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.