Trajectory of Nationality Politics

Asep Salahudin

· 7 minutes read

The year 2019 is a political year. Its hustle and bustle have been felt for a long time. Ever since Jokowi\'s victory in 2014, it seems that one thing that is truly unfinished is melting the internal atmosphere of the two competing groups, that today find their rhetoric extracted from the animal kingdom: kecebong (tadpole) and kampret (microbat). These two animals perfectly symbolize an all-out feud.

Of course, politics is a means to gain power. At this point there is no problem, but it becomes a concern when the strategy being implemented is justified by using any means. How, for example, it seems as if there is no more barbaric space now than on social media, which should be a bridge to building cohesiveness, connectivity and collectivity. The desire to share is more dominant than filtering.

Because in sharing, reasoning is not needed, but simply blind fanaticism, and the rest is the wild will to finish off the opponent. Meanwhile, filtering requires thought and an absence of hastiness in spreading news.

In the digital age our civilized mentality does not automatically work when the tradition of literacy is not yet strong. The enthusiasm for social media is not a transition marker from an oral culture to a literate one, but further strengthens the oral tradition in other formats. Just look, the many statuses on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Line have a surplus of condemnation. Even a caretaker of the executive board of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), who has been ordained in the ulema, actively spreads hate speech and shamelessly shares information that has no clear origin, in which not argumentation, but condemnation, is disseminated.

At this point social media experiences contradictio in terminis. The word social attached there must read the opposite: asocial. This media has divided society into two opposite poles. The algorithm that is the body of the engine strengthens these groupings. Friendliness and chemistry then become a "solid object" and each only wants to hear from their own group.

This situation reminds us of the twilight of Soekarno\'s power, as expressed by the great Bung in a speech in Bogor, in front of reporters on Nov. 20, 1965: "Well, hi reporters, be careful in writing. Because, your work is very bad. Don’t assist in this [...] provocation, which I call fighting, clobbering each other. Remember, a great civilization never goes down unless it destroys itself from within. This morning I said I had never experienced a situation in Indonesia like these days. That our nation turns out to be too hateful between each other, fighting, killing each other, so I am very concerned. Maybe the current situation is the beginning of self destruction. Because, if this nation is like this, it can be said, if this nation continues to engage in self destruction, it will go down as predicted by Toynbee or Gibbon in the words that a great civilization never goes down unless it destroys itself from within.”

Pull of the power

However, Muslim holy persons, mystics, and authentic clergy are not tempted by this power, our mainstream remains aloof from it. We are actually still fortunate to have such figures as Gus Mus (Mustofa Bisri), Buya Syafii Maarif, Franz Magnis-Suseno, Quraish Shihab, and other kyai, who are not exposed to the media, who still care about conscience, voice universal goodness, and have full commitment to maintaining a pluralistic Indonesian home.

Amid the phenomenon of the awakening of conservatives, those voices are like an oasis. Like a burning candle in the midst of a crowd of people who endlessly try to extinguish it so that life becomes dark, so that nationality is dragged into an exclusive intolerance, and only oriented to the past.

Gus Mus and those who are like him have taken strategic choices to never be tempted by power, and at the same time loudly echo cross-border advice in order to build the common good and realize public virtues. That Indonesia as an ancestral inheritance does not belong to one group, but is a shelter for all groups in equal position and status, as beautifully formulated in the slogan which was extracted from Nusantara wisdom: Bhinneka Tunggal Ika.

Diversity is not a curse, but an opportunity to greet one another. Pluralism is an ontological face in which Indonesianness can be defined in its entirety. Pluralism is social capital that existentially will strengthen humanity as well as a cultural asset that will increasingly enrich the treasures of our civilization. Cultural crossing is not only our home courtyard, but also the hemoglobin in which flows red blood cells that make us become a beautiful and colorful garden. Indonesia has become a meeting ground for all religions, the meeting of many traditions, and venue for a variety of ideologies.

Victory of common sense

Political screams are also increasingly echoed with the re-emergence of the idea of a sharia-run Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI). Denny JA opened room for dialogue on this theme with an initial reflection, "Sharia NKRI or Humane Public Spaces". For me, the idea of the sharia NKRI is not only insignificant, but also very outdated. The abolition of the Jakarta Charter does not reflect the defeat of "political Islam", but is a marker of the victory of common sense and Indonesianness over the snare of narrow religious understanding, from a religious ideology that is interpreted shallowly and haphazardly.

Pancasila, which has been ordained by NU as a "final ideology" and described by Muhammadiyah as "Darul Ahda wasy Syahadah" minus the Jakarta Charter, is more likely to represent the religious principle. Pancasila is a brilliant expression of religious interpretation in relation to the context of the diverse population of the country. Pancasila is a "state jurisprudence", which strongly paves the way to the choice of a "republican" style, not a religious state, let alone a khilafah.

In the breath of republicanism, the spirit of citizenship politics, which is inclusive, open, cosmopolitan, and non-discriminatory, is implanted. In republicanism, it is possible to develop public spaces where all issues relating to the lives of many people are discussed calmly by prioritizing arguments and conveyed through acts of discursive communication.

Of course, anyone understands, in its journey this state has not been perfect, as marked by still high poverty rates, unresolved unemployment, low human resource indexes and rampant corruption. It is the obligation of the government that has obtained a mandate through the democratic system to manage these.

The President as head of government has an obligation to ensure that the bureaucracy is run well, policies are oriented toward the public interest, education standards are improving, infrastructure is adequate, the economy favors many layers of society. As head of state, the President has the obligation to ensure that Pancasila and the constitution are sustainable and all movements that tend to disrupt the shared ideology are broken up.

Rather than turning to a sharia-run NKRI, it is better to ensure the passage of the national political trajectory, which is referred to in three virtuous ways. First, recognition (acknowledgement as a citizen of the state complete with its diversity); second, representation (civility in political representation); third, redistribution (fulfillment of social, cultural and economic rights/social justice for all Indonesian people). Or in the language of Bung Karno, the Trisakti way: sovereign politics, self-reliant economics, and cultured people.

Be assured, these three ways will accelerate Indonesia toward meeting its dreams. At the same time, the three are not at all in conflict with sharia but rather are the vital element of the charter of each religion, as well as the prophetic core treatises taught by every apostle of God. (Asep Salahudin, Deputy rector I, Latifah Mubarokiyah Institute of Islamic Studies (IAILM), Suryalaya Islamic Boarding School, Tasikmalaya; Chairman of Human Resources Assessment and Development Institute of West Java Regional Board of Nahdlatul Ulama)

Editor:

ASEP SALAHUDIN political year kampret kecebong trajectory of nationality politics