Will new govt heed Anderson's plea?

Will new govt heed Anderson's plea?

By Lance Castles

YOGYAKARTA (JP): After a quarter century of malicious
exclusion from what he wanted to be his second country, the
belated return of prominent American Indonesianist Ben Anderson
appears in the media as a triumphal progress.

Of course, many academic readers long knew what he said and
what he stood for: thought control never really applied under the
New Order. But now he is becoming known to a wider public and, in
some sense, justice is belatedly being done.

Indeed, the tables are being turned in both directions on many
people who richly deserve it. As an English proverb has it, "the
mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly
small".

But I am going to use this space to comment that even Anderson
is inclined in unguarded moments to express dubious ideological
sentiments, and to endorse the pervasive pessimistic mood of the
times. It is the tendency to look a gift horse in the mouth and
not dare to recognize how extraordinarily full of rational hope
for the future the present really is. Really!

Anderson correctly remarks that the Indonesians at present
have "pins and needles", in the sense that they are unreasonably
and totally critical of the government and the system.

It is difficult to put one's finger on anything that Habibie
has actually done wrong. And there are many things he has done
right, as Anderson points out, but he gets no credit for this
whatever from politicians, pundits and the media, who all
unanimously and continuously assault (verbally) the President,
Golkar, the Army and many officials unfairly and ad hominem.

Typical is Yogyakarta-based daily Bernas in its March 8 report
on Golkar's massive relaunching as a party at Senayan. "Golkar
declaration attended by paid masses" screams the headline, with
the subscript explaining that each shout of "Long Live Golkar"
was greeted ominously by a loud peal of thunder!

But is it true to say, as Anderson does, that whoever is
president -- Gus Dur, Megawati or Amien Rais -- would suffer from
the same stinking national mood? I think this is wrong.

On the contrary, the new team, and it is virtually as certain
as anything is in human affairs that it will be Mega-Amien, will
be elected by 85 percent or more of the People's Consultative
Assembly (MPR). In other words, it will have been voted for
indirectly by over four-fifths of the Indonesian people.

This will impose moral and psychological demands on the people
not to criticize their own choices. This is one of the practical
advantages of democracy. The new government will have a
legitimacy such as no previous government has had since the
1950s, simply because it has submitted to the democratic process
without reserve, and won.

Furthermore, if it is Amien, as opposed to Mega, who calls the
shots, and I believe the polls already prove this, it will be
legitimacy of a particularly historic kind.

It will restore the symbolically satisfying Dwitunggal as it
was before Hatta resigned in 1956 and the regional Revolutionary
Government of the Republic of Indonesia (PRRI) rebellion was
suppressed.

Two further factors will add to the legitimacy of the new team
and give it one of the longest honeymoons in history. Indonesia
is now objectively in the nadir of an economic contraction,
though prices have been reasonably stable for months now and the
consumption of ordinary people has not contracted much.

However, by the time the new team is inaugurated, the
economic upswing will have begun, reinforced by the net inflow
of capital induced by the new legitimacy, the legendary money
"pared" in Singapore. There will be a virtuous circle of
recovery and legitimacy, the reverse of the vicious circles
Indonesia experienced in the early 1960s and in 1997 through
1998.

Furthermore, if Amien is calling the shots, the new autonomy
law, even if not exactly federal, will be seen to be working.
Locally elected governments will be seen to be taking
responsibility for decisions, instead of being correctly
perceived as in the grip of a deadening bureaucracy in Jakarta.

This may aggravate some internal regional tensions, but
ultimately it is a plus in establishing a responsible, healthy
democracy in Indonesia. Ben Anderson's eloquent plea to heed the
demands of the regions will have been heard.

The author is a visiting lecturer of political sciences at
Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta. He has written a number of
books on Indonesia, including Indonesia, Political Thinking 1945-
1965.