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