Trailing ABRI's future political role

Trailing ABRI's future political role

By C.P.F. Luhulima

JAKARTA (JP): The National Institute of Sciences recently
produced a report saying "ABRI needs to reduce its political
role". The details of this report were published in The Jakarta
Post (Feb. 25). The report said: "The Armed Forces (ABRI) needs
to minimize its political role to allow democracy to flourish and
political reform to take place." The study on ABRI's socio-
political role produced six recommendations which were
extensively quoted in the paper.

Taken out of context, these recommendations invite many
questions such as who is giving these recommendations or
instructions to ABRI and what political power base they have to
directly make recommendations to the public to that effect.

Any study on the social and political role of the Indonesian
Armed Forces should -- if taken out of the context of the
President's assignment -- proceed from the very basic question of
the analysis of power. Who tries to exercise power over whom? In
what way? With what results?

One approach is to look at the resources which may convey
power, while the other tries to assess the ability of people to
influence events or the ability to change the probability of
certain events evolving. In trying to answer these questions one
would immediately conclude that it is only the President that has
the resources and the ability to instruct and influence ABRI as
this stage.

I quite agree with Arief Budiman's article (The Jakarta Post
Feb. 27) that the most organized and powerful political
institution -- next to the President of course -- is the
military. It is relatively unified. It is indeed difficult to
expect that the initiation of democratization would come from the
Indonesian military. Even though the power of the civil society
is rising, to expect that people power would become strong enough
to change the configuration of government in the near future is
unrealistic.

By examining the purpose of power of the Indonesian military
one could start by asking the question whether that power has
over the years become "cooperative", power that is geared towards
the pursuit of common welfare and the peaceful management of
conflicts or whether it is "assertive power" which is political
power that is geared towards political or societal exclusivity.

In the future, I would say that the basic divide between these
two concepts of power would not so much represent the basic
divide between democratic and authoritarian systems. Here I would
agree with Hanns Maull that the divide would rather be between
open and cooperative politics, on the one hand, and assertive and
exclusionist regimes on the other. There would of course be some
correlation between openness and democracy.

Democracy recognizes the opposition's creative potential; it
emphasizes the peaceful and hence the inclusive settlement of
political and societal disputes. But to assume that the
democratic system is the "end of history", is equally
unrealistic. As a political system, the democratic system may
weaken and decay, just like the socialist system did.

The cooperative and assertive character of power seem to be
the future pattern of political behavior as a consequence of the
quantum leaps in scientific enterprises and their revolutionary
technological applications. It is this technological revolution
that will enable the power holders to be more assertive, more
exclusionist and perhaps more fundamentalist.

It is also this revolution that will enable the people to
engage themselves in collective efforts to negotiate and bargain
with the military that power be made more cooperative in order
that life be made more open and politically more acceptable.
Recent developments have made the military realize that power has
to be more cooperative but not at the cost of stability.

A study of the divide between cooperative and assertive power
in the future should try to identify the elements of that divide
in order to negotiate with the military power holders. This would
enable both sides to share power and opt for cooperative power in
order that socio-political life be made more open and acceptable.
The majority would then be more receptive to the quest for the
legitimate rights of existence, of speech and endeavor, of the
peaceful settlement of political and social disputes and thus of
a transparent political system.

The writer is an observer of political-economic and
international affairs.