Time to Operate

KOMPAS/WAWAN H PRABOWO

A banner that reads "Election Is Over, Let\'s Knit Brotherhood and National Unity Back Together" decorates a pedestrian bridge on Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat, Gambir, Central Jakarta, on Tuesday (23/4/2019). A number of people hope that after the end of the simultaneous elections on April 17, they would be able to reunite people despite all the differences that had heated up during the campaign period because of differences in choices.

The election is over, yet the clouds of convolution remain. The unofficial quick count results are no resolution. Patience is needed as we wait for the results of the official real count from the General Elections Commission (KPU). The best way forward is to restrain ourselves, reduce tension and maintain cool heads. With prayers of hope, may the clouds not darken!

This year’s election was the most divisive, energy draining and thrilling in Indonesia’s history. It was a difficult test that uncovered the urgent issues lying deep beneath procedural routine, and provided us with an occasion to operate on the cancer within our democracy.

A beehive should never be set alight to free the bees (individuals), as is the case in a healthy democracy. No matter how far the bees fly, they will always return to their hive. The hive (home) can only be maintained through social cohesion (unity) and welfare (social justice).

Under Pancasila, the principle of unity precedes the principle of democracy, which itself precedes the principle of justice. This means that strong social unity is a prerequisite of democracy, and democracy must support and strengthen unity. Similarly, democracy is a prerequisite of social justice, while social justice must uphold democracy.

Maintaining our collective home through unity and justice requires a balance between the state, the market and community. If the state is weak, the nation will be filled with fear and apathy. If the market is weak, the nation will be unproductive. If community is weak, the nation will give way to oligarchy. In contrast, if the state is too strong, the nation will be shackled by authoritarianism. If the market is too strong, the nation will lack justice. If community is too strong, the nation will stagnate.

The capitalist democracy of the Reform Era has catapulted the market’s strength. The market has come to dominate not only financial capital, but also political capital and community strength, through its control over the media, public opinion and community leaders. Strangely, despite the stronger role of the market, national productivity has stagnated with hints of deindustrialization. This is because our market relies too much on an extractive industry with a shallow downstream sector and exclusive control over economic resources. Consequently, the job market is not expanding. As the job market dwindles, transnational ideologies have flourished. This condition had led to the revival of identity politics with a populist tendency.

In line with this, Indonesia’s democracy has developed to embody the negative side of polyarchy as Aristotle imagined: a government of mediocrity founded on dirty politics ruled by money. This negative tendency is inevitable whenever democracy is championed without ethics and logic.

Politics as a technique has grown in sophistication, but politics as ethics has experienced a setback. The foundational virtues of the nation’s life, such as civility, responsibility, justice and integrity, have collapsed. Social capital has disintegrated as social connectivity and inclusivity have become divided.

Civil democracy stands on a state of law (nomocracy). Without the depth of nomocracy, petty issues will rise to the surface while substantial issues sink, much like in a river. Politics as a realm of governance is not championed by responsive policy products within a framework of collective virtues. Instead, it is filled with efforts to maintain a good image, hate speech and lies. This is made worse by a crisis of logic. It is becoming more and more difficult these days to find politicians and intellectuals who persist in developing clear and insightful logic.

This flaw in democracy must not be seen as purely the fault and responsibility of Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto. This is a result of our weak civil activists and our political elite: They can only demolish but cannot build.

As for Jokowi and Prabowo, whoever wins and whoever loses both deserve our gratitude. The presidential election would not have been possible without the wills of these two figures to jump into the contest.

They represent Indonesia’s foundational (political) colors of red and white. One has been arbitrarily dubbed as representing the red group (“abangan”) while the other has been arbitrarily dubbed as representing the white group. Nevertheless, Indonesian unity can only be protected by uniting the red and the white in a single flag. Therefore, if they both desire to be true patriots, the two colors must be stitched together with integrity to uphold unity and justice.

YUDI LATIF, Executive, National Alliance