Heading Towards Fata Morgana

Unable to find a political structure that aligned with the characteristics of its people, Clifford Geertz noted that Indonesia seemed to hop back and forth anxiously from one political system to another.

KOMPAS/YUNIADHI AGUNG

Mochtar Pabottingi

Recent political developments in the country seem to justify an Clifford Geertz’s observation in “Afterword: The Politics of Meaning” (Claire Holt et al., eds, Culture and Politics in Indonesia, 1972).

For Geertz, Indonesia is generally "a state manqué" (failed state). Unable to find a political structure that aligned with the characteristics of its people, he noted that Indonesia seemed to hop back and forth anxiously from one political system to another.

Geertz\'s observation is again confirmed by the suddenly raucous discussion among political parties, led by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), to push the 2019-2024 People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) to take up the agenda of the fifth constitutional amendment. Unlike the rational intention around 2006 to strengthen the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) by amending the 1945 Constitution for the fifth time, the current plans for the fifth constitutional amendment is based on an irrational desire to restore the MPR as the highest state institution in the country and give it the power to set the State Policy Guidelines (GBHN). We know that the 1945 Constitution still needs a number of vital amendments, but certainly not within a framework of political irrationality.

Negativity of irrational politics

The abrupt will to irrationally amend the Constitution carries with it at least four negatives. First and foremost, the reason for it is trapped in an obsession, an idée fixe that is truly deceptive. Second, as is broadly acknowledged, opening the door to another amendment risks opening a Pandora\'s box that could lead to prolonged and uncontrollable political crisis. Third, the three branches of government habitually tend towards escapism, preferring to apply diversion or a myopic approach in fixing various state problems. Finally, while the GBHN might appear at first glance to be a progressive political agenda, it is actually more regressive than it seems.

Entrusting the fifth constitutional amendment to the incoming MPR is a manifestation of the interests of those politicians who have been disappointed by what they view as the uncertain political direction of development over two decades of reform. Also, the remnants of Soekarnoism – the recurring longing for a "decree to revert to the 1945 Constitution" – still exist here and there.

All are part of the obsessive drive. The obsession with the GBHN has blinded people to the stack of irrationalities that ensued from the two "wrong political turns": Soekarno abandoning democracy and Soeharto’s “democracy cum natio”. These sunk our country into the mires of authoritarian government. Those who support a fifth amendment forget that the GBHN they are praising was, in fact, validated or implemented under and inseparable from the two authoritarian-monopolistic regimes of the two rotating "systemic cogs", Soekarno and Soeharto, which were supported by political machines that monopolized security and power.

The obsession with the GBHN is also supported by a superficial impression of the New Order’s success that ignores its ill-gotten byproducts. The New Order appeared successful from 1966 to 1996 because of the convergence of mass political persecution, the oil boom and sustainable management upon assistance from the IGGI donor group. It is through this surface impression that the New Order’s various achievements are viewed, such as governmental stability, increase in per capita income, rice self-sufficiency, improvements in the health service, educational opportunities, the success of the transmigration and family planning programs, reduced unemployment, and so on.

However, practically all these dissolved in vain or collapsed like a house of cards, a façade, and were ultimately nothing more than a fata morgana. The catalyst that brought about the fall of the New Order was the unusually drastic reversal from economic growth that averaged 7 percent per year until 1997 to 13 percent negative growth from 1998. This is what swallowed up all those superficial achievements. However, the primary cause remained the authoritarian system, which ignored the principle of checks and balances. This is why the New Order accumulated a variety of misguided practices and wrongdoings that deviated from the rationale of democratic government, so that it turned into a time bomb that would slowly but surely implode.

The series of depravities the New Order committed through the GBHN were impossible to conceal. At the threshold of its birth and throughout its reign, the New Order committed widespread genocide and human rights violations, seized civil rights, denied the principle of popular sovereignty and culturally discriminated against the Chinese community. The same holds true for its economic/political discrimination against the various societal levels and groups of fellow countrymen who stood outside Soeharto\'s inner circle, as it does for its practices of corruption, collusion and nepotism (KKN), which is unmatched in national/international history.

This is not all. Again, it was the New Order and its GBHN that caused cross-community/sectional economic inequality in the country, in such a way that it practically repeated and further increased the inherited inequalities of the Dutch East Indies. We know that the New Order openly implemented the political and economic practices of the Dutch colonial government. The House of Representatives (DPR)/People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) of the New Order was a reincarnation of the Volksraad. Its economic policies benefited the modern/urban sector at the expense of the traditional/rural sector.

Under the New Order’s GBHN rhetoric, economic inequality accelerated throughout our nation. It is here that the "Cendana family" and Soeharto\'s business cronies, dominated by Chinese businessmen, procured the various licenses, facilities and monopolies that enabled them to profit as unjustly and as much as possible from the poverty of the majority of people in the traditional sectors. It was there that the unprecedented takeover of the people\'s economic assets occurred. And this all happened under the banner of the GBHN and Repelita (five-year development plan).

Comparing the figures from the final colonial period and the peak of the New Order unequivocally reveals the problems. Sumitro Djojohadikusumo said that in 1936, around 98 percent of the population earned 20 percent of the gross national income (GNI). The businesses owned by the Chinese, who comprised less than 2 percent of the population, earned 20 percent. The rest were Europeans, about 0.5 percent of the population, who earned 60 percent of the national income (Sritua Arief, Prisma, February 1991). Compare this to the figures on the apportioning of the national pie that Didiek J. Rachbini calculated in 1993: 1 percent of the population earned 80 percent of GNI and the remaining 99 percent earned only 20 percent. Compare this reality and others with the 2016 World Bank Report, "Indonesia’s Rising Divide".

Armed with these bitter facts, it is difficult not to call the GBHN\'s "original intent” or "directive principles" – as Yudi Latif referred to them (Kompas, 22/8/2019) – fictive. The agendas of the Repelita I-V series under the GBHN were simply nothing more than a cover or falsehood for the consistent betrayal of the second to the fifth principles of Pancasila.

The second problem, amending the Constitution yet again after the four previous amendments is very likely to open a Pandora\'s box in an especially “wild” manner. This must be taken into account because the proposed fifth amendment is based on an unrealistic idée fixe, so it is highly probable that if the amendment comes to pass, it will cause even louder calls from the public to demand its immediate revocation. The proposed amendment is trapped in the vicious circle of political antagonism and contestation, a political kalabendu (maelstrom) that has never before been imagined.

We are aware, that even if it is irrational, the proposed fifth amendment requires each coalition party to be constant in its commitments. Without this, an amendment is almost impossible to pursue. Even if the amendment can be pursued, it would be brief, considering the myopic and fragmented reality of our political parties. The integrity of parties has only continued to decline in the Reform Era. And it is unfortunate that the PDI-P – the only party that explicitly defines democracy as a "struggle" – appears to be the most persistent in pushing for the return of the MPR and the GBHN; an action that is difficult to distinguish as separate from the culmination of two authoritarian regimes.

The third problem is explaining the intention for a fifth amendment, which is being touted as a panacea for the political challenges we have been facing through two decades of reform. The most frequently mentioned political challenge among amendment supporters pushing for the GBHN is the lack of continuity in our national development agendas, including the lack of a coherent, economic, cross-regional development agenda at the central and regional governments, and the rampant corruption that continues to occur despite the concerted efforts of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

Here, we need to engage collectivity in harsh self-criticism of our political behavior, namely the habitual tendency to seek escape and/or turn to ad hoc solutions in an attempt to simplify the problems, because of a lack of sufficient focus and persistence in concretely resolving the problems that lay in plain sight. From the concise formulation of this particular issue, it is evident that what our nation needs most are not overarching guidelines – which can actually be attained by streamlining or optimizing the long-term and medium-term development plans (RPJP-RPJM) that have been designed as replacements for the GBHN. This is a misleading and definitely escapist view, that a set of broad guidelines outlining the state’s course can be replaced or repaired with another set of a similar kind.

What we need at this time is nothing more than a diligent readiness to face the variety of problems at hand and to take a radical approach in correcting every false or deceptive detail in their solutions – not by duplicating “abracadabra” solutions. Remember: "The devil is in the details". Therefore, the various facets of incoherence in development must be addressed by sharpening, enriching and improving awareness in controlling legislation and in its rigorous application – enforcing the principle of the supremacy of law towards the comprehensive anticipation of problems that is supported by, once again, fundamental steps to correct them.

In formulating the issue in this way, it can be said that the “GBHN obsession” is also a form of diversion away from the inability of the House of Representatives and law enforcement agencies to draft, approve and enact legislation. The cumulative confusion of our government cannot be overcome if the DPR continues in its legislative tasks at a snail’s pace. It is also impossible to overcome widespread corruption with practices that have the opposite effect (read: promoting one form of corruption above another) on law enforcement agencies.

Regressive politics

Finally, it is difficult not to interpret the dream of using the GBHN for progressive politics as actually opening the door wide to regressive politics. We have already explained the loose reality and the extent of the deception surrounding the GBHN obsession. Reviving the MPR as the country\'s highest institution will threaten the principle of checks and balances and/or the principles of equality and rationality between the three branches of government. As Zainal Arifin Mochtar stated ("Snowball Phenomenon ...", Kompas, 28/8), doing so could even threaten constitutional supremacy. We must all be aware of the possibility that all our democratic institutions and/or all the positive progress, opportunities and political capital our nation has achieved – the great blessings of reform in the last 20 years – could all go to waste.

Let\'s look at another of Geertz’s critiques on Indonesia that is relevant to the GBHN obsession: "This is a country with a series of false first steps and hasty corrections which desperately longs for a political system whose image, like a fata morgana, seems to approach the farther away it is. The slogan of the savior of all this frustration is, \'The revolution is not yet over\'. And indeed that is what happens. However, that is simply because no one knows, including those who shout that they know best, how to solve its problems.” (Geertz, “After the Revolution: The Fate of Nationalism in New States" in Barber and Inkeles, eds, Stability and Social Change, 1971, M.P., trans.).

And let\'s learn to be grateful. Joko Widodo is a great blessing for our nation, as are Tri Rismaharini, Khofifah Indar Parawansa, Nurdin Abdullah and dozens of others among the line of government leaders. Still hundreds and thousands, even millions of other Indonesian figures, who have served in and outside the government, have delivered the blessings of democratic equality. Surely we do not want an amendment that would lay to waste the resurgence of the line of commendable leaders that emerged through the democratic process in the regions and/or the direct elections at the center as well as all their positive impacts.

They are an antidote to the variety of bad behaviors in parties, the government, in business, law and all circles that exist our nation. Although a number of shortcomings still remain (and which can certainly be corrected), we are grateful that we have the Constitutional Court, the KPK and others. At the top, we are grateful for our nation’s passion, especially the youth, for pursuing fair competition in attaining various achievements and positions in service to the public. Not a few exemplary figures have appeared to bring fresh air.

In the democratic realm, they have struggled to fill positions and fulfill their responsibilities on the merits of their capabilities, integrity and laudable track records amid the complex challenges of the life of our nation and state. It is they who have built up the layers of enlightened and well-adjusted leadership – real, constructive and progressive achievement. Indeed, much remains to be done. However, the achievements they have attained for our nation are certainly no mirage.

Mochtar Pabottingi, Research Professor, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), 2000-2010