Our Shared Home

KOMPAS/WISNU WIDIANTORO

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo (second left), who is running for reelection in 2019, listens to opposition candidate Prabowo Subianto (second right) as their respective running mates Ma\'ruf Amin (left) and Sandiaga Uno (right) look on during the peaceful campaign pledge on Sept. 23 at the National Monument (Monas) in Central Jakarta. The four candidates pledged to create a peaceful atmosphere for the 2019 presidential election by avoiding hoaxes, hate speech and ethnicity, religion, race and tribal affiliation (SARA) issues.

Indonesia is our shared home; the home of the Indonesian people. Unfortunately, our home has lately been filled with commotion.

We are indeed in an election year. However, the increasing blend of geopolitics, freedom of opinion and the technologies that enable messages to be spread everywhere have turned people towards Machiavellianism: any means is justified in gaining and maintaining power. This includes the politicization of religion.

Many demonstrations last year used religious symbols, not to mention the rise of vigilantes that tried to enforce the law in their own way. All are a threat to shared life in a democracy.

Practical politics

Upon further examination, these actions point to the presence of practical politics as designed by compradors. They pretend to act on behalf of the people to realize their own hidden ambitions. Their setting, which utilizes various religious symbols and sensitive issues, is usually temporary in nature, but has become the standard and the key to the success of their revolutionary strategy as Gene Sharp wrote in his seminal work, From Dictatorship to Democracy (1994).

Historical records show that many transitions of power have followed the same pattern of asymmetric warfare – a war without arms, bombs or soldiers; for example, the downfall of President Soeharto (1988), the Color Revolutions in the former Soviet and Balkan states in the 2000s, and the Arab Spring (2010). However, in looking at the shape and pattern of the recent commotion, it is not impossible that Indonesia could be destroyed and we would lose our shared home.

It is clear that the 2019 presidential election is being uses as an occasion to create sociopolitical commotion through unhealthy competition.

Machiavellianism is exploited as in the political propaganda tactics and strategies of Paul Joseph Goebbels (fear, disinformation), Jerry Falwell (playing victim, politicization of religion),

Edward Louis Bernays (playing victim, black campaigns), Harold Dwight Lasswell (magic bullet theory) and Andrew Little (big problem syndrome).

Therefore, all forms of political intrigue and propaganda, whether they are realized or not, are the master virus of revolution for the commotion creators, which also leads public opinion to be “pro-propaganda spinner” at the same time. The objective? Gain power by winning the political contest.

Further examination is also needed into the new post-truth phenomenon, that fact and truth do not hold much sway in shaping public opinion. Therefore, stakeholders need to be more cautious and not underestimate this unhealthy political commotion, especially when it involves hate speech, playing victim, politicizing religion, to black campaigns and the spread of hoaxes (fake news). Remember that even hate speech and lies – whatever they are – will deemed the truth if they are campaigned on a massive scale.

Learning from other countries

The people of Indonesia should learn from the humanitarian tragedies caused by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (NIIS).

The notes of the Congressional Research Service (2015) show that NIIS spent revenues of more than US$2 billion each year to buy "war logistics" and pay its militants. However, the irony is in the suppliers of “war logistics” to NIIS, including those that procured everything from transportation equipment to food and other needs.

Most of the companies supplying these war logistics are those of capitalist nations, which are the NIIS’ main target for elimination. In other words, NIIS is actually nothing more than the propaganda machine of a business (capitalist) that uses the religious branding of khilafah (universal caliphate) to incite conflict.

Could the same thing also happen in Indonesia?

If religious propaganda continues is given the freedom to grow and develop, nothing is impossible. Anything could happen. However, the "khilafah brand" is no longer centered in Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Libya and Yemen and has spread throughout the world, including countries that are the faces of moderate Islam, like our shared home of Indonesia.

The humanitarian tragedy created by NIIS is just the latest example of khilafah used as nothing more than the capitalist corporate machinery’s brand amid conflicts. It is similar to the capitalist corporate machinery’s branding efforts in the civil wars of Sierra Leone (1991-2003, with 50,000 casualties) and Liberia (1999-2003, with 350,000 casualties), when everything was actually related to diamonds, minerals and timber.

The Colombian conflict (1964-2016, with 200,000 casualties and 7 million refugees) was related to the cocaine trade. The war in Afghanistan (2001-present, with 35,000 casualties and millions of refugees) is inseparable from the opium trade.

Conflict as trend

Conflicts are becoming a 21st-century business trend. “The Business of Conflict” in The Economist (3/2/2000) said that 21st-century conflicts in several countries were related to controlling territory and natural resources. Countries that have abundant natural resources but are unable to manage them because the government (law) is weak due corruption or political instability were at risk of being turned into a conflict zone.

It is an easy trick that only requires establishing a fake partnership with compradors (the children of a nation willing to sell their country for personal gain) to execute the colonial strategy of divide et impera (divide and rule).

For the capitalists in the business of conflict there is but one principle: "Give me control of all the country\'s natural resources, and I don\'t care what laws are used to govern this country." The correlation with Indonesia – our shared home – could be read as: "Give me control of all the state’s resources, and I don\'t care what laws are implemented to govern the country."

Looking at the wealth of natural resources, widespread corruption and political instability, including geopolitical trends in Indonesia, our shared home indeed has the potential to be utilized as a conflict zone.

Therefore, we must watch for and immediately eliminate all forms of political intrigue that have the potential to incite commotion – even the smallest commotion, and especially those that come from unhealthy political competition.

Commotion is the forerunner to political dispute that has the potential to cause horizontal conflicts. Even so, commotion is caused deliberately through the politicization of religion and provocative issues that continue to be campaigned by the compradors to attain their veiled ambitions – at any and all costs!

Take care of our home

Will Indonesia – our share home – be turned into a country of conflict through the khilafah branding strategy following the NIIS’ ouster from the Middle East?

A survey that Nahdlatul Ulama’s Pesantren (Islamic boarding school) and Community Development Association (P3M) submitted to the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) revealed that 41 of 100 mosques near the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Ministry and state-owned businesses in Jakarta have been exposed to radicalism. Not only that, a Home Ministry survey shows that 19.4 percent of all civil servants do not agree with Pancasila as the state ideology. The khilafah propaganda has also become bolder and more open.

Allowing radical groups to emerge and develop in the vicinity of state institutions and allowing the growth of civil servants who do not agree with the Pancasila state ideology is the wrong

policy. Moreover, giving khilafah supporters the freedom to propagate radicalism will end in extremely terrible results. In turn, they will certainly continue to strive to turn Indonesia – our shared home – into a country that founded on theocratic principles in place of Pancasila and democracy.

If this comes to pass, then who or what should be held responsible? If it is the government, is it the executive or the legislative and judicial? Unstable politics? People that are easily provoked? Or the too-high dream of reform?

As co-inhabitants, however, we all have the obligation to cooperate together in taking care of our shared home. (Adjie Suradji, Alumnus, Science School, University of Karachi, Pakistan)