Emerging from Chaos

YUDI LATIF

· 4 minutes read

Where do we wish to take our democracy? It would be difficult for our political elite and scientists nowadays to consider such a reflective question, as many suffer from nearsightedness.

Matters of democracy are limited to the power struggle ritual that arrives every five years, obsessed with a desire to win, as defined as merely defeating their opponents in the general election. The teleological goal of fulfilling the national objective of victory for all Indonesian people seems to have been forgotten.

When placed within the framework of the national objective and collective victory, a glimmer of awareness will illuminate our sight. Only then will we realize that our financially and socially costly election practice only brings us a quasi-victory.

The elected administration can make certain achievements, but they cost dearly, with many damages. If our national goal is to establish a nation that is free, united, sovereign, just and prosperous, we can measure these one by one. A democracy where the people are directly involved in electing state executives and legislators at all levels will place the nation on a track not towards freedom, but on a reverse course to unfreedom as created by tribalistic fanaticism and identity clashes.

National unity is being fractured through social divisions that are difficult to mend. Social capital, as the basis of cooperation and collective progress, diminishes; mutual trust disappears. The will to interact with different peoples fades. Everyone sees contrasting choices as opposing views. Whatever an opponent’s actions and arguments may be, they are always wrong.

Costly politics increases economic cost and decreases productivity. Development capital depends more on the penetration of foreign capital. Deepening foreign influences amid the rifts in national integrity may undermine our sovereignty.

Political contestations drain the national energy that will in turn lower our political attention to matters of national prosperity. Politics that concentrate on the contestation for power neglects the essence of politics as an institution for overseeing healthy public governance and policies. Various complaints have emerged regarding prosperity that has been obstructed by the symptoms of deindustrialization, trade and payment deficits, the middle-income trap and the trap of an extractive economy. However, almost no political attention or strategic policies exist that push industrialization and transformation toward a knowledge-based economy.

All this has come to pass because our democracy is currently trapped in the false awareness that our (“liberal”) democratic practices are inevitable. To borrow from Timothy Snyder (2018), the “politics of inevitability” blinds us to other alternatives and leads us to irresponsible responses: rejecting solutions and ideas, damaging policies and normalizing injustices and inequality.

Expressions common in the “politics of inevitability” are statements/acceptance that democracy is costly; the direct involvement of all people in all elections is better and more progressive; the popular vote is the only way; the government must be either fully presidential or fully parliamentarian – it cannot be semi-parliamentarian or semi-presidential; and lastly, that the deaths of hundreds of polling station workers and other authorities are normal.

The politics of inevitability leads to “politics of eternity” by maintaining problems. Proper solutions are not sought, and instead we neglect these problems by fabricating crises and manipulating emotions. To divert the people’s attention from the political elite’s lack of capability and will to fix our democracy, these “elites of eternity” attempt to lull the people with either good images or incite hostility.Such democratic practices of will not bring collective benefits or safety. Even if we can escape the historic test of this year’s election chaos, it will be more and more difficult for us to escape worse social rifts and disasters in the future.

To emerge from the chaos, we must evaluate the designs of our democratic governance. Democracy has universal principles and a variety of models. In order to flourish, the democracy that we choose must be suited to our country, as with choosing a tree that is suited to our soil. Our founding fathers, with their wealth of knowledge and sincere struggles, took the visionary step of idealizing a unique system of democracy.

However, due to the abuse of power and poor understanding, this unique democratic system has been altered haphazardly without any clear thought on which fundamentals must be retained and which instruments can be modified. We will never set bees free by burning the hive. A stable and healthy democracy requires loyalty to our collective home by preserving the good traditions, institutions and consensus of the past.

YUDI LATIF, Lecturer, Yogyakarta State University

Editor:

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