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VIEWPOINT:
INDONESIA:
BLAME THE VICTIM:
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ASIA | February 23, 1998 VOL. 151 NO. 7 |
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Indonesia's People are Speaking But the leaders in Jakarta aren't listening, and anarchy may be in store By Goenawan Mohamad
In Jakarta, army officers, bureaucrats and politicians prefer to ignore the pain and fear that the economic crisis has set off. These well-dressed players come and go through the rooms of the People's Consultative Assembly Hall, uttering scarcely a word about the national predicament, thinking only about devising fresh schemes for maintaining social order. It's not that they don't have power. On paper, at least, this élite has the constitutional right to decide the country's political agenda and elect the head of state. But in practice, they are the President's docile dependents. In March, loyal legislators will be entrusted with the task of naming the man who will take over the reins of government. And they will renew, for the seventh time, the mandate of the 76-year-old incumbent-despite the urgent need for change. Indonesia's system is a facade for democracy. In contrast, the politics of the street is the stuff of flesh-and-blood. It is well-meaning but increasingly disorderly. This is the voice of people who have been badly hit by the crisis. Political outrage tends to spring from casual conversations among members of both the urban poor and the new middle class. It begins with discussions about friends and relatives who have lost jobs, for example, or how cooking oil has virtually disappeared from the market, or how medical supplies are too pricey to afford. Eventually the discontent multiplies and merges into a shared sense of anger, fueled in part because the discomfort these people feel is not shared by the very rich. The immense and shamelessly unfair wealth of President Suharto's family is in everyone's face, all the time. And as night turns to day, eventually the seething anger erupts, as it has in riots over higher prices and food-staple scarcities that have broken out in several towns in the past few weeks. Some of this is all-too familiar in Indonesia, where small-scale disturbances are the ultimate expression of the politically impotent. But what is new is that the anger no longer is limited to the have-nots. Businessmen have recently whispered to me that they are fed up with the "crony capitalism" that dominates the system. They want change. One of them conceded that he has benefited greatly from his political connections but said that the economic crisis has shown him that "easy money" is not doing the country any good. "I don't want my children to live in a situation where there are no rules," he said, "where success comes simply from the happy accident of being a school friend of the President's daughter." Especially, he added with a grin, because "I don't know who the future President's daughter will be." But while the temperature is rising on the streets, it's hard to imagine a full-blown revolution taking place. After more than three decades of Suharto's rule, Indonesians have lost the capacity even to evaluate how much change they want. A revolution needs a clear agenda. It also requires a strong network of people fighting for a shared cause, or else a leader with Khomeini-like charisma. Indonesia has none of these things. Indeed, Indonesians lack the skills even to get organized. Suharto's "New Order" prohibits political parties from setting up grass-roots chapters. As a result, the system effectively transforms the people into a "floating mass." The aim, clearly, is to prevent opposition parties from forming tight links among the people. But what the regime fails to see is that, in times of social crisis, an angry floating mass gives rise to anarchy-the only way Indonesians have to "vote" against the hollow and stuffed men who run the country. In a strange way, anarchy is the very echo of the leadership in Jakarta. After all, the republic has become a pyramid constructed of layers of Suharto family interest, a political edifice in which flouting the law is an expression of might. But anarchy is outrage without limit, without outcome. It is bound to express the worst sorts of prejudice and, ultimately, fail. What's worse than the inevitable violence is the despair behind it. Hopefully, all is not lost. True, the military might of the regime is capable of suppressing any future riot. But the good news may one day come from the growing number of young Indonesians who share a vision of an alternative political power, one that is from the people, by the people and for the people. Some day, maybe after the departure of Suharto from the throne, this shared conviction will evolve into a meaningful politics of participation. The bitter lesson from the current crisis is that without any power to check the unscrupulous and the greedy at the top, the people will only inherit a republic of helpless victims. Goenawan Mohamad, a poet, is the former editor of Indonesia's banned Tempo newsmagazine Photograph by John Stanmeyer-SABA for Time
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ndonesia is like the titanic, slowly sinking under the worst economic crisis in its post-colonial history. But with each passing day it becomes clearer that the government and the people are unable to communicate with each other. At the highest levels, the political machinery has become mere form without substance. On the streets, grass-roots politics is emerging as a potent power with no form. The two sides aren't moving any closer to each other.