The problem of a 'clean environment'

The problem of a 'clean environment'

By Onghokham

JAKARTA (JP): Recently it happened again: people being
accused of being tainted with leftism due to contamination
through relatives or even friends connected with what used to be
called the "old left", or communists or with the coup d'etat of
Sept. 30, 1965.

This is not the first time that "cleanliness" of any kind of
relationship with "leftists" or "rightists", such as the Darul
Islam rebellion, has been called for by the authorities.

However, twenty years or more after the event, one wonders
about the legitimacy of such calls, especially now, after all the
revolutionary changes that have taken place in Eastern Europe and
after the shrinking space and activity of communism around the
world.

Of course, one knows that all this is politics: a way of
purging enemies and undesirables. It is also a convenient way of
doing it since in Indonesia's history of turbulence one can
almost always find some kind of fault with almost anybody.

Nevertheless, this sort of accusation, especially when made
against relatives of those "undesirables", is against the
principles of human rights. It presumes guilt by association and
rejects the idea of individual responsibility. It also rejects
the idea of a group's or an individual's capacity to change and
develop.

An individual, for instance, could have been on the "left" or
"right" side during the Indonesian revolution for independence,
and who was not on one side or the other? But persons and
conditions change. Liken this with the acceptance of repentant
communists or even former communist parties in the former Eastern
Europe. Or compare this with the acceptance of descendants of
former fascists in Europe. Societies seem to accept them and they
have some legitimacy. Change and the development of parties, of
individuals and of the world is possible.

The difference between these attitudes characterizes the
difference between a bureaucratic culture and a liberal one. A
bureaucratic culture tends categorize everything and bar the idea
of change or development.

Police, intelligence agencies, agencies concerned with peace
and order, or even with law and order, are bureaucracies and they
keep special records, mostly of troublemakers. Take, for
instance, people with tattoos, or with long hair, or people from
certain regions or groups, such as Surabaya soccer supporters
(perhaps with reason) or people from Surabaya in general. Or they
could be people with special lifestyles, such as the warok of
Ponorogo, which are men who because of their convictions practice
homosexuality with young boys.

Then there are the undesirables of recent political history
and almost every revolutionary period has yielded many of these
suspected eternal (for the police) troublemakers. First among the
ranks in Indonesia are communists and former politicians of the
now-vanished Indonesian Socialist Party, as were the Babouf
conspirators or the Jacobins or Bonapartists in Europe.

Some of those categories of undesirables in Indonesia date
back to the days of colonial bureaucracy, since bureaucracies
hardly change, whether they are colonial or national or whatever
else. The Madiun-Ponorogo region, for instance, was regarded as a
turbulent area by pre-colonial Mataram, our last Javanese
monarchy, as well as by the colonial and post-colonial regimes.
As it happens, many Socialists and Nationalists politicians were
from this region.

Banten is another such region, perhaps with more
justification than Ponorogo, although Ponorogo was economically
of greater importance than Banten, which had no colonial
plantations while coffee plantations thrived in the Ponorogo-
Madiun region.

As far as blood or family relations are concerned, the
Netherlands East Indies bureaucracy used to compile genealogies
and genetic codes of the pangreh-praja -- members of the priyayi
indigenous elite in its employ and whom it used in a system of
indirect rule as described by J. Furnivall. The perceived
political purity of priyayi families reminds us of the
cleanliness of individuals in the present political order.

In the colonial period, every problem a Dutch official had
with a local priyayi of the pangreh-praja (native civil servants)
corps invited investigations into his ancestral and family past,
even that of his wife. If necessary, that is if faults could not
be found regarding the man himself, then in-laws or the mother's
family might become subjects of investigation.

However, as is the case with accusations of "left" or "right"
contamination, faults were usually found with the priyayi one
wanted to purge. Priyayi families were not that numerous even in
those days and they usually married among each other. Sometimes a
rebel relative or ancestor could be found among them. In short,
the "cleanliness" requirement has always been a good political
device. And one should not underestimate the culturally deeply
ingrained bureaucratic practices of categorizing enemies of the
state.

The great political event in Java's colonial history was the
Diponegoro rebellion (1825-30). It was the last great rebellion
against the colonial order. The modern Dutch colonial system
dated from after that war.

If at present the criterion for political "cleanliness" dates
from the time of the communist coup of Sept. 30, 1965, then the
Diponegoro revolt of 1830 was used as a criterion for loyalty to
the Dutch crown. Descendants of Diponegoro were of course never
accepted into the colonial civil service. They could never become
a sultan (local ruler) or even brides of sultans and princes.

Several commanders of the rebel Prince Diponegoro, such as Ali
Basyah and some of their descendants, deserted to the Dutch side
in order to get appointed into the colonial civil service.
However, if there was trouble, or if there was a conflict between
one of them and the Dutch colonial authority, then their
relationship to Ali Basyah would be cited.

On the other hand it must be said that the Dutch usually
concealed blood relationships to rebels and this was only
recorded in police reports or other official documents. Only in
the case of the most serious misconduct, such as when their
loyalty was questioned, did they get dismissed.

An even greater trauma for the colonial government where the
question of political pollution might come up involved the so-
called power blocks, whether they be government-appointed bupati
(regents) or Chinese entrepreneurs who leased the colonial
government's tax farms.

In recent studies on post-colonial countries, scholars have
argued that most post-colonial countries have in many ways
duplicated or continued the old colonial policies. I tend to
agree with them. There can be no denying that colonialism has
made a deep impact on our world.

I would argue that colonialist regimes are, or were,
authoritarian governments. But in modern times authoritarian
governments rely on a modern bureaucracy. Post-colonial states,
are still very much authoritarian governments. To a great deal
they depend on bureaucracies, although perhaps without the
niceties and problems of outside control, such as in the
Indonesian case by the Dutch parliament and other institutions.

Authoritarianism and oppression rather than the creativity of
independence are perhaps the cause of the duplicity of colonial
and post-colonial states.

The writer is a historian and former lecturer at University of
Indonesia.