Commentary: Indonesia's Old Threat Looms Large as Police Bow to Hard-Liners
During the reign of president Sukarno, Indonesia had a common threat: the revival of colonialism. This, more than anything else, was the rallying point that united the nation. Sukarno spent two decades campaigning against this threat through his explosive speeches that aroused an excessive degree of nationalism, even to the extent that anything that appeared Western was perceived to be unfriendly, only because the Dutch, who colonized the country for 350 years, were of Western origin.
So massive was Sukarno’s phobia of the West that he even withdrew Indonesia’s membership of the United Nations on Jan.7, 1965, arguing that Britain and other Western powers were backing Malaysia at a time he was confronting the former British colony; and that US-backed Taiwan and Israel were favored while China and Arab countries were disadvantaged by the UN.
In Sukarno’s views, Western countries were generally capitalist colonial powers he would never trust because he believed they intended to colonize weaker countries in any way they could. As a result, he started purchasing weapons from the Eastern Bloc and developed friendships with China and the Soviet Union.
The perceived threat to Indonesia under Sukarno was the return of colonialism, be it physically or economically. Communism wasn’t a threat to Sukarno; in fact he allowed it to grow and ushered in a Jakarta-Beijing-Moscow axis to boost the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) — then the world’s third-largest bastion of communism.
This situation changed dramatically during the era of Sukarno's successor Suharto, who ruled the country for nearly 32 years. Communism during that period was seen as the biggest devil that the general destroyed in 1965, marking a U-turn in Indonesia’s international position.
In order to prevent its revival, Suharto indoctrinated the nation with the state ideology Pancasila, and at the same time acted uncompromisingly against any Islamic hard-liners who envisioned a country ruled on the basis of religious fanaticism.
Such fanaticism had emerged on Aug.7, 1942, when Sekarmadji Maridjan Kartosoewirjo set up Darul Islam in Cisampah village, Tasikmalaya, West Java, and later attempted to exchange Pancasila with Islamic shariah as the supreme source of state law in the young Republic of Indonesia that was proclaimed on Aug. 17, 1945.
Jemaah Islamiyah, accused by the United States of producing home-grown terrorists, is a branch of Kartosoewirjo’s Darul Islam, which also included moderate groups of Muslims that advocated non-violence. This mixture has always made it difficult for the government to outlaw the movement.
While communism was seen as the No. 1 threat under Suharto, the second-biggest threat was religious fanaticism, and the third was separatism. Economic threats were at the bottom of his list of concerns, yet he focused on overcoming them by launching Five-Year Development Plans (Repelita) since 1969, arguing that eradicating poverty and lifting welfare levels would preempt fanaticism and radicalism.
Suharto succeeded in turning what had been a very poor country into modern Indonesia before he was ousted in 1998. But he failed to establish a system that could preempt radicalism and fanaticism, which have re-emerged, even as Indonesia is now the world’s third-largest democracy.
His successors — B.J. Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid, Megawati Soekarnoputri, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and now Joko Widodo — have also failed to find a solution for this threat, even though religious fanaticism that triggers radical acts is a latent danger that could destroy the nation. The lack of courage to overcome this threat continues to damage the reputation of our government.
The proof is evident in society today. Reports from human rights organizations have yet to acknowledge Indonesia’s systematic respect for minority groups.
Most of the suspects that have been gunned down by the National Police's elite anti-terror squad, Densus 88, in attempts to arrest them, as well as perpetrators of terrorist bombings, are known to have based their barbaric actions on their misleading interpretation of Islamic religious doctrines. Some even believed that killing people was a sure way to enter heaven.
The most tragic evidence of the government’s inability to handle radical groups appeared in a report by the Jakarta Globe this week, which showed that even the National Police force is scared of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI).
Police officers are scared of the FPI because there is no guarantee of their personal safety, the report said, quoting Sr. Comr. John Hendri of the National Police’s legal division.
“Leaked US diplomatic cables dating from 2006 allege that the FPI, responsible for attacks on minority Islamic communities and Christians, receives funding from the police and acts as the force’s ‘attack dog.’ Senior officials at the Jakarta Police and National Police levels have for years defended the FPI as a ‘partner’ to the police and attempted to downplay its litany of transgressions,” the report says.
If these allegations are true — and nothing is done to change this — there is little hope Indonesia can remain stable in the future. When state authority is overtaken by radicals, the government becomes powerless and radicalism is no longer seen as a problem. The next phase would be that rampant acts of barbarism based on the wrong interpretation of religious doctrines would no longer being regarded as a danger to national unity.
President Joko Widodo urgently needs to enact a law that can stop radical movements from spreading. There needs to be sufficient courage to reshape and reposition radical groups into peaceful and useful mass organizations.
The only lasting solution would be re-education of society by instilling the state ideology in order to reduce fanaticism and create a better understanding of, and respect for, pluralist solidarity.
In a democratic society, radicals should not be allowed to uphold their faith or human rights by destroying that of others. Police should be encouraged to act as a credible state organ and not as a cowardly subordinate of the radicals. The more the police force is afraid of them, the braver they will become and the harder it will be to prevent state authority from collapsing.
Suharto was the only leader who managed to become a nightmare for radicals — his successors have only seen radicals as their nightmares. And nowhere else in the world is the police force so scared of radical elements as it is here.
The president should solve this problem once and for all, and not leave an unwanted legacy of cowardice to his successors. As the supreme commander of the nation — who recently received a red beret as an honorary member of the Army’s elite Special Forces unit Kopassus — Joko has all the means and power to get rid of destabilizing factors.
Pitan Daslani is director of the Managing the Nation Institute. He can be reached at pitandaslani@gmail.com
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