Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Indonesian Air Force to deploy squadron of fighter...
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Indonesian Air Force to deploy squadron of fighter...: 5 hours ago Biak, Papua - The Indonesian Air Force plans to deploy a squadron of fighter jets in the Manuhua Airbase in Biak N...
Indonesian Air Force to deploy squadron of fighter jets in Biak over concerns of growing West Papua Independence
Biak, Papua -
The Indonesian Air Force plans to deploy a squadron of fighter jets in the
Manuhua Airbase in Biak Numfor district, Papua province, next year after its
status has been upgraded to type A from type B.
"Biak will have a squadron of fighter jets. The plan
has been incorporated to the TNI (National Defense Forces) chief's program. The
program has been notified to Manuhua Airbase," Commander of the Manuhua
Air Force Base, Colonel Fajar Adriyanto, said after a get-together with
religious figures and journalists at Gunadi Angkasa building on Tuesday.
The presence of fighter jets at the airbase is expected to strengthen state security defense particularly in the Indonesian eastern provinces of Papua and West Papua, he said.
He said the Air Force has made preparations including facilities and infrastructures for the operation of the squadron of fighter jets.
"The Manuhua Air Force Base in Biak has been equipped with apron facility for fighter jets. All the facilities can be used now," he said.
The presence of fighter jets at the airbase is expected to strengthen state security defense particularly in the Indonesian eastern provinces of Papua and West Papua, he said.
He said the Air Force has made preparations including facilities and infrastructures for the operation of the squadron of fighter jets.
"The Manuhua Air Force Base in Biak has been equipped with apron facility for fighter jets. All the facilities can be used now," he said.
Sunday, October 29, 2017
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: BALI emergency status of Mount Agung extended 14 ...
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: BALI emergency status of Mount Agung extended 14 ...: BALI emergency status of Mount Agung extended 14 days This is the third time that the 3,142-meter-high volcano's emergency st...
BALI emergency status of Mount Agung extended 14 days
BALI emergency
status of Mount Agung extended 14 days
This is the third time that the 3,142-meter-high volcano's emergency status is being extended.
The extension of the emergency status is also aimed at easing the deployment of personnel, the use of budget, and the procurement and distribution of logistics, he noted.
A total of 133,457 evacuees are being sheltered at 385 different locations in eight districts and a municipality in Bali.
The Center for Volcanology and Disaster Hazard Mitigation (PVMB) still maintains the highest alert level for the volcano by recommending a ban on any activity within a radius of 9 kilometers plus 12 kilometers from the peak of the volcano.
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: BREAKING NEWS -Armed group attacks patrol vehicle ...
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: BREAKING NEWS -Armed group attacks patrol vehicle ...: 10 hours ago Timika, Papua (ANTARA News) - An armed group attacked a patrol vehicle at the 60-mile mark on an access road to PT ...
BREAKING NEWS -Armed group attacks patrol vehicle near Freeport in West Papua
10 hours ago
Timika,
Papua (ANTARA News) - An armed group attacked a patrol vehicle at the 60-mile
mark on an access road to PT Freeport Indonesias mine in Tembagapura, Mimika
District, Papua Province, on early Wednesday.
The companys Vice President Corporate Communications Riza Pratama has confirmed the incident.
Following the attack, Pratama said a convoy of the workers Schedule Day Off vehicles from lowlands to the highlands of Tembagapura District was canceled.
"We heard the shootings, but there is no detailed information yet. For now, we have stopped the convoy," he said.
Meanwhile, Papua Police Chief Inspector General Boy Rafli Amar said there were no victims in the shooting incident that took place at the 60-mile mark, as the police had anticipated such an attack.
"Yes, there was a shooting attack. However, as of now, there were no victims. Based on our analysis, there was a plan to launch such an attack at around the 60-67 mile mark, and we have anticipated that," he remarked.
Earlier on Saturday, the police Mobile Brigade of Batalyon B Timika was involved in an exchange of fire with an armed group during a sweeping operation around Banti Village in the Utikini area following an attack on two patrol cars of PT Freeport at the 67-mile mark on the same day.
On Sunday, First Brigadier Berry Pramana Putra from the mobile brigade corps was shot dead at Utikini Bridge in Tembagapura District.
The armed group resumed the attack on early Monday when the police attempted to retrieve the body of Putra, and in the process, four personnel suffered injuries.
On Tuesday, the group attacked a vehicle of Tembagapura Hospitals medical team that was carrying a post-natal patient in Utikini Village. The patient Serina Kobogau was shot in her right thigh.
During the sweeping operation in pursuit of the armed group, the police managed to take over the groups base camp and other camps around the Utikini hills in Tembagapura.
The police have also found handmade weapons, a walkie-talkie, and some other devices.
The companys Vice President Corporate Communications Riza Pratama has confirmed the incident.
Following the attack, Pratama said a convoy of the workers Schedule Day Off vehicles from lowlands to the highlands of Tembagapura District was canceled.
"We heard the shootings, but there is no detailed information yet. For now, we have stopped the convoy," he said.
Meanwhile, Papua Police Chief Inspector General Boy Rafli Amar said there were no victims in the shooting incident that took place at the 60-mile mark, as the police had anticipated such an attack.
"Yes, there was a shooting attack. However, as of now, there were no victims. Based on our analysis, there was a plan to launch such an attack at around the 60-67 mile mark, and we have anticipated that," he remarked.
Earlier on Saturday, the police Mobile Brigade of Batalyon B Timika was involved in an exchange of fire with an armed group during a sweeping operation around Banti Village in the Utikini area following an attack on two patrol cars of PT Freeport at the 67-mile mark on the same day.
On Sunday, First Brigadier Berry Pramana Putra from the mobile brigade corps was shot dead at Utikini Bridge in Tembagapura District.
The armed group resumed the attack on early Monday when the police attempted to retrieve the body of Putra, and in the process, four personnel suffered injuries.
On Tuesday, the group attacked a vehicle of Tembagapura Hospitals medical team that was carrying a post-natal patient in Utikini Village. The patient Serina Kobogau was shot in her right thigh.
During the sweeping operation in pursuit of the armed group, the police managed to take over the groups base camp and other camps around the Utikini hills in Tembagapura.
The police have also found handmade weapons, a walkie-talkie, and some other devices.
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Old dominance, new dominos in Southeast Asia
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Old dominance, new dominos in Southeast Asia: Old dominance, new dominos in Southeast Asia Not since World War II has liberal democracy, and the intergroup tolerance that sustains...
Old dominance, new dominos in Southeast Asia
Old dominance, new dominos in Southeast Asia
Not since World War II has liberal democracy, and the intergroup
tolerance that sustains it, seemed so deeply endangered in so many places at
once. For the first time in three quarters of a century, illiberalism and chauvinism
have stolen the march, virtually all over the globe, on their liberal and
cosmopolitan rivals. With narrow voices for exclusion and nativism making
frightening headway against broader visions of inclusion and diversity in
Britain, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Poland, South Africa, Turkey, and the
United States, it seems fair to conclude that they can now gain major ground
just about anywhere at any time.
If the
flu of political and social illiberalism is circumnavigating the globe,
Southeast Asia has precious little immunity with which to withstand it. This is
a region where authoritarian regimes have always easily outnumbered
democracies, and where liberalism and universalism have always struggled to
gain traction against religion, nationalism, and communalism as forms of
ideology and identification. So it should be no surprise that in a historical
moment when democracy feels unsafe even in formerly safe-seeming spaces, it
feels in Southeast Asia as if democracy could readily be extinguished entirely.
It
wouldn’t be the first time since decolonisation that Southeast Asia suffered a
complete democratic wipe-out. Historically speaking, the region’s democratic
nadir ran from the early 1970s, when Malaysia’s Barisan Nasional and the
Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos converted their electoral legitimacy into
outright authoritarian powers, until the mid-1980s. For most of that decade and
a half, Southeast Asia boasted literally zero regimes that met even minimally
democratic standards—with the minor exceptions of Thailand’s fleeting
democratic experiment from 1973–76 and grudging democratic opening over the
course of the mid-to-late 1980s. The Cold War did not produce the dominos of
successive collapse from capitalism to communism across Southeast Asia that American
interventionists feared, at least outside of what was formerly French
Indochina. What it did help produce, though, was a region-wide domino effect of
democratic collapses into authoritarianism.
Could
Southeast Asia domino its way into a total 1970s-style democratic abyss again?
Since most of the region is enduringly authoritarian to begin with, it is
already—and always—most of the way there. As in the early 1970s, the global
ecology for democracy is looking downright toxic. External contributions to
democratisation in Southeast Asia should never be overstated, of course. But
whether by coincidence or not, democracies in Southeast Asia (as well as
Northeast Asia) have almost always either been cosy or trying to get cosier to
the United States. If that gravitational pull of American democracy has ever
really reached all the way to Southeast Asia, it has changed from propulsion to
repulsion almost overnight with the presidential ascendancy of Donald Trump.
One could have recently imagined, for example, Vietnam following the path of
Taiwan (and arguably Myanmar) by responding to an increasingly threatening and
intrusive China by burnishing democratic credentials as down payment on a
stronger American alliance. If Hanoi wants better ties with Washington now, it
would be better advised to start building the right brand of luxury hotels than
the right kind of political regime.
Old dominance
Even
before disturbing global authoritarian trends emerged, Southeast Asia displayed
a dismal democratic baseline. We would thus do well to distinguish the cases of
old dominance that establish that dismal baseline from what we might
call the new dominos that find themselves either tumbling or looking
increasingly wobbly in these troubled global times.
None of
the region’s long-dominant authoritarian regimes appear deeply endangered at
the moment. Singapore’s PAP is riding high in the saddle after its most recent
electoral-authoritarian landslide. It remains disinclined toward political
liberalisation despite the manifest lack of risk to its own dominance from doing
so. The gossipy drama of the Lee family feud distracts from the deeper point
that an honest and independent media outlet could never get a license to
investigate and report on it freely and openly. In Malaysia, venality is up far
more than brutality is down. So long as the ruling BN can compensate for its
high-level corruption with high-level repression—especially by re-imprisoning
opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim—they seem likely to get away with it.
Commentators commonly fret that Hun Sen just killed the last remnants of
democracy in Cambodia when he shuttered the Cambodia Daily and moved to
ban the country’s only major opposition party. But what is really transpiring
is a transition from multiparty authoritarianism to single-party
authoritarianism, since Cambodia has not met even minimal democratic standards
for the past 25 years. Speaking of single-party dictatorships, Vietnam’s
leaders have recently stepped up repression of dissidents. But it is not as if
the Vietnamese Communist Party has ever brooked serious dissent in the first
place.
Not
coincidentally, in all four of these cases, old dominance is rooted in old
authoritarian ruling parties. In this sense, Southeast Asia is far from unique.
Dictatorships ruled by parties have long tended to be more stable than those in
which the military plays the leading role. So it stands to reason that the
greatest action in the region, not just now but over the past decade, has been
in countries where the military either still is, or in the past was, a leading
power in political life. A militarised past means a high potential for a
domino-ing present.
The new dominoes
Just as
we can identify four clear cases of old dominance rooted in authoritarian
ruling parties—Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam—four cases fit more
readily in the new domino category: Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and
Thailand. Across all these cases, long histories of parties failing to
decisively supersede the power of the military left democracies with relatively
little institutional strength to sustain themselves. In the case of Thailand,
these weak civilian institutions have already laid the groundwork for outright
democratic collapse at the military’s—and monarchy’s—hands.
Even
among these latter four cases, I hasten to add, the story in terms of national
regime type has been one of stability far more than instability. Of the eight
Southeast Asian cases discussed here, only in Myanmar and Thailand have
outright regime transitions occurred since the turn of the millennium. And one
of the two, Myanmar, has moved in a more democratic direction since 2011. So it
is worth stressing that Southeast Asian democracy has not exactly been
cratering.
But the
times and the tides seem to be turning. Could Myanmar soon follow Thailand’s
recent path back to unchallenged military rule? Could the Philippines, now
ruled by a strongman backed by martial law in Mindanao, descend from its
current fragile status as an illiberal democracy into an outright one-man
dictatorship? And does the shocking imprisonment of Jakarta’s ethnic Chinese
former governor on blasphemy charges portend the demise in Indonesia of the
tolerant norms on which even a minimalist democracy depends?
Although
all four of these countries have been travelling distinctive trajectories
downward, there is a vital common theme. When procedural democracy arises in
otherwise politically and socially illiberal and intolerant conditions,
democracy’s own key features can easily—and ironically—undermine its own
quality and even threaten its own survival. Specifically, democratic procedures
have a tendency to produce unbridled majoritarianism and unconstrained
leadership in the absence of powerful countervailing forces to contain
them. In settings where liberal institutions and societal commitment to
inclusive and cosmopolitan values are relatively weak, minorities exist at the
mercy of majorities. Sometimes that minority is defined demographically; other
times it is established electorally.
The
Philippines and Thailand both exemplify the dangers of domineering and abusive
executives in illiberal democratic settings. Empowered and emboldened by
decisive electoral majorities, Thaksin Shinawatra has attempted and Rodrigo
Duterte is now attempting to overcome legacies of unresponsive, oligarchic
politics in both countries through force of personal will. In Thailand this did
not lead to outright populist authoritarianism, in part because the Thai
military and monarchy saw fit to re-establish oligarchic authoritarianism
instead. It is in the Philippines where a brazenly violent populist seems
inclined to seize as many authoritarian-style powers as the system and public
will allow. As abysmal as Duterte has been for human rights, his defenders
quite plausibly prefer a highly popular president responding to actual social
ills like the drug trade over a discredited one hanging on through electoral
malfeasance like Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo did a decade ago.
Human
rights are precisely the terrain on which conditions are sliding downhill in
Indonesia and Myanmar as well. In Indonesia both anti-communist and
anti-Chinese sentiment have made frightening comebacks from their Cold War
demises. Since these were the same fear-filled mentalities that spawned and
sustained Suharto’s New Order, their re-emergence suddenly makes democracy feel
unsafe again at the national level. Conditions in transitional Myanmar are of
course immeasurably more dire. But democratisation does not deserve the brunt
of the blame for an ongoing calamity like the forcible expulsion and—why split
hairs?—the state-sanctioned mass murder of the Rohingya. In Myanmar as in
Indonesia, it is the ideological potency of ethnic and religious nationalism
that explains why minorities get brutalized. Ethnic nationalism—or what I would
prefer we call nativism—is one of the most dangerous gateways to
authoritarianism, as well as a sapper of democratic substance. Democracy may
embolden an electorally supercharged ethnic or religious majority to believe it
can do whatever it wants with unvalued minorities. But it is authoritarian
legacies of militarisation in Myanmar and ethnic and ideological scapegoating
in Indonesia that best explain the severity and ugliness of both countries’
nativist downturns.
Reasserting liberal
democratic values
If one
vivid lesson shines through the dim shadows of Southeast Asia’s democratic
downslide, it is that democratisation and human rights are far from the same
thing. Especially when a country’s citizenry is more deeply steeped in
religious than in liberal educational institutions, they will quite
understandably tend to see the world in terms of good people and bad people.
Meanwhile nationalists steeped in a lifetime of authoritarian state propaganda
are analogously primed to see the world in terms of us, who belong, and them,
who do not. Under such conditions, democratic rights may get extended; but no
further than the ranks of the supposedly virtuous.
What all
this suggests is that our global crisis of liberalism and democracy is first
and foremost a crisis of education. Heroic histories of mass urban mobilisation
to topple dictatorships naturally lead us to expect that if civil society is to
help forge democracy, it will be by organising the resistance: “People Power,”
as we like to say.
This may
still be largely true in Southeast Asia’s cases of old dominance, where
dictatorship must somehow be dislodged before democracy can be defended. But in
Southeast Asia’s new dominos, as in Western democracies where pluralism is
under assault, a deeper educational imperative underlies the organisational
challenge confronting us. Remarkably, we have reached a moment when our
politics most urgently needs to be driven not by an exalted desire to maximise
human freedom, but by the base yet pressing need to minimise human cruelty. And
if educational institutions—with a big assist from the mass media—do not spread
the message that even the lives of minorities and suspected criminals have
value and are worthy of protection, who will? For civil society to help save
Southeast Asian democracy—or democracy anywhere in these dark days, to be
truthful—its educational mission will need to loom as large as its
organisational one.
• •
• • •
• •
•
Dan Slater is Professor of
Political Science and incoming Director of the Weiser
Center for Emerging Democracies (WCED) at the University of
Michigan. His research has focused on the historical and contemporary sources
of authoritarian durability and the emergence of democracy, particularly in
Southeast Asia. You can follow him on Twitter at @SlaterPolitics.
This post appears as part of the Regional Learning Hub, a New
Mandala series on the challenges facing civil society in Southeast
Asia, supported by the TIFA Foundation.
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Indonesia demands explanation after US refuses ent...
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Indonesia demands explanation after US refuses ent...: Indonesia demands explanation after US refuses entry to military chief Gatot Nurmantyo Jakarta: Indonesia is demanding an explanatio...
Indonesia demands explanation after US refuses entry to military chief Gatot Nurmantyo
Indonesia
demands explanation after US refuses entry to military chief Gatot Nurmantyo
Jakarta:
Indonesia is demanding an explanation after it said its military chief Gatot
Nurmantyo was refused entry into the United States, moments before
his plane departed from Jakarta on Saturday.
General Gatot - who earlier this
year suspended military ties with Australia over teaching materials
perceived as derogatory at a Perth Army base - was travelling to Washington
with his wife and a delegation.
He had been invited to attend a
conference on countering violent extremism on October 23 to 24 at the
invitation of General Joseph Dunford, the US's highest ranking military
officer.
However, the Indonesian Armed
Forces said moments before General Gatot's departure on Emirates, the
airline informed him he had been denied entry to the United States by
US Customs and Border Protection despite having a visa.
Indonesian Foreign Ministry
spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir said the Indonesian Embassy in Washington DC had
sent a diplomatic note to the US Foreign Ministry to obtain clarification on
what had happened.
"Considering the US
Ambassador is out of Jakarta at the moment, the Deputy Ambassador has been
summoned to Kemlu (the Foreign Ministry) tomorrow to give an explanation,"
Mr Nasir said.
TNI (Indonesian Armed Forces)
spokesman Wuryanto said General Gatot had been invited to attend a conference
on countering violent extremism by his "best friend and senior"
General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Photo: AP
Friday, October 20, 2017
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Rising sectarian tensions, the turf war between th...
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Rising sectarian tensions, the turf war between th...: Rising sectarian tensions, the turf war between the military and the police and political corruption to dog Indonesian Progress We d...
Rising sectarian tensions, the turf war between the military and the police and political corruption to dog Indonesian Progress
Rising sectarian tensions, the turf war between the military and the police and political corruption to dog Indonesian Progress
We do not have to look far to understand
the problems of bureaucratic reform in the country. The Indonesian word for
government is pemerintah, a modification of the word perintah,
which means to order. So it is within the mindset of the Indonesian people that
the job of the government is to order, a practice that was perfected by
Javanese kings and queens who spoke to their subjects only to demand loyalty
and tributes.
For centuries, this common practice continued to persist until modern times. The New Order regime of president Soeharto further refined the practice by using the bureaucracy to collect rent from businesses, in the process creating a massive system of kleptocracy.
The downfall of the Soeharto regime ushered in a bureaucratic reform, which was an attempt to free the government from corruption, collusion and nepotism. Every administration in the post-Soeharto era tried to undertake the reform, with the latest attempt carried out by former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who in his second term listed bureaucratic reform as his administration’s top priority in the Long-Term National Development Plan 2010-2025. The progress, however, has been very slow. Corruption continues to run rampant while the process of dealing with the bureaucracy remains a complicated one.
The administration of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, which will enter its third year today, has also declared bureaucratic reform its number one priority. He started off by campaigning on what he termed revolusi mental(mental revolution), which is aimed at transforming the culture of priyayi (privileged class) in the bureaucracy from one that demands service to one that delivers it.
While serving as mayor of Surakarta, Jokowi streamlined the bureaucracy by introducing a one-stop service for business licensing, a service he wanted to replicate at the national level.
In three years of his administration, Jokowi has unveiled 16 reform packages, most of which deal with deregulation and bureaucratic reform. There is reason to believe that the current reform could work, simply because Jokowi is the type of leader who demands results. The reason he travels so frequently around the country is because he wants to see progress being made firsthand.
Jokowi also has no qualms about publicly scolding government officials who fall short of their expectations. Earlier this week, the mayor of Medan, Dzulmi Eldin, issued a public apology after Jokowi scolded him for failing to fix pothole-filled roads in the North Sumatra capital.
Symbolically, Jokowi has made steps to bring a friendly face to the government. He gives out bikes to people who provide the correct answers to his quizzes and drops by at youth-oriented music concerts, which has burnished his image as a leader who is close to the people.
Rising sectarian tensions, the turf war between the military and the police and political corruption may continue to dog his performance, but, fundamentally, things are moving in the right direction.
For centuries, this common practice continued to persist until modern times. The New Order regime of president Soeharto further refined the practice by using the bureaucracy to collect rent from businesses, in the process creating a massive system of kleptocracy.
The downfall of the Soeharto regime ushered in a bureaucratic reform, which was an attempt to free the government from corruption, collusion and nepotism. Every administration in the post-Soeharto era tried to undertake the reform, with the latest attempt carried out by former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who in his second term listed bureaucratic reform as his administration’s top priority in the Long-Term National Development Plan 2010-2025. The progress, however, has been very slow. Corruption continues to run rampant while the process of dealing with the bureaucracy remains a complicated one.
The administration of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, which will enter its third year today, has also declared bureaucratic reform its number one priority. He started off by campaigning on what he termed revolusi mental(mental revolution), which is aimed at transforming the culture of priyayi (privileged class) in the bureaucracy from one that demands service to one that delivers it.
While serving as mayor of Surakarta, Jokowi streamlined the bureaucracy by introducing a one-stop service for business licensing, a service he wanted to replicate at the national level.
In three years of his administration, Jokowi has unveiled 16 reform packages, most of which deal with deregulation and bureaucratic reform. There is reason to believe that the current reform could work, simply because Jokowi is the type of leader who demands results. The reason he travels so frequently around the country is because he wants to see progress being made firsthand.
Jokowi also has no qualms about publicly scolding government officials who fall short of their expectations. Earlier this week, the mayor of Medan, Dzulmi Eldin, issued a public apology after Jokowi scolded him for failing to fix pothole-filled roads in the North Sumatra capital.
Symbolically, Jokowi has made steps to bring a friendly face to the government. He gives out bikes to people who provide the correct answers to his quizzes and drops by at youth-oriented music concerts, which has burnished his image as a leader who is close to the people.
Rising sectarian tensions, the turf war between the military and the police and political corruption may continue to dog his performance, but, fundamentally, things are moving in the right direction.
Jakarta
Post
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Islamic mobilisation and oligarchy in Jakarta
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Islamic mobilisation and oligarchy in Jakarta: Islamic mobilisation and oligarchy in Jakarta The past year or so has seen conspicuous setbacks to Indonesian democracy’s capacity to...
Islamic mobilisation and oligarchy in Jakarta
Islamic mobilisation and
oligarchy in Jakarta
The past
year or so has seen conspicuous setbacks to Indonesian democracy’s capacity to
protect many social rights, including of some of the more vulnerable members of
society—most notably women, religious and sexual minorities, and victims of the
1965–66 mass killings. Ironically, this has occurred under a government whose
declared agenda of extending access to social services has been a celebrated and defining characteristic,
not to mention the presumption that its establishment had deflected a prior
possible reassertion of authoritarian-like politics.
By 2015,
a wide-ranging survey had offered the proposition that Indonesia’s hard-won democracy had stagnated.
However, many of the more sombre assessments of this condition
were to come in the wake of the second round of the Jakarta gubernatorial
election in April 2017, and the farcical blasphemy case that saw the defeated
Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (“Ahok”) sentenced to jail. The mood of these analyses
could not be more different from the upbeat tone that characterised those that immediately
followed the victory of Ahok’s close ally Jokowi over Prabowo
Subianto in the 2014 election. That result had spared most Australia-based
analysts—and many of the people of Indonesia—from the pain of having to contend
with what might have been an overwhelmingly clear signal of democratic
regression.
But the
manner of Ahok’s downfall is merely symptomatic of much deeper problems within
Indonesia democracy, which have never been resolved since the fall of Soeharto.
These problems are intertwined with continuing oligarchic dominance and the
manner in which intra-oligarchic conflict now occurs. The mobilisation of
identity politics has become a more salient feature of conflicts over power and
resources. In fact, we may be entering a new phase in which conservative takes
on Islamic morality, and the hyper-nationalism which is being positioned
against them, become the most important cultural resource pools from which the
ideational aspects of intra-oligarchic struggles are forged—thus accentuating
the illiberalism of Indonesian democracy. Indeed, the relative absence of
organised social forces that would drive an agenda of liberal political reform
is more palpable than ever before.
Islamic mobilisation and
oligarchy in Jakarta
The race
for the Jakarta governorship provided some of the best indications of how
continuing oligarchic domination relates to the growing prominence of the
illiberal characteristics of Indonesian democracy. Undoubtedly the most
socially divisive local election in Indonesian history, it was even more hotly
contested than the 2014 presidential contest, which was already considered exceptionally polarising by a number of analysts.
Ahok had
been widely regarded as an able governor. But his fateful words about the
Koranic verse Al Maidah 51 came to position him, effectively, as the co-author
of his own political demise. The mass mobilisations against him combined calls
for Islamic solidarity with a familiar narrative about the systematic
marginalisation of the ummah. This narrative has been long entwined in Indonesian modern history
with the perception that Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese minority has
disproportionately benefitted from preferential economic treatment since
colonial times. One irony, of course, is that these anti-Ahok demonstrations appeared to be supported by the children of Soeharto,
whereas it was their father’s own New Order regime that had been responsible
for nurturing the giant ethnic Chinese-owned conglomerates in Indonesia in the
first place by providing them with political and economic protection.
The implication of members of that family in the protests indicated that
matters of oligarchic conflict were far from being entirely separated from the
events surrounding the fall of Ahok.
The two
most widely discussed interpretations of Ahok’s defear have been provided by
Ian Wilson and by Marcus Mietzner and Burhanuddin Muhtadi. Wilson has emphasised how Ahok had created
antipathy among the poor residents of Jakarta, mainly by pursuing urban
rejuvenation projects that involved the eradication of entire slums. Mietzner
and Muhtadi, however, argue that Ahok’s loss was more plainly related to religion: an
aversion among many voters to back a non-Muslim and the belief that the
governor had indeed committed blasphemy against Islam. Neither explanation is
completely dismissive of social-economic issues on the one hand, or religious
identity issues on the other—so there is little point in accusing either side
of being unaware of the interrelatedness of the matters at hand.
But a
somewhat different—though not necessarily incongruous—interpretation would
place his defeat more firmly within the evolution and mechanics of broader conflicts within
Indonesia’s oligarchy. All three candidates in the first round of
the Jakarta polls had essentially served as proxies for competing coalitions of
entrenched elites. Ahok represented the ruling coalition driven by the PDI-P.
Anies Baswedan competed as the candidate of a bloc led by Prabowo’s Gerindra
Party. And it is difficult not to construe Agus Yudhoyono’s sudden foray into
the political arena, necessitating the abandonment of a promising military
career, as anything less than an attempt to forge a political dynasty on the part
of his father, SBY, founder and leader of the Democratic Party.
If this
sort of interpretation has any merit, Ahok’s defeat in the face of FPI-led
mobilisations was less an indication of the inexorable rise of Islamic
radicalism in Indonesian politics than of the ability of oligarchic elites to
deploy the social agents of Islamic politics for their own interests. The
broader implication is that radical expressions of Islamic identity—which go
together with rigidly conservative interpretations of Islamic morality championed
by the FPI and similarly hard line groups—are being increasingly
nurtured and refashioned within the present requirements of oligarchic
politics.
In fact,
by facilitating expressions of frustration by many ordinary citizens through
the use of a predominantly religious-tinged political lexicon, Indonesian
oligarchic elites have all but ensured that Indonesian Islamic politics would
move increasingly toward a conservative direction. Moreover, it is instructive
that the resultant social and political conservatism is being mainstreamed with
the aid of oligarchic elites who would not be normally considered the social
agents of Islamic politics.
In the
aftermath of the Jakarta election, many took to warning that it signalled the rise of such religious extremism,
which presents an immediate threat to Indonesia’s pluralist social fabric and
to its internationally praised democracy. In a way, such fears represent a
revisit of older concerns, expressed during the early years of reformasi,
that democracy would result in the political ascendancy of Islamic radicalism,
which had supposedly been suppressed only because of the
iron-fisted rule of Soeharto. Indeed, Indonesians who tend towards
secular forms of democratic politics should be aware, now more so than ever, of
the historical and contemporary weakness of politically liberal (or social
democratic) streams within Indonesian politics.
The hyper-nationalist
reaction
Given the
long absence of Leftist traditions as well from the scene—since the violent
destruction of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in the 1960s—it has become
increasingly clear that the most durable bulwarks against hard line Islamic
politics are to be found within strains of nationalist politics. The problem
for Indonesian democracy is that these strains are typically entwined with
social interests embedded within the apparatus of the state, including the
military, that have been more historically concerned with social control than
social representation.
This
point is crucial in understanding the significance of Jokowi’s response to the
newly-assertive Islamic mobilisation. It is expected that the same tactics of
mobilising identity politics against Ahok will be employed against him, though
perhaps in not exactly the same manner or degree of effectiveness. There is
already much rumour-mongering in social media about Jokowi’s personal
background and history that casts Indonesia’s president as a closet ethnic
Chinese communist. In spite of their somewhat fantastical nature, it is
apparent that the president himself has become quite concerned about the
swirling rumours surrounding his identity. At the very least, he has become
sufficiently irked to deliver an irate rebuttal and to describe them as nothing
less than a politically-motivated attack on his character.
In policy
terms, Jokowi’s main reaction has been to deter such rumours by promoting the
cultural symbols associated with Indonesian nationalism. He has done this, for
instance, by way of initiating a new national holiday—Pancasila Day—on 1 June.
The sanctity of the Unitary State of Indonesia (NKRI), based on the founding
idea of “unity in diversity”, has been emphasised quite conspicuously as well
in his speeches and public comments since Ahok’s defeat. He has even vowed to
demolish organisations that are anti-Pancasila, in the kind of forceful terms
that would not have been out of place in the heyday of the New Order.
It is not
surprising that the president has felt compelled to deliver a response
designed, at least in part, to buoy those Indonesian citizens who would be wary
of a democracy that unwittingly opened the door for the ascendancy of
conservative Islamic morality. There is some delightful irony in the fact that
FPI leader Habib Rizieq Shihab has been investigated by the police for an
indiscretion prosecutable under a wide-ranging anti-pornography law, which his
organisation had heavily supported at its inception. This is the case even if
political liberals should possess awareness that the pornography law is
essentially as inane—from the point of view of democratic rights—as the
blasphemy law that had brought down Ahok.
Nevertheless,
banning the FPI altogether carries political risks for a president expecting to
be attacked on the basis of his own questioned Islamic credentials. Instead,
Jokowi landed a symbolic blow on an Islamist enemy via the Perppu (regulation
in lieu of law) enacted in July 2017. This decree paved the way for the
government to ban, without judicial process, organisations deemed to be
undesirable, with Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) being the first target as
expected. As part of the ban, university lecturers who are known to be members
of the organisation have been threatened with expulsion from their jobs,
giving rise to fears of a broader government instigated witch hunt. Even
critics of Islamic hard line groups have warned that the government is
embarking on an anti-democratic “slippery slope”.
The bigger picture:
oligarchy, Islam, nationalism?
The
political dynamics being witnessed speak to larger points about how oligarchic
power has had the capacity to change in relation to new circumstances, and
therefore, to evolve. As the Indonesian oligarchy is much more decentralised in
nature today than during the pinnacle of the New Order, competition among its
factions over power and resources has taken place largely via the institutions
of democratic governance. It is in the context of such contests that appeals to
conservative ideals of morality—whether Islamic or nationalist—may become a
more entrenched rather than just fleeting feature of Indonesian democracy. This
is because such appeals have the potential to connect otherwise detached
oligarchic elites to broader bases of social support, by at least temporarily
obscuring actual divisions within Indonesian society through moral appeals, but
without being linked to any kind of agenda of transformation of the way in
which power is constituted.
As I and other scholars have argued, the New Order-nurtured
oligarchy reinvented itself in the course of the struggle over the direction of
reformasi. It did so by colonising the institutions of Indonesian
democracy—its parties, parliaments and elections. This was assisted, in turn,
by the endemic and systematic disorganisation of civil society sustained by
decades of rigid and often brutal authoritarian rule. The consequence was that
social forces effectively representing politically liberal or social democratic
alternatives were almost nowhere to be seen in the crucial early years
following the fall of Soeharto. Leftist ones had of course been long
obliterated.
As
discussed above, the primary form of pushback to the rigid and inflexible
Islamic conservatism has been a similarly retrogressive hyper-nationalism,
which references the inviolability of the Indonesian Unitary State (NKRI) and
the state ideology, Pancasila. This is so even if that state ideology has
proven to be quite pliable throughout modern Indonesian political history,
utilised somewhat differently (in different contexts) by presidents Soekarno
and Soeharto. Indicative of the basically retrogressive nature of this response
is a new proposed arrangement by the Minister of Home Affairs whereby the rectors of Indonesian universities would be chosen
by the president, as a means of ensuring that Islamic radicalism
does not grow unabated in university campuses due to tacit support from some
within the higher ranks of academia. Of course, the problem with such an
arrangement is quite similar to the one surrounding Perppu No. 2 2017; it could
be used potentially to stamp out other kinds of “threatening” ideas in the
future, such as those connected even to mainstream political liberalism.
Already, university students have been warned by a military luminary of the
dangers of “liberalism, communism, socialism and religious radicalism”, all of
which he facilely categorised under “materialist ideology”.
In other
words, it is not hard to imagine that the establishment of hyper-nationalist
barriers to Islamic radicalism will have quite authoritarian effects, certainly
in the medium to longer term. It also encourages rigid conformity to a set of
values and ideas—in this case associated with rigidly organic-statist
definitions of Pancasila rather than to a religion—to which democracy activists
were opposed during much of the New Order period. Among these was the notion of
society where the pursuit of self-interest was supposed to be contained by a state
embodying the common interest—but which in fact helped to insulate a
particularly predatory form of capitalism from potential challenges emanating
from civil society. In line with this sort of development has been the promotion of the Unit Kerja Pembinaan Pancasila
(Work Unit for the Cultivation of Pancasila), which presents an eerie reminder
of New Order-style so-called P4 courses, wherein people from all walks of life
used to be indoctrinated to the state ideology through mind numbing mandatory
classes. Yet embarking on similar exercises is now somehow accepted by many as
a progressive step, rather than a nod to the intrinsic conservatism and
suffocating insularity of earlier organic-statist tendencies in Indonesian political
thought and practice.
Long-time
democracy activists in Indonesia will find it particularly disconcerting that
present circumstances have made it so easy for the commander of the Indonesian
Armed Forces (TNI) to declare—and not for the first time—that democracy contradicted the principles of the state
ideology of Pancasila. It goes without saying that the general
concerned, Gatot Nurmantyo, was not lamenting the prevalence of money politics
or oligarchic domination. Instead he was lambasting the actual practice of
voting, which in his view, inhibited another practice—that of consensus-building—deemed
more in keeping with an essentialised notion of what constitutes an authentic
Indonesian culture. Though not surprising given its source, these kinds of
comments inevitably bring back uncomfortable memories of the suffocating nature
of New Order political discourse, which frequently quelled dissent by labelling
it as inherently “foreign” or un-Indonesian. In fact, there is a real danger
that liberal—let alone more Leftist critiques of the way that power is
constituted in post-Soeharto Indonesia—will be increasingly susceptible to a
similar kind of labelling, whether by reference to the sanctity of the values
of Pancasila or those considered to be of divine origin.
The new populist currents
One final
point needs to be made. This relates to the increasingly attractive idea that
populist politics has come to make its mark on Indonesian democracy. There has
been much discussion of the rise of populism in Indonesia since the 2014
presidential elections—from authors such as Ed
Aspinall, Marcus Mietzner, William Case, and myself with Richard Robison—in which
the two candidates were widely seen to be making use of populist rhetoric. But
apart from the “outsider” status claimed by both, which has been one focus of
attention, a major characteristic of populism is that it attempts to “suspend”
difference, albeit temporarily, among sections of society to bring them behind
a particular political project. In other words, there is a penchant within
populism for supposing homogeneity in the face of actually growing social
heterogeneity, largely by juxtaposing the fate of the many and pure
against that of the few and morally corrupt.
References
to members of an ummah who have in common the experience of systemic
marginalisation since colonial times, can form the ideational basis of an Islamic form of populism,
whereby the downtrodden and pious are juxtaposed against rapacious
elites. But given the organisational incoherence of Islamic populism in
Indonesia, the binding of people to Islamic vehicles is less achieved by
maintaining their loyalty—for example through the provision of material
benefits by way of access to social services, as has been the case in parts of the Middle
East—but through continuous efforts to sustain controversy.
Nationalist
forms of populism, which are more conventional in the global sense, relatedly
aim to define a “people” who are the repository of virtue as well, in contrast
to evil and rapacious elites, including foreign ones. In Indonesia, it is
sustained in part by reference to supposedly authentic and immutable cultural
values that allegedly value harmony, which may become under siege by a range of
influences, including potentially that of radical forms of Islamic politics.
What we
may be effectively witnessing in Indonesia is therefore a newer phase within
which political conflict increasingly relies on the employment of different
variations (and combinations) of religious and nationalist forms of populism,
and where political liberalism and Leftist critiques are effectively as
side-lined as they had been in the authoritarian New Order.
Indeed,
in the case of Indonesia, social groups that had been assumed—especially within
the paradigm of modernisation theory and its associated more recent and
sophisticated manifestations—to be the harbingers of socially and politically
liberal values have in fact never displayed such a sociological characteristic
very strongly. Richard Robison had already emphasised the conservatism of the Indonesian middle
class and bourgeoisie of the 1990s, developing as they had within an
authoritarian social order where the fear of uncontrolled mass politics was
systematically cultivated. Thus, in dubbing Jokowi the “middle class president”,
Jacqui Baker is reminding us that the president’s “illiberal tendencies… are
not qualities of the man per se, but symptomatic of the Indonesian middle class
and the unique political conditions under which it was formed”.
Some of
this conservativism, reshaped within a new social and political context, is now
being expressed through world views sustained by references to Islamic morality
or hyper-nationalism. These can be linked to ways of asserting modes of
political inclusion and exclusion that are detrimental to the rights of the
more vulnerable members of Indonesian society. Significantly, the process of
further political illiberalisation is being facilitated no less than by the
evolving imperatives of oligarchic domination and the mechanics of
intra-oligarchic competition over power and resources within Indonesian
democracy—something for which there is no obvious institutional remedy.
…………………………
This an adapted version of the author’s paper
presented at the 2017 Indonesia Update conference at the Australian
National University, which will be published in full in the December
edition of the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies.
Vedi Hadiz is Professor of Asian Studies
and Deputy Director at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne. An
Indonesian national, he received his PhD at Murdoch University in 1996. His
research is in the broad areas of political economy and political sociology and
covers Indonesia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Among his books are
Islamic populism in Indonesia and the Middle East (Cambridge University
Press 2016), Localising power in Indonesia: a Southeast Asia perspective
(Stanford University Press 2010) and, with Richard Robison, Reorganising
power in Indonesia: the politics of oligarchy in an age of markets
(Routledge 2004).
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: What’s Next for Indonesia-Vietnam Defense Ties?
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: What’s Next for Indonesia-Vietnam Defense Ties?: Last week, the defense ministers from Indonesia and Vietnam led their respective delegations for another round of their bilateral d...
What’s Next for Indonesia-Vietnam Defense Ties?
Last
week, the defense ministers from Indonesia and Vietnam led their respective
delegations for another round of their bilateral defense meeting held in
Jakarta. The meeting saw both sides discuss broader regional and global
security issues as well as take stock of their bilateral defense cooperation,
including outlining future steps for cooperation through the signing of a new
joint vision statement out to 2022.
As
Indonesia-Vietnam relations have developed over the years, from a comprehensive
partnership agreement signed in 2003 to a strategic partnership in 2013, the
two countries have also looked to make progress in the security domain as well.
Recent defense dialogues have focused on further steps to implement their
memorandum of understanding inked in 2010, efforts to develop defense ties more
generally including joint exercises, dialogues, and military equipment, and
means to better manage challenges, including the treatment of fishermen amid
some recent clashes at sea.
Last year
was an active year for defense ties, with Indonesian Defense Minister Ryamizard
Ryacudu making his first Vietnam visit since assuming his position and
then-General Secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party Nguyen Phu Trong
making a trip to Indonesia – the first by a Party chief since the late Ho Chi
Minh in 1959 and the first by a top Vietnamese leader since the inking of the
2013 strategic partnership. Though the focus of his visit, which included a
meeting with Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, was on the relationship
more generally, there were some defense-related developments including the
signing of a letter of intent on cooperation between their two coast guards.
This time
around, Vietnam Defense Minister Gen. Ngo Xuan Lich was in Jakarta to meet with
several top Indonesian officials, including Ryacudu for their defense meeting
on October 13. During the meeting, both sides discussed the broader regional
and global challenges they both confront, including terrorism, cybercrimes,
human and drug trafficking, illegal fishing, and the South China Sea issue.
Ryacudu in particular emphasized the fact that none of these challenges could
be confronted alone and required partnership among regional states.
The two
sides also discussed thornier issues, most notably managing their maritime
boundaries amid some recent clashes at sea as both concluding negotiations on
the delimitation of their exclusive economic zones. This has been an ongoing
issue that has factored into their recent engagements even though it often is
not as widely publicized in official accounts by the two sides as much as other
areas of convergence.
They also
reviewed the existing infrastructure of the bilateral defense relationship,
agreeing to continue the joint working group for their armed forces and the
implementation of a defense policy dialogue into 2018. They noted areas for
future progress such as education and training and defense industrial
cooperation. Both sides also inked a joint vision statement to guide the
overall defense relationship out to 2022. That was both a notable step in the
institutionalization of the defense relationship and yet another indicator of
the emphasis they are placing on security ties as being a pillar of the broader
Indonesia-Vietnam strategic partnership.
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Indonesia, Russia Ink Defense Protocol Amid Fighte...
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Indonesia, Russia Ink Defense Protocol Amid Fighte...: Indonesia and Russia held the latest iteration of their talks on military technical cooperation. The dialogue, which saw the signin...
Indonesia, Russia Ink Defense Protocol Amid Fighter Jet Deal
Indonesia
and Russia held the latest iteration of their talks on military technical
cooperation. The dialogue, which saw the signing of a protocol agreement, comes
as both sides consider ways to further boost their defense collaboration even
as they manage existing challenges.
As I have
noted before, as Indonesia modernizes its military, Russia, currently Jakarta’s
largest military supplier, has obviously been part of the conversation. But
though both sides have been mulling several deals as well as broader advances
in defense cooperation over the past few years, they have also had to factor in
their priorities, which on the Indonesian side includes a greater insistence on
developing its domestic defense industry.
From
October 10 to October 11, the two countries held the thirteenth iteration of
their talks on military technical cooperation (MTC). During the talks,
officials as well as defense industry representatives from both sides discussed
several issues, including areas of potential cooperation as well as overcoming
challenges.
Unsurprisingly,
one of the areas of focus was how to ensure that ongoing defense collaboration
between the two countries is in line with Indonesia’s existing procurement laws
and its policy objective of developing its domestic defense industry.
Indonesia’s Law 16 specifies that offsets, local content, and countertrade
should be worth no less than 85 percent of the value of the contract, with
local content making up no less than 35 percent of this.
One
outcome from the meeting, the Indonesian defense ministry disclosed in a
statement released thereafter, was the inking of a draft protocol. The
agreement, Indonesian defense officials said, would facilitate not only the
purchase of defense equipment from Russia, but also the strengthening of
broader defense ties including areas like joint development and joint
production as well as maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) through
technology transfers.
The
military-technical agreement comes as both countries continue to make progress
toward the inking of a long-mulled Indonesian purchase of Sukhoi Su-35
multirole combat aircraft. As I have noted repeatedly, the deal has faced
repeated delays since Indonesian defense minister Ryamizard Ryacudu first
announced Indonesia had decided to buy the aircraft in September 2015,
including over procurement regulations (See: “Why is the Indonesia-Russia
Fighter Jet Deal Still On Hold?”).
As of
now, though Indonesia is not expected to build the aircraft or parts of it by
itself, both sides have been working out the structure of the deal to include
MRO, countertrade, and offset opportunities, including Indonesian export of
commodities and defense products. Though specifics are still being negotiated,
Indonesian officials have previously said that, within the $1.14 billion
expected deal for 11 Sukhoi jets, around $570 million will be paid for in
Indonesian commodity exports such as palm oil, tea, and coffee, with around
$400 million sourced through an offset program, and the remaining paid for
through cash.
Thus far,
Russia, which is eager to make further inroads in the defense realm in key
Asian markets, has been willing to factor in Indonesia’s domestic priorities
into the discussion. This pattern continued at the dialogue held last week with
the Sukhoi deal still on the horizon, with the latest date of finalization set
by Indonesian officials as November.