Nationalism Sans Nationalism
For decades, the people of Indonesia have least felt the call to wake and breathe daily in the cycle and climate of honorable, beautiful and sublime national life.
We are aware that the greatest enemy of every nation-state is latent corruption in various forms within its system.
If left unchecked, such corruption can undermine any development effort, positive and creative public activity, including the foundations and/or ideals of the nation-state itself. It should also be emphasized that the worst corruption is committed when a sanctified reference of the nation-state is misused as a “beating stick” to support different forms of power practices.
We remember that throughout the New Order period, Pancasila was misused by then-president Suharto to eliminate his political opponents for the sake of strengthening and perpetuating power with all its material privileges.
Now in the Reform Era, civics gets its turn to be misused for incapacitating the main barrier to corruption praxis, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), especially in involving or entangled with three government institutions. A big sense of irony applies here, which is the use of civics as a pretext in a way that downgrades the principle of nationalism itself.
Also read:
> Breaking the Chain of Political Vulgarization
As we are going to analyze, such a move certainly constitutes an action without integrity because it violates the standard of procedural and substantial legitimacy. Because it concerns an issue as sanctified as the principle of nationalism, it may be parallel to betrayal.
Let us examine the absence of integrity through three levels of logic that were overlooked by KPK leaders, as well as creators of the civics test (TWK) in state agencies as disseminated in mass media and already used to test KPK employees for their functional transfer to become state civil servants (ASN).
The absence of integrity can be traced to three factors. The first and essential one is that the TWK questionnaire contains logic frailty or simplifications of reasoning because it completely does not deal with the understanding, facts and criteria of the principle of nationalism itself. It makes no attempt either to open up the awareness of an objective connection of the various forms of corruption with the direct emasculation of our nation’s positive energy and political establishment.
Second, the TWK questionnaire commits vulgarization, even distortion, with the obsession of intending to prove the prejudice of the presence of religious fanaticism among the KPK employees being tested. Apart from being vulgar and distortional, the content is also marked with irrelevant, disdaining, invented and counter-historical material at the same time.
Third, most importantly, the KPK TWK has in fact tyrannized the 75 KPK employees threefold by applying the test that failed to meet the two criteria for legitimacy, violating the principle of humanity and imposing a very harsh punishment as it was passed amid the constrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Logic frailty
The logic frailty or simplification of reasoning in the TWK is directly noticed in its questionnaire. We know that by the name of a civics test, what should be tested is the presence or absence, or the strength or weakness, of the civics knowledge of KPK employees, whose main mission is to eradicate corruption. However, none of the questions concern the authoritative understanding of a nation as egalitarian-autocentric collectivity — which is equivalent and on an equal footing.
Also read:
> Explanation from KPK Leadership Needed
The same is true of the antagonistic relation between corruption and the nationalism principle. The two are actually the most central issue to explore in order to show the quality of civics knowledge of KPK employees.
There are no exploratory questions why the massive latent corruption praxis in the New Order period has given rise to a profound multidimensional crisis in our nation and even at present, continues to undermine state institutions and threaten the foundations of our nation’s political establishment.
Questions are not directed at the reality of why in a nation-state plagued by various forms of latent corruption, all the activities in the economic, political, cultural and public welfare sectors lose their dimensions of honor, beauty and sublimity. If the principle of public trust in social interrelation is abandoned, the ideals or standards of our nation-state are also lost.
Deputy Chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Nurul Ghufron (left) gives a statement accompanied by the commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) Mohammad Choirul Anam (center) at the Komnas HAM Office, Jakarta, Thursday (17/6/2021). The KPK leadership fulfills the call from Komnas HAM regarding allegations of human rights violations in the civic knowledge test process as a condition for the transfer of employee status to State Civil Apparatus (ASN) employees of the KPK.
Such abandonment directly ends in the erosion of positive energy, warmth and enthusiasm in maintaining the state, nation and democracy. Not a single nation-state can be enlightened in its growth and lauded in its performance in the world arena without such enthusiasm and positive energy.
It’s clear here that there’s an essential relationship between the inevitability of corruption eradication and the intention to maintain the nation-state in an honorable, beautiful and sublime way; an organic relation between the intensification of corruption eradication and the intention and longing of the majority of the nation to wake up every morning with the spirit of honor, beauty and sublimity. Arising therefrom is a sacred relation between corruption eradication and full awakening from the motivation to work, offer dedication and make achievements, involving those from the grassroots to top levels in all fields of national life.
In brief, the aim of being determined and engaged in corruption eradication is not only limited to the rescue of state finances and their allocation to appropriate budget items, but is even more significantly meant to create a climate of nation-state life in which the younger generation of Indonesia is inspired to act and enjoy support in their performance amid the atmosphere of independence.
Also read:
> Let\'s Jointly Safeguard the KPK
> Equalize Perceptions about the KPK
In this way, the positive energy grows and expands endlessly, raising the dignity of life of the whole nation. For decades, the people of Indonesia have least felt the call to wake and breathe daily in the cycle and climate of honorable, beautiful and sublime national life.
From here, it is presumably most likely that the inability to understand — or avoidance of the substance of — civics along with the strong pretext or paranoia to prove the presence of religious fanaticism among KPK personnel led the creators of the TWK questionnaire to their vulgar, irrelevant, disdaining and fabricating act.
Just take a look at such wild questions as: “Are you ready to take off head scarves?”, “What religious group session do you follow?”, “Did you attend a neutral religious school?”, and improper questions about free sex, threesomes and orgies.
None of the questions mention the cases of Setya Novanto, Akil Mochtar, Angelina Sondakh, Sjamsul Nursalim, Joko S Tjandra, Harun Masiku, Edhy Prabowo, Juliari Batubara, Prosecutor Pinangki, Adelin Lis and others.
The most distorting and history-illiterate question, which will just threaten the correct understanding of civics itself, is “Do you choose the Quran or Pancasila?”. No other questions are more inappropriate than this one.
Here, the inevitable distinction between religious fanaticism and positive religiosity in the context of public civility or wisdom in maintaining the nation-state and democracy in our history of independence is totally ignored. Religious fanaticism is centrifugal in nature, undermining the spirit of nationalism, while positive religiosity is centripetal, preserving the spirit of nationalism.
The most unheeded aspect is the reality that historically, since the period of national awakening, there has been a full symbiosis between the spirit of religiosity, especially Islam, and the spirit of nationalism. From here, the term bangsa selam (nation of Islam) was familiar in the circle of Sarekat Islam, the largest and strongest party throughout our nation’s political history.
Also read:
> Harboring Bits of Hope for the KPK
It’s positive religiosity that made Muslims always serve as the main reservoir of consistent resistance to colonialism from the proto-nation era centuries ago to the period of the national movement and Independence Revolution.
Individually, this is also noticeable, for instance, in the religious intensity of bung Hatta, who was totally engaged in his struggle without self-interest to defend, build and guide the nation and our republic practically in his whole life. Most national movement figures deserving the title of founding fathers, also those who were non-Muslim, belong to this category.
Heroes Day on Nov. 10, 1945, and the days around the event, when about 6,000 martyrs died, also became solid evidence of the complete relation between Islamic religious intensity and the preparedness to offer the highest sacrifice to our republic that was built on the pillars of Pancasila.
The inappropriateness of the question is promptly revealed by the absence of understanding that for the majority of Indonesian Muslims, the Quran is indeed inseparable not only from the substance of the first pillar of Pancasila, Belief in the One and Only God, but also from the substance of the other four principles.
Moral legitimacy
The direct dismissal of 51 KPK employees and the uncertain fate of the other 24 for failing to pass the KPK TWK constitute a triple tyranny. First, they are unjustly treated as people who have no civics knowledge through the TWK, which besides not fulfilling procedural and substantive legitimacy, is also devoid of moral legitimacy.
It means that the 75 KPK employees have been forced to bear the permanent negative stigma based on the TWK that is deceitful and traitorous in terms of not only civics but also the mission of corruption eradication itself.
Validating the results of a TWK that in fact has no authenticity and moral legitimacy is certainly a form of serious tyranny. It also involves major fraud or deception in the public domain.
By upholding common sense, it should be affirmed that only overturned logic or enforcement of state power — raison d’etat — can state that the KPK TWK has legitimacy, let alone constitutional validity. Basically, there will never be constitutionality without the understanding that the state entity essentially always constitutes a derivation of and therefore, has to always be subordinated to the national entity.
Also read:
> Score in Corruption Index Falls, Alarm bells ring for Corruption Eradication
The second form of tyranny against the 75 KPK employees happens as the KPK TWK separates the third principle of Pancasila, the Unity of Indonesia, the main representation of our civics knowledge, from the second pillar of Pancasila, Just and Civilized Humanity. Actually, none of Pancasila’s principles are to be understood separately beyond their integral and substantive context.
It’s in Pancasila that our unity as a nation was formulated. Nationalism is impossible to separate from humanity. There will be no collective solidarity of the nation without individual humans of the nation’s population. It is in fact in this reality that the deceitful intention and practice of the KPK TWK is clearly revealed.
The punishment imposed on the 75 KPK employees as civics test losers threatens or directly ruins not only the chance of continuing their professional career, with a significant number of them having proven their exemplary performance as corruption busters or still striving to unveil latest major corruption cases, but also their general opportunity to lead an honorable life in the future in their beloved country as dignified citizens — a form of tyranny that will surely affect all members of their respective families.
The third form of tyranny is that the severe punishment of revoking the rights of the 75 KPK employees was imposed amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has strangled the life of the majority of world citizens, including most Indonesian people, with millions among us fighting extra hard over the last two years to survive day after day.
/https%3A%2F%2Fkompas.id%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F02%2Fkompas_tark_2598198_102_0.jpeg){kind=logo}
Mochtar Pabottingi
Here, the principle of Social Justice for the Whole of the People of Indonesia and the honor of nationalism of the 75 KPK employees have been dumped into the mud of humiliation along with their dignity of humanity. So, it is indeed urgent to take heed of the statement of 74 national professors with noble integrity, who have earlier detected the presence of serious violations in the implementation of the KPK TWK and demanded its annulment. It is most worthy for us to appreciate the commendable attempt of the National Human Rights Commission to seriously examine the presence or absence of violations of the 75 KPK employees’ rights.
It is because of conscience of justice of our nationalism and humanity that it is impossible to evade the ultimate question: How can we, in these days,
inflict such severe tyrannical punishment on our fellow citizens in the name of the state?
Mochtar Pabottingi. Professor of research, Indonesian Institute of Sciences 2000-2010.
This article was translated by Aris Prawira
