Thoughts for an old slogan

Tomorrow, Indonesia will celebrate its 54th anniversary of independence under comparatively gloomy circumstances. The nation is now facing a slow move toward a change in administration, while the dark shadow of disintegration looms large.

Never has this nation faced so much regional restiveness and chaos since 1957 and never has the military acted in such a pitiless way in crushing dissent.

Today we hear again so many questions about Persatuan dan Kesatuan (Unity and Unitarianism), two words which in the past have been treated as the 11th Commandment. Is the spirit of these words still relevant or have they ceased to have any meaning? Or have they lost their magical power through being repeated too often while within the unitary state the people have not enjoyed any justice?

Do we need to rethink the idea of federalism, which died down after the concept was first bandied about in 1945, to pave the way for a unitary state, which slipped into dictatorship after 1959, when president Sukarno introduced "guided democracy"? Alas, that kind of iron-fisted control was continued by his successor, Soeharto, but with a different style.

This nation has the right national slogan, Unity in Diversity, but perhaps the form of pluralism needs to be restructured after long decades of oppressive and counterproductive centralization policies.

It was Mohammad Hatta who, during the formation of this republic in 1945, aired the idea that this vast archipelago, comprising so many ethnic groups and cultures, should be governed by a federal system. Hatta, who later became vice president, said that under such a system each state could develop itself in healthy competitiveness.

However, the majority of nationalists then preferred the unitary system. Some of them were under the influence of the so- called existence of a unitary state during the old Javanese kingdom of Majapahit. In those days nobody seemed to be willing to openly acknowledge that the unitary system was achieved in a forcible way. And Hatta, as the most democratic among our founding fathers, accepted defeat.

Had his idea been accepted back then, this country would never have fallen under the dictatorship of guided democracy in 1959 and the military regime that followed later. Both regimes robbed the populace of their basic freedoms.

Those who demanded provincial status got what they wanted, and Aceh, who took up arms against the central government to demand special autonomous rule, got it, but only as a rubber stamp. It received no special rights. It was a placebo autonomy.

So today we witness economic prosperity for a chosen few and no justice for the majority. Worse still, our people have been forced to submit to military power, which is omnipresent in all levels of the administration.

In the naked absence of an effective administration, cracks in national unity are becoming increasingly clear. Some provinces, dismayed by the unequal distribution of the benefits of development, have stepped up their calls for independence. Some politicians have come out in support of federalism, while others have placed their standards in the camp of "greater autonomy".

The reality should serve us -- notably the military authorities -- as a lesson that all these demands are not against the state. What this nation agreed upon 54 years ago was the determination of the world's most diverse nation to unite. But until today lasting unity still has to be struggled for.

To crush any idea of federalism is not only wrong, it is inhuman.