Together in Pluralism
Illustration: Handining
The message of President Jokowi that "If the PKI appears, just clobber it" (Kompas, May 18, 2017), referring the now defunct Indonesian Communist Party, is getting serious attention. The terminology of gebuk (clobber) reminds me of the terms used by then president Soeharto in 1989 and 1997 in the context of responding to maneuvers by political elements in the country.
Linguistically, gebuk means a powerful blow. In politics, its interpretation is wide, as it is sparked by anger to stop one action by suppressing, crushing and even eliminating.
Why did the President issue the statement? In what context and from which source of information? Of course the President took something into consideration. State instruments provide more than enough information about everything that reaches up to the level of President. However, out of the domain, there is a realm that seems to belong to everyone, namely information in the public space on the internet.
Overload information
In the era of instant access to the internet, various forms of information are presented through the media of personal blogs, community groups and the mainstream media. Some is simply bare information, but some is made more interesting by being mixed with "soy sauce" and a variety of comments, which makes it biased.
This makes it difficult for people like me to find information that is correct. Information via the internet is one of two things: truth and/or truth plus (read: post-truth). The two categories fill the public spaces through online media. Futurologist Alvin Toffler in his 1970 book Future Shock predicted "the dizzying disorientation brought on by the premature arrival of the future. It may well be the most important disease of tomorrow.”
Toffler was correct. It is happening now. The remarkable progress of information facilities is not balanced by social and political institutions, thereby causing a new imbalance that can no longer be fully controlled. In short, the machine has won.
The remarkable progress of information facilities is not balanced by social and political institutions, thereby causing a new imbalance that can no longer be fully controlled.
Seeking the truth needs patience and the truth frequently comes later. As history proved, astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), the inventor of heliocentric theory in his book De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, called the Sun the center, saying the planets circled it. The findings were not immediately accepted because previously there had been the belief that the sun and stars circled the Earth.
Copernicus was even accused of violating norms and propriety and destroying the accepted world order. Modern science eventually proved the truth.
The lesson from that is we cannot accept something without verification. We hope that science will bridge the gap between the truth and post-truth.
The role of the state
The disparities of ethnicities, races, groups and religions have become part of the society and the state. The United States, in its early independence, was also hit by horizontal conflicts in the form of civil war between the North and the South before it became as it is today. However, the challenges to democracy continue to exist.
Democracy is not taken for granted. Our first president, Sukarno, had the foresight of establishing Pancasila as the foundation of the state amid the discourses over several other options.
During the government of president Soeharto, the New Order guaranteed pluralism with Pancasila being confirmed as the foundation of the state. The next governments under BJ Habibie, Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, Megawati Soekarnoputri and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono shared the same views, refusing to let certain groups of society change the foundation of the state and the ideology of Pancasila.
We certainly do not want there be a setback to Indonesia becoming democratic through reform. In several countries a third wave has appeared from authoritarianism to democracy as a setback, as according to the 2016 study of Robert R. Kaufman in Dictators and Democrats: Masses, Elites, and Regime Change. The study concludes that regime models change because of political instability or economic factors.
The state is expected to discipline the hoaxes on the internet. They become serious when they threaten the state\'s foundation and society\'s diversity as they can cause harm to the fraternity.
The fact is that Indonesia was built on the basis of pluralism in the spirit of togetherness as according to the views of the Founding Fathers.
The cost would be high. History notes that challenges in the form of rejection of plurality and togetherness and separatist movements against the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI) have existed since we were independent. Indonesia has been tested because its tolerant attitude, which is imprinted in the mindset of individuals as local wisdom, not because of the indoctrination by a particular regime.
The fact is that Indonesia was built on the basis of pluralism in the spirit of togetherness as according to the views of the Founding Fathers. The objective to change the foundation of the state away from Pancasila has to be prevented, or clobbered, to borrow the phrase from President Jokowi.
In this, possibly there are groups that do not agree, but I believe that the directive of the President to clobber anyone who acts unconstitutionally with the intention of changing Pancasila as the foundation of the state will, of course, get the widespread support of the Indonesian people. The government needs to scrutinize this issue in a measurable way from a possibility to be hijacked by certain interests, which may suggest that the government is not neutral, or even supportive of certain groups.
Indonesia can
Some time ago, Canadian Ambassador to Indonesia Peter MacArthur met with me and disclosed how he and the government of Canada were impressed by the speech president Soekarno gave to the Canadian parliament on June 5, 1956, in which in essence he stated that Indonesia and Canada, despite being separated by the Pacific Ocean, were neighbors and had many similarities.
President Soekarno explained the motto of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, which meant we were tolerant to each other as a nation, without pressure, or coercion from the state. How can Indonesia do this? Its foundation was a desire to unite rather than to suspect each other, dominate and threaten each other. That was the essence of president Soekarno\'s speech on the diversity of Indonesia more than 60 years ago.
Now, the government is expected to continue the establishment and commitment of the previous government by continuously knitting the diversity within the framework of togetherness for the sake of the unity of NKRI. For that, it takes political will with the message and narration that is not too difficult to understand, such as the statement of President Jokowi to clobber the communists. Indonesia has become a role model to refer to togetherness in diversity and it has to be maintained. We should be proud of Indonesia -- I am.
JULIAN ALDRIN PASHA
Chairman of the Political Science Department of FISIP, the University of Indonesia
