How to Love Indonesia

KOMPAS/JOHNNY TG

Fachry Ali

Information indeed is yet to be sought and a complete account is not yet clearly formulated. The press conference of Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Wiranto on August 19, which I heard from the Radio Republik Indonesia (RRI) broadcast in my car, described nothing about what was actually happening.

What was “impressive” about Wiranto was his appreciation of East Java Governor Khofifah Indar Parawansa and Malang Mayor Sutiaji, who spontaneously offered their apologies. However, it was not explained to whom the apologies were extended.

For me, the problem was clarified a little more after receiving a Whatsapp message from a young East Java intellectual and lecturer of political science at Airlangga University, Surabaya, Airlangga Pribadi, the day before Wiranto’s press conference, about the “Surabaya red-and-white flag incident” that day. There was also a phone call from my junior friend Muhammad Subarkah about the same issue. And through media reports that I read, an outline of the issue was relatively portrayed. The problem was the discarding of the national flag by a student from Papua at their dormitory in Surabaya. The “semi-violent” action committed by youth organization members and the treatment of security officers of Papuan students triggered a reaction by some residents in Papua to the “Surabaya and Malang incident”

Indonesia was jointly founded

It is this “incident” that has given rise to the question: “How to love Indonesia?” The “incident” reminds me of my father’s message: “Katuleh phat teumphat Aceh lam perjuangan kemerdekaan Indonesia” (You just write where Aceh’s position was in the struggle for Indonesian independence), he ordered. “Mangat bandum thee Indonesia kon ji peudom dek saboh kaum mantong” (Let everybody know that Indonesia was not founded only by one group). My father not only understood the history of Aceh’s struggle in the period of independence, but was also one of the “fighters” who strived to resist the return of the Dutch to Aceh during the most decisive period.

The phrase “Indonesia was not founded only by one group” proceeded in line with historical fact. Soon after Indonesia’s Proclamation of Independence on August 17, 1945, without being commanded, various regions welcomed the arrival of this new nation. In Aceh, clerics issued a Makloemat Oelama (Ulemas’ Declaration) on Oct. 15, 1945, expressing their stance to support Soekarno in upholding independence. At Banda Aceh Grand Mosque, in his speech Teungku M Daud Beureue-‘eh stated: “Those who have died in defending independence are martyrs.”

This statement was followed by the establishment of the People’s Security Troop (TKR) under Colonel Sjamaun Gaharu with the subsequent formation of warrior units. In West Sumatra, educational figure Muhammad Sjafi’i from the Kayu Tanam Institute of education on August 29, 1945, read out the “proclamation” of West Sumatra to back up the Soekarno-Hatta proclamation in Jakarta. And without any assistance, Dahlan Djambek and Ismail Lengah set up the People’s Security Body (BKR) in West Sumatra. Meanwhile, in Gorontalo, local fighter Nani Wartabone had gone ahead of Soekarno-Hatta by “proclaiming” Indonesia’s independence in 1942 when the Dutch took flight from Indonesia.

In South Sulawesi, two aristocrats of the region, Andi Djemma and Andi Mappadjuki, took a “bold” action: taking sides with the Republic of Indonesia after the Soekarno-Hatta proclamation. Why “bold”? It is because this region during the 1945-1949 Revolution was under the control of

Australian troops that considered the Dutch the rightful owner of the Dutch East Indies. They were also “bold” because they both had no knowledge of the Von Mook agreement with Prime Minister Sjahrir on the “March 6, 1946 Concept”.

As related by Anak Agung Gde Agung in Dari Negara Indonesia Timur ke Republik Indonesia Serikat (From the East Indonesia State to the United States of the Republic of Indonesia, 1985), this concept read: the Dutch government recognized the Republic of Indonesia’s de facto sovereignty over Java. Although on March 27, 1946, the concept was “corrected” by including Sumatra and Madura, the position of South Sulawesi within this new nation remained unclear. Yet Andi Djemma, Andi Mappadjuki, Manai Sophian and others continued to support the republic.

The four examples show that Indonesia was not founded by one group, but rather constituted a joint creation. Therefore, loving Indonesia should be manifested in the rejection of the hierarchical concept in the “central” and “regional” relationship. And the structure of the political relationship should be built in a horizontal or egalitarian fashion. It is because without autonomous movements in various regions outside Java in defense of independence, the Indonesia we know today would have never existed.

Observing from the fringes

Of course, structurally there was the aggrandizement and centralization of state power in the post-revolution period of 1945-1949. Such power aggrandizement and centralization eliminated the central-regional egalitarian relationship during the revolution. The central government’s efforts to create a modern bureaucratic state produced top-bottom impersonal relations and rendered regions incapable of expressing emotional ties to be projected to the central government.

With the centralized authority of a modern state, Jakarta made impersonal interventions in regions. As a result, there was regional alienation manifested in the form of unrest. The Aceh rebellion (1953-1962) and the joint West Sumatra-North Sulawesi uprising known as PRRI-Permesta (1958-1964) are plain facts of history. The rebels were actually founders of nation states at the regional level. In the New Order period (1967-1998), the government’s power expanded and centralization became even more obvious. In a semi-militaristic style, the New Order expressed more suspicion toward regions outside Java. The assignment of military personnel as governors, mayors and regents in these regions was a central government policy guided by semi-militaristic suspicion.

So two things have remained as a consequence of the expansion and centralization of state power. The first is the failure to understand national issues from the fringes. Technically, the expansion and centralization of power are seen as the application of modern management to state management for the sake of efficiency. Conceptually, however, this instills the political psychology of the uniformity of opinion. The effect is that the central political authority and various mass organizations are unable to detect regional anxieties from peripheral viewpoints. Such concerns are regarded as differences where variances mean opposition to the central government.

Second, the expansion and centralization of state power brings about the seeds of fascism. As stated by Alexander J Groth in Major Ideologies: An Interpretative Survey of Democracy, Socialism and Nationalism (1971), fascism is the over glorification of the concept of the nation with the consequence of coercion toward uniform thinking. This fascism emerges when, as J Groth quotes Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Molde before German Parliament (Reichstag) in 1887, “the army takes the first place among the institutions of every country”.

That is why in Germany, the armed forces were at the time seen as the primary symbol of national interests. Even in France in the same period, nationalists relied on the armed forces to retaliate against the humiliating defeat in Sedan and “to rally the patriotic spirit of the people”. It is the combination of militarism and nationalism without democratic reasoning that serves as an incubator of fascism. This occurred in France in the 1880s when nationalists hoped that popular war minister general Boulanger “would rescue them from the peril of parliamentary democracy”. The blending of excessive patriotism and militarism gave birth to fascism and ended in an anti-democracy stance.

Thus, loving Indonesia in the present-day context does not mean simply repeating the national slogan and Pancasila. This is because without being realized, in the absence of mature reasoning and awareness of democracy, the repetition of slogans leads toward uniformity of thought. Loving Indonesia, therefore, means endeavoring to understand national issues from the viewpoint of the fringes and rejecting fascism.

Papua the youngest sibling

It is with this perspective that we should see Papua. Unlike other Indonesian regions that participated in building the nation, the Papuan population officially became part of Indonesian nation through a referendum carried out under United Nations supervision in 1969. As a result, this community is not only outside the same emotional structure resulting from the 1945-1949 National Revolution, but, as stated by Cilian Nolan, Sydney Jones and Solahudin in The Political Impact of Carving Up Papua (in Hal Hill, ed, Regional Dynamics in a Decentralized Indonesia, 2014), it does not share the culture of Indonesian communities in general. “Culturally,” wrote Nolan et al., “the Papuan community is Melanesian, not Malay.” And the most important thing of all is the fact that the people of this giant island are composed of 200 indigenous ethnic groups.

Even though its history is distinct, and its experience of Indonesia is so different, the central political authority has projected the view that Papua and its people are an “old member” of the cluster of regions that formed the constituent parts of the Republic of Indonesia. With the assumption of having “full authority” over it, the central government has changed its own stipulation by annulling, Nolan et al. further said, the formation of three provinces in Papua into two. And although in 2001 they earned the status of special regions, the projection of Jakarta’s “conventional” view of Papua has continued.

But Jakarta’s biased process has entailed unexpected developments: increases in the population through migration and the political ambitions of the local elite. Other ethnic groups have migrated since the 1970s and 1980s to fill new occupations that could not be filled by the local population. At the same time the splitting of the province induced new fantasies of material wealth among the local elites, because in this way they could access various grants for rural development programs. The proliferation of districts and regencies has increased the political ambitions of local elites. This is because administrative units have become forums “where political and fiscal power is concentrated”, said Nolan et al.

Thorough studies are needed to improve our knowledge of Papua today. Yet it is evident that since 1969, when it was integrated into the Republic of Indonesia, the common people of Papua have not experienced significant progress.

In the notes of Nolan et al., the two provinces have remained at the bottom of the Human Development Index (HDI) despite the abundance of natural mining resources and oil palm plantations. In other words, nearly all policies projected by Jakarta at Papua have resulted more in the migration of other ethnic groups into the economic niches of Papua and the local elite’s exposure to the new fantasies of material wealth.

The question of how to love Indonesia in the context of present-day Papua should thus be answered by viewing it as the “youngest sibling” who is learning to adapt to a new environment. Anxieties, such as those surrounding the “Surabaya flag incident”, should be understood as posing the question about what it means for the Papuan population to integrate into the Republic of Indonesia. Haven’t Jakarta’s policies so far structurally resulted in more arrivals of other ethnic groups and aroused the fantasies of material wealth among the local elite?

The Papuan community’s demonstration in response to the “Surabaya flag incident” has served as undeniable proof. Doesn’t a fascist attitude toward the “Surabaya flag incident” just set the course for Indonesia’s division?

Fachry Ali, Cofounder of the Institute for Indonesian Business Ethics Studies and Development (LSPEU Indonesia)