so, the imposition of anything by the central government on the people, against the wishes of the people, backed by lies and false arguments, at the expense of justice. After all, the nation-state is never an end in itself.