Violence a living reality in Indonesia

Violence a living reality in Indonesia

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): For some time now we have been living in an
atmosphere of violence. Even before the July 27 violence broke
out, there had been ample evidence that physical violence was
part of our daily life in Jakarta. Every day we have been reading
news about criminal acts: robbery committed with rape and murder.

In addition to this "hard violence" there has also been
evidence of "soft violence". We have been talking violence to
each other. The language of law and civility has been replaced by
the language of force and coercion. Threats of physical
retaliations have been issued to warn those inclined to assault
others verbally. The boundary between verbal violence and
physical violence has become blurred.

One such violent act is accusing others of being communists.
This is very violent behavior, in my opinion, because in this
country such accusations can have lethal consequences. A friend
of mine lost his wife and home after he was falsely accused of
being a communist. In addition, he was prohibited to practice as
a doctor for a number of years. Such is the damage that can be
caused by verbal violence: accusing someone of being a communist.

The physical violence on July 27 and the subsequent verbal
violence that ensued were triggered by a political dispute. The
sad thing about this is that it is not the first time that
physical violence has been used in this country to solve a
political problem. In the past -- and not so distant a past at
that -- similar crises resulted in the death and injury of a
great number of people, the exact number of which will perhaps
never be revealed.

I personally do not think that political problems can be
effectively solved by violent means. I share the opinion of
Pierre Buyoya who, according to Time magazine, said in a radio
interview in Belgium a week before he seized power in Burundi:
"Even though I am a soldier, I don't believe in a military
solution."

How long are we going to cling to this "tradition" of solving
political disputes by forceful means? Do we really believe, like
Rasheeduddin Khan, that there is a causal linkage between
politics, power, and violence? Or should we believe Neil Smelser,
who maintains that violent behavior is pathological behavior that
generates balancing forces to maintain the structural-functional
equilibrium in society?

To me both views are equally unattractive. If you adhere to
the first view, then you will always have to resort to violence
to obtain or retain political power. On the other hand, if you
accept the second view, you will have to be pathological before
you can handle any situation characterized by disturbance of the
structural-functional equilibrium of society.

According to Alain Joxe, there is a way to avoid the use of
violence in politics. This can be done by exchanging the
"traditional political power" system based on violence with a
"new political power" system based on knowledge about the causes
of violence.

This position rests on the theory that since violence is
explicable, it is avoidable. Accordingly, it is possible to
exchange a system of political power based on the motto "if you
want peace, you must prepare for war" (si vis pacem, pare bellum)
for a new system based on the principle that those who know the
causes of violence can learn how to contain it. Those who use
such knowledge will thus possess real political power.

The problem with this theory is that it presupposes open-
mindedness and a willingness to accept all hard facts about
violence, no matter how painful they may be. Do we have this
capacity? I doubt it. We are inclined to be selective in
absorbing information about politics. We tend to accept only
those facts we like, and reject other facts that might hurt our
political ego.

Pointing the finger at communists behind the recent riots is
comforting, because it conforms to a long-held and cherished
political doctrine. We persist in defending this view, no matter
how flimsy the real evidence may be. On the other hand, we cannot
accept the thesis that the widening gap between the rich and the
poor is one of the real causes of the present social tensions,
because this flies in the face of our view that we have succeeded
in eradicating poverty.

What is the general theory about the origin of violence?

According to Sugata Dasgupta it is "maldevelopment" or the
disequilibrium in development that results in tension, conflict,
and violence. And at the base there are the appalling problems of
poverty, inequality and lack of equal opportunity inherited from
the feudal and colonial past. In this kind of situation whenever
economic interests and disputes get politicized, the resulting
tensions, conflicts, and violence are pursued by methods ranging
from peaceful demonstrations and parliamentary battles to
strikes, street fights and civil violence. Violence by the masses
or "amateur violence" will then clash with "establishment
violence" or institutional violence.

According to Ted Robert Gurr, violence by the masses can erupt
into three kinds of politically deviant behavior, namely turmoil,
conspiracy, and internal war. What do we have at this moment in
Indonesia? In my opinion it is 'turmoil' which in Gurr's
definition is "relatively spontaneous, disorganized political
violence with substantial popular participation involving
political strikes, riots, political clashes, demonstrations, and
localized rebellions."

It is not yet a 'conspiracy', as some people think, which he
defines as "highly organized political violence with limited
participation, including organized political assassination,
small-scale terrorism, small-scale guerrilla wars, mutinies,
etc." And it is certainly not an 'internal war' which is defined
as "highly organized political violence with widespread popular
participation, designed to overthrow a regime or dissolve the
state, accompanied by extensive violence, including large-scale
terrorism, guerrilla wars and revolutions."

What is my point?

It is that as long as we are unwilling to recognize the hard
facts about the origins of the recent turmoil, we will never come
out wiser.

As long as we are unwilling to recognize that total disregard
for the public sense of justice, continued insults to the
public's intelligence in the form of continuous lies, and
coercion in the management of public affairs may be what has
disturbed the equilibrium of our society, we shall never achieve
a political culture which emphasizes wisdom and deemphasizes
violence.

We will forever be trapped in this vicious circle of politics,
power, and violence.

The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.