Total reform can't come in half measures

Total reform can't come in half measures

By Rahayu Ratnaningsih

JAKARTA (JP): The nation has just witnessed a critical turning
point with the downfall of Soeharto. While the throne has yet to
cool, the arena he left behind has turned full circle.

People are almost possessed with the power to express
everything they could only say in a whisper or to the closest
confidants just two weeks ago.

Less than a week after Soeharto resigned, the press dug its
claws in and printed sensational stories under bold headlines of
"Soeharto and his family's wealth", forbidden territory a week
before.

We are now almost as democratic as the United States, or so it
appears. Our people are free to defame their (new) president.
They are free to probe and speculate about his alleged wealth and
history of nepotism. We are no longer sweet, polite, submissive
citizens.

Soeharto's biggest mistake, typical of the leader of an
authoritarian regime, was his vehement intransigence against the
law of nature: change.

He failed to take notice of how equally oppressive ideologies,
such as communism, have collapsed and been consigned to the trash
heap of history for their inflexibility and inability to respond
to change. He refused to learn from other dictators, such as
Marcos, Mobutu Sese Seko, or "Baby Doc" Duvalier who were
banished from their ivory towers through people power. He was
complacent amid his bootlicking subordinates and cronies, in the
certain knowledge that he was invincible.

He willfully chose to cultivate the hypocrisy of a patronage
culture well known as the ABS (Asal Bapak Senang, meaning "as
long as sir is happy") mentality among his people. He demanded
total loyalty and rewarded it accordingly, while opposition was
unpalatable and punished under the obtuse and dictatorial
national security laws. He astutely, if vulgarly, invented a
twisted, selective and self-serving interpretation of the
Constitution and the state's ideology, Pancasila, in such a way
that any challenge to his rule and "divinity" would be a threat
to the fundamental principles of the nation.

His penchant for Javanese philosophy was instilled in his life
principles, but his selective interpretation led Sri Sultan
Hamengkubuwono X to overtly criticize his perverted rendition of
the highly revered ancient wisdom.

So the loyalty he earned from his people was skin-deep. It was
motivated by materialism and, thus, frail. In his final moments,
many of his most "faithful" entourage, the very ones who
regularly extended adulation toward him, turned their backs on
him knowing his days were numbered. His predecessor Sukarno, on
the other hand, decades after his death still inspires loyalty
and respect in millions of Indonesians.

His legacy is a failing, feudal and tyrannical system which is
woefully plagued by corruption, collusion, cronyism and nepotism.
His 32-year rule has given birth to and raised the most backward
and inefficient bureaucratic patriarchy one can possibly imagine
in a so-called civilized society.

For about 30 years this system was so highly geared to work to
his advantage that up to a few weeks before he stepped down, no
one in the country ever expected that he could be displaced so
quickly. He was widely acknowledged as one of the most powerful
leaders in the world. Though people could sense that his end was
imminent, nobody was quite sure that it would happen anytime
soon. They thought it would take at least another five years,
when his leadership term ended and that even then he would live
on through the hands of others.

Things began deteriorating quickly and reached a point of no
return after May 11 when four Trisakti students were brutally
killed. The ball was rolling, the people ran with it and played
it well. And even "invincible" Soeharto could not stop it because
the momentum was just too great.

It was collective ignorance systematically cultivated by the
regime that prompted average Indonesians to misdirect their angst
toward the wrong targets. Our conscience was too long
anesthetized by opting to go with the flow and taking for granted
all the anomalies around us every single day for 32 years.

We quietly complained about it but were not aware that we had
been a willing part of the rotten system we defamed. The
Holocaust did not happen because of one person's evil but because
of millions of Germans' silence and indifference.

Our people have been fast asleep until recently when students,
free from any vested interests, pioneered for the second time
since May 20, 1908, what will be known as the re-resurrection of
the people.

We have truly been led into a treacherous abyss; the economic
crisis does not look like ending anytime soon and, if anything,
it seems to be getting worse. This is the abyss, the state of
being in which we live at this very moment and for weeks to come.

Time and again, in the course of less than two weeks, we have
witnessed how intellectually shallow and morally defective many
of our leaders are. Those who were well known as the staunchest
propagators of the status quo collectively changed their
orientation and, as could be expected from such people, followed
wherever the current might bring them.

Yesterday it was the New Order Haven, today it is the Reform
Beach. Tomorrow it will surely be a different paradise. These
political chameleons are, without the slightest embarrassment,
busy repositioning themselves so they can be a part of reform
euphoria. They expect to share a portion of the reform cake.

Lt. Gen. Syarwan Hamid has only recently talked about his
conscience when pressed to resign from his position as minister
of home affairs due to his active and direct involvement in the
engineered dismantling of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI)
under Megawati's leadership when he was the chief of
sociopolitical affairs of the Armed Forces.

He claimed that his conscience led him to support the
students' request that Soeharto step down, risking a recall from
his faction. He did not explain though why his conscience came
into play only in the last moments of Soeharto's rule, when the
strong current for reform could no longer be contained.

Where was his conscience when he vigorously defamed Megawati's
supporters and accused the Democratic People's Party (PRD) of the
July 27, 1996 riot, while perhaps knowing that the government was
actually behind this rotten scenario? Could it have been instant
repentance? He was only a soldier carrying out his duty, so he
said.

And what is there left to say about Harmoko? There is an
amusing anecdote about how he could be in his current position as
speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly and the House of
Representatives. It was said that Soeharto was interviewing a few
of his potential candidates for key positions in the government.
He asked what one plus one makes to Fuad Bawazier who answered
two. Thinking how accurate he was, Soeharto assigned him to the
finance minister position.

He asked the same question to Bob Hasan, who answered that the
answer could be arranged. Thinking how flexible he was, Soeharto
assigned him to the trade and industry minister position. When
Harmoko got his turn, the answer was, "That will be according to
your guidance, Bapak".

The question remains: Will we repeat the same mistakes by
letting our country be ruled by political clowns lacking
integrity? Will we let them steal the victory of the reform
movement from the students and the people in general?

We have won the initial battle but total reform requires total
dismantling of the old system together with its cancerous agents.
It is a quest with no compromise. And our destination is still
far away along the rocky road and treacherous turns.

The writer is a consultant of Ernst and Young.

Window: And what is there left to say about Harmoko? There is an
amusing anecdote about how he could be in his current position as
speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly and the House of
Representatives