Indonesia, towards democracy 9789812303653, 9812303650, 9789812303660, 9812303669, 9789812305619, 9812305610

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Reproduced from Indonesia: Towards Democracy, by Taufik Abdullah (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg >

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The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) was established as an autonomous organization in 1968. It is a regional centre dedicated to the study of socio-political, security and economic trends and developments in Southeast Asia and its wider geostrategic and economic environment. The Institute’s research programmes are the Regional Economic Studies (RES, including ASEAN and APEC), Regional Strategic and Political Studies (RSPS), and Regional Social and Cultural Studies (RSCS). ISEAS Publishing, an established academic press, has issued almost 2,000 books and journals. It is the largest scholarly publisher of research about Southeast Asia from within the region. ISEAS Publishing works with many other academic and trade publishers and distributors to disseminate important research and analyses from and about Southeast Asia to the rest of the world.

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INSTITUTE OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES Singapore

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First published in Singapore in 2009 by ISEAS Publishing Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Pasir Panjang Singapore 119614 E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg The five-volume series of Nation-Building Histories was made possible with the generous support of the Lee Foundation, Singapore and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, Taipei. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. © 2009 Taufik Abdullah The responsibility for facts and opinions in this publication rests exclusively with the author and his interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views or the policy of the Institute or its supports. ISEAS Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Abdullah, Taufik, 1936– Indonesia : towards democracy. 1. Indonesia—History. 2. Indonesia—Politics and government. I. Title. DS634 A131 2009 ISBN 978-981-230-365-3 (soft cover) ISBN 978-981-230-366-0 (hard cover) ISBN 978-981-230-561-9 (PDF) Typeset by Superskill Graphics Pte Ltd Printed in Singapore by Oxford Graphic Printers Pte Ltd

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Contents

Preface

vii

Introduction by Wang Gungwu

xiii

Chapter One

The Formation of a Multi-ethnic Nation

1

Chapter Two

War, Revolution, and the Nation State

Chapter Three

Democracy and Problems of Integration

183

Chapter Four

National Identity in a Revolutionary State

269

Chapter Five

National Values in the Pancasila Democracy

341

Chapter Six

The Greedy State and Its Nemeses

429

Chapter Seven

Epilogue

527

89

Chronology

573

Bibliography

583

Index

601

The Author

640

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Preface

“In a polling station in Bandung, West Java, election officials wore the Cheong Sam, Chinese dress. In Jakarta, officials in a number of polling stations donned the indigenous Betawi attire. In Bali, like in previous elections, officials held traditional rituals and dressed in the famous outfits.” On the whole, however, the election officials all over the country wore casual dress. The few quoted cases, however, did reflect the situation when the decisive Presidential election was held. It was a very peaceful election and even “in the war-torn provinces, such as Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam and Papua, no clashes were reported in an election earlier called one of the most complex in the world.” (Jakarta Post, 21 September 2004). How would future historians describe Indonesia of the year 2004? Would they call it “the year of the reconfirmation of re-emergence of democratic tradition” or “the most politicized year in contemporary history” or “the year of political promises” or, perhaps, who knows, “the year of the crisis of the political elites”? Since the tsunami had caused such disastrous damage to nature and human lives in Aceh and Nias, would the year be remembered as “the year of natural disasters?” Whatever future historians may call it, the year 2004 is symbolically and indeed, also historically, very significant for the nation-state that has from the beginning of the process of its nation formation called itself “Indonesia”. For the first time in history the majority of the Indonesian voters — around 80 per cent — for three consecutive times willingly went to the polling stations. On 5 April, they went to the polling stations to cast their votes to elect the members of four legislative bodies — the national, provincial, and district legislative bodies and the newly instituted “council of regional representatives”. On 5 July, they went again to the polling booths to elect the President and the

vii

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viii • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

Vice-President. There were five pairs of candidates competing for the highest offices in the country. Since no pair received more than 50 per cent of the popular votes, on 20 September, the second round of the presidential election was held. In spite of the fact that the three biggest parties that emerged after the April general election supported the incumbent President, Megawati Sukarnoputri, slightly more than 60 per cent of the voters elected the former Coordinating Minister for Political and Defence Affairs, General (retired) Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and his running mate, the former Coordinating Minister for Social Affairs, Mohammad Jusuf Kalla, as the next President and Vice-President. When, on 20 October, the first directly elected President and Vice-President were sworn in, Indonesia had entered a new phase of its political history. Six years after Soeharto stepped down as the President, the People’s Consultative Assembly, Indonesia’s highest political body, installed the sixth President of the Republic of Indonesia. It was, however, the fourth President after the fall of Soeharto who was the second President of the Republic. When Soeharto stepped down as President, he not only left behind the Presidential palace, but also a deeply wounded nation, a shaky government, and a state threatened by a number of disintegrative forces. The fall of Soeharto was also the beginning of the period of uncertainties. That was the time when Indonesia experienced the most crowded events in its contemporary history. It was the time when every day and hour seemed to mean something, as if no chain of events would simply disappear into the waste-basket of history. What would happen next? In which direction would this or that event lead? In this situation, the voices of reformasi, “political reformation”, that aimed at laying a new foundation for the future of Indonesia had to compete with the more pressing political challenges of the present and the re-emergence of the demands of the past. Without properly knocking on the doors of the present, the voices and deeds of revenge came to the surface here and there, sometimes in their ugliest form. Had the vastly growing number of the politically conscious public forgotten the ideals of the reformasi — the desired ideals that hastened the fall of Suharto, who had only a few months earlier won the biggest victory ever?

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Preface • ix

In this sphere of crowded events the so-called political elite, the persons who were once referred to as pemimpin rakyat, “the leaders of the people”, found themselves in a crisis of mutual trust. No one seemed to have political and, indeed even moral trust in anyone. Once the authoritarian shield had been lifted, the carefully covered divergent types of differences seemed to emerge instantly. Suddenly Indonesia had become the country populated by the communities that were strangers to each other. With the continuing mutual mistrust among the elite, crisis in the ability to manage crisis was inevitable. The once relatively well-run bureaucratic authoritarian state seemed to have transformed itself into a “messy state”. In the meantime, the demands for reformation continued to be everybody’s claim to the assumed vacant legitimacy. In this situation, the so-called KKN or CCN — corruption, collusion, and nepotism — and the authoritarian political system became the symbols of the root of all the social and political evils of Suharto’s New Order regime. But then a series of questions had to be asked. How could the principles of the rule of law be applied? In what way could the authoritarian and centralized political system that had been deeply entrenched in the structure of consciousness be transformed into a democratic one without creating any serious disturbances? That was the time when even the viability of the existing system of the state itself came under intense scrutiny. In the meantime, the price of having lived under the authoritarian system had to be paid now that the system itself had been rejected. A “new Indonesia” had to be created. Or perhaps the process of the “remaking of Indonesia”, as a number of intellectuals had been saying, had to be started. What future lay ahead for Indonesia? How many hopes had been nurtured? How many disappointments had to be endured? Perhaps the year 2004 that had pointed the way to some kind of political maturity was the beginning of the real future. Yet who knew? When Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his running mate, Jusuf Kalla, were elected to the highest offices of the country, fifty-nine years had passed since Sukarno and Hatta, Indonesia’s first President and VicePresident who were strongly endorsed and supported by the patriotic youth, took the most daring step of proclaiming the independence of Indonesia on 17 August 1945. In a very short and rather terse statement, the

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x • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

two most prominent leaders of the independence movement had established a clearly defined boundary of history, which though still not, perhaps, a historical reality, was definitely in the structure of consciousness. It took about four-and-a-half years of armed and diplomatic struggle before the world recognized the sovereignty of the new nation-state. When finally on 27 December 1949, the Red and White flag was hoisted in front of the official residence of the former Governor General of the Netherlands Indies, it signified not only the victory of a struggling nation but also that of an idea — an idea that had from the beginning of the process of nation formation served as the most important unifying element. “What is the use of independence,” Sukarno rhetorically asked during the time when the newly proclaimed nation-state was still struggling for its existence “if we don’t have democracy?” Was it not this idea that had sown the seeds of mutual trust and indeed, unity, among the “representatives” of the many ethnic groups when they met in the urban sphere of the colonial setting? It is not without a strong historical foundation that the so-called “Day of the Youth Oath” has been taken as one of the most important milestones in the history of nation formation. That was the time — on 28 October 1928 — when the leaders of the organizations of the educated youth ended their Youth Congress with an oath, which stated that they belonged to “one nation — Indonesia; one homeland — Indonesia” and recognized and honoured “one language of unity — the Indonesian language”. It symbolically states that Indonesia is a nation that was created by a consciously made common agreement. This book is an attempt to tell the story of a nation in the making. It traces the beginning of the process of nation-formation, the struggle for independence, the hopeful beginning of the new nation-state of Indonesia only to be followed by hard and difficult ways to remain true to the ideals of independence. In the process, Indonesia with its sprawling archipelago and its multi-ethnic and multi-religious composition has to undergo various types of crises and internal conflicts, but the ideals that have been nurtured since the beginning when the new nation began to be visualized remain intact. Some changes in the interpretation may have taken place and some deviations here and there can be seen, but the literal meaning of the ideals

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Preface • xi

continues to be the guiding light. In short, this is a history of a nation and its continuing efforts to retain the ideals of its existence. The book would have not been written without the persistent persuasion of Professor Wang Gangwu. “How would the historian tell the process of nation-building?” he asked rhetorically. He then invited me and my friends from Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, and Malaysia, to venture into the area that we sometimes considered the domain of the political scientists and sociologists. The past is indeed the field of study in which the historian may feel at ease, while the present may seem to him a strange world of crowded and unrelated events. But then how can one deny the simple fact that although the historian studies the past — or more likely the distant past — he does not live in the past? The historian has no other choice but to face the fact that he is a member of present-day society. The moment he decides to study the historical dynamics of the present, he soon realizes that he is dealing with what can neither be treated as “something out there” nor “the other”. The history he relates therefore cannot be simply seen as the reconstruction of past events — or a story of a “foreign country”, as one historian describes history — but also as a way of saying something about something. In spite of the uncompromising attachment to the notion of truth, without which one must admit, no history has the right to exist, the reconstruction of past events is also a form of intellectual discourse. It took a long time before this book could be completed. The project of writing the book had to compete with so many other commitments. Without the generosity, support and the congenial environment at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), I would never have had the courage to visualize the time when the book could be completed. Without the able editorialship of Mrs Triena Ong and her staff the manuscript I produced might well have been unreadable. In the process of writing I benefitted immensely from the series of internal discussions we — the five historians from Southeast Asian countries — conducted under the chairmanship of Professor Wang Gungwu. Although Rey Ileto, Cheah Boon Keng, Edwin Lee, and Charnvit Kasetsiri would talk about the experiences of their respective countries, their ideas and historical interpretations had unfailingly enriched my understanding of my own country. I must also

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xii • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

express my gratitude to Tony Reid and Djoko Suryo who commented on the draft of a few chapters I managed to finish at the seminar held in September 2002 at ISEAS. A substantial portion of this book is based on number of writings, which cannot be all registered in the bibliography, I wrote since the time I was still a struggling graduate student till the time I ventured to write this book. In the process I have benefited from the criticisms and comments from my teachers and friends. Whatever the merit of this book may be, I would like to use this occasion to express my grateful feeling and appreciation to my late teachers and friends, Oliver Wolters, L. Sharp, George Kahin, Claire Holt, Clifford Geertz, Onghokham, Selo Soemardjan, Koentjaraningrat, Sitti Baroroh Baued, Harsya W. Bachtiar, Alfian, Soedjatmoko, Abdurrahman Surjomihardjo, T. Ibrahim Alfian, and Sartono Kartidirdjo. I would like to say “thank you” to my teachers and friends, Ben Anderson, James Siegel, Adrian Lapian, and Thee Kian Wie. Although it is impossible for me to register their names, I am also grateful to the comments and criticisms or even questions put forwards by the so many participants in a number seminars and workshops on the papers I happened to present. The Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI — Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia) was kind enough to permit me to work on this book to the extent of allowing me leave from the office several times, even during the time I served as its chairman. This book can be taken as my way of expressing both my gratitude and apologies to LIPI. This book is dedicated to the mother of my children — my beloved wife, Ida. Taufik Abdullah

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Introduction Wang Gungwu

Indonesia From the moment we began talking about nation-building in Southeast Asia, we all knew that Indonesia’s story will be special and that Taufik Abdullah would have the toughest assignment in order to do that subject justice. This is not only because Indonesia covers the most land and water and has the largest population in the region, not even because it has the largest number of different sukubangsa (ethnic groups) each with its own ruling elites. It was also because the forces that projected a revolutionary ideal of nationhood also rejected the promise of order and stability offered by colonial state structures and insisted on providing the new republic with their own founding myths. Thus, although the origins of the Indonesian ideal may be dated half a century before 1945, the nation remained for a long time an indistinct word-image and, until after the Second World War, consisted only of a few bright outlines of future unity in the minds of a small intelligentsia. The image was brought to life between 1945 and 1950 through proclamations of independence and the bloodshed that came from a series of revolutionary actions. These together served as the country’s inspiration for Indonesia’s first decade. Nevertheless, underlying the call for a people’s revolution was the idea of a democratic modernity. The Angkatan ‘45 (Generation of 1945) that drew the first blueprint of nationhood had no doubts that the country would build the nation through democratic means. What had eluded them was the nature of democracy, something that had never been practiced when their lands were under Dutch or Japanese rule. It was also something that the military leaders who fought for their freedom were prepared ultimately to leave to the civilian leaders to define. xiii

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xiv • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

As it turned out, the first decade of experimentation ended in disarray and the country’s first President, Sukarno, intervened with his idea of guided democracy. It was a fateful decision. Although he was unable to carry through his particular vision of presidential rule, he left that legacy for his successor. When the aborted Gestapu coup of 1965 brought about his downfall, it did not free the country from the “guided” structure of power that Sukarno had initiated. In the name of pancasila democracy, the second President, Suharto, using a different coalition that consisted representatives mainly of the military and the bureaucracy, came to dominate the country for the next forty years. Suharto’s long tenure at the head of the government achieved many things for Indonesia. It brought sustained economic growth for the country and successfully developed large parts of the country that had been neglected in the past. It also set about to forge an integrated national identity and was even prepared to use force to achieve that. It may be too early to assess whether that process of integration will continue and may eventually succeed. What is clear is that many sectors of government became corrupt and dysfunctional and that this was largely due to the lack of democratic institutions that could check the system’s excesses. In the end, the regime failed to respond to the growing discontent among its people, and the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98 brought it quickly to an end. Once again, Indonesia returned to democracy. For the past ten years, the governments of four presidents have seized the opportunity to make a fresh start. They have shown great determination to create new institutions that would best suit the conditions of their country. Taufik Abdullah believes that nation-building in Indonesia was, from the start, rooted in the democratic ideals held by some of the country’s best and brightest, and that the ideals were deeply held. That first generation overcame all efforts to dilute these ideals by the returning Dutch and their local allies. There were, after all, no precedents for ideals that promise to take a conglomeration of loosely governed indigenous states, with scores of cultural, religious and political organisations, and hundreds of languages and traditional systems, and weld them together to become the foundations of a new nation. As it turned out, the very boldness of the ideals transcended all calculations of mundane plots and stratagems. Above all, the high-flown

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Introduction • xv

words and charismatic personality of its first President, Sukarno, implanted the dream of unity into the minds of a whole generation of young men and women. For all his faults and in spite of the many doubts and distractions that followed his rule, few can deny that he always spoke persuasively for an historic nationhood and did more than anyone to give substance to the hopes of millions of scattered peoples. But it is a great challenge to describe how that dream materialized over that last sixty years. I can think of no better person to do this than Taufik Abdullah. As a young man, he saw how it all began in the columns of transient newspapers and magazines, the sharp discussions in Central Sumatra, the fierce debates in Jakarta, Jogjakarta and Surabaya, and the alternative visions in the mosques and churches of the lesser islands. He cannot suppress his excitement even today when he recalls the sustained efforts by so many to try to shape the nation from cultures, languages and interests that had never been placed so intimately together in the past. It is the wonder he experienced that led him to find the key to the country’s revolutionary beginnings. By travelling around every part of the country as he has done, he has been able to trace the roots of the original ideal to the inchoate wishes of thousands of ordinary people who looked for ways to contribute to the final shape of the country, something they could identify with and really call their own. The urge for democracy in some form or other has, therefore, always run deep in their hearts and, as he sees it, still does. In their innocence, many people thought for a while that one man could symbolize everything they wanted and they were willing to let him design that country for them. Only too late did they discover that no one person could ever represent that future. Sukarno not only failed them himself, but also left them without the institutions that would give others a chance to do better. His successor President Suharto continued to provide a lofty view from on high and went on denying younger generations of Indonesians any hope for direct involvement in the country’s recovery from the disasters of 1956–65. Nevertheless, democracy aside, the oneness of Indonesia that its people have a sacred duty to protect was established. Suharto gave the country what it never had in its first decade and a half; he gave them the economic

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base that secured the fundamentals for the people’s well being. In addition, he implemented what Sukarno had initiated, the primary need for a national language that would be used in education and the media and also reach every home in the country. For over thirty years, he balanced the contending forces in the country, allowing a few to be very rich, many to be upwardly mobile while leaving much of the growing populace to struggle for their livelihood. By sharing some power with the armed forces and embracing the capitalist system, he brought significant progress to Indonesia. Now another generation has to take it from there and, with a renewed faith in democracy, has embarked on another path towards the nation-building task that is yet to be completed. Today, Indonesia’s commitment to democracy is firm. It has reached the point when the initiative to host the Bali Democracy Forum in December 2008 seems natural and obvious. How the country got there is the story that Taufik tells as testimony of how a possible dream could be turned into reality. He asks us to look at the record of what people did or tried to do during the past century to build a multi-layered but integral nation. He underlines the wish among peoples across thousands of islands and centuries of distinct traditions to do so by democratic means. He does this to help us see whether the goal of modernity that was promised the Indonesian people can now be fulfilled.

The Series This volume is the fourth in the series about nation-building histories in Southeast Asia. It had its beginnings in Bangkok at the 14th Conference of the International Association of the Historians of Asia (IAHA) in 1996. At that meeting, I noted that nation-building in Southeast Asia began fifty years ago and suggested that it was time for historians to write about that phenomenon. Most books on the region’s new nations have been written by journalists and social scientists. I asked whether historians would tell the story differently. Decades of anti-colonial nationalism came to a climax with the Japanese invasion of 1941–45. New states like those of the Philippines, Indonesia and Burma were born immediately after the war, followed soon by those of Malaysia and Singapore. The independence of a unified Vietnam

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Introduction • xvii

was delayed by a bitter war and this held back the liberation of the two other Indochina states, Cambodia and Laos, but the independence of all three was only a matter of time. Many of the protagonists of the early phases of nation-building have described their roles in this new process. Political commentators and journalists provided up-to-date accounts and analyses. But historians of the region have been concerned not to write prematurely about this subject. Many were, like me, fascinated by the first generation of nationalist leaders, men like Sukarno, Tengku Abdul Rahman and Ho Chi Minh, followed by Lee Kuan Yew, Suharto, Ferdinand Marcos and Ne Win, but hesitate to take on full-length studies about the nations these men had set out to build. Through their leadership, their peoples were offered sharply distinct visions of their countries’ future. Would historians wait, as they are wont to do, for all sources to be available before they began research on their countries? How long would it be before the story of each country in Southeast Asia is told by the historians themselves? When I returned from the Bangkok conference, I brought the question to the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (lSEAS) and was gratified when the then director, Professor Chan Heng Chee, encouraged me to try and find out. With that support, I approached five of the leading historians of the original members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN in 1968 consisted of Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore). They were Taufik Abdullah, Charnvit Kasetsiri, Reynaldo Ileto, Cheah Boon Kheng and Edwin Lee. We met to discuss the feasibility of a joint project to write the contemporary histories of these five countries. They agreed that this was worth doing and I sought funding from ISEAS and other sources to allow us to proceed. The support we received enabled us to meet and hold a series of meetings to define the scope of the project. We began our meetings by focusing on the common features of the Southeast Asian “nation-state”. We knew that there had been attempts to study the early products of new nationalisms in the region. It was clear that some of the peoples of each country were less prepared than others to be citizens of these nation-states. Furthermore, the unfamiliar models taken from Europe have seemed alien, and each of the leaders who advocated using these models often had great difficulty explaining why anyone of

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xviii • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

them should be adopted. We also noted that historians in these countries have closely observed the stresses and strains that were generated, and some have felt the urge to study the actual business of nation-building more systematically. The five historians who met with me to discuss this phenomenon felt that they would not wait any longer before they began their task. They agreed that they would use their historical skills to take on this project. We first decided on the kind of a series we should write. Very early, we agreed that each country had its own story and each author would write a volume about his own country. At the same time, we should try to find out how much the five countries had in common and whether we should adopt a common approach to the subject. From the discussions over several months outlining the main features of the nation-building story in the region, it became increasingly clear that there were several kinds of stories here. Despite their coming together in a regional organization like ASEAN, each of the five had very different experiences inside their countries. While we were not surprised by this fact, it was astonishing how different their respective stories were. The more we surveyed what each country had to do to define the kind of nationhood it wanted, the more it seemed that the ingredients each started with had forced their leaders to seek very different routes to achieve their goals. We agreed that it would be a mistake for us to try to treat them as if they were different examples of some given model or models. Although the foreign models that each country used may have appeared to share common characteristics, what each country inherited from previous regimes at the point of independence was so different that we had to think afresh what needed to be done to capture the essence of each experience. We agreed that these differences justified our adopting distinct and separate approaches to each story. Ultimately, each volume would follow the dynamics of change that each country encountered and allow that to determine the shape of the history that the country should have. This series of histories is the result. Let me place the series in a broader context. The study of modern nationalism was the work of European historians. The historians of the American and French Revolutions were the first to underline the global

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Introduction • xix

significance of the nation-state project while others looked further back to study the evolutionary stages of earlier nations like The Netherlands, Britain, Spain and Portugal. During the 19th century, historians worked with linguists, philosophers and lawyers to shape narrower kinds of nationalisms in Central and Eastern Europe. Their work stimulated social scientists later to embark on theoretical explanations of what the nation-state system meant to the world. The work of historians, however, continued to be influential, most of all by providing ideas for many of the Asian nationalists of the 20th century. Those who studied in Western universities, in particular, were inspired by these histories to use the ideas in them to prepare their platforms for political leadership. For the post-World War II period, nationalism was largely seen in the region as a positive development, an organized quest for independence, freedom, and modernization. The Cold War determined that leaders of the newly independent countries could look in at least two different political directions. Some chose to build their nations with the help of capitalism and liberal democracy. These would use the Western European models as the basis for nationhood and, for them, the best way to modernity was through an open market economy. Soon, they found the United States more than willing to help them along that route. Others chose to follow the socialist path either against the capitalist democracies or seeking some kind of neutralism in the Cold War. These were encouraged by the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China to contest the global economic and military power represented strongly in Asia by the United States. The more radical among them went further to advocate the overthrow of neo-colonial and feudal structures by mobilizing the working poor who were the majority in each of their countries. The new leaders soon discovered how difficult nation-building was. It was not enough to proclaim independence. They needed outside help if they wanted to modernize quickly. Large amounts of capital were needed to build a new infrastructure for industrial development. Basic literacy was essential, so were the skills that could only come from secondary and tertiary education for the next few generations. But the nation-state as a new kind of polity was more alien than most people realized at the time.

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Learning from Western and Eastern Europe, or Japan, China or the United States, may have looked easy for the small group of elites who captured power in the post-colonial states, but building a stable and prosperous nation has been much more elusive. The responses by historians in the former colonial territories of Southeast Asia have varied from country to country, from those in older countries like the kingdom of Thailand to that of the Philippines, and from those in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore to those of war-tom states like Burma (Myanmar), Vietnam and Cambodia. Up to now, these different national experiences have largely been studied professionally by political scientists, and the dominance by political scientists, sociologists and anthropologists has continued to the present day. On the whole, there have been few academic historians of the region who have ventured into the period after 1950. This is understandable. The first generation of historians had enough to do to write the story of national origins, often to meet a teleological need, because they realized that the task of nation-building from scratch was a painful one. Some felt it their duty to delineate the contours of the future by giving a new and greater certainty to their countries’ more distant pasts. However, I believe that historians here, as in Europe and elsewhere, will have an important part in shaping future understanding of the phenomenon of nation-building in this part of the world. It is now more than fifty years since many of the new states began making their respective nations. There is now a rich record for historians to study and some official files are open for the first decades of nationhood. Those who wish to bring history closer to the present can now begin to do so. Theirs is a different kind of training, and their intellectual make-up and methodology have much to offer the subject. Therefore, it is time for more historians to take up the challenge and tell the story of the nation-building that many of them have themselves lived through. More than ever, we should not depend on existing theories of nationalism but look closely at the actual task of building nations. The study of each national history should take into account the specific conditions of the nationalism found within its borders. When more historians write their countries’ contemporary nation-building history, other social scientists may look at the subject afresh, examine new facts and

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interpretations, and re-assess the theoretical work done so far. They might find that a new set of theories would be needed to make sense of what the new nation-states of Southeast Asia have achieved. Or, they might find that the simultaneous development of nations in the context of an exceptional regionalism like ASEAN has rendered previous ideas of nationalism inapplicable, if not irrelevant, and a new paradigm is needed. Until we have done the work, it is premature to talk about a borderless region, least of all a new world order in which nation-states and nationalisms will begin to fade away. From what is known so far of the modern history of “a world of nation-states”, it would seem that nationstates are here to stay, if only as basic units of regional groupings that will increasingly play a major role as distinct protagonists. Therefore, the sooner we have the more recent developments of aspiring nation-states fully studied by historians in their regional setting, the sooner we will know how to live with them and even how to make them serve the cause of peace in our region. The writing has taken longer than we first anticipated. We are grateful to Professor Chan Heng Chee’s successors, Professor Chia Siow Yue and Ambassador Kesavapany, for their sustained support for our project. In addition, the Lee Foundation, Singapore, and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, Taipei, helped to fund the project and I would like to thank them for their generous support.

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Reproduced from Indonesia: Towards Democracy, by Taufik Abdullah (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute The Formation of a Multi-ethnic Nation • >1 of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg

C H A P T E R

O N E

The Formation of a Multi-ethnic Nation

Nation-state and National Myths

O

n 17 August 1945, a few days after the Japanese Emperor unconditionally announced the surrender of Japan to the Allied Powers, Sukarno and Hatta, “on behalf of the Indonesian nation”, proclaimed the independence of Indonesia. The next day the provisional constitution was adopted. Sukarno and Hatta were unanimously elected by the members of the PPKI (Panitia Persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia — Preparatory Committee for the Independence of Indonesia) as the President and VicePresident of the newly established nation-state. Within a few days the people of Jakarta, led by the radical youth who had been engaged in underground activities, held demonstrations to show their support of the proclamation. A few weeks later, similar demonstrations of support took place in several cities and towns in Java, and later, also in several towns in Sumatra and on some other islands. Before long the youth in many towns began to take action. They independently organized barisan perjuangan (struggle units), stole weapons from the still very much armed Japanese army, occupied government buildings, hoisted the red and white national flag, and persuaded or simply ordered the older leaders to take charge of the local administration and to form local national committees. The national revolution had begun. In the nation’s historical consciousness, the national revolution — the series of patriotic actions aimed at establishing a sovereign nation-state — has never been conceived as merely a history of past events. It has, from the time of its outbreak, become the most dominant myth of concern of the nation. Not a single event or series of events could match the magic of this

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episode in the people’s historical consciousness. An historical fact that can be ascertained by available written texts, historic remnants, and personal and collective memories, the national revolution has also functioned as a kind of a national primeval myth, on the basis of which the mythologization of certain past events could be undertaken. It is through the paradigm of the Proclamation of Independence and the ensuing national revolution that some events might be elevated to higher level of reality — be it “the day of national awakening”, “the birthday of a national army”, “heroes day” or whatever — or forgotten or even downgraded to merely a day to be noted but treated as being irrelevant or nothing but a deviation from “the proper course” of national history. Hundreds of monuments to commemorate whatever kinds of events that are directly related with the magic moment of the Proclamation of Independence have been erected throughout the country. Hundreds of “heroes’ cemeteries” are scattered all over the country. A town can only be called a town if it has a heroes’ cemetery. As such the history of these dramatic and decisive events is also a contested field. Was it really a revolution, the strength of which rested on the support of the people or should it perhaps be called “the war of independence” — that is, the war officially undertaken by a state and was led and carried out by the best organized and best armed people’s organization? It is understandable if the military establishment prefers to call the series of violent events the war of independence. The military leaders never forget to emphasize what they think as the preference of the civilian leaders to use “diplomacy” in the struggle for independence. The TNI (Tentara Nasional Indonesia), the national army, used to boast how they heroically led the perjuangan (armed struggle), to achieve the national goal. With this argument it becomes understandable that the former fighters of the revolution tended to see the history of contemporary Indonesia as one of successive generations — the “1908 generation” (who were supposed to have awakened the nation from their long sleep under colonial rule), the “1928 generation” (who took an oath that they belonged to one country and one nation) and, of course, “the 1945 generation”, whose struggle had finally resulted in the culmination of the process of nation and state formation. The succeeding generations can simply be called what they really are — “the continuing generation” (generasi penerus). These generations

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are only expected to live in the spirit and the values inherited by the winning generation,1 regardless of the claim of the former of being the generations who have every potentiality to fulfil the “promises of the Proclamation”. However, a great historical moment is not only a treasure to be contested if not monopolized, but also an epoch to be reflected on. Muhammad Yamin (1903–64), a poet, lawyer, leader in the nationalist movement, and above all, romantic historian, not only saw the Proclamation of Independence as the beginning of a new epoch in the history of Indonesia, but also perceived it as the final stage of the history of the nation. Dividing the history of Indonesia into five successive periods — from prehistoric times to the emergence of “the Age of Proclamation” — Yamin interpreted the courses of the many unrelated histories of the so many localities and ethnic groups in the Indonesian archipelago as ones that moved towards the formation of the nation-state.2 Who would then be surprised to find that in most of his historical writings, let alone his historical plays,3 Yamin never failed to show how these scattered histories had somehow connected with each other, in actual events or in spirit? Perhaps more than anybody else, it was Sukarno who never ceased to eulogize the revolution as an enduring experience. As the President of the newly proclaimed Republic of Indonesia, he dared to travel throughout the Republican territories in Java and Sumatra — which in the course of the Dutch–Indonesia conflict became smaller and smaller in size — in order to raise people’s national solidarity and heroic participation in the struggle. During his Guided Democracy period, in the time when he became again, as he was during the revolution, both the Chief Executive and the symbol of state, Sukarno promoted the idea of Indonesia being constantly in the sphere of the revolutionary struggle. Rejecting the previous system of government as being a deviation from both “our revolutionary élan” and “our national personality” (kepribadian nasional), Sukarno urged the people to revive the spirit of “our revolution”, because as he stated on many occasions, it “summed up many revolutions in one generation”. However hard the empirical reality might have been and however bitter and tragic the experiences that had to be suffered, when the desired goal had finally been achieved, the past — the bitter past — can still be

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looked upon with some sense of romanticism. In the process, the simple and perhaps the far from glorious past events may be glorified as something worth remembering and celebrating. Perceived great historical moments can inspire teleological historical views — as if all events had been destined to reach the ultimate desired goal. In this glorious moment, the long winter of struggle can be felt as a price to be paid for the sake of the higher ideals. With the Proclamation of Independence and the international recognition of the sovereignty of the nation-state, the long process of nation and state formation may have been completed, but the long road — perhaps with a much bitter series of disappointments — of nation-building still lies ahead. Suddenly the romantic notion of history has to give way to a more prosaic one. The genesis of this great historical moment cannot be found in the big events, but in the series of small and perhaps incidental happenings. It did not start with great and lofty philosophical ideas but from the awareness of being left behind by the course of events and from the memories of a series of failed resistance. It commenced neither in the great palaces of the rulers of the “glorious past” nor in the small huts of the suffering peasantries, but in the relatively segregated communities of colonial towns. It was set in motion when the small number of educated “natives”, the colonized people, began to reflect on their places in the plural society of the colonial towns. Suffering and deprivation of the little people might have perpetuated the memories of resistance to foreign suppression, but it was the ability to conceptualize the meaning of suffering that created the desire to have a new type of social formation and political system. This was the early beginning of the birth of the aspiration to form a new nation, which cut across ethnic and local boundaries. This aspiration reached its momentum when the small educated class began to entertain the value of print culture, to appreciate the need of having voluntary associations, and to realize the importance of ceasing to look at themselves as simply parts of the “communities of strangers” in the colonial towns. The story of nation formation begins from these scattered small beginnings. It is also very likely that from the experiences in the scattered, uneventful beginnings, lessons in the process of nation-building were sought.

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Equality and Modernity Padang was a flourishing coastal town at the turn of the 20th century. Although it saw itself as an inseparable part of the “alam Minangkabau” (Minangkabau world), with its matrilineal kinship system, the town and its surroundings that had been occupied by the Dutch since the late 17th century, developed a distinct local political system. It was a strange combination of genealogical and territorial systems. Unlike the heartland of Minangkabau, in the area called the Padang Highland, the coastal town of Padang had an established aristocratic ruling class. Located on the West Coast of Sumatra, the town had been one of the most important coastal outlets for the people in the interior since the 15th century — as the report of the early 16th century Portuguese traveller, Tomé Pires suggests. The position of Padang as a coastal outlet became more important after the fall of the fort of Bonjol, in 1837, to the military might of the Netherlands Indies. The fall of the most important bastion of Tuanku Imam Bonjol, the leader of the Padri movement, not only ended the Padri War (1821–37),4 but also brought the heartland of Minangkabau into the fold of the pax Neerlandica. After the newly imposed colonial government crushed the Regent of Batipuh’s rebellion (1841), it gradually managed to restore peace and to introduce the forced coffee cultivation system. Gradually, the pre-war trading relation between the interior and the coastal territories was revived. In a relatively short time it had surpassed the pre-war level.5 Many people from the highland frequented and finally settled down in the coastal town. After all, Padang was not only the capital of the newly formed province but also the centre of networks of coffee warehouses, to which farmers had to sell their coffee. By the beginning of the 20th century, Padang had become the biggest town in Sumatra — a position it was to occupy until the early 1910s.6 Schools for the indigenous population were established. By the end of the 19th century, Padang had its own newspapers.7 In 1912 there were no fewer than six “Malay” newspapers published in this town.8 In 1901 a monthly magazine, Insulinde, under the editorship of Dja Endar Moeda (born in 1861)9 was published. Written in the Malay language and using the Latin script, this magazine, as its advertisement claim, was distributed throughout the then Netherlands Indies. Its contributors came

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from several major towns in Java and Sumatra. It addressed itself to the newly emerging — but still very small, to be sure — urban reading public. True to the spirit of the ethical policy, announced at the turn of the century by the Queen of the Netherlands,10 the Insulinde wanted to raise the awareness about the issues of the time. It was one of the earliest publications or, perhaps, the first to propagate the most important catchword at the beginning of the century, “kemajuan” or “progress”. The Insulinde published reports on various kinds of event and developments that took place in the outside world. It described, for example, the victory of the “little” Japan against the “big” Chinese Empire (1895). It gave information on new agricultural methods and discussed the importance of education, and the like. By publishing these features, the Insulinde, like some of its counterparts in Java,11 urged its readers to prepare themselves to enter into the dunia maju, the “progressive world”. In 1904 it ceased publication.12 The notion of kemajuan was later to be challenged — “Our notion of kemajuan at that time was only to imitate the example given by other nations. We were only the parrots”, as Moehammad Amir (who died in 1950), the former chairman of the Jong Sumatranen Bond, the organization of Western-educated Sumatran youngsters, reflected three decades later — but the idea of kemajuan was never forgotten.13 The “idea of progress” is perhaps one of the longest lasting Western influences in the early formation of modern consciousness among the people of the then Netherlands Indies. One of the former correspondents of the Insulinde was Datuk Soetan Maharadja (who died in 1921), who at one time worked as a “native” adjunct district attorney. His pioneering newspaper activities impressed Ph. S. van Ronkel, the Adviser for Native Affairs, who called him “the father of Malay journalism”.14 In 1906 he began (as a Dutch observer called it) his “adat democratic revolution”15 by launching press campaigns against the coastal aristocratic establishment of Padang. In his newspaper writings, he urged the colonial government to abolish the office of the Tuanku Regen, the Regent, the head of the indigenous local adat and administrative authority. In the first place, he argued, the office was a deviation from Minangkabau adat,16 which recognized no higher adat authority — except the symbolic king — above the village level.17 The office of the Tuanku Regen and the

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aristocratic system, according to him, were the remnants of the Acehenese influences.18 Secondly, as he proudly stated, for the sake of kemajuan, Padang should be returned to its Minangkabau roots, with its “democratic” adat system.19 For, was it not true, that one of the most important characteristics of the world of kemajuan was its democratic social and political system? Was it not true that deliberation and consensus were the main pillars of the Minangkabau political system? Entering into the “progressive world” did not necessarily mean imitating the outside world; it could also be conducted by returning to the essence of adat ideals.20 Yet what is the meaning of “democracy”? This local event shows that it was in a relatively pluralistic colonial town that the word “democracy” was firstly used as the ideological weapon against the entrenched system of social status. Democracy was primarily conceived to be the pillar of modernity or kemajuan and social equality. Since Datuk Soetan Maharadja and his supporters came from the heartland of Minangkabau, it is very likely that the call for a “democratic” social system was his way to open up the gate for social mobility. Why did only the members of the entrenched aristocratic class have the opportunity to occupy the positions of power in the indigenous local community? In the meantime the few schools that were already available to the indigenous children21 and the flourishing market economy had begun to create the demand for upward social mobility. The aristocratic criteria, however, were there to block the way. An adat chief from the heartland of Minangkabau and a recognized expert on Minangkabau adat and historical tradition, Datuk Soetan Maharadja found himself not only a mere commoner in the system of social hierarchy of Padang, but also a stranger in the sphere of the cultural bazaar22 of the coastal town. How could he explain the discrepancy between the historical and cultural facts that Padang was a part of the Minangkabau world, which recognized no established aristocratic class, with prevailing empirical social reality in which the system of power rested on the recognition of an established aristocratic class? How could he solve the discrepancy between the notion of equal opportunity, as expressed by the idea of kemajuan, and the “illegitimate” system of social hierarchy, supported by the colonial government? Using the “Young Turks”, who opposed the conservative

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Sultan Abdul Hamid II of Turkey, as his model, Datuk Soetan Maharadja called himself and his group the kaum muda or the Young Group.23 It was actually Abdoel Rivai (1871–1933) who first coined the concept of kaum muda, as the young and “progressive” group. He was then a student of the medical school in the Netherlands while at the same time working as the Malay editor of the government-subsidized pictorial magazine, Bintang Hindia (Star of the Indies). Under the editorship of Rivai,24 the magazine popularized the notions of kemajuan and the kaum muda. The kaum muda were, according to him, the people who were “no longer willing to follow the obsolete system”. The kaum muda were the people who were “anxious to achieve self-respect through knowledge and sciences”. Perceiving society as consisting of three distinct groups, namely the common people, the aristocracy by birth (bangsawan usul), and the aristocracy of mind (bangsawan pikiran), he was convinced that only the latter could lead society to dunia maju. They were the real representatives of the kaum muda,25 who came to the fore by their own efforts and idealism. In 1905 Rivai proposed the formation of an organization, Persatoean Kaoem Moeda (Association of the Young Group), with branches in the most important towns in the Indonesian archipelago. The association, which, he hoped, could use a modernizing Chinese association in the Netherlands Indies as a model, did not materialize. After all he was still in the Netherlands when he preached this idea. One of the readers of Rivai’s articles was Wahidin Soedirohoesodo (1857–1917), a retired dokter Jawa (a native paramedic26), then the editor of Retnodhoemilah, a Javanese language periodical. He eagerly took Rivai’s idea on the need of having an association for the sake of kemajuan. In a series of articles published in the periodical in 1905, an unidentified writer, but most likely Wahidin himself, divided Javanese society into three categories, namely the kaum kuno or conservative group, kaum tua or old group, and kaum muda, the young group. The writer of the article urged the latter two groups to form an educational organization in order to further the progress of the people. The organization was to establish language courses, particularly the Dutch language (“Those who cannot understand Dutch have not yet set foot on the coast of the sea of progress”)

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and publish a periodical, which would give information on geography, economics, history, and other popular knowledge and sciences. If necessary, the writer said, they could ask Abdoel Rivai to help them in this venture. He urged the kaum muda to come forward because the “modern age demands progress and improvements in living conditions”. Finally the writer solicited financial support from wealthy Javanese. “Let the oldfashioned people stay in the forest and meditate all they want until the end of their lives.”27 Wahidin was to carry on his campaign until one day, on 20 May 1908, Soetomo (1888–1938) succeeded in persuading his friends, the students of the STOVIA, the school of the “dokter Jawa” (paramedics), to establish an organization, called the Boedi Oetomo. With the sole aim of liberating the people from the tyranny of poverty and backwardness, the B.O. was to be remembered as the first modern voluntary association in Indonesian history. “Talking with Doctor Wahidin,” said Soetomo reminiscing on his meeting with the retired dokter Jawa, “was a very moving experience; one could easily detect the doctor’s noble sense of dedication.”28 The name of the organization — the enlightenment of character — was carefully chosen to reflect the main aims of the organization. Another former student of STOVIA, was R.M. Tirto Adhi Soerjo (1875– 1917) who, like most of the early kemajuan pioneers at the turn of the century in the colonial state, was a journalist and editor of several succeeding journals and magazines.29 Best remembered as the editor and publisher of the Medan Prijaji (1909–12) and the publisher of the first women’s journal, Poetri Hindia (1908–13), he can also be considered as the founding father of an organization that was later to become the first mass party in the then Netherlands Indies. He promoted the establishment of the Sarekat Dagang Islamiyah (Islamic Trading Association), which was later simply called Sarekat Dagang Islam or SDI. This association, as he put it, was to organize “kaum Mardika” (his translation of the Dutch concept of vrije burgers, “free burghers”) — the traders, farmers, and artisans — under the banner of Islam, which actually meant no more than “indigenous people”. In order to “improve the status of our traders of the Islamic nation in the Indies”, he stated in an article to promote the newly

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formed organization, “there should be an association whose members consisted of the traders so that the old wisdom that little people could not be easily defeated because they have been united”. Officially formed at his house in Bogor on 27 March 1909, the SDI moved its main activities to Solo most likely initiated by the founder himself and under the leadership of H. Samanhoedi (1868–1956), a batik trader, the SDI transformed itself into a new association called Sarekat Islam (Islamic Association) in 1912. In the early phases of its development in Solo, one of the two biggest cities in the socalled Vorstenlanden, the royal territories, the Sarekat Islam most likely had a very close relationship with the royal house of Surakarta. So obvious was this relationship that the Dutch officials had to design various tricks to halt such a dangerous alliance.30 It was during this critical period that the leadership of Sarekat Islam then moved from Solo to Surabaya. H. Samanhoedi remained the chairman of the Sarekat Islam of Solo but the chairman of the Central Committee of the S.I.31 was H.O.S. Tjokroaminoto (1882–1934). Under the leadership of such a great orator, the Sarekat Islam had become a mass political party, even if only for a short time. The main concern of Datuk Soetan Maharadja was, as he used to claim, the “democratization” of Padang by taking it back into the fold of the Minangkabau world. Rivai, on the other hand, despite his Minangkabau origin, looked much beyond the cultural boundaries of his ethnic group. A real perantau,32 a “wanderer”, both physically and intellectually in the cosmopolitan world, Rivai did not look at the idealized past for inspiration. He tried instead to find a suitable model drawing from the modern and advanced societies. These were the societies, according to him, that had a high regard for the aristocrats of mind. Therefore “it is of utmost importance for the indigenous people to make themselves the ‘aristocrats of mind’ if they wish to be treated as equals”.33 Rivai addressed himself to the still very small modernizing elite, who lived in the colonial towns and with whom he could hope to share the notion of education as being the way to elevate people from the stage of backwardness. The social and political consequences of the new educational system, however, were hotly debated. Should the educated people be tolerated if they questioned the legitimacy of the existing social order?

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Datuk Soetan Maharadja might have felt that he had achieved a political victory when the colonial government finally decided to abolish the office of Tuanku Regen (1914). Padang had since then lost its unique political system, whereby bureaucratic and adat offices were merged in one institution. Politically and administratively, the town of Padang had since then become merely a part of the colonial bureaucratic system. By then the social and intellectual sphere of Padang had also considerably changed. The abolition of the office of the Tuanku Regen ironically drove Datuk Soetan Maharadja into the fold of the aristocratic clique of Padang. They had to join forces in order to defend the old order, the kind of cultural sphere they shared together against the intellectual attack launched by new types of kaum muda — the Islamic reform movement and the young Western-educated intellectuals. Datuk Soetan Maharadja’s use of tradition as the ideological basis of social change could no longer cope with the dynamic of change itself. The emergence of the Islamic reform movement — “the Islamic modernist movement”, as Gibb,34 the great Orientalist, once called it — and the young Western-educated intellectuals on the stage of history gradually marginalized the social and cultural concerns of Datuk Soetan Maharadja and his supporters. Their emergence also made Minangkabau part of the political and intellectual history of the then Netherlands Indies or Hindia Timur, East Indies. The historical dynamics they helped to generate reflects the local version — though still very strong — of the history of the emerging Indonesian nation. Before long, the Islamic reform movement became part of the social dynamic in many Islamic communities in the then East Indies. In the process, the local champion of “modernization” was forced into the defensive. Datuk Soetan Maharadja emerged as the leader of Sarekat Adat Alam Minangkabau (Adat Association of the Minangkabau World), the organization that defended the integrity of the “Minangkabau world” against the ideological onslaught of the trans-ethnic nationalism, pioneered by the educated wanderers from his own world. In spite of his claim of being a fighter for “democracy”, the main concern of Datuk Soetan Maharadja was the revival of what he thought to be “the past glory” of the Minangkabau World. He might have attacked the entrenched system of social hierarchy on the coastal town of Padang and

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its aristocratic class, but he never questioned the adequacy of the traditional Minangkabau world-view in entering the “world of kemajuan”. Nor did he ever create any sense of a cultural dilemma in his efforts to lead his society into a conceptualized world of kemajuan. An indirect attack on the prevailing Minangkabau social structure, however, came from within the very nature of the kind of world he and other literati conceived the “Minangkabau world” really to be. The notion of a harmonious world of “adat and religion” was attacked by the internal dynamics that took place in the religion itself. Datuk Soetan Maharadja was still struggling for the revival of a Minangkabau “democratic” tradition, when several returnees from the Holy City, Mecca, published Al Moenir, the first Islamic reformist journal in the then Netherlands Indies in Padang (1911). The journal took over the intellectual leadership of the religious reform movement after Al Imam, published in Singapore (1906) by the former teacher of the young ulama, (religious teachers) Syekh Thaher Jalaluddin (1869–1957),35 a Minangkabau ulama who had migrated to the British colony, ceased publication. Al Moenir did not talk about the need for the restoration of the “glory of Minangkabau”, but urged its readers to return to the original teachings of the Qur’an and Hadith, the Prophetic Tradition. It attacked the prevailing religious tradition, which, according to them, had led the people to the state of servitude and taqlid, obeisance without using the faculty of reasoning. By emphasizing the importance of aql, reasoning, in understanding the religious doctrine, Al Moenir might have wanted to create a rational society. The most immediate impact, however, was the weakened notion of infallible religious teachers. The journal had in effect begun to introduce some kind of democratization in Islamic social structure. Even though largely supported by religious public gatherings, tabligh, and the publication of minor tracks, it took several years, however, before the ideas of Al Moenir could really reach the reading public and society at large. When it did, the ideas expressed by this journal became the strongest elements that shaped the consciousness of the society which had since the late 18th century undergone a series of religious intellectual disturbances. The spread of private — both “secular” and religious — schools and the radicalization of the anti-colonial politics of whatever ideological persuasions that took place in the 1920s and 1930s can hardly be understood without

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taking into consideration the initial role played by this journal and its promoters. If the Islamic reform movement in Minangkabau, with its far ranging social and political consequences, incited some kind of intellectual and social disturbances, in Java the movement began without much intellectual controversy. The reform movement commenced when the reformists founded an organization in their own neighbourhood and began to undertake the activities they deemed worthwhile. In 1912 the Muhammadiyah was established.36 The early Islamic reformist publications tended to use the highly “Arabized” Malay language written in Jawi (Malay–Arabic) script. In the Malay and Minangkabau-speaking areas, this tendency did initially not create a problem, because the literate ordinary people were very familiar with this script and with such Arabized style of language. However, when the “secular” schools became relatively widespread and the reading public became more familiar with bazaar Malay — and later with the “schooled” Malay — the use of “Arabized” Malay written in Jawi (Arabic) script could have become a problem. These developments induced the Islamic journals to change their style of language and to use Latin script (except in quoting Qur’anic verse or Hadith). In Java, however, from the early beginning of the history of newspapers, a conscious choice of language had already been made. The choice of language depended very much on the kind of community or social groups to be addressed. Although Wahidin might not have experienced any sense of cultural dilemma in his enthusiasm to enter the world of kemajuan, he felt he had to make the right choice. Without questioning the legitimacy of the prevailing social structure, how could he, on the one hand, enrich the Javanese cultural treasury, and, on the other hand, popularize modern knowledge to the masses? His answer was clear enough — the publication of an educational journal was a necessity. Despite the growing popularity of bazaar Malay, written in Latin script, among the town dwellers, Wahidin saw that the most strategic medium of communication was still the Javanese language written in Javanese script. Although some Javanese priyayi (“bureaucratic aristocrats”37) might have known bazaar Malay, he argued, a great number of them did not understand the language. However, “if the Javanese language and script is used, even the village chiefs can understand”. Wahidin, who always wanted to promote

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“a harmonious change”, being a person of higher birth, might not have realized the significance of language as a symbol of social hierarchy. However, the moment this symbolic significance was realized, a sense of cultural dilemma set in. This feeling to some extent was experienced by other Javanese urban intelligentsia, the very small educated elite who questioned the continuing validity of traditional heritage in the changing times. Around 1917 a cultural movement was launched in Surabaya, the capital of the province of East Java.38 Created among the followers of the Sarekat Islam, which had by that time shown signs of becoming the first and biggest mass- party in the Netherlands Indies, the movement called itself the Jawa Dipa. On paper the movement only aimed at abandoning the speech levels of the Javanese language.39 The movement urged the people to use only one level of speech, the ngoko, which is the lowest one. It is the level of speech used among equals or intimate acquaintances. It is also the level of speech used by the superior or people of the higher social status in addressing their inferiors or the people of the lower class. Most of the supporters of the Jawa Dipa lived in Surabaya, then the biggest port-city in the Netherlands Indies, but culturally located on the outskirts of the heartland of Javanese culture. According to its proponents, the objective of the movement was to awaken the Javanese from their “sleep of servitude to the consciousness of independence”. Sure enough, this movement could easily incite heated debates. One incident, that was apparently well recorded, took place in a meeting of the Jong Java, the association of the Western-educated young Javanese, in February 1921. A member of the association, who was supposed to give a talk on the educational system, created an uproar among the audience for using the ngoko language. The meeting had to be ended early. Yet the young man, still a student of the HBS, a Dutch senior high school, had made his presence felt in the youth movement. His name was Sukarno, who happened to be a boarder at the house of H.O.S. Tjokroaminoto, the great leader of the Sarekat Islam, the honorary president of the movement.40 Sukarno repeated the uproar when the Jong Java held its congress in Bandung (1921). This time he even supported his call to follow the Jawa Dipa programme with the French revolutionary slogan “liberté, egalité, fraternité”.

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Opposition to the Jawa Dipa movement was very strong, nevertheless. The movement was accused of attempting to initiate the pauperization of language and of distorting language harmony. Both the supporters and the opponents of the movement realized very well that the proposal to use the ngoko speech level put the foundation of the Javanese system of social hierarchy itself at stake. From the vantage point of Javanese cultural tradition, language had never been seen as merely a means of communication. It was also a cultural manifestation of the stratified social system. Deep concern about each other should never be expressed at the expense of the deeply seated tradition of proper decorum in social relationships. By promoting the idea of abandoning the speech levels, the Jawa Dipa movement not only radicalized its emancipation movement, but also in effect rejected the continuing validity of the Javanese system of social status. In retrospect, the movement may be seen as a passing episode in the process of social and cultural change that took place under the dominating colonial rule. The movement was, however, not unique.41 The sense of cultural dilemma in entering the “dunia maju” can also be detected clearly in the letters of R.A. Kartini (1879–1904) to her Dutch friends. How could she be part of the “modern time” like her Dutch friends while remaining loyal to her noble upbringing? Her letters may reflect a freedom of mind but her biography shows the poignant story of a cultural and structural dilemma faced by a Javanese aristocratic girl at the turn of the century. At a time when the drive towards kemajuan was gaining momentum among the literate minority and the desire to elevate the people from the stage of backwardness had become stronger, the Jawa Dipa movement — not unlike the concerns expressed in Kartini’s letters — had undoubtedly raised some pertinent questions. How could these two objectives be achieved if the traditional and feudalistic social system was still dominant? The idea of the democratization of language, or the emancipation of women, for that matter, however, created an uncomfortable dilemma. How could the Javanese educated class or would-be agents of modernization, most of whom belonged to higher social strata, elevate the people while they at the same time were also questioning their own traditionally ascribed social position as leaders to the less educated masses? If the desire to enter into the realm of kemajuan should be accompanied by the commitment to one’s own identity, what

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would be left in the cultural treasury if the rich and colourful language had to be made illegitimate in social relations? If the idea of entering this new world was to be achieved, should it be carried out by abandoning social decorum, such as giving freedom to girls of puberty age to pursue education along with the boys? On the other hand, was it not true that the very notion of elevating the little people from poverty and ignorance was aimed at the creation of a harmonious and egalitarian society? It is, therefore, understandable when a journalist lamented the fact that not a single influential Javanese leader openly stated their opinions on this matter.42 The cultural dilemma was apparently too heavy and too difficult to solve with a definitive solution. In the meantime, in its second congress, the B.O. that had been taken over by the priyayi from the hands of its young founders, the students of the STOVIA, had decided to make “Malay” as its official language. A number of Javanese local aristocrats and Dutch officials supported the Kartini school — after the death of its founder. After several years the Jawa Dipa movement simply faded away. The public debates incited by the movement failed to generate the attention of the tradition bound society. In their campaigns the progenitors of the one level speech movement themselves were using “Malay” instead of Javanese. They had perhaps no other choice. Had they used the polite and higher level of speech (the krama or even the higher level, the krama inggil) they would have simply killed the basis of existence of the movement. But, on the other hand, had they used ngoko, the movement would have immediately offended the educated class; most of them belonged to the local aristocracy. By using the Malay language, the old lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago that had by the beginning of the 20th become the widely used language in the written texts, particularly in the colonial towns, they might have avoided the dilemma. Ironically, however, they established Malay, despite serious reservations voiced by the staunch supporters of “Javanese nationalism”,43 as the only possible choice of the newly imagined social formation. The Jawa Dipa movement might have failed to achieve its cultural and social goals. However, since the proponents of the movement were mostly the local leaders of the Sarekat Islam, one can surmise that the attempt to express political awareness in cultural or even social terms only ended in

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sharper definitions of the political goals. It was on this particular point that the similarity between the Jawa Dipa movement and Rivai’s press campaign can be found. Addressing himself to the still rather amorphous concept of bangsa Hindia, “the Indies nation”, Rivai did not directly attack the existing social system nor did he question the legitimacy of the indigenous system of power. His press campaigns had more political rather than sociological implications. He never bothered himself by describing what he saw as the prevalent empirical social reality, but instead offered a strategic way to look at the society in transition. In this constructed view of the society he singled out the bangsawan pikiran (the aristocracy of mind), as the group of people who could be expected to lead the “nation”, the “bangsa Hindia”, in entering into the world of progress. In several of his articles he reminded “the aristocracy of mind” of their place as being parts of the “bangsa Hindia”. However advanced they might have become they should never forget, he advised, that they belonged to the “bangsa Hindia”.44 Yet who were really the so-called bangsa Hindia, the Indies? Were they the same people who had sometimes been called “bangsa Islam” or the “Islamic nation”?45 Could the fact of being ruled by the same colonial government be taken as the foundation of belonging to one nation? Sooner or later these questions would have to be answered — and they were answered. The scattered historical events, however, show several important features. The desire to build a new kind of social order began after the psychological shock of being a conquered and exploited local community had largely been subsided. Not by chance was the awareness of the inadequacy of existing social system strongly felt among the dwellers of the colonial towns and the wanderers, the perantau, who had abandoned their most intimate primordial cultural environment. That was the time when the notion of kemajuan as a way of being elevated from social and economic backwardness was firstly voiced. That was also the period when the notion of social equality was promoted. Democracy, as it was then preached, was conceived as the symbol of both kemajuan and social equality. Emerging in a colonial state, which had superimposed itself on the divergent ethnic and local communities and traditional polities, and which had administratively unified the regions of these separate entities

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under the rule of one central government, the desire to be part of the “dunia maju” (progressive world) eventually collided with the foundation of the colonial state itself. When it did, the time when the nature of colonialism itself to be questioned had begun. Colonialism was no longer simply perceived as what it was — a foreign rule in “our land” — but also a system of governing and exploitation which was felt to be an insult to the growing sense of dignity. It was in the relatively more heterogeneous cultural and social environment that new ideas were beginning to be entertained and new dreams to be dreamed of. The scattered rural rebellions that characterized the late 19th century Java, were soon remembered as something belonging to the past. The wounded pride and the feeling of being exploited might still be there but the cultural sphere of the colonial towns had not only established a new system of symbolic communication, it had also implanted the notion of the importance of tomorrow. That was the time when the local educated class began to compare the formation of their society with the perceived demands of the future. Colonial rule might have politically imposed racial category in the social arrangement, but the organization of power that it had enforced on the local communities gave examples of a relatively well-organized system. In a racially based colonial society, the indigenous people occupied the lowest echelon — they formed the third class citizens, below the Europeans and the so-called Foreign Orientals.46 If that kind of social arrangement was not enough, then in the racially segregated plural society, the indigenous community itself should also be hierarchically divided. In the meantime, among the newly emerging trading class in the urban areas, the drive towards the formation of an egalitarian modern society was beginning to take a more radical stand.

Colonialism and the Notion of Democracy “May 20” has since 1948, when Indonesia was still fighting for its proclaimed independence, been celebrated as the “National Awakening Day”.47 It is the date of the establishment of the Boedi Oetomo (Noble Character), the first modern organization of the indigenous people. Although it was established by the students of the STOVIA, soon enough the organization was dominated

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by the Javanese bureaucratic class, the priyayi.48 In spite of the fact that the major concerns of this organization were the poverty and backwardness of the Javanese, it was an elitist organization which believed in the dictum that “once the elite of the Javanese become educated, the common people will follow”.49 In 1912 the urban trading group founded the Sarekat Islam (Islamic Association). Generally regarded as the first mass party, the association had as its immediate goal — as one of its most prominent leaders put it — zelfstandigheid,50 self-reliance. Its main concerns were social equality and people’s welfare. It was among the Sarekat Islam members that the Jawa Dipa movement emerged. Established as a purely socialeconomic movement, the Sarekat Islam did not initially bother itself with the problems of colonialism. It was more concerned with the lot of the small traders in their competition with dynamic Chinese businessmen and with the workers in the railways and sugar companies. Unlike the early promoters of the kemajuan, Tirto Adhi Soerjo, from the early period of his journalistic career, did not simply concern himself with the problems of the backwardness and poverty of the “Islamic nation”, but also with the abuses of power of the privileged class. From the beginning the manifestation of power in social realities had been part of his main concerns.51 At a time when the awareness of the demeaning injustices within the colonial and capitalist context was on the increase, it is therefore not difficult to understand that the so-called non-political character of “the association of the indigenous people”, the Sarekat Islam, could be so susceptible to political influences. The emergence of a socialist organization among the Dutch private citizens in the Indies only hastened the process of the politicization of the newly emerging indigenous association. This possibility became greater for the Sarekat Islam, whose application to get a legal recognition to be a “national” organization was rejected. The government could only give legal recognition to its separate branches. It had no control on the activities and the ideological orientation of its branches. The Sarekat Islam branch of Semarang began to attack the central leadership of the Sarekat Islam from ideological perspectives. Influenced by a Dutch socialist organization, the leaders of this branch began to use leftist political jargons. The penetration of socialist influences

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into the Sarekat Islam not only radicalized the organization52 politically, it also forced its national leadership to examine the basic foundation of the association.53 H.O.S. Tjokroaminoto54 had to address himself squarely to the questions of Islam and socialism and Haji Agoes Salim (1884– 1954) introduced his concept of Islamic modernism, with its emphasis on rationality in understanding the sacred doctrine, and the liberation from the fetters of tradition. Their cooperation in leading the Sarekat Islam also made both of them sincerely believe that only Islam that could really bind the divergent ethnic communities into a new kind of common community. 55 With these attempts, the process of the ideologization of Islam had begun. When the Sarekat Islam finally identified itself as a political party with an Islamic ideology, it not only abandoned its pluralist stance, it also made Islam — along with nationalism and Marxism — one of the three major ideological trends in the history of Indonesian nationalist movement. With the deeper involvement of the Sarekat Islam in the politics of independence, the task of social and religious reforms were practically taken over by the Muhammadiyah, founded by K.H. Achmad Dahlan (1868–1923), in 1912. Under the leadership of its founder, who was a preacher at the Mosque of the Sultan of Yogyakarta, the Muhammadiyah slowly but gradually spread its wings throughout the archipelago. Although it could never make itself the only modernist Islamic organization, by 1930 Muhammadiyah had already become a truly “national” modernist Islamic organization, with its religion-based modern schools, clinics, and orphanages, scattered all over Java and Sumatra and in a few towns in South Sulawesi.56 In 1926 the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU — the Awakening of the Ulama), a “traditionalist” Islamic organization was established in Surabaya. Supported by the networks of traditional religious schools, pesantren, the NU remained until the end of the colonial period, the association of the Javanese rural santri (religiously devout) community. It took a change of regime before the NU, as an organization, got involved in politics and social work. The headquarters of the Sarekat Islam might have raised the problems of social equality in the colonial setting, but it was its Semarang chapter, which had already been influenced by socialist ideas, that pointed out that

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social inequality in the colonial setting was basically exploitative. The chapter published journals and newspapers and established schools for the under privileged. Not less importantly, it also introduced a long lasting slogan “sama rata, sama rasa”. Coined by Marco Kartodikromo (1890–1932), a journalist and novelist, the slogan roughly means, “equality gives a similar feeling”.57 It was only the beginning. By the end of the 1910s, the influence of the branch of Semarang, had become so great that it had practically threatened the unity of the association. The policy of the colonial government to give legal recognition (rechtpersoon) to only the units of the Sarekat Islam, instead of to the whole association, had given the opportunity to each branch to develop its own organization and, not less importantly, its own ideological orientation. The unity of S.I. could still be maintained as long as the branches held to the common platform that had been agreed upon at its regularly held national congress. The branch of Semarang had, in the eyes of the leaders of the Centraal S.I., deviated too far to the left, which gave them no other option but to impose party discipline. The Sarekat Islam of Semarang branch, which had actually changed its name to Sarekat Rakyat, was expelled from the party and in 1921 the Perserikatan Komoenis di Hindia (which later changed its name to Partai Komunis Indonesia) was formed. A new period in the nationalist movement had also begun. Not only had the politics of the pergerakan been radicalized, but the ideological conflict among the political parties had also become more vehement.58 If the establishment of the B.O., the S.I. and other local based social and political organizations was a reaction to the backwardness and poverty of the population, the Indische Partij, defined its very existence from the logic of the colonial state. Founded by E.F.E. Douwes Dekker (1879–1950), a Eurasian, on 6 September 1912, in Bandung, the party, as its platform suggested, was aimed at the awakening of the spirit of patriotism among the peoples of the Indies, uniting them on the basis of political equality, and bringing the Indies to prosperity. It also set “to prepare for an independent national state”. This last objective should be clearly stated, since, as Douwes Dekker, put it in one his articles (March 1912), “the government of a colony is not a government, but despotism, and despotism is a dangerous enemy of the welfare of the people; [it is] more dangerous

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than rebellion or revolution”.59 The Indische Partij was also the first to define the boundaries of the concept of “the Indies”. Only the “settlers” (blijvers), according to the party, could be considered as belonging to “the Indies”, while “sojourners” (trekkers), most of them Dutch officials and capitalists, were just the foreigners on the land. The great divide between the “sojourners” and “settlers” showed emphatically the change in the colonial society, when the emotional attachment of the former had no longer resided in the Indies. The opening of the Suez Canal had made it more possible to make the Indies a place to stay for a while for the sake of pursuing a career, an occupation or wealth. The party’s concept of “the Indies nation” itself, however, was perhaps too idealistic and too modern for its time. It simply ignored the sociological and political significance of racial category in the colonial setting. In a way, this concept, also reflected an attempt by the members of the Indies–Dutch community, who had begun to feel the social gap with the “new comers”, to confirm their sense of identity as part of the great majority, the community to which their mothers actually belonged.60 Whatever the case, the Indische Partij,61 as Hatta62 and other early nationalist leaders never failed to note in appreciation, was the first party to clearly define the nature of the colonial relationship. Its understanding of the nature of the colonial relationship was demonstratively shown in 1913 when the government was making preparations for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands from the occupation of Napoleonic France. In order to oppose the celebration several leaders of the party established a forum, called Comite Boemipoetra (Committee of the Sons of the Soil). Its objectives were not only simply to challenge the government-sponsored committee to celebrating the “glorious event”, but also to accumulate capital so the Comite Boemipoetra could send a proposal for the establishment of a people’s representatives council in the colony. Soewardi Soerjaningrat (1889–1959), an aristocrat from the House of Pakualaman of Yogyakarta, who was one of the leaders of both the committee and the party, wrote an article, which since its publication has been regarded as a classic in the history of the independence movement. In the article, Als ik eens een Nederlander was” (If I were ever once a Hollander), he asked

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himself how would he feel celebrating the independence of “his country” amidst the colonized people.63 Reprinted as a booklet by the Comite Boemipoetera, with its “Malay” translation by Abdoel Moeis (1890–1959), a leader of the Sarekat Islam, this article ceased to be a mere critical reflection of a young, Western-educated “native” intellectual. It became a genuine political event of major proportions. The article begins with an imaginary “I, a Hollander”, reflecting on his joy in celebrating the liberation of “his country” and ends up with the realization that he is only a “native”, whose country is being colonized by the Dutch. “If I were Dutch man, I would not organize an independence celebration in a country where the independence of the people has been stolen”. He closed the article by stating, “We should first of all liberate the oppressed people and only after that we can celebrate our own liberation.” Since the activities of the stalwarts of the party had created some kind of uproar among the Dutch community and the press, the government had no other choice but to expel the leaders of the party from the Netherlands Indies. The three important leaders64 of the Indische Partij chose to go to the Netherlands.65 However, the seeds had already been sown. The questions of equality and kemajuan were no longer seen simply from the context of colonial social formation. The call for a “democratic social system” had become a political programme that directly addressed itself to both the social formation of the colonial society and the legitimacy of the colonial state itself. It is within this context, for example, that Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo (1886–1943), one of the three expelled leaders of the Indische Partij (which had in the meantime changed its name to Insulinde), continued his attack on the Susuhunan of Surakarta, the king of one of the “special” principalities. To Tjipto, who had experienced several months of exile in the Netherlands, this local aristocratic ruler — the oldest scion of the Mataram dynasty — represented both the corrupt traditional order and the illegitimate colonial state. The concept of “democracy” had ceased to be simply a matter of equality. It had undergone a politicization process. As such it could also be used as a weapon to demand for a proper balance between duties and rights. The test came when the First World War broke out. Would Japan or perhaps other powers attack the Indies? How would the colony be defended?

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The emergence of Japan as a great power was a real concern felt at the time. Not only had the small country defeated China (1895) and later Russia (1905), it had also begun to venture into the waters of the South China Sea. It was during this period of danger, imagined or otherwise, that the idea of having a native militia began to be raised. The question of what was then called the Indie Weerbaar (defence of the Indies) became the hottest political issue in the colony. Would the colonial government train the indigenous people to defend their own homeland? The Boedi Oetomo was in favor of the militia, but a host of indigenous local rulers, the administrative priyayi,66 opposed the idea. Their opposition was heightened when the Sarekat Islam stated that it could only accept the formation of the native militia if the government promised to establish the volksvertegenwoordiging or the representative of the people. The Boedi Oetomo strongly endorsed the Sarekat Islam’s stand in regard to the questions of native militia with people’s representation (August 1915). On the basis of the dictum “if there is a duty, there must be also a right”, these organizations sent a delegation to the Netherlands to demand the opening of a council of people’s representatives. It was not until December 1916 that the States General of the Netherlands finally approved in principle of the need for the establishment of some sort of people’s representative council. In the meantime the debates among the indigenous elite continued. Arguing that the people were not educated enough to have a council of people’s representatives, a number of priyayi urged the government to wait until the proper time arrived. The people were not mature enough to have such a modern institution. Sure enough, the supporters of the people’s council strongly rejected this elitist opinion. At the beginning, they reasoned, there would perhaps be many errors committed, but people could always make the effort to improve themselves until they reached perfection. If that was the case, why should the priyayi oppose such a democratic institution? One of the major reasons for the rejection of the idea by the priyayi or the bureaucratic aristocrats was, as a writer put it, based on the assumption that “if there is a parliament, the aristocrats would be pushed aside by the democrats”. Using the Hindu caste system as an analogy, the writer said, “the ksatria (‘warrior class’) would be pushed aside by the sudra (‘the peasantry’).”67

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The political awareness of being under colonial domination, the call for social equality and the desire to enter into the world of kemajuan not only created the awareness of the inadequacy of inherited cultural traditions, it also incited some kind of intellectual disturbance that could not be easily ignored. A fundamental question, however, could not be avoided. Had the greatness of the inherited culture lost its place in the modernizing world? To what extent did the voices that expressed the inadequacy of cultural tradition have any validity? Or was perhaps the present situation nothing more than an historical aberration that should not be tolerated any further. A sense of crisis began to affect the cultural consciousness of the Javanese literati. It took place after the Dutch scholars rekindled the living myth of the glory of the Empire of Majapahit, which reached its golden age in the 14th century. The archeological discoveries and philological studies have been taken as academic support for the never dying memory of the presumed glorious period. In July 1918, the Committee for Javanese Nationalism held the Congress for Javanese Cultural Development. The purpose of the Congress was to discuss the meaning and the future of Javanese culture, and to formulate a strategy for the promotion of Javanese culture.68 One of the speakers was Soetatmo, a Western educated Javanese literati. Basing his argument on schoonheid (beauty) and moral upbringing (opvoeding) as the essences of Javanese culture, Soetatmo lamented the fact that the position of the Western educational system in Java had been very dominant. This system essentially offered, according to him, an intellectual, but not a moral, upbringing. Western cultural domination had weakened the important role of the pandita, the wise sage, in society. In the old days, the pandita was the reservoir of the wisdom of life, but time had taken his position away. What was now left to the Javanese as a reservoir of wisdom except the wayang stories?69 The propensity to differentiate between opvoeding and onderwijs (intellectual education), and to put opvoeding on the higher pedestal of respect continued to influence the cultural oriented political leaders. This orientation received the full support of the National Congress of Education in 1935 — a decision that triggered, what was later to be called, the “polemic on culture” (Polemik Kebudayaan), 1935–36.70 However, Soetatmo did not

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stop at upholding the role of the pandita and the importance of opvoeding; his aim was to reconstruct the decaying Javanese sense of order and cultural propriety. He wanted to liberate his people, the Javanese, from the present age of madness (jaman edan) and to lead them in returning to the era of Majapahit, the 14th century great empire, which had been taken as the image of the golden age of the Javanese culture.71 To him, the present — the age of madness — was a period when social roles had been turned upside down. The so-called “democratic state” was actually an illusory state. For “if men had equal rights, they would have no duties to fulfill, each individual would rely on his own rights and no society is possible. The child would be left to his own lot, because he insists that men respect his rights. There would be no unity, but only differences, no order but chaos”. This typical patrimonial approach to social relationships not only reflects the crisis that was being experienced by the traditional society as a result of the deeper penetration of urban cultural traits and the growing influences of the egalitarian movement, it also shows the grave concern of the aristocratic class over the call for democracy. “Equality and brotherhood… are also preached by the wise; but not the quality of democracy.” What is the democratic order? It was the situation where “struggle breaks everywhere: nobility against non-nobility, kromo against ngoko; capital against labour; rulers against ruled, government against the people; the society is upside down and is totally out of joint. It is not a wisdom that can secure the unity of kawula and gusti (servant and master)”. Since a society can be compared with a family, surely there can be no equal rights among members of the family. The older brother has more right than his younger siblings. And “what Father says is good, because father is wise. That is the ideal of a family, and thus also a state”. Only men of wisdom could guarantee whether a democratic system, or any system for that matter, would work or not. “Democracy without wisdom is catastrophe for all of us.” This wisdom can only be provided by the pandita-ratu, the “philosopher-king”. Later, in the early 1930s, Soewardi Soerjaningrat, who had changed his name to Ki Hadjar Dewantara, would refine Soetatmo’s motto, “Democracy without wisdom is a catastrophe for us all” and emphasized the importance of “order and tranquility”72 as the objective of his educational efforts. At the

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time Soetatmo expressed his ideas, he was strongly countered by Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo, the “genuine democrat”, as his biographer calls him.73 He rejected Soetatmo’s appeal for opvoeding, because according to him, the Javanese needed something that could improve the welfare of the people. He rebuffed the relevancy of Soetatmo’s idealization of Java’s past history and its inherent cultural greatness. If Java had such a great tradition, how could the fact that it had been under colonial rule be explained? Since the Javanese had experienced “moral decay” as the result of Dutch colonialism, according to Tjipto, the idea of “Javanese nationalism”74 should be rejected. He came forward with his idea of “Indies nationalism”. Instead of treating the people as objects to be led, Tjipto looked at them as subjects, who were not simply waiting for leadership to come, but in whose internal dynamics the new world would arise — ”We can see the coming of the new age”.75 The disputes were to continue for sometime. In the meantime the formation of the Volksraad, the People’s Council, had been officially announced. Although it was obvious from the beginning that the Volksraad was not meant for the sake of the “democratic education” of the people, but aimed instead at fulfilling the demand of the Europeans in the colony, the possibility that it might play an important role was not rejected. Nonetheless a question could not be avoided. How could the importance of the new political institution be recognized, if the aristocrats — particularly those who belonged to the Regentenbond, the association of the regents (indigenous district officers), as Dr Schrieke, then a staff of the Office of the Adviser of Native Affairs,76 stated,“did not seem to have the least notion of the purpose of the Volksraad, still less the meaning of democracy”?77 In 1917, R. Achmad Djajadiningrat, the Regent of Serang and one of the most influential members of the Regentenbond, proposed that the organization get itself directly into politics. The proposal was turned down. The majority of the members preferred to maintain the status quo. A leader of Boedi Oetomo, who observed the meeting, lamented, “How can they, who have mostly won their position through inheritance, understand the spirit of time? The people have now seen what the Regents are worth”.78 If that was indeed the case, then, it was also understandable

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that Haji Agoes Salim, shortly before the opening of the Volksraad or People’s Council, expressed his hope that the kaum kuno or the conservatives should not be the dominant voice in the Volksraad.79 The official opening (1918) of the Volksraad is recorded in history textbooks as the “November belofte”, the promise of November. In his opening address the Governor General of the Netherlands Indies stated that a new period of the colonial relationship had arisen and the process of democratization had begun. In time, when the Volksraad had reached maturity, the council would become a body for the whole people of the Indies to express their will.80 “The present is the age of democracy, the age of popular government”, as a leader of Sarekat Islam stated in applauding the event. The Volksraad, however, was never meant to be a democratic council for the colony. The promise remained as what it was — a promise that was never fulfilled. The Volksraad and the local councils, that were later introduced never reached the status of a genuine people’s representative.81 Neither the system of election of the members of the Volksraad and local councils, nor the political powers of the councils, gave any indication that they were more than just paraphernalia of the colonial state.82 The internal dynamics of the councils, particularly the Volksraad, simply had no significant impact on the government’s policies. Disappointed with the lack of power of the council, the Sarekat Islam decided to shift its struggle strategy. It ceased its participation in the council and in any other government’s raad (council). Haji Agoes Salim,83 a former member of the Volksraad, who had emerged as an important ideologue of the Sarekat Islam, could now ridicule the council as being nothing but a komedi omong or “a talking movie” — a nickname that was to continue to haunt the Volksraad until the end of the colonial period. Voices expressed in the Volksraad might occasionally reflect the genuine political concerns of the nationalist movement. Sometimes the radical or the national faction in the council launched devastating criticisms on government policies. Or on other occasions, they might propose liberal regulations, but the real political dynamics in the colony took place outside the halls of the council. It was in the relatively open public sphere that ideological and political controversies among the nationalist leaders took place. The period

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between the early 1920s and 1930s can, to a large extent, be seen as “the decade of ideologies” in the political history of Indonesia. That was the time when concerned intellectuals were defining their dreams and aspirations in ideological terms. That was also the period when basic cultural and religious assumptions were being systematized as strategies to achieve political goals. As a platform of struggle and an agenda for the future, the modern ideology or any ideology for that matter, could occasionally be very offensive to the sanctity of both tradition and the established order. It is therefore understandable if during this span of time anti-ideology arguments were also very intensely put forward. This type of argument found its major supporters among the adherents of cultural nationalism, who were mostly ethnic-based aristocrats and local literati, the guardians of the cherished noble tradition. By the end of the 1930s, however, it was clear that the literati had lost much of their attractiveness in the cultural discourses. They might still represent living social reality, but time had already passed them by. Their cultural concerns, however, would reappear in the post-independence period, albeit in different forms and modes of discourse. When it did, it unfailingly created unpredictable cultural problems in the modern nation-state. The forced withdrawal of the literati in the first round of the battle of the cultural and political discourses is perhaps an historical irony. They and their aristocratic cliques and patrons could still demand the obedience of the people and act as the legitimate occupants of the idealized exemplary world, it was, however, the leaders of the people’s movement, the pergerakan, who gradually dominated the political and cultural discourses particularly since the early 1920s. Several reasons might be responsible for this historical irony. In the first place, colonial social formation was still very much based on racial category in spite of the fact that a new kind of social consciousness had emerged. Secondly, the relatively rapid development of urban traits, particularly those that were represented by the founding of both local and national-based organizations, on whatever ideological basis,84 and the expansion of school networks had, on the one hand, created a new kind of community, which was not necessarily based on primordial or traditional foundation, and on the other, expanded the sense of belonging. Thirdly, the

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relatively rapid spread of print-culture, using Latin script and Malay or, even Dutch, as the means of communication had really had a tremendous impact on reducing the need to have face-to-face encounters. Practically, almost without exception, the leaders of the pergerakan can be said to be “men of letters” in the sense that they were the people who never hesitated to put their ideas in writing. At a time when the number of people who could read was growing, the persuasive capacity of the leaders of nationalist movement to articulate the predicament of the present, and to formulate the hope for the future, could not be taken lightly. Their ideas and idealism might have been well beyond the intellectual horizon of the still illiterate majority, but they provided relevant answers to the problems of colonial domination.85 Print-culture that raised the people’s consciousness was ironically sustained by the emerging commercial social relationship. It grew up at a time when written information or knowledge could be sold with a profit. By using these new media, the Sarekat Islam and the Indische Partij were able to make the people more aware of the need to look beyond their local and immediate surroundings. With this new media, they also raised their awareness of being subjugated people. The ideologization of Islam, such as that manifested by Haji Misbach in Surakarta or the younger generation of the kaum muda (Islamic reformist) group in Sumatra,86 provided the pergerakan with some kind of sacred foundation. The period between mid-1920s to mid 1930s was indeed “a decade of ideologies” in Indonesian modern history, for that was the time when every possible ideological orientation was publicly debated. That was also the period when different kinds of ideological blends were introduced in order to find some common grounds. Different kinds of political parties and organizations were founded. In the process, the radicalization of the politics of independence took place. Since most of the ideological debates were undertaken in printed text, ideology or seemingly ideological discourse became a public field of contestation. The shock that was caused by the scattered so-called communist rebellions of late 1926 and early 1927 lasted a few months. Soon after the shock was over, the intensification of political activities began again. Progress, equality, emancipation, and later, the desire to participate in local government, might well be initially the most pronounced aspirations

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of the people’s movement, but by the mid-1920s, these aspirations could no longer be seen as the rope that could bind the pergerakan leaders. In the meantime, the radicalization of the movement had taken place. Ideologies had been formulated and debated. Despite the fact that the communist party was the first to take the initiative of formulating the ideology of struggle, it was, the Perhimpoenan Indonesia (P.I. or Indonesian Association), the student organization in the Netherlands that really began the process of articulating the ideas of nationalism and the political concept of democracy. The P.I. clearly defined the boundaries of the nation and the political meaning of nationalism and conceptualized democracy as a political system in a nation-state, not, as it used to be, simply a matter of social emancipation nor simply a matter of being part of the “dunia maju”.

Nationalism and Democracy “Hello Mr. Bolsyewik”, a friend called out to him, when on one occasion they met by chance.87 Tan Malaka (1897–1949) was suddenly aware that he had actually changed. He was apparently no longer what he used to think he was. An adat chief in his village in Minangkabau, where an ethnic group had since the 19th century adhered to the dictum of “adat is based on syarak (religious law), syarak is based on Kitabullah (Qur’an)”, he had apparently become an agnostic in the foreign land, the faraway rantau. He was not simply a perantau, “wanderer”, physically, but also intellectually apparently.88 Tan Malaka was a graduate of the teachers training school (Kweekschool), which was much better known as the Sekolah Raja (the king’s school), in Bukittinggi (West Sumatra). When he left for the Netherlands in the 1910s, with the support of the people’s fund of his village, the Islamic reform movement, the kaum muda movement in Minangkabau, was still in its most active and aggressive phase. Claiming to return to the true teaching of the religion, this movement, which was mostly led by the young ulama, who had been influenced by the Egyptian Islamic “modernist” ideas, rejected the traditional attitude of taqlid (uncritical obedience), and promoted ijtihad, rational and contextual understanding of the sacred texts. Since this movement not only published a number of journals (irregularly, to be sure) and conducted campaigns from one mosque to another, which sometimes resulted in serious local conflicts, it is easy to understand that before Tan

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Malaka left his birthplace he had realized the importance of using akal (aql), rationality, and naturally, naql, the text, in understanding tradition. In the Netherlands, Tan Malaka89 usually used his spare time to have discussions with his friends about social and political matters. Although a student of the teachers’ college, he immersed himself with books on politics, history, and philosophy. Apparently in their discussions, his friends had found out that Tan Malaka’s sympathy lay with the newly formed Russian revolutionary state and his analysis had apparently been very much influenced by Marxist and Leninist thinking. The successful completion of the Russian Revolution, with the establishment of the Soviet Union, had left a deep impact on him, like it did on a great number of the young people in the West. After finishing his studies, Tan Malaka returned to the then Netherlands Indies and became a teacher in a foreign-owned plantation in East Sumatra. Here, in the social surrounding that had been already widely known for its notorious poenale sanctie, which had tied the labourers to their inhuman contracts, Tan Malaka not only learned the injustices of the capitalist system from first hand experiences, but also became more convinced in his determination to do something about it. He resigned from his job and went to Semarang and became a teacher in the people’s school of the Sarekat Islam branch of Semarang, which had in the meantime also called itself the Sarekat Rakyat (People’s Association). Here, in Semarang, Tan Malaka gradually emerged as an ideologue of the branch. He was frequently involved in heated ideological debate with Haji Agoes Salim, who, like him, also came from the Minangkabau region,90 but unlike him, Salim had emerged as a respectable Islamic intellectual, who was struggling to make the Islamic doctrine the ideology of social change. Tan Malaka’s activities and ideological orientations, however, did not go unnoticed by the colonial authorities. In 1921, he was exiled from the colony. Tan Malaka was barred from returning to his own country. His career as an international communist began. He was appointed as the representative of the Comintern in the Far East. Tan Malaka remained, however, a nationalist at heart. He also maintained until the end his high respect for religion — the sphere that initially groomed him — as a potentially dynamic social force.91 In his exile, he wrote his much quoted books Naar de Republiek Indonesie — a thoroughly communist

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plan of action — and Massa Actie, a book that Sukarno later admitted had quite influenced him. By coincidence, after Tan Malaka left Semarang, the activities of the students in the Netherlands became more and more politically motivated. Their number was very small, but the echo of their activities could reach their homeland, the then Netherlands Indies. Since the middle of 1920s, the number of the graduates to come home had gradually increased. It was still very small, to be sure, but it meant that the number of people who had some experience in student organization in the cosmopolitan sphere of the “mother country” had gradually increased. The importance of this continuing trend lies in the fact some of the returnees were the former leaders of the P.I. When they came home, some of them continued their activities in spreading the ideas they and their colleagues had cultivated during their stay in Europe. Occasionally they appeared as the brokers of ideas. They transmitted new ideas to the people in the language they could understand. It is understandable if the Western-educated younger leaders of the pergerakan, who never had the luxury to study abroad, unlike their older compatriots, were very much influenced by the ideas of the P.I. By the middle of 1920s, the P.I. had already been widely recognized as the important source of ideas in the struggle for independence.92 In 1925, the P.I. gallantly issued a manifesto demanding the independence of Indonesia “now”. For the P.I. the demand was a matter of a struggle strategy for it evoked an uncompromising attitude. In 1926, Semaoen, the former leader of the Sarekat Islam of Semarang, who had now become the leader of the PKI, came to see Hatta, the new chairman of the PI in the Netherlands, from his place of exile in Moscow. He had realized that the plan to stage a rebellion was a serious tactical mistake. It was, however, already too late to do anything about it. They agreed to sign a convention in which the PKI acknowledged the leadership of the PI in the independence movement. The scattered communist rebellions in Banten (December 1926) and Silungkang (January 1927) broke out and Semaun lost the favour of the Comintern in Moscow.93 It was, perhaps, not by chance that most of the leaders of the PI were, during their high school years back home very active in youth organizations

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such as the Jong Java, Jong Sumatranen Bond, Jong Batak, and others. Soekiman Wirjosandjojo (1898–1974), under whose leadership the Indonesisch Vereniging changed its name to Perhimpoenan Indonesia in 1924, was at one time a radical chairman of the Jong Java,94 the association of the Javanese high school students. His successor as the chairman of the PI was Hatta, who was widely recognized as the best treasurer the Jong Sumatraen Bond (later changed it name to Pemoeda Sumatra — Sumatran youth) ever had. For these people, their studies and experiences in the “mother country”, the Netherlands, not only meant the time to undergo the process of political maturity, but also perhaps more importantly, an occasion to sharpen their ideological stand. Their experiences in the Netherlands, the foreign country, had made them more convinced than ever that the destiny of the multi-ethnic Indies could not be other than becoming one nation. There was a time when the leaders and some members of the Jong Sumatranen Bond and Jong Java joined a discussion group, the Politieke Debating Club. Under the tutorship of the leaders of a Dutch theosophical society, Dienaren van Indie, the young leaders discussed the importance of brotherhood and equality of mankind,95 although outside the society they found colonial inequality. Their study in the Netherlands gave them the conviction that the time had come for them to translate that noble idea into practice. To what extent, however was the possibility of entertaining such an idea in the colonial setting and in the social and cultural environment that was still very much bound by feudalistic tradition? Some ideas discussed in the Political Study Group bore their intellectual fruit in the Netherlands. Mohammad Hatta (1902–80) was one of the youth leaders who at one time regularly attended the meetings of the club. In these meetings, they openly discussed and debated the meaning of equality, universal brotherhood, humanity, and the like. After a few months or so, Hatta and his best friend, Bahder Djohan (1902–81), preferred to stay away from the club. At a certain stage in the intellectual and spiritual exploration, their Islamic upbringing could no longer cope with the theosophical orientation.96 In 1921, Hatta went to Holland to continue his studies in the faculty of economics. The years he spent in the Netherlands (1921–32) were for Hatta a period to study economics, politics, and history, a phase to be directly

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engaged in the politics of independence, and a time to formulate ideology and the strategy of struggle. In the Netherlands, he established himself as the most articulate thinker of the nationalist movement.97 By joining, though only for a few years, the League against Imperialism, Colonial Oppression and for National Independence, he put Indonesia on the map of the world of anti colonial movement, and made long lasting friendships with the leaders of the other colonized countries. Later, during the national revolution, Hatta was to cultivate these friendships, particularly that with Nehru, to advance the Indonesian case in the world forum. His intense political activities as the leader of the PI caused him his freedom. He and three other leaders were arrested. They were accused of conspiring to stage a rebellion. However, the court in The Hague found them not guilty (1928). In the process, Hatta produced one of the classics in the history of the Indonesian struggle for independence98 — his defence speech, entitled “Indonesia Free”.99 In this speech, he described a short history of Indonesian nationalist movement, the ideals of the pergerakan, and his vision of the future of Indonesia. When he returned to Indonesia (1932), he was not simply a person who had finally received his degree in economics, but also an influential nationalist thinker and a widely recognized leader of the pergerakan kebangsaan (nationalist movement). “National unity”, “independence”, and “democracy” are three of the most important themes of Hatta’s pre-war political writings.100 To Hatta, “independence” is not simply a matter of hope and a dream of a patriot, but an unavoidable historical destiny. “Sooner or later the colonized people would gain their freedom”, he said in his defence speech (1928), quoting an unsigned statement (undoubtedly written by Hatta himself) in the PI’s official organ, Indonesia Merdeka (1924), because This is an iron law of history. Only the situation of how the independent movement develops (is) determined by the rulers. They would determine whether the freedom would be gained by blood and tears or by peaceful means. The universal claim of his prediction is not based only on an ideological conviction, but also on the understanding of the dynamics of the modern

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world. The colonial system of exploitation, racial discrimination, and suppression of individual rights were to him the curse of modern colonialism. Therefore colonialism should no longer have any place in the modern world. The independence of Indonesia was an historical necessity since prevailing trends of contemporary world politics and economy had practically nullified other possibilities for Indonesia. However, true to his Islamic upbringing (he was, it should be noted, a grandson of a great ulama), he always reminded his compatriots that independence was only possible if the spirit of national unity remained strong and continued to be strengthened and cultivated. Naturally, it also depended on “self confidence and the willingness to sacrifice”. What should the newly conceived multi-ethnic nation and fatherland be named? The Netherlands Indies was a political reality that could not be denied. It was precisely the legitimacy of this hard reality, however, that had to be rejected. This rejection demanded, as Hatta said, a gigantic social and political programme that would finally transform the mentality of the colonized people into that of an independent nation. This programme certainly needed new symbols and a new sense of direction. The change of the name of the student association, the Indonesiche Vereeniging (which was originally called Indische Vereeniging) to Perhimpoenan Indonesia (1924), was a way to acquire such a new sense of direction. The association made “Indonesia” the name of both the country and the nation101 and issued a manifesto that bluntly stated, “Indonesia free, now”. Quoting Ernest Renan (whose classic, Qu’est- ce une nation? deeply influenced the early pioneers of the Indonesian nationalist movement) that a nation was based on a conviction, “un princip spirituel” of a group of people who believed themselves to be one, Hatta not only defined a multi-ethnic and inter-island nationalism, but also a programme for the future. “For us”, he said in one of his articles defending ‘Indonesia’ as being one nation, “Indonesia is a statement of a political goal, because it symbolizes and evokes a fatherland in the future”. Indonesia is then to Hatta, not a static concept, but a continuing process of creation.102 Rationality and a clear vision of the future, not the lure of the past, according to Hatta, should be the foundation of a nationalist movement. On

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the basis of his understanding of the history and society of the country, Hatta stated that only the spirit of kerakyatan (or “peopleness”) could sustain Indonesian nationalism. The Indonesian struggle for independence for him meant nothing less that the incessant effort to form a modern nation-state, based on the sovereignty of the people, on the one hand, and “economic democracy”, on the other. Following this line of thought, he questioned the wisdom of having a united front with the cooperative political parties, which, according to him, adhered to the notion of cultural nationalism. “It is almost impossible,” he stated in referring to the cooperation between the radical nationalist political parties, the non-cooperators (who refused to join the government-sponsored Volksraad and local councils), and the cooperators, “to integrate the ideals of people’s sovereignty to that of cultural nationalism, as long as Indonesian cultures are still very much determined by the kaum di atas (the “upper class”, the aristocrats), not by the spirit of the ordinary people”. Moreover the strategy of working within the system of the colonial government meant nothing less than a tacit recognition of the legitimacy of the colonial state. It would also — perhaps more importantly in his mind — weaken the determination and the feeling of self-confidence. The young Hatta, who had observed Western liberal democratic system at work from first-hand knowledge, did not want to transplant a similar system on Indonesian soil. A keen student of the ethnography of Indonesia he looked instead at the organic village life as a model. It is a democracy that was based on — in his words a quarter of a century later — the “idealized understanding” of the collectivism of the traditional village. Musyawarah or deliberation, institutionalized mass-protest, in the case where injustice has been committed, and gotong royong or mutual help, according to Hatta, are the three basic characteristics of village democracy. Collectivism does not mean the rejection of the place of the individuals, but a way to limit unbound individualism. Every individual is a part of his community, but the existence of a community was only possible if it could function as the integrative factor for individuals. Hatta was well aware of the fact that this idealized picture of village life could not be simply translated into a modern nation-state. He insisted, however, that there were three characteristics that should remain the essential

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parts of the future state, namely, a democratically elected people’s representation, the freedom of expression, and social solidarity. He emphasized that collectivism in the modern state is very much dependent on a good system of decentralization, which, according to him, means “a just distribution of power… from the top to the bottom”. His main concern was not so much a system of the organization of power as it was a question of the locus of power and a workable and just political tradition. His idea of collective democracy does not make a clear boundary between the sphere of the state, as an organization of power, and that of society, as a realm of values that bind the society. Nor does his concept take into consideration the conceptual differences between the nation, as the basis of identity in the face of the other nations, and the citizenship, with certain rights and responsibilities in the realm of the state. For the young Hatta, however, collectivism is not so much a social and political structure as it is an ideological foundation and a pattern of behavior. Within the context of a democratic system, collectivism is the anti-thesis to individualism. With collectivism, he visualizes a social and political arrangement that is based on a common interest and a feeling of brotherhood. In this idealized community, the sense of responsibility can be nurtured and the education of men and women of character can be advanced, and at the same time — perhaps realizing the probable psychological impact of colonialism — “jiwa budak “ (slave mentality) can be eradicated. Democratic institutions can be easily introduced, but democratic tradition needs time to develop. Democratic tradition requires discipline and recognizes the right to be different. Democracy is, for him, also a matter of social education. It is along this line of thought Hatta and his like-minded nationalists established (in 1932) a party called Pendidikan (Education), instead of Partai (Party) or Perserikatan (Association), Nasional Indonesia, better known as the PNI Baru (New PNI). This was their way to show their opposition to the dissolution of Sukarno’s PNI,103 although, in the meantime, the Partai Indonesia (Partindo) had been formed by the former leaders of the PNI. This was also, in particular, their way to demonstrate their basic difference with Sukarno’s strategy, which according to them, put too much emphasis on the personality of the leaders. A party, Hatta and his associates reasoned, should not be dependent on its leader. Therefore the leaders of the New PNI

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did not visualize their party becoming a mass party, but a party of cadres. It was a party in which anybody could be the next leader. The dissolution of the PNI after the arrest of Sukarno really confirmed the belief of its leaders that the future of the party and the country, for that matter, should never depend on the leaders alone. His struggle strategy that put more emphasis on “cadre-formation” was an antithesis to the idea of machtsvorming (the accumulation of power) that had been strongly promoted by Sukarno and other radical parties. However, very few of them questioned the validity of Hatta’s idea of democracy. K.H. Dewantara might offer some ideas on the importance of leadership in democracy. Yet Hatta was, perhaps, the only radical nationalist leader in a pre-war Indonesia, who consistently tried to formulate and reformulate democratic system that might be suited to the newly formed — or perhaps, it should be said, “the newly imagined” — multi-ethnic nation. The sovereignty of the people and collectivism could work properly only if there was what he called “economic democracy” or equity and equal opportunity in the economic pursuit. Hatta’s long stay in Europe had given him a luxury unavailable to many other nationalist leaders who had to undergo divergent kinds of constraints in the colonial state. The long stay in the Netherlands had given him the opportunity to formulate his ideas consistently and clearly on the future of Indonesia. His visits to the Scandinavian countries had convinced Hatta that the only way to achieve “economic democracy” was through cooperative movement. It is precisely this luxury, however, that made him, to some extent, vulnerable ideologically, and accounted for the alleged “out of touch” sphere of his ideas. Hatta’s economic collectivism, with its idea of communal property to be exploited communally “under the leadership of state”, could easily invite controversy, however. It could be seen not only as a way to attack capitalism, as Hatta always insisted, but could also be interpreted as the negation of individual property, as a radical Islamic nationalist political party the Persatoean Muslimin Indonesia (the most influential political party in Minangkabau, Hatta’s own birthplace) accused.104 This was, perhaps, the weakest point of Hatta. Later, after he had been directly involved in the nationalist activities in the colony Hatta and his

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friends had to shift the strategic stand of the New PNI somehow. After all, in the final analysis, Hatta and his New PNI had to deal directly with the hard reality of the colonial environment.105 Until the end of his life, Hatta was to remain the greatest promoter of cooperative movements in Indonesia. An economist by training, Hatta produced a number of technical writings on the subject that was so dear to his heart. Not long after he was acquitted by the court in The Hague (February 1929, “There is justice in The Hague,” people commented on the acquittal), Hatta wrote a long letter to Sukarno. He was deeply worried, he said in the letter, that the government might finally decide to arrest or even exile Sukarno. “The danger of a government decision to exile you is now quite imminent.” Hatta was apparently not the only one who was worried. Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo and others also felt the same. Tjipto had actually advised Sukarno to restrain himself. In his letter, Hatta offered another alternative. Why doesn’t Sukarno come to Europe? A tour to study tradeunion movements and cooperative systems, Hatta suggested, might be used as a pretext. He advised Sukarno that it was really better for him to “disappear” from Indonesia for a while. “It is in the interest of the sound development of our national freedom movement, a movement that is now being threatened, that I give you the above to seriously consider”. Although he did not put it in the letter, Hatta said he was prepared to take care of Sukarno’s travel and living expenses while Sukarno was in Holland.106 Either because he was too proud to accept the offer, or he simply hated to refrain from giving his rousing speeches that had already made him the most prominent national leader of the time, or for whatever other reasons, Sukarno did not give his response to this offer. One may only wonder what would have happened to the relationship of the two leaders or even to the Indonesian nationalist movement had Sukarno accepted this offer. Sukarno (1901–70),107 the son of a school teacher, never had the chance to study abroad. He nonetheless received political education early in his life. As a student of an elite senior high school (HBS), he was a boarder in the house of H.O.S. Tjokroaminoto in Surabaya (East Java). He joined the youth organization, Tri Koro Darmo, which later changed its name to Jong Java and, as he admitted in his writing, became a member of the Sarekat Islam. He never abandoned his interest in politics while studying for his

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engineering degree in Bandung. In 1926 Sukarno published his classic essay,”Nationalism, Islam, and Marxism”. In this essay he not only called for the cooperation of the three major ideological orientations but also exposed his passionate obsession for unity and, not less importantly, his intellectual predisposition. He was not a person who would bother much about basic philosophical differences; he was more interested in finding the similarity of objectives of any ideology. Perhaps more than in any of his other writings, in this relatively short essay, Sukarno shows the kind of political thinker he was and his true self as a nationalist leader. Later, much later, he might be very proud of the fact that he was the person who “dig out Pancasila from the Indonesian earth”, but the strong penchant for the unity of differences was already laid down in this essay. “We must know how to receive, but we must also know how to give. That is the secret of unity. Unity cannot be achieved unless each is also willing to give a little.” To the end, Sukarno never abandoned his belief in the importance of the unity of the three ideological strands in the nationalist movement. National unity and nationalism were the cornerstones of young Sukarno’s political thinking. An avid reader who always tried to familiarize himself with the latest literature on political philosophy and political affairs, Sukarno, not unlike Hatta, refused to simply copy the West. He always wanted to have something he thought to be authentic. That was also his nationalism, which was to him, as Dahm rightly suggests,108 the “common denominator” that could bind all ideological orientations. However, who can really be considered as a nationalist? A “true nationalist”, he once remarked, is one “whose nationalism is not a copy or imitation of Western nationalism, but is based on a feeling of love of man and humanity”.109 Describing independence as a “golden bridge”, Sukarno saw the future of Indonesia, that lies across the bridge, as a time when the marhaen, the symbolic name he gave to the “little people”, has managed to get rid of the rotten impacts of capitalism and imperialism from society. “All large enterprises are to be the property of the state” — he wrote, the people state and not that of the bourgeoisie or the aristocrats — and all products of these enterprises will be for the benefit of the People. The distribution of these products will be supervised by the

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People. No longer will there be one single enterprise which in capitalistic manner fills the pockets of some bourgeois or which fills the coffers of a bourgeois state. Instead, there will be an Indonesian Political Economic Republic, which will be an example of the people’s harmony and cooperation, sama rasa-sama rata of the People. This is the genuine democracy we aim for and which I give the name of socio-democracy. This is the genuine democracy which can arise only from the nationalism of the marhaen. A nationalism already containing a genuine democracy and which rejects any form of capitalism and imperialism, even the indigenous form, and which, pregnant with justice and humanity, rejects all bourgeois and aristocratic inclination. This is democratic nationalism which I call by a new name: socio-nationalism.110 That is the time when the state would be based on “political democracy” and “economic democracy”. With these two kinds of democracy, he said, “the Marhaen would be able to build a genuine populist state of Indonesian [sic], in which political and economic matters belong to the people, with the people, to the people”. This is what he called “socio-democracy”, a system that can only grow up from the fold of “socio-nationalism”, that is a nonaristocratic and non-bourgeois nationalism, but a nasionalisme ke-Rakyatan (popular nationalism).111 Later, in his epoch making speech at the meeting of the committee for the preparation for the independence of Indonesia in June 1945, Sukarno also offered these principles (plus the “belief in the Oneness of God”) as the foundation of the state — in case his proposal for Pancasila was not acceptable. In spite of the elegance of style in the messages Sukarno wanted to convey he frequently reproduced the recurrent themes of PI’s writings and propaganda. “Sukarno’s contribution was to absorb what Hatta and the PI had been saying since 1923”, Ingleson comments, undoubtedly a little too harshly, “synthesize it and by translating into the language more attuned to Indonesian society, spread it wider to [his] audience”.112 His Mencapai Indonesia Merdeka (To achieve the Independence of Indonesia, 1933), which was seen by many observers as an answer to Hatta’s Ke arah Indonesia Merdeka (Towards

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the Independence of Indonesia, 1932), may not be too successful an attempt to escape from PI’s ideological orientations and political concerns. It puts, however, more emphasis on the importance of machtsvorming (the building of power) and massa actie (mass action) as the strategy for independence. Political rhetoric was one of the major strengths of Sukarno’s. He had an unrivaled gift in communicating and disseminating ideas and messages in a style of speech the people could understand. He might not always manage to avoid foreign words or even sentences in his writings and speeches, but he made the ideas come alive and become a part of the people’s consciousness. The genius of Sukarno can also be found in his creative ability to blend all the diverse ideas into a coherent style of discourse — despite its occasional internal discrepancies. More than the scholarly Hatta, who could always find time to write purely academic articles and books, Sukarno’s main concerns were the achievement of national unity — at all cost — and the destruction of capitalism and imperialism. Hatta’s fear that Sukarno might be arrested was well founded. Sukarno was arrested and the colonial court in Bandung found him guilty of sedition (1930). In the process, Sukarno produced another classic in the history of the nationalist movement. His defence speech, Indonesia Menggugat (Indonesia Accuses, in its Dutch translation, Indonesie Klaagt aan, which was published soon after he was released), was fitting of a great patriot. Attacking capitalism and imperialism and exposing the people’s suffering, Sukarno openly admitted that his aim was to liberate his nation from the yoke of colonialism. His party, PNI, he gallantly admitted, was “a revolutionary party”, but the party did not plan to stage a “revolution”. Sukarno would later, during his Guided Democracy period, ignore the conceptual difference between “the character” and “the pattern of action”. Except for extolling the basically exploitative nature of capitalism, Sukarno did not put forward any extensive theory of democracy or even nationalism. However, in this historic speech, he introduced his “historical trilogy” — “golden past”, “the dark present”, and “bright future”. His struggle was to liberate the people from the fetters of the present.113 His rhetorical skills made him the leader of almost incomparable influence in the nationalist movement.114 This strength for rhetoric also gives his writings and speeches an aura of authenticity and

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originality to the extent that people can easily talk about “Sukarno’s ideas and heritage”. Sukarno did not serve until the end of his punishment. The Governor General granted him a clemency. After a year, he was released from prison. As he was a person always obsessed with unity, Sukarno’ s first agenda was to make serious efforts to reconcile the New PNI and the Partindo (Partai Indonesia), established by the former leaders of the now dissolved PNI.115 Failing to achieve this goal, Sukarno, as had already been widely predicted, joined the Partindo, and resumed his unchallenged leadership. The basic strategy of Partindo, being the true follower of Sukarno, only followed one that had been laid down by the already disbanded PNI. Like the old party, the Partindo put more emphasis on the importance of machtsvorming, which aimed at developing a mass party. On the other hand, Sutan Sjahrir (1909– 66), who sided with Hatta in opposing the dissolution of Sukarno’s PNI, with their New PNI (Pendidikan Nasional Indonesia or the National Education of Indonesia),116 pursued a strategy of developing some kind of a “cadre-party”. In the increasingly conservative colonial eyes, however, these two radical parties posed a similar threat. In 1933 the three leaders, along with others, were arrested. In 1934 they were all exiled. Sukarno was sent to Flores and was later transferred to Bengkulu (Sumatra). Hatta and Sjahrir were sent to the cruelest place of exile, Digul (southern most part of West Irian). Only after an uproar in the Dutch newspapers on the treatment received by the two Holland-trained leaders, did the government decide to send them to Banda Neira, on the Banda islands. In 1939 Sukarno was moved to Bengkulu and a month before the arrival of the Japanese army he was transferred to Padang. A few weeks before the army from the country of the Rising Sun landed in Java, Hatta and Sjahrir were transferred to Sukabumi (West Java). From their places of exile, these radical nationalist leaders continued to send their writings to newspapers and journals. They were sometimes also involved in polemics. Sukarno and M. Natsir (1908–92), then a young and upcoming Islamic thinker, conducted a high quality debate on Islam and the foundation of state.117 Hatta had time to write books on the principles of economics and an introduction to ancient Greek philosophy, while continuing

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to contribute to several newspapers. Sjahrir contributed articles on philosophy, literature, and history to intellectual journals, such as Poedjangga Baroe, and wrote reflective letters to his wife in the Netherlands, which were later, published as Indonesische Overpeinzingen.118 By the middle of the 1930s, the radical trends of the Indonesian nationalist movement had been somewhat contained by the increasingly reactionary policy of the government. Perhaps the colonial government had no other choice, for since the beginning of 1930, the global economic depression had reached the Netherlands Indies. The impact of the crisis in the Netherlands Indies might not be as severe as those in the industrialized countries — it was estimated that its GDP fell only 10 per cent — yet many people lost their jobs and a number of Dutch-owned industries also had to close or reduce their operations. The fact that colonial Indonesia was much less monetized than the industrialized countries might have lessened the impact119 of the depression. However, the government apparently felt that it could no long afford to tolerate the increasingly radical political movement. That was the time when the central government appointed a former BPM director, de Jonge, as the Governor General. Soon enough he established a reputation of being the most conservative Governor General after a series of relatively liberal predecessors. His 1936 statement was not only legendary but laid the foundation of a new national myth. “I believe,” he said “that now that we have worked in the Indies for three hundred years, another three hundred years will be needed before the will perhaps be ripe for a form of autonomy.”120 (This statement would later become the foundation of the myth of “350 years under Dutch colonialism”. This is the myth that was aptly cultivated by Sukarno and continues to be entertained by the political leaders post-independent Indonesia121). Politics was to de Jonge, as he also said, not something that was preferable but something that was possible. Along with the retrenchment policy, the politics of rust en orde (“calm and orderly”) were immediately carried out. The central government had indeed made the right choice. After all, in the much quoted sentence of his book, Colijn, the Minister of the Colonies, bluntly stated that the Dutch power in the Netherlands Indies was “as strong as the Mont Blanc in the Alps”. In this increasingly reactionary colonial sphere, the still active kaum

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pergerakan was forced to understand the meaning and the implications of several legal terms. They had to know the meaning and the implication of the legal terms, such as exorbitante rechten (extraordinary rights) of the Governor General, vergader verbod (forbidden meeting); passen stelsel, reis regeling (which forbids certain person to go to another district without written permission from the authorities); persdelicten (restrictive press law) against any written treatises or news that could be construed as belonging to the category of haatzaai artikelen — propagation of hatred. They naturally had to be aware of the ever-present PID (police intelligence).122 In such a situation the politics of cooperation was the only alternative available. The trend towards political radicalization was harshly terminated after the conservative Governor General, de Jonge, began to use his exorbitante rechten (extraordinary rights) liberally by imposing the policy of “rust en orde”. The period from the mid-1930s till the end of the Dutch colonial government in 1942 can be rightly regarded as the consolidation phase of Indonesian nationalism. That was the time when the moderate nationalist political parties had to conceptualize the nature of the colonial relationship clearly and, more importantly, to strengthen the basic foundation of the newly conceived national community. What should be taken as the cultural substance of the nation? Could the nation be strengthened while at the same time the ethnic propensities of the political parties continue to be sustained? The experience of the youth movement might have given them an important lesson to learn. It was in 1926 when several island-based youth organizations, most notably the Jong Java (1915, it was first called Tri Koro Darmo) and the Jong Sumatranen Bond (1917, JSB, also called the Pemoeda Sumatra), held the first Youth Congress, in Batavia (now Jakarta). Looking at the programme of the Congress, one can easily look at it as a kind of an academic conference. The youths tried to find an academic basis for the “unity of Indonesia”, which had by that time been made popular by the Perhimpunan Indonesia in the Netherlands. What should be taken as the basic foundation that could unite the people of Sumatra and Java? In what way could the Malay language be taken as a unifying factor? What should be the role of girls in

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the formation of the new nation? “We are the nation builders,” as an author in Jong Sumatra once proudly wrote. Yet what should be taken as the basis? If anything, the congress only emphasized the need for having another congress. It was nonetheless an important, and indeed, a daring beginning. The second congress took place in October 1928, held in a modest building on a little street, Gang Kenari in Jakarta. In this historic congress, the youth organizations finally agreed that they would willingly disband all-island or ethic-based youth organizations and establish an all-Indonesia organization, to be called Indonesia Muda (Young Indonesians). More importantly, at the closing of the congress, on 28 October, the participants strongly endorsed a statement (composed by M. Yamin of the JSB) read by the chairman of the congress, “We, the sons and daughters of Indonesia have one nation, the Indonesian nation. We, the sons and daughters of Indonesia, have one fatherland, Indonesia. We, the sons and daughters of Indonesia, highly respect one national language, the Indonesian language.” Both the date and the statement were later to become a national myth — as if it is the date when the new nation, called Indonesia, was born. In this congress, the song, Indonesia Raya, composed by W.R. Supratman, was first performed. The song was later recognized as the national anthem. In this congress, for the first time, the Red and White flag was hoisted as the symbol of unity. With this series of action, Yamin stated, “the island based unity or insularism has been erased and [the] struggle organization that was based on the idea of unitarism was born”.123 In 1930 in conjunction with the decisions made at the Congress, all island and ethic-based youth organizations disbanded themselves and joined the newly formed Indonesia Muda, Young Indonesia. The Sumpah Pemuda, the Youth Oath, has since then become one of the major historical myths in the history of Indonesia’s nation formation. The Indonesia Muda however, could never succeed in becoming the only youth organization. Although a participant in the Second Youth Congress, the Jong Islamieten Bond (Young Muslims Association) remained an independent organization. Several nationalist youth organizations of whatever ideological foundations were also later established. The Jong Islamieten Bond was to make its impacts later, after the independence of Indonesia, when a number if its former leaders

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appeared on the national stage as the leaders of the Islamic “modernist”oriented Masyumi political party. Almost in the same manner, several ethnic- and island-based cooperative political parties decided to disband and to form an all Indonesia party. In 1935 the Javanese Boedi Oetomo, the Jakartanese Kaoem Betawi, the Sumatran Sarekat Sumatra,124 and the East Java-based (under the leadership of the highly respected Dr Sutomo) Persatoean Indonesia disbanded themselves and joined the newly formed Partai Indonesian Raja (Parindra, Greater Indonesia Party). The party continued the politics of cooperation of several local-based parties that had preceded its formation. At a time when the colonial government had practically closed the door for the noncooperative parties to function, the Parindra emerged in a relatively short time as the biggest party and the most important nationalist spokesman in dealing with the government. It had to play this role despite the fact that the relatively new and more “radical” nationalist party Gerindo (Gerakan Rakyat Indonesia — Movement of the Indonesian People), led mostly by the former leaders of the youth organizations, also took the cooperative stand. The once very influential Sarekat Islam, now called itself PSII (Partai Sarekat Islam Indonesia) had been fragmented. While the PSII, as a matter of principle, remained a non-cooperative party, one faction, under Haji Agoes Salim, opted for the cooperative stand.125 In 1938 under the leadership of M.H. Thamrin the still active political parties established a loose federation, the GAPI (Gabungan Politik Indonesia — Political Federation of Indonesia), to replace the fading away of the PPKI (Perserikatan Partai-partai Politik Indonesia — Association of Indonesian Political Parties), which was very active in the early 1930s, when Sukarno was still able to steer its course. The mid-1930s may well be characterized as the erosion of the radical and non-cooperative political parties, but the relatively rapid spread of the radical nationalist movement in the early 1920s had practically made the idea of cultural nationalism of Soetatmo irrelevant. Its Javanese aristocratic bias had made the idea even more unattractive to the nascent “greater Indonesia” nationalism. The implicit question asked by this kind of cultural nationalism remained to be answered, however. The PI in the Netherlands might have successfully isolated the refined apolitical cultural nationalism

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of Notosoeroto (1888–1951),126 the Javanese royal aristocrat who composed beautiful poems in both Javanese and Dutch, as being totally outside the concern of the emerging nation, but a similar attitude could not be simply adopted in Indonesia. The newly conceived community should be based on some kind of system of meaning. What kind of national community should be created and developed? What should be the cultural substance of this newly conceived community? In 1922 Soewardi Soerjaningrat127 founded the Taman Siswa, in the town of his birth-place, Yogyakarta. Within a few years this school had developed into a national school network. Although applying a Western system of instruction, the school was based on Eastern value and philosophy of life. “Obeisance to Western civilization,” he once wrote, “has locked this land in darkness.” Therefore he was determined to introduce an educational system that promised to create “free individuals” with “independent spirit”, who would able to bring order and tranquility to society. He found the model for a world of order and tranquility in the idealized form of Javanese tradition.128 Suwardi, who in 1928 changed his name to Ki Hadjar Dewantara, being the founder of his schools, had every right to apply his philosophy of education in his schools, just like the Muhammadiyah schools with their Islamic “modernist” orientation. But was it possible to lay a common cultural foundation for the new nation? In 1935 the National Congress of Education was held. Under the influence of Ki Hadjar Dewantara, Dr Soetomo, and some former leaders of the B.O., the congress overwhelmingly rejected Western ideas of onderwijs (intellectual education) and enthusiastically endorsed Eastern opvoeding (character/moral building). The congress insisted that Indonesia, the new nation, should remain within the cultural confines of its Eastern world with the system of values that were based on collectivism, spiritualism, and antimaterialism. Soon after the recommendation of the congress was made public, S. Takdir Alisjahbana (1908–94), a novelist, poet, and philosopher as well as a “language engineer”, gave his strong reaction. He lambasted the cultural outlook of the congress. Basing his argument on the recognition that the Indonesian nation had become an empirical fact, not simply a desired construction, Takdir saw the outlook of the congress, such as made explicit in the recommendation, as being outdated. The congress, in his

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mind, had failed to see the inherent weaknesses of the various cultural traditions of the multi-ethnic Indonesia. It was these weaknesses that had made “our nation” unable to compete in the modern world. Why should the new nation be anti “individualism, rationalism, and materialism”, while, as a matter of fact, the new nation did not have enough of these qualities? The call for the revival of the old and refine tradition, according to him, was tantamount to guiding the nation back into its fragmented history of the past. The “pre-Indonesia period”, he said in a rather hard-hitting style “has died a thousand deaths” (mati semati-matinya).129 Takdir Alisjahbana was in a fighting mood when he attacked the rather conservative cultural outlook of the education congress. It is no wonder that this attack started a series of high quality cultural polemics — the first of its kind in Indonesian history. Takdir was almost alone in facing the counter attacks from many quarters, including from his own friends, but he remained adamant in his stand. Although he realized very well that historical continuity could not be simply broken by strong determination, he nevertheless insisted that, as a matter of principle, a total break with the past — “the pre-Indonesia period” — was a conceptual imperative. Takdir was a man of the present who saw clearly that the imposition of colonial domination was not only the result of aggression of the greedy West, but also the consequence of the weakness of the cultural tradition to face the new challenge. Without any hesitation he looked at the West — the dynamic West — as the model for the new emerging Indonesia. He may sound a little bit naïve in his total rejection of the past heritage and in his glorification of the West, but to Takdir, who began his career as a cultural ideologue when the politics of rust en orde was at its most repressive period, the newly constructed nation needed nothing less than a cultural revolution. On this point he was not alone. In his pensive mood, Sjahrir from his exile in Banda, also reflected on the relationship between East and West. “As a matter of principle”, he said, we cannot accept the separation between the cultural manifestation of the East and the West, not for our lives, because our intellectual needs are dependent on the West; not only scientifically, but also culturally. Culturally speaking, we are closer to the West than to

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Borobudur or Mahabhrata or the primitive Islamic culture of Java and Sumatra. What should the basis of our culture be — the West or the feudalistic remnants in our society?130 The “we” of Sjahrir certainly only referred to the still very limited number of higher Western-educated Indonesians. Sjahrir himself also admitted that he had been rightly accused of being “too Western-oriented”. K.H. Dewantara might not be far from the truth in his response to Takdir’s criticism that unlike Takdir who, according to him, had already visualized Indonesia in the future, he, being a teacher, had to start from existing social and cultural realities.131 Here lies the significance of the debate — should existing social and cultural reality be cultivated or should a new cultural orientation and social formation be introduced? The debate was to continue and in many ways it is still continuing. Economic depression aside, the 1930s was perhaps a new kind of “tempo doeloe” (the good old days) — now that the old “tempo doeloe”, when the European had unquestioned privilege and superiority, had long gone by132 — to the former Dutch sojourners in the Indies, and the imagined zaman normal (normal period) for the ordinary people. It was the period of “calm and orderly”, when any trace of radicalism was suppressed by the liberal use of the extraordinary powers of the Governor General. Everything seemed to have run very smoothly. “We were the prisoners of mestizo cultuur,” Rosihan Anwar, the renowned journalist recalling his student days in the 1930s, says in his memoir, “we lived in our small world. In the meantime in the society at large, the Dutch politics of suppression of Indonesian nationalism continued.”133 This was the time when Haji Agoes Salim tried to introduce the hijrah politics to his party, the Sarekat Islam, which had by then called itself Partai Sarekat Islam Indonesia (PSII). As he explained it, the times had demanded the radical pergerakan abandon the policy. Hijrah was a “withdrawal”, not a retreat, from active participation in politics within the colonial setting. It was a policy to find a way to “return”. Yet now the time had come to “return”. The rust en orde (“calm and orderly”) politics of the colonial government had practically closed the door for political parties to keep the people aware of the political environment they were in. He formed the Barisan Penyedar (the

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group that makes people aware of). He and his group were expelled from the party and the group became a separate party. It was not by chance that this period was also the time when the Malay language, which had been formally accepted as the national language, experienced its rapid development. In spite of the introduction of talking movies, the 1930s can still be regarded as the flourished time when the komedi stambul, roving theatre groups, as well as the beginning of “Indonesian” movie production. Using bazaar Malay as the language of communication, these two commercial performing arts not only exposed the urban population to similar lines of stories, but also introduced new kinds of symbolic communications.134 In the process they also helped to create some kind of “cosmopolitan” culture that could be shared by people from the major urban centers in Java and Sumatra and, to a lesser extent, in the other islands. In the meantime, the use of bazaar Malay began to decline in printed materials and the “engineered” Malay gradually received wider acceptance. The mushrooming of political parties’ newspapers that had at one time almost dominated the market left their marks not only in the people’s consciousness, but also in the greatly improved style of the language. The growing numbers of Islamic journals also contributed to the process of the gradual transformation of “high Malay” into a new style of Indonesian language. The mushrooming of the publication of “cheap novels”, the so-called “penny romance”, which were usually frowned upon by the high-brow intellectuals, had not only enlarged the community of the reading public with their highly entertaining stories and make-believe romances, but had also in their discreet ways kept the idea of nationalism alive. A number of the romances tell the love stories between young nationalist idealists. One of the most famous novels of this genre was the five-volume (successively written by two authors) series on Pacar Merah Indonesia (Indonesian Scarlet Pimpernel), which fictionalized the political adventures of Tan Malaka.135 Furthermore, whatever colonial designs the government publishing house, the Balai Poestaka,136 might have, its well-chosen publications did not only make itself the driving force behind emerging modern Indonesian literature, but also gave examples of what “schooled” language should be. Since many of the novels published by this publishing house touched upon the question of romantic love among the trans-ethnic communities, one certainly can no longer talk simply about

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the penetration of capitalistic individualism into the traditional society. Perhaps more importantly, the novels also reflected the nascent idea of the need to bring down the ethnic walls in the emerging nation. It was against the background of this planned language modernization process and the search for a new cultural orientation of the new nation that Takdir Alisjahbana and his colleagues published a literary magazine, Poedjangga Baroe.137 It was a magazine as well as an organ of cultural struggle for new Indonesia. The magazine wanted to acquire a modern national language, which could be used not only as a vehicle of communication across ethnic and class boundaries, but also to express the deepest poetic feelings and the highest philosophical reflections. As such, the magazine not only published short stories, poems, essays on cultural and social problems, but also ideas on language style and problems of semantics. The Poedjangga Baroe, however, remained to the end, as can be expected, a “little magazine” that could attract the attention of a very small concerned and educated reading public. Its influence can still be felt long after it ceased publication. In the meantime, far away from the centre of political activities, the exiled leaders continued to follow current world news and occasionally gave their reactions to them. By the end of the 1930s, the Second World War was already threatening the tranquility of the zaman normal (normal time) in the Indies. Hitler’s Third Reich attacked Poland, occupied the Netherlands, Belgium and France and threatened the British Isles, and after the bombing of Pearl Harbour Japan emerged as the real threat to the European colonies in the East. The Pacific War had begun. The Western powers were on the defensive. How would they, the nationalist leaders, who were suffering in their respective exiles, react to these turns of events? How did they see the war that had begun to ravage Europe? They wrote several articles on this subject. In one of his articles, Hatta states that “this is an ideological war, between the democratic West and fascism-nazism” and in this war, the Indonesian people could not afford to remain the idle observers. “Our place is on the side of democracy.” And if the Indonesian people and their movement want to decide their position in this Pacific War, there is no other guide to be used but the ideal aspiration of Indonesia. The objective of the Indonesian movement is to

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secure the right to determine their own destiny. That right could only be achieved in a world that is organized on the basis of democratic principles.138 Although Sukarno refrained from commenting on the Japanese intrusion into the Pacific area, he left nothing to the imagination about his pro-Allied stance. After he described the threat of Hitler and the calamity of war that had begun to ravage Europe, Sukarno closed one of his newspaper articles by paying tribute to the Allies. “I close this article by bowing my head, as a token of my reverence to those who have sacrificed their lives in their fights against Hitler.” Not unlike Hatta and Sjahrir, Sukarno also made his preference open.139 Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo, the doyen of political radicalism, who had spent almost fifteen years in Banda Neira as an political exile, even planned to hold a public demonstration to show his loyalty to the “democratic” Netherlands in his new place of exile. The Pacific War exposed several ironies in the colonial relationship. The radical nationalists, the “enemies”, became the ideological “allies” of the colonial power. Yet it was also the time when the “political cooperators”, the moderate nationalists, were reviewing their political stance. The change of heart began after several efforts of the cooperators in the Volksraad were turned down. A proposal that had been approved by the Volksraad, to grant Indonesia a dominion status (the Sutardjo Petition of 1938) was not only rejected but also ridiculed by the central government in The Hague. However commendable this petition might be, as the Royal Decree of 16 November 1938, stated, independence could only be achieved after a gradual process of maturity. It should also be based on “economic strength and intellectual development of the broad strata of the population”.140 Yet how many decades would be needed to reach this stage of maturity? The rejection was a double blow to the nationalists — firstly, the colonial master ridiculed the petition and secondly, it had also created dissension among the nationalists. Some leaders totally rejected the idea of getting a dominion status. “We wanted to have an independent state, not a state with dominion status,” one leader said emphatically. The government also turned down a proposal to allow the people to hoist the national flag on certain days. It rebuffed the move to change the official name of the country to “Indonesia”. The campaign for “Indonesia

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Berparlemen” (Indonesia has its own parliament), launched by the newly formed federation of Indonesian political parties, the GAPI (Gabungan Politik Indonesia, Indonesian Political Federation) in 1938, was simply ignored, despite the fact that the campaign received wide popular support. The “one hand clapping” situation141 — when the moderate nationalists tried in vain to work within the system of the colonial government — only resulted in the colonial rejection. It was, however, not an irony that the successive colonial rejections produced something that even Sukarno failed to accomplish — the unity of the Indonesian political parties. There was a time in 1932, when Hatta ridiculed the idea of having a persatuan (unity) between the non-cooperative and the cooperative political parties. Unity, according to him, could only be cultivated among those who had similar basic principles. The Dutch policy of rejection of any political reform had “successfully” minimized the differences among the political parties. Faced with successive failures to gain concessions from the colonial government, many leaders of the used-to-called cooperative political parties began to ask some fundemental questions. “What has the West given us, except its greedy individualism, deceitful capitalism, and cool rationalism? It was in the East [that] we might be able to find genuine collectivism, honesty, sentimentality, and other noble values.” By the time of the Japanese arrival there were already several important figures in the nationalist movement, who were subjected to police surveillance. The seriously ill M. Husni Thamrin died five days after he was put under police surveillance (January 1941). A number of them were ready to welcome the soldiers of the Rising Sun — false hopes that soon turned sour.142

Islam, Local Collective Memories, and National Unity Mochtar Lutfi (1901–50) was a great orator. Many contemporary observers like to compare him with Sukarno, with one important exception. If Sukarno could never stop himself from uttering Dutch, English or even French and German expressions, Loetfi, the former student of Al Azhar, Cairo, was a master in quoting Qur’anic verses and Hadith. Whatever the case, this comparison was apt because the two leaders also found many things in common, ideologically, and became good friends the moment

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they met. In early 1933 — that is not long before they were both arrested and exiled — Sukarno’s Partindo and Loetfi’s Persatoean Muslimin Indonesia (better known as Permi) agreed to collaborate in advancing the independence movement. No Partindo branch should be established in any region where the Permi had already had its branch and Permi would not be formed in the region or town if Partindo already had its branch there. With the slogan “Indonesia Merdeka, Islam Mulia” (Indonesian independence, Islamic glory), the Permi was the first party to base itself on “Islam dan kebangsaan” (Islam and nationalism).143 Established by the graduates of the Islamic “modernist” school, the Sumatra Thawalib of Padang Panjang and some former students of al Azhar (Cairo), who had observed (some had even participated in144) the Egyptian nationalist movement, the Permi, as its founders stated, was an answer to the continuing debate between Islam and nationalism. Not only that, with the formation of this party, the former students of the kaum muda (Islamic reformist) ulama had also definitively abandoned the idea of international “pan Islamic” that had for a while been entertained by their teachers.145 Mochtar Lutfi was the most articulate spokesman of the party. As a radical political party, the Permi can be seen as an answer not only to the ideological controversies between Islam and nationalism (kebangsaan), but also to the dilemma faced by the kaum muda (Islamic reformists) movement in Minangkabau. The opening of “the gate of ijtihad”, such as that propagated by the first generation of the kaum muda, had not only rekindled religious enthusiasm and introduced new religious consciousness, but had also aroused political radicalism among its young adherents. The opening of the “gate of ijtihad” might in effect undermine the authority of the teachers, whose judgment was traditionally taken as binding. What could the non-political pioneers of the Islamic kaum muda do if some of their own students had been persuaded by the politics of opposition to the colonial government? What was the basic different between the Islamic notions of justice and the one that had been preached by the communists, the students might ask. It was after several young teachers and students of the oldest and then the biggest kaum muda school, the Sumatra Thawalib, joined the communist movement that the PKI spread out rather rapidly in the region. A major split in the rank

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among the young leaders of the kaum muda could not be avoided. In the meantime a track written by a great Egyptian ulama, which attacked the principles of historical materialism, had also reached the community of the school. In order to spread its influence, the Islamic oriented communist movement also published journals and established branches throughout the region. In their understanding, communism was never conceived as an ideology, much less a system of belief. As the Islamic communist leaders perceived it, communism was just an ilmu, a branch of knowledge that might help one to understand their present social and political predicament and a way to solve the problems. When the radicalization of the PKI had finally reached the climax, the ill-timed rebellion broke out in Silungkang, a village known for its textile home industry, in January 1927. The rebellion was crushed, but the Sumatra Thawalib as an organization and as a school had to seriously redefine its orientation. Many of its young leaders joined the Muhammadiyah, which had been introduced in the region since 1925. They not only politicized the non-political reformist organization, but also radicalized it as well. Pressed by the colonial government, the Muhammadiyah had to expel the young and energetic local leaders at its biggest national conference in 1930, held in Bukittinggi. That was the time when the organization of the Sumatra Thawalib had to be revived. Within a few months, the organization was transformed into the Permi, with a much clearer political programme and ideological orientation.146 Not unlike Sukarno, who liked to use traditional imageries and highly glorified past events to illustrate and even emphasize his political messages,147 Mochtar Lutfi excelled himself in using tarikh (Islamic moral history) and Minangkabau tambo (traditional historiography). One of his political metaphors that has remained in the public memory was his statement that “when Indonesia has achieved its independent, the ruler of the country would be Dang Tuanku” — the legendary Rajo Alam (King of the World) of Minangkabau. People took this statement in good humor, but at the same time the idea of having a culturally familiar figure as the ruler caught their imagination. The future they were now striving for was not a strange future, but a legitimate one. Moreover by referring to the traditional Minangkabau ideal of a just king, Loetfi not only gave cultural sanction to

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the formation of the supra-ethnic national community, but he also made the concept of “the independence of Indonesia” make sense culturally. After all, Dang Tuanku, the Rajo Alam, according to the Minangkabau concept of royalty, stood above the other two kings, namely the King of Adat (Rajo Adaik) and the King of Religion (Rajo Ibadaik). In other words the Rajo Alam symbolizes the harmonious blend between religion, Islam, and traditional custom or adat.148 Sukarno was telling the truth when he said in his famous defence speech, Indonesia Accuses, that he sought to implant in the people’s hearts the notion of the past glory, the dark present, and the promising and bright future. In admitting this strategy, Sukarno was actually also stating that he had been engaging himself in the myth-making process. The future might be something one could dream of and the present was something one could enjoy or had to suffer, but the past might be made alive by recalling collective memories, either symbolically recorded in traditional historiographies or perhaps, kept in oral traditions. One may say that memory that had been transformed into tradition does not reflect empirical reality but only a mirage of reality, but then isn’t it this kind of reality that really addresses itself to consciousness? The use of traditional collective memories in spreading the modern idea of nationalism may not only give the notion of the illegitimacy of the present situation, but also the sense of interrupted historical continuity. There was a time when the fact of being subjected to a colonial power had to be culturally accounted for — history might have to be revised and a new one written, or a new way of interpreting the present had to be formulated.149 That was the time when the wounded pride of being subjected to the outside power had to be healed and the economic burden of the exploited people had to be culturally neutralized. When colonialism began to be conceptualized for what it was, foreign rule could always be seen as an illegitimate interruption to the sense of historical continuity. The mirror of the past — the mythologized past — was used not only as an inspiration to “recover” the lost glory and to create a promising future, but also, and more importantly, to legitimize the struggle for independence. Within the context of a multi-ethnic nation, it is not too difficult to understand that the notion of Indonesia tended to be perceived by the people from their own respective concepts of the past. Indonesia was one,

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but it could be perceived differently. It was more likely to be seen as the ideal extension of one’s own traditional world. From the beginning, therefore, one can assume that the emerging notion of “Indonesia” promised to be a cultural bazaar, where every cultural assumption or ideological orientation might have to establish a workable system of symbolic communication. They might even have to find themselves in competition with each other. Let the dynamics of exchanges in the bazaar sphere decide which cultural or ideological commodity would get the most “buyers”. Any society needs the memories of the past to sustain itself. The structure of the present is itself an invitation to a host of innumerable questions about the past. Why this or that should have been like this or that, and not like this or that, etc. Collective memories of the past may provide the answers to such questions. If memories fail to give the answers, then myths that may already have been there could somehow provide them. Collective memories are the reservoir of recollections on inter-ethnic or inter-polity relations in the past. The babad, sejarah, tambo, lontara, hikayat, and whichever other term the divergent ethnic communities use for describing their cultural perceptions of the past, being what traditional historiography is, never forget to mention their knowledge of, and their relationship with, other communities and polities. This relationship is sometimes seen as one of the cultural and structural foundations of the polity or community. A local dynasty in a certain region might remember its origins from some other part of the Indonesian world. These and those cultural traits may still be remembered as worthy and sacred influences from this or that community, across the sea. The Nagarakertagama, the 14th century text on the empire of Majapahit, may well be only a cultural claim of the empire, and, therefore, should not be taken as defining its political territories.150 The fact that the text describes so many localities in the Nusantara world, from the northern tip of Sumatra to the easternmost part of Indonesia, proves not only the ancient existence of the localities mentioned, but also the state of existing knowledge of the regions. If the Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai also tells the story of the political relationship between Pasai, the oldest Islamic kingdom in Northern Sumatra, with the mighty Hindu empire in East Java, then one can surmise that there must be something going on between them. This Malay text talks about the defeat of the Islamic kingdom by the onslaught

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of the Majapahit, and the marriage between the king of Majapahit and the princess of Pasai.151 In Javanese collective memory on the process of Islamization, the role of Pasai is never forgotten. The Minangkabau might be proud of the myth of the origin of the name Minangkabau. The name came into being after the water buffalo (kabau) of the Minangkabau defeated that of the king of Majapahit. However they also acknowledge as an historical fact that their first king was Adityawarman, a 14th century Majapahit prince. The people of Manggarai on the island of Flores still remember that their first king was a Minangkabau, who came, via Gowa (Makassar), in the 17th century.152 The people of Banjar (South Kalimantan) can never forget the fact that the Sultanate of Banjarmasin was finally established only after the Sultanate of Demak (North coast of Java) came to help Prince Samudra, who had been expelled from the kingdom of Daha by his uncle, the usurper. After all, it has also been described in the famous Hikayat Banjar153 that Demak came to help after the exiled prince promised to convert to Islam. The spread of Islam,154 which most likely followed the trading searoute, is undoubtedly instrumental in creating a highly intricate complex of networks of regional collective memories. The Nine Saints (Wali Sanga) as the propagators of Islam in Javanese cultural tradition can never be separated from Pasai (North Sumatra) since one of them is supposed to have come to Java through this oldest known Islamic kingdom in Southeast Asia (late 13th century). Pasai, and later its successor, Aceh Darussalam (and of course, Malaka), occupy special positions in the local traditions on the spread of Islam in many regions in the Malay world (including the Malay Peninsula and Southern Philippines).155 The tradition of Ambon (Tanah Hitu) and that of Ternate remember Sunan Giri (one of the Nine Saints of Java) as being the teacher of their leaders, who later spread the new religion. The people of Gorontalo in the Northern part of Sulawesi could never forget the fact that it was during the time when their country was under the domination of the Sultanate of Ternate that the process of Islamization began. The competition between Ternate and the kingdom of Gowa to dominate the region only hastened the process of Islamization.156 The collective memory of the people of Bima (Sumbawa) recalls when traders and fighters from Makassar came

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to subjugate and Islamize them. In the Makassarese historical tradition, such as is written in their lontarak, the “official” beginning of the Islamization of their double kingdoms, Gowa-Tallo, took place in 1604. That was the time when the king of Tallo (who was the prime minister of Gowa) and the king of Gowa converted to the religion that recognized the Absolute Oneness of God. The three ulama from Minangkabau finally managed to convince them of the inherent greatness of the religion.157 Malaka and the routes from the East coast may be stated by the Minangkabau people as the source of their early process of Islamization. Yet in their collective memory, the role of Aceh occupies a central position. The genesis of the tradition of religious school was laid down in the early 17th century by Syekh Burhanuddin, after his return from Aceh, where he studied under the great ulama, Syekh Abdur Rauf al-Singkili. In spreading its influence, Islam might, as in the case of Pasai and others, establish a supra-village kingdom, or, as was the case with the double kingdom Gowa-Tallo and others, convert the centre of power, or, finally manage to conquer the centre of power. This last was the case when the alliance of the small Islamic principalities on the north coast of Java finally conquered the declining Majapahit Empire. In Javanese historical consciousness the fall of Majapahit is treated as a major catastrophic event to the extent that its successors had to somehow find its basis of legitimacy in the continuity of the great empire. During the process of its political expansion, Islam gradually laid down different kinds of political traditions. Pasai (and its successor, Aceh Darussalam) or even Gowa-Tallo might have relative freedom to Islamize their respective traditional worlds. The relatively rapid spread of Islam began after the centre of power had been converted. The newly converted centre of power had only to compete with its own past. However, Demak, Pajang, and Mataram, the three successive centres of Islamic power in Java, did not have this relative cultural freedom. From the beginning, the Islamic centres of power had to struggle to maintain a certain kind of cultural continuity for the sake of gaining legitimacy.158 By the time the colonial power began to advance to these Islamic polities — a process that took about three hundred years — a certain kind of political tradition had

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been established. Aceh could define itself entirely in Islamic terms — as if the existence of Aceh could have any meaning only in its attachment to the religion — Java could only conceptualize its world as one that was maintained by the unending dialogue between the kraton, as the centre of power, and the pesantren, the religious school, as the centre of religion.159 These political traditions were to continue to exert their influences in the post-independence period. The collective memories on the inter-ethnic and inter-polities might have disappeared had the early acquaintance with the Islamic religion not been followed up with the activities of the wandering ulama, religious teachers, who travelled from one place to another to propagate “a slice of ayat” (Qur’anic sentence). When Raja Haji became the Raja Muda (Viceroy) the Johor Riau empire, according to Tufhat an- Nafis, the empire was at the peak of its power. It was the time when many junks from China and “many khatibs from Java” came to Riau to teach religion.160 The wandering ulama not only maintained the relationship between the “sender of Islam” and “the recipients” and tried to safeguard certain notions of religious orthodoxy, they also took with them books on Islam. The Sumatran original text of Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai was discovered in Semarang, North Java. It was said that a favorite book of Hamengkubuwono I, the first Sultan of Yogyakarta after the division of the Mataram kingdom (1755) was the Javanese translation of the Malay Tajus-salatin, written in Aceh Darussalam (in early 17th century). The text is very likely the first political theory written in Malay. Stories and histories are used only as illustrations of the ideas and teachings put forward. Pangeran Diponegoro, the royal aristocrat and the great warrior against the Dutch in the Java War (1825–30) also used this book as his noble guidance.161 The 19th century Syekh Ismail al-Banjari wrote a book, a much simpler one, he said, because, Sirat-al Mustaqim, the fiqh book written by the 17th century Syekh Nuruddin Arraniri of Aceh was too difficult for the novice to understand. The 20th-century wandering ulama sometimes brought with them new ideas and understanding of the true teachings of Islam. Only this time they already had organizations, such as Muhammadiyah, at their disposal. The famous ulama and religious thinker, Hamka (1908–85), who originally came from Minangkabau, spent

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several years in Makassar as a teacher in the Muhammadiyah school. In the late 1930s, after completing his tenure in Makassar, he published a novel depicting the romantic love between a Buginese, whose father was a Minangkabau (hence he was not Minangkabau, according to the matrilineal kinship system), with a Minangkabau girl, in a journal he edited, which was published in Medan (North Sumatra).162 By that time, print-culture had become very much a part of the “modernist” Islamic means of communication. There were already several Islamic journals and magazines published in several major cities, such as Medan and Solo.163 Hamka was one of the writers who creatively used the place of Islam in the collective memories to advance the notion of belonging to one “national” community. The pilgrimage to Mekka had been suspected by the government as a source of political subversion since the beginning of the formation of the colonial state of the Netherlands Indies. Until well into the beginning of the 20th century, the colonial government rarely, if ever, allowed a haj, one who has performed the pilgrimage, to be elected or appointed as an indigenous village or district head. In his book on Mekka in the 19th century, C. Snouck Hurgronje, who more than anybody else was responsible for laying the foundation of the so-called Islamic policy,164 noticed to his dismay that the Jawah community, the pilgrim community from the Malay World, showed deep sympathy towards the Acehenese who were fighting against the Dutch aggression. Snouck also describes the attachment of the community to the religious teachers who came from the region.165 Although Snouck would later advise the government that the majority of the returnees did not change much, the suspicion continued. Mekka and the pilgrimage did, after all, blur the ethnic boundaries of the believers. In the biography of his father, Syekh Dr A. Karim Amrullah (1879–1945), one of the pioneers of the Islamic kaum muda (“modernist”) in Minangkabau, Hamka tells how his father was offered the position of the mufti, religious chief justice, of the Sultanate of Ternate, when he was about to return to Minangkabau after completing his studies in Mekka.166 By the beginning of the First World War, the colonial government had already seen another ghost in the form of panIslamism. The Sarekat Islam’s venture into this new movement only lasted until the end of the first Khalifat Congress in Mekka (1924). In the early

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1930s, Indonesian mukims (settlers), in Mekka also engaged themselves in the politics of national independence by establishing a political party and nationalist religious school.167 Common experience of colonial rule and exploitation might have given the feeling of shared destiny among the colonized people. The urban environment, with its plural society and the use of racial category in the colonial relationship, might have created the need for having a new sense of community. Modern schools, voluntary associations, and print-capitalism, or even commercial arts might have provided the channels through which new ideas could be propagated. However, memories of the distant past and the traditional recollections of the spread of Islam could provide a believable aura for the notion that the divergent ethnic communities may ultimately be destined to become one national community. Be that as it may, Islam and the memories of the distant past soon become inseparable parts in the dynamics of the nationalist ideological discourse. Cultural nationalism, discussed above, might have eventually given way to political nationalism, which emphasized the need to solve colonial problems and the urgency to form a new and modern community that cut across ethnic boundaries, but the continuing local perceptions on the meaning of nationalism can never be easily discounted. Nor can local concerns in the process of building a nation-state be rejected as an anachronism. Occasionally these concerns would surface. They would question, sometimes seriously, the political and cultural legitimacy of the centre in imposing its hegemonic interpretation of the nature of the nation-state. It was only after the communist elements, which had for some years formed some kind of a “bloc within”, were forced to abandon the Sarekat Islam,168 that the process of the ideologization of Islam began. How should Islam, being the universal and eternal religion that recognize no state or national boundaries and the teachings of which are valid through the ages, be strategically interpreted into a programme of struggle in a certain time and space? Islam is indeed a din, and as such, in itself a “complete civilization” (as, the great British Orientalist, Gibb169 puts it), but can it deal with specific political cases? The concept of “justice to all” has from the beginning been the normative and ideological foundation of the Islamic

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state (daulah). These notions are some of the enduring elements in Islamic political discourse. In different degrees of sophistication, these enduring elements can easily be found in any Islamic political discourse. In their discourses Islamic ideologues in Indonesia usually make references to two other equally enduring elements. Firstly, the sociological claim of Islam as being the religion of the majority. The implication of this sociological claim is clear enough. It was the attachment to this religion that could guarantee the continuing unity of this multi-ethnic nation. The networks of collective memories formed by the spread of Islam only added to this claim. It is therefore understandable if the Islamic groups have from the beginning opposed the cultural nationalist tendency to glorify the pre-Islamic period. “They are only preaching Majapahit170 nationalism, not Indonesian nationalism”, the Islamic leaders used to say. Secondly, the historical claim of the Muslims as being the vanguards of the opposition to colonial rule. Indeed it is not too difficult to recite the names of the heroes from the 17th to the early 20th centuries who fought against the Dutch. After the kings failed, members of the royal aristocracy would come forward. Diponegoro, who fought under the banner of Islam (1825–30), was the last member of the royalty to lead the opposition against the penetration of Dutch power in Java. Pangeran Antasari (who died in 1862) was the last royal family member of the Sultanate of Banjarmasin to take arms against the Dutch in South Kalimantan.171 After plakat pendek (korte verklaring), that is the recognition of Dutch sovereignty, was signed and the politics of exploitation had to be endured, scattered rebellions, led by the rural ulama, broke out here and there.172 The second half of the 19th century is not only the history of colonial exploitation, with its much degraded cultivation system, it can also be seen as the period of scattered rural rebellions in Java.173 When these rebellions were used as a way to support the legitimacy of the nationalist movement, a fundamental question could not be avoided. Since the leaders of the rebellions and oppositions tended to see their struggles in a religious perspective, should the existence of the national community be legitimated in religious terms? Should the symbol of the fatherland be sacralized? These kinds of questions were subjects of controversies in the 1920s and early 1930s among the pergerakan leaders. If

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the meaning of the “nation” was the separation from the rest of the larger community of the ummah, then the nation could easily be identified as asyabiyah or “tribalism”.174 This is definitely haram or forbidden, according to religious law. What should be the basis of the Indonesian nation? Also, if the glorification of the fatherland meant the deification of it, then the concept of national community had committed an unpardonable sin in the face of God. Only the one and only God should be treated as the Deity.175 No final solution could be found from the debates. They were only solved by the course of events — a new nation was here to stay. A more long-lasting debate deals with the question of the basic foundation of the state. This is the debate that was later used by President Sukarno to dissolve the elected Constituent Assembly in 1959.

A National Community In the beginning, there were several colonial towns, where people lived in a racially segregated environment.176 In a way, these colonial towns were not unlike the coastal towns during the time when the maritime kingdoms in the Indonesian archipelago flourished. That was the time, as the reports of so many travellers state, when many languages were spoken in the maritime trading centres.177 The coastal trading centres attracted people to go and settle down there until the proper wind came. Similar things can also be said about the colonial towns. Since the time the VOC (Dutch East India Company) managed to maintain the security and the safety of the settlers, colonial towns became magnets to the people of the surrounding areas. In the process, some of the colonial towns emerged as a place where the communities of strangers had to tolerate each other’s presence. In the coastal towns in the old days, it was the king and his royal coterie and, perhaps, also the rich foreign merchants who had managed to seal commercial and political arrangements with the palace, who had privileged positions. In the colonial towns, the indigenous ruling class had been set aside and the ordinary people occupied the lowest ladder in the hierarchy. Then a question was raised among the so-called indigenous people, who might have also come from the surrounding villages or even distant islands. How come the foreigners, who came from a distant country, were more powerful and richer? When answers to these questions which made sense

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had been found, a desire to catch up with the richer and more powerful foreigners gradually emerged. However, the subordinating nature of the colonial relationship also came to mind. What did we do wrong that the foreigners came to rule our country? Are we destined to be the subjugated people? Or could it perhaps be only a matter of historical bad luck? Then history was studied and the almost forgotten collective memories were recounted. The experiences of other countries were also studied. Finally a new idea came to mind — a new nation, an imaginatively constructed one, was needed. Who would then be surprised to learn that Ernest Renan’s ideas on the nation captured the imagination of the early leaders of the nationalist movement? Une nation est une âme, un princip spirituel… L’une est la possession en commun d’un riche legs de souvenirs; l’autre est le consentement actuel, le désir de vivre ensemble, la volonté de continuer à faire valoir l’héritage qu’on a reçu indivis.178 A nation is a matter of how one would define one’s community subjectively. It might be something imagined, as Anderson suggested, but it was also a desire to belong to. From the beginning, the commercialized newspapers and other kinds of publications, played a central role. It was through these new means of communication that the newly emerging urbanized and literate population was able to share knowledge of the world, information on important events or dreams about the future and so on, without having to see each other. Print-capitalism “made it possible for rapidly growing numbers of people to think about themselves, and to relate themselves to others, in profoundly new ways”.179 The formation of voluntary associations of different types — political, religious, or otherwise — by the small urbanized population, can to some extent, be seen as a way to channel whatever dreams and ideals that might arise from the proliferation of print-capitalism. The great symbolic importance given to 28 October 1928 in the national historical consciousness can therefore be understood. That was the time when the island- and ethnic-based student organizations agreed to disband themselves and to form an all-Indonesia youth organization. Though much less meaningful symbolically, the day, in 1935, when several ethnic- and

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island-based political parties decided to dissolve themselves and to establish the Greater Indonesia Party, Partai Indonesia Raja or Parindra is also important. These two events reflect the growing concern for the future and, not less significantly, the wisdom in understanding the past. By abandoning the island- or ethnic-based national solidarity, these organizations liberated themselves from the fetters of the past — a past that was crowded by the instability of the pattern of relationship and the past that may have been crowded with a sense of unfulfilled revenge. By joining together to visualize a new kind of community that was supposed to be modern and democratic, they had followed in the steps of the other parties that had from the beginning imagined “Indonesia” as a new nation. At the same time, they could also perceive the past from different perspectives. Therefore, whatever the present official ideology might say about the genesis of the Indonesian nation, one thing is certain, the nation is not something inherited from the so-called “glorious past”. It began with an idea or, perhaps, only an imagination, but it ended up with a new sense of community that was something worth fighting for. How many places of exile had the colonial government established in order to arrest the gradual process of nation formation? In the process, not only the intricate relationship between the primordial attachment and the new concept of political community should be conceptually imagined, different types of ideological persuasion also began to debated and entertained. The origin of some ideologies may be traced to its foreign sources, but others may well be the result of the systematization of traditional values. One can therefore say that, by the end of the colonial rule, the newly formed nation had already acquainted itself with all kinds of modern ideas on which a nation-state should be based — democracy, social justice, social solidarity, and other ideals. Whatever the participants of the eventful day of the Proclamation of Independence might say and however historians might in their turn reconstruct the event, the proclamation itself was a brave and bold action. How could the leaders and the radical youths guarantee that the people would support their daring act? When they did proclaim the independence of Indonesia and elect their leaders, the people who attended the simple ceremony had actually announced that a new nation-state had been born. A national community had established a nation-state.

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Conservative Dutch officials might consistently look at Indonesia, the country they colonized, as nothing but “geographical expression”. The “nation-makers” — as what the leaders of the youth organizations once proudly called themselves — were determined to continue the process of nation-building. After the Proclamation of Independence, Indonesia was no longer “the future”. Indonesia had become “the present” to be defended and nurtured. With the Proclamation of Independence Indonesia had entered into the uncharted future. There was no past to be continued and there was no model from history to be emulated. It was a first experience without precedence. Yet, how to create a new political and cultural sphere where everybody may feel at home? It was also more than that, actually. The proclamation was also a promise to a dignified life, economic justice, and so forth. In retrospect, the process of nation formation may arouse romantic historical feelings, but the long road to nation-building may also have sometimes created the feeling of anxiety and hopelessness. This is the story of the struggle of Indonesia to fulfil the promises of its independence. Though not a very heartening story perhaps, it is a continuing struggle, nonetheless. This is what really counts. Was it not Aristotle who defined the difference between tragic event and tragedy? The former is just a sad story, but the latter evokes struggle that has not brought victory. NOTES 1

2

3 4

See Taufik Abdullah, “The 1945 Generation: The Institutionalization of a Generation and the Ideologization of Revolutionary Values”, Paper presented at the Conference on the Indonesian Revolution, University of Utrecht, 1986. The Indonesian translation, Taufik Abdullah, “Angkatan 45: Pelembagaan Sebuah Kelompok Politik” in Tanah Air (Amsterdam, September 1986), pp. 22– 43. On M. Yamin’s views on history, see for example: Deliar Noer, “Yamin and Hamka: Two Routes to an Indonesian Identity”, in A. Reid and David Marr, eds., Perceptions of the Past in Southeast Asia (Singapore: Heinemann, 1979), pp. 249–62. See also, H.A.J. Klooster, Indonesiërs Schrijven Hun Geschiedenis: De Ontwikkeling van de Indonesische Geschoedbeoefening in Theorie en Praktijk, 1900–1980 (Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1985), pp. 90–93. On Yamin as a man of letters, see A. Teeuw, Modern Indonesian Literature (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979), vol. I. The Padri War began as a purely internal affair of the Minangkabau people. It

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began with the return of three pilgrims from Mecca who radically began religious reform movement. Influenced by the new emergence of the Wahabist power, this movement incited civil war in the region. In 1821, the Dutch, who had already occupied the coastal town of Padang, intervened. In 1832, the civil war had practically transformed itself into a colonial war. 5 On the prewar situation, see C. Dobbins, Revivalism in a Changing Peasant Economy: Central Sumatra, 1787–1847 (London/Malmö, 1983). 6 On the development of Padang from a coastal town to a trade and military centre in the 19th century, see a major study of Freek Colombijn, Patches of Padang: The History of an Indonesian Town in the Twentieth Century and the Use of Urban Space (Leiden: Research School CNWS, 1994), pp. 34–65. 7 For a short social history of Padang, see for example, Taufik Abdullah, “Padang in the Minangkabau World: The Return of the Lost Child”, in Yoshihiro Tsubouchi, ed., The Formation of Urban Civilization in Southeast Asia, 2 (Kyoto: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, 1991), pp. 1–51. See also Rusli Amran, Padang, Riwayatmu Dulu (Jakarta: C.V. Yasaguna, 1988). 8 Regeerings Alamanak, 1912. 9 Dja Endar Moeda’s most famous publication was the Pertja Barat newspaper also published in Padang. He later moved to Kutaradja (Aceh) and moved again to Medan, where he published a newspaper, the Pewarta Deli, which later under another editor (a German educated Minangkabau, Adinegoro, who was later acknowledged as a pioneer of Indonesian modern newspaper) became very influential. On the career of Dja Endar Moeda, see, Ahmat B. Adam, The Vernacular Press and the Emergence of Modern Indonesian Conciousness (1855–1913) (Ithaca, New York: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1995), pp. 145–49. 10 The three pillars of the so-called Ethical Policy are education, migration, and irrigation. On the genesis of the ethical policy and cultural policies, see Robert van Niel, The Emergence of Modern Indonesian Elite (The Hague/Bandung: W. Van Hoeve, 1960). See also Elsbeth Locher-Scholten, Ethiek in Fragmenten: Vijf Studien over Kolonial Denken en Doen van Nederlander in de Indonesische Archipel, 1877–1942 (Utrecht: HES Publishers, 1881). 11 See for example, Ahmat B. Adam, The Vernacular Press and the Emergence of Modern Indonesian Consciousness (Ithaca, New York: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1995), esp. pp. 79–107. 12 A complete set of the magazine (1901–04), though still unregistered, be found in the collection of the library of the KITLV, Leiden, in the late 1960s. 13 He was criticizing rather too harshly the concept of kemajuan put forward by the Insulinde and Bintang Hindia in his collection of writings (1923–1939) Dr M. Amir, Boenga Rampai (Medan: Centrale Courant en Boekhandel, 1940), pp. 107–108. On the Bintang Hindia, see below.

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Ph. S. van Ronkel, “Rapport Betreffende de Godsdienstige Verschijnselen ter Sumatra’s Westkust”, Verbal no. 54 (4 April 1916) (Rijksarchief, The Hague). “Maleische Democratie en Padangsche Toestanden” (Sumatra Bode, 27–28 September 1907) reprinted in Adatrechtbundel, no. 1, pp. 114–28. Adat is usually translated as customary law. Actually it may refer also to the whole complex of world view and social system. According to tradition, it is the attachment to adat that determine one’s social and cultural identity. Living outside the adat system means nothing less than living outside the society. Adat can be translated as “custom”, “traditional system” but it can also be seen as “the proper pattern of behavior”. For a short discussion on this, see Taufik Abdullah, “Adat and Islam: An Examination of Conflict in Minangkabau”, Indonesia, no. 2 (October 1966), pp. 1–24. On the Minangkabau traditional political system, see P.E. de Josselin de Jong, Minangkabau and Negeri Sembilan: Socio-Political Structure in Indonesia (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1952). In the beginning of the 17th century, the Sultanate of Aceh, under Sultan Iskandar Muda, occupied Padang. It was the alliance of the population of Padang and the V.O.C. (Dutch East India Company) that drove the Acehnese authorities away. On this episode, see for example, H. Kroeskamp, De Weskust en Minangkabau (Leiden: E.J. Bril, 1931). On the traditional political system of Minangkabau, see P.E. de Josselin de Jong, Minangkabau and Negeri Sembilan: Socio-Political Structure in Indonesia (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1952). This portion is based on Taufik Abdullah, “Modernization in the Minangkabau World: West Sumatra in the Early Decades of the Twentieth Century”, in Claire Holt et al., eds., Culture and Politics in Indonesia (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1972), pp. 179–245. On the early “Western” schools in West Sumatra, particularly in Padang, see among others, Rusli Amran, Padang Riwayatmu Dulu (Jakarta: C.V. Yasaguna, 1988), pp. 11–58. On the concept of cultural bazaar, see Abdullah, “Padang in the Minangkabau World”, op. cit., pp. 13–21. Datuk Soetan Maharadja, the leader of the kaum muda in 1900 and early 1910s, was to become an important ideologue of the kaum kuno, the old or conservative group in the late 1910s and early 1920s. See Abdullah, Modernization. The idea of traditional adat being the basis of democracy is not unique. In 1930s, for example, a member of the Minahasaraad, the Minahasa local council, used tradition as a surrogate for democracy. “The important thing is that the government of the Minahasan walak”, he said, “should be based [on] adat

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principles. The population concerned, which has always been democratic, should be given a say in the selection of chiefs [to whom] it can entrust its welfare”. Quoted by David E.F. Henley, Nationalism and Regionalism in a Colonial Contexts [sic]: Minahasa in the Dutch East Indies (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1996), p. 137. For a biography and a selection of some of his article see Parada Harahap, Riwajat Dr A. Rivai (Medan: Handel Mij Indische Drukkerij, 1939). See also Harry A. Poeze, “Early Indonesian Emancipation: Abdul Rivai, van Heutz, and the Bintang Hindia”, Bijdragen, no. 145 (1989): 87–106. See also Harry A. Poeze et al., In het Land van de Overheerser I: Indonesiërs in Nederland 1600–1950, Verhandelingen van het (Dordrecht, Holland/Cinnaminson, USA: KITLV Press, 1986), pp. 32–38. Quoted in Adam, The Vernacular Press, p. 104. This portion is based on the same book, pp. 101–107. “Dokter Jawa” or Indische arts as it was officially called, was a typical creation of colonial society at the turn of the century. A dokter Jawa was a graduate of the medical school, established in the 1850s in Batavia/Jakarta, to serve the local community. He was only allowed to handle indigenous patients. In order to become a full-fledged physician, he had to continue his studies in the Netherlands. Abdoel Rivai became the editor of the Bintang Hindia while he was continuing his medical studies in order to be able to practise among the colonial ruling elite. He was one of the few “native” physicians to receive a diploma in Europesche Arts. Nagazumi Akira, The Dawn of Indonesian Nationalism: The Early Years of the Budi Utomo, 1908–1918 (Tokyo: Institute of Developing Economies, 1972), pp. 30–31. Soetomo, Kenang-Kenangan (Soerabaja, 1934); quoted ibid., p. 33, On Soetomo and his book, see Benedict Anderson, “A Time of Darkness and a Time of Light” in his The Spectre of Comparison (New York, London: Verso, 1998), pp. 77–104. The same quotation can be found ibid., p. 99. On R.M. Tirto Adhi Soerjo, see Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Sang Pemula (Jakarta: Hasta Mitra, 1985), quotation, p. 121. On the involvement of the Susuhunan (the king) of Surakarta in the S.I. movement, see George D. Larson, Masa Menjelang Revolusi: Kraton dan Kehidupan Politik di Surakarta, 1912–1942, translated by A.B. Lapian (Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 1990), passim. It should be noted that the government refused to grant legal recognition (rechtpersoon) to the S.I. as whole. It could only grant the recognition to each chapter of the S.I. The Central Committee of S.I. was according to the law also an independent body. It should be noted merantau — going out of the birthplace or land of origin —

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and becoming a perantau or migrant or wanderer are two of the most important characteristics of the Minangkabau. See for example, Tsyuyoshi Kato, Matriliny and Migration, Evolving Minangkabau Traditions in Indonesia (Itahaca: Cornell University Press, 1982). Adam, The Vernacular Press, p. 103. H.A.R. Gibb, Modern Trends in Islam (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1947). On the journal Al Imam, see William Roff, The Origin of Malay Nationalism (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 56–67. See Deliar Noer, The Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia, 1900–1942 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1973). As an historical social category priyayi refers to the bureaucratized local aristocrats and, as a consequence of the enlargement of colonial bureaucracy, “the bureaucrats were given the status of local aristocrat. For a short introduction to this concept, see Nagazumi, The Dawn, pp. 18–25. But as an anthropological concept, “priyayi” refers to a social group of higher class who uphold a certain variant of Javanese cultural orientation. This concept was first introduced by Clifford Geertz in his classic, The Religion of Java (Glencoe, ILL: Free Press, 1960). On the style of life of the priyayi as the bureaucratic aristocrats, in social status, see, Sartono Kartodirdjo, A. Sudewo, Suhardjo Hatmosuprobo, Perkembangan Perdadaban Priyayi (Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 1987). On Surabaya during the colonial period, see for example, William H. Frederick, Vision and Heat: The Making of the Indonesian Revolution (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1988). The system of Javanese speech levels is very complex. Basically the language is divided into three speech levels, the ngoko, the madyo, and the kromo. For a good introduction to Javanese speech levels, see Soepomo Poedjosoedarmo, “Javanese Speech Level”, Indonesia, no. 6 (1968): 54–81. Bernard Dahm, Sukarno and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence, translated from German by Mary F. Somers Heidhues (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1969), pp. 40–41. See also Bob Hering, Soekarno: Founding Father of Indonesia, 1901–1945 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002), p. 85. What an irony, one may say, if some noble minds in Java preferred to speak in the krama language to their own inferiors. Soetomo, the founder of the B.U., used to address his driver at that high speech level. This portion is based on Taufik Abdullah, “Nation Formation and Structural Concern: A Problem in Indonesian Historiography”, Prisma, The Indonesian Indicator, no. 29 (September 1983): 31–43. For an elaborate theoretical exposé — and enlightening discussion — on the advantages of using “another” language

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(Dutch or, and particularly, Indonesian) by Javanese writers, see Benedict R.O’G. Anderson, “Sembah-Sumpah: The Politics of Language and Javanese Culture”, in his Language and Power: Exploring Political Cultures in Indonesia (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 194–237. Van Miert, Dengan Semangat Berkobar Nasionalisme dan Gerakan Pemuda di Indonesia, 1918–1930, translated by Sudewo Satiman. Jakarta: KITLV Jakarta, Hasta Mitra, Pustaka Utan Kayu, 2003, pp. 162–65. Bintang Hindia 4, no. 3 (1904): 38. R.M. Tirto Adhi Soerjo used to talk about “bangsa Islam” whenever he was referring to the indigenous community. See the collection of his writings in Toer, Sang Pemula, op. cit. For a brief sociological analysis on this colonial racial category, see W.F. Wertheim’s classic study, Indonesian Society in Transition (Bandung/The Hague: W. van Hoeve, 1958), revised edition. It is a commonly shared national myth but contested in history. Many parts of the archipelago were then still barely touched by the so-called colonial exploitation, let alone have the awareness of being colonized by a foreign power. By making the date as the “national awakening day”, the Republican leaders wanted to emphasize the significance of the ideological fact that the struggle for independence did not begin in 1945, but in 1908. After forty years of struggle it was about time to finally achieve the goal. It took place at the first congress of the B.U. in early October 1908. The congress flatly rejected the proposal made by Tjipto Mangoenkusumo who urged the newly formed association to get itself directly involved in politics. The congress elected the bupati of Karanganyar, R.A.A. Tirtokoesoemo, as its first President. Under the leadership of the priyayi, welfare and education were the main fields of activities of the organization. Nagazumi, The Dawn, pp. 46–50. Nagazumi, The Dawn, 47. On the early history of Sarekat Islam, see A.P.E. Korver, Sarekat Islam: Gerakan Ratu Adil?, translated by Grafitipres (Jakarta: Grafitipres, 1985). Takashi Shirahi’s An Age in Motion: Popular Radicalism in Java, 1912–1926 (Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1990) tries to locate the S.I. in the history of the mood of the time. Toer, Sang Pemula, op. cit. See Ruth McVey, The Rise of Indonesian Communism (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1965). McVey calls the socialist “enclave” in the S.I. “the bloc within”. One of the earliest Islamic leaders to formulate an Islamic ideology was H.O.S. Tjokroaminoto, the leader of the Sarekat Islam. He squarely addressed himself to the questions of Islam and socialism. See his book, Islam dan

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Sosialisme (Tertulis di Mataram 1924) (Jakarta: Bulan Bintang, n.d.), H.A. Salim was the first to formulate the notion of “Islamic nationalism”. See a collection of his selected writings Djejak Langkah H.A. Salim (Jakarta: Tintamas, 1954). See H.O.S. Tjokroaminoto, Islam dan Socialisme (Reprint), Djakarta: Penerbit Bulan Bintang, n.d. (early 1950s). On his life see Amelz, H.O.S. Tjokroaminoto: Hidup dan Perdjuangannja (Djakarta: Penerbit Bulan Bintang, n.d.), 2 vols. See for example, Taufik Abdullah, “Haji Agus Salim dan Pembentukan Tradisi Kecendekiaan Islam di Indonesia”, in Seratus Tahun Haji Agus Salim (Jakarta: Sinar Harapan, 1984), pp. 202–40. His biography see Solichin Salam, Hadji Agus Salim: Pahlawan Nasional (Djakarta: Penerbit Djajamurni, 1965). M. Hatta, the former Vice-President, who had known Salim since his youth, wrote a very informative preface to this book. A short biography in English, see Michael Francis Laffan, Islamic Nationhood and Colonial Indonesia: The Umma Below the Winds (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), pp. 181–89. See for example Deliar Noer, The Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia, 1900– 1942 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1973). For a short biography of Marco, see Henri Chambert-Loir, “Mas Marco Kartodikromo (c.1890–1932) ou l’Education Politique” in P.B. Lafort and D. Lombard, eds., Literature Contemporaines de l’Asie du Sud-est (Paris: à l’Asiatique, 1974). For a major study on the pre-war communist party, see Ruth McVey, The Rise of Indonesian Communism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1965). Quoted in D.M.G. Koch, Om de Vrijheid: De Nationalitische Beweging in Indonesie (Djakarta: Jajasan Pembangunan, 1950), p. 31. Cf. Jean Gelmar Taylor, The Social World of Batavia: European and Eurosian in Dutch Asia (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), p. 168. The party was also known as the Sarekat Hindia, which is a Malay translation of its Dutch name. Since the colonial government refused to grant it legal status (rechtpersoon), the leaders of the party established another party, called Insulinde. A sympathetic account of the party is given by Koch in his Om de Vrijheid, op. cit. See among others M. Hatta,”Indonesia Free” (1928) translated into English in his collection of writings, Portrait of a Patriot (The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1972). This is a translation of his defence speech in the court of The Hague. Complete texts of both the Dutch and Indonesian versions can be found in H.A.R. Harahap and B.S. Dewantara, K. Hadjar Dewantara Dkk (Jakarta: PT Gunung Agung, 1980). They were namely Suwardi Suryaningrat (later, after establishing the Taman Siswa school, known as Ki Hajar Dewantara), Douwes Dekker, and Tjipto Mangoenkusumo. They were exiled to the Netherlands. Due to his health

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condition, Tjipto was allowed to go home after a few months in Europe. Suwardi studied modern educational system and became very much influenced by Montessori’ ideas on education. On the press reaction, see Mirjam Matters, Dari Perintah Halus ke Tindakan Keras: Pers dari Zaman Kolonial Antara Kebebasan dan Pemberangusan, translated by Mien Joebhaar (Jakarta: 2003), pp. 118–27. The concept of “administrative priyayi” is introduced by van Niel, as a way to differentiate it from “functional priyayi”, the professionals, such as paramedics, agricultural inspector, teachers, etc. See Robert van Niel, The Emergence of Modern Indonesian Elite (The Hague/Bandung: W. van Hoeve, 1960). On the priyanization of the professional group, see D.H. Burger, Structuurveranderingen in de Javaanse Samenleving, Indonesie, II, III, 1948–50. Narantara, “Pemandangan tentang Indische Parlement”, Darmokondo, 18 October 1916. Reprinted in Pitut Suharto, ed., Permata Terbenam (Jakarta: Aksara Jayasakti, n.d.). On the origin of this movement and its ideas, see also Van Miert, Dengan Semangat, pp. 116–75. Unless otherwise cited, the discussion on Soetatmo is based on Takashi Shiraishi, “The Disputes between Tjipto Mangoenkoesormo and Soetatmo Soeriokoesoemo: Satria vs. Pandita”, Indonesia, no. 32 (October 1981): 93–108, but see also Van Miert, ibid. Achdiat Kartamihardja, Polemik Kebudajaan (Djakarta: Balai Pustaka, 1948). For a short discussion on this, see Taufik Abdullah, “Inherited Identity” and “The New Nation: The Politics of Cultural Discourses in Indonesia”, in Identity, Locality and Globalization: Experiences of India and Indonesia (New Delhi: Indian Council of Social Science Research, 2001), pp. 297–327. In more ways than one, the image of the “golden age of Majapahit” was also crafted by the early pioneers of Dutch archaeology. On the influence of the image of Majapahit, see “The Image of Majapahit in Late Javanese and Indonesian Writings”, in Anthony Reid and David Marr, eds., Perceptions of the Past in Southeast Asia (Singapore; Heinemann Educational Books, 1979), pp. 171–85. See Kenji Tsuchiya, Democracy and Leadership: The Rise of the Taman Siswa Movement in Indonesia, translated by Peter Hawkes (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987), pp. 140–43. M. Balfas, Dr. Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo: Demokrat Sedjati (Djakarta: Penerbit Djambatan, 1952). For a short discussion on “Javanese Nationalism” and its failure, see Anthony Reid, “The Nationalist Quest for an Indonesian Past”, in Reid & Marr, eds., Perceptions of the Past in Southeast Asia, op. cit., pp. 281–98.

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Shiraishi, “The Disputes”. On the role and the importance of this office in designing colonial policies, see for example, Aqib Suminto, Politik Islam Hindia Belanda: Het Kantoor voor Inlandsche Zaken (Jakarta: LP3ES, 1985). Nagazumi, The Dawn, p. 122. Heather Sutherland, The Making of a Bureaucratic Elite: The Colonial Transformation of the Javanese Priyayi (Singapore, Kulala Lumpur, Hongkong: Heinemann Educational Books (Asia) Ltd., 1979), p. 80. Haji Agus Salim, “Untuk Dewan Rakyat”, Neratja, 15 November 1917. S.M. van der Wal, ed., De Volksraad en de Staatkundige Ontwikkeling van Nederlands-Indie: Een Bronnen Publicatie, I (1891–1926) (Groningen, J.B. Wolters, 1965), p. 599. In the late 1920s and 1930s, several local councils were formed, except the Minahasaraad, which was established in 1919. Compared with the other local councils, the Minahasaraad was perhaps the most “advanced”, both in term of power and membership composition. See for example Henley, Nationalism and Regionalism, pp. 103–109. For a short introduction to the Volksraad, see Amry Vandenbosch, The Dutch East Indies: Its Government, Problems, and Politics (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1944), pp. 110–27. Haji Agoes Salim was a member in the second session of the Volksraad (1921– 24). The President of the party, H.O.S. Tjokroaminoto, was the first party’s representative (1918–21). For short histories of the numerous political and social organizations in the 1920s, see Petrus Blumberger, De Nationaltische Beweging in Nederlandsch Indie (Haarlem: Tjenk Willink & Zoon, 1931). It was largely on the basis of this colonial-centred book, that A.K. Pringgodigdo wrote his national-centred history of the nationalist movement, Sedjarah Pergerakan Rakjat Indonesia (Djakarta: 1945), fifth printing (Pembangunan: 1964). On the important role of “print capitalism” in the spread of nationalism, see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, New York: Verso, 1983; revised edition, 1991). On Haji Misbach, the self-style “Islamic communist”, see Takashi Shiraishi, An Age in Motion: Popular Radicalism in Java, 1912–1926 (Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1990). See also Larson, Masa Menjelang Revolusi, passim. On the kaum muda movement in West Sumatra, see Taufik Abdullah, Schools and Politics: The Kaum Muda Movement in West Sumatra (1927–1933) (Ithaca, New York: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1971). Tan Malaka, From Jail to Jail, translated and introduced with notation by Helen Jarvis (Athens: Ohio University, Center for International Studies, 1991). This is

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an autobiography of Tan Malaka. He wrote it while he was detained by the government of the Republic of Indonesia in 1947. For a comprehensive biography of Tan Malaka, see Harry A. Poeze, Tan Malaka: Strijder voor Indonesie’s Vrijheid, Levesloop van 1892 tot 1945 (Leiden, KITLV, 1976). On the interpretation of Tan Malaka as a Minangkabau perantau, see an interesting article by Rudolf Mrazek, “Tan Malaka: A Political Personality’s Structure of Experience”, Indonesia, no. 14 (October 1972), pp. 1–47. Since it was in the 1890s that a rather regular flow of students came to the Netherlands — the first one was Sosrokartono, the brother of Kartini — one can say that Tan Malaka belonged to the first generation of the “Indonesian” student in the “mother country”. Poeze et al., In het Land, p. 29. On the debates see, Ruth McVey, The Rise of Indonesian Communism (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1965). Because of this attitude, Tan Malaka was at one time praised by Hamka as a defender of Islam. Hussein Alatas who had made a relatively thorough study of Tan Malaka’s idea on religion simply rejected Hamka’s interpretation. This portion is based on John Ingleson, Road to Exile: The Indonesian Nationalist Movement, 1927–1934 (Singapore, Kuala Lumpur: Heinemann Educational Books (Asia), 1979). Translation of the convention in Mohammad Hatta, Memoir (Jakarta: P.T. Tinta Mas, 1976), pp. 206–207. For Sukiman’s activities as the chairman of the Jong Java, see Van Miert, pp. 61– 64. On the activities of the Dutch theosophical society, see for example, Hans van Miert, Dengan Semangat Berkobar: Nasionalisme dan Gerakan Pemuda di Indonesia, 1918–1930, translated by Sudewo Satiman (Jakarta: KITLV Jakarta, Hasta Mitra, Pustaka Utan Kayu, 2003), pp. 118–75. Personal communication, Prof. Bahder Djohan, 1968. The chairman of the JSB, Amir, like Bahder, a student of the Stovia, stayed on. He joined the society and even married the daughter of a leader of the society. This universal brotherhood took its toll on Amir during the revolution. He could not face the violence that followed the revolution. He abandoned his post, the Republican Vice-Governor of Sumatra, and took refuge at the headquarters of the Allied forces in Medan. After visiting the Netherlands, where he had the chance to observe the activities of the Perhimpunan Indonesia, Haji Agus Salim, who by then had already been widely acknowledged as the number two man of the Sarekat Islam (behind H.O.S. Tjokroaminoto), wrote an article in De Socialist (1929). He stated among other things that Hatta, was “the man in the future … of Indonesian nationalism,

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of the future of Indonesian state”. But, perhaps, this opinion was very subjective, since at about the same time, a high-ranking Dutch official in Batavia was beginning to see the important personal ties among the nationalist leaders. “Above all,” Kiewit de Jonge writes in his secret report, “and this is the most important element, strong personal ties have developed between Mr. Salim and Mr. Hatta — both from Minangkabau, both by inclinations ethical, yet, by their set up, of very critical minds, almost to the point of destructiveness…”. See Rudolf Mrazek, Sjahrir: Politics and Exile in Indonesia (Ithaca, New York: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1994), p. 70. 98 For a biography of Mohammad Hatta, see his Memoir (Jakarta: P.T. Tinta Mas, 1976), pp. 206–207. But the memoirs ends in December 1949, when Hatta, as the Prime Minister of the Republic of the United States of Indonesia, officially “received” the sovereignty of Indonesia from the Queen of Holland. See also Mavin Rose, Indonesia Free: A Political Biography of Mohammad Hatta (Ithaca, New York: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1987). Deliar Noer, Mohammad Hatta: Biografi Politik (Jakarta: LP3ES, 1990). For a shorter biography, see H.G. Schulte Nordholt, “Mohammed Hatta” in Dr. H. Bergema, ed., Pioniers van het Nieuwe Azie, Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah, Mau Tse-Toeng, Hatta (Franeker, The Netherlands: T. Wever, 1959). 99 The original Indonesië Vrij is reprinted in Mohammad Hatta, Verspreide Geschriften (Djakarta, Amsterdam, Surabaja: C.P.J. Van der Peet, 1952), pp. 210–308. For a translation in English, see Portrait of a Patriot: Selected Writings by Mohammad Hatta (The Hague, Paris: Mouton Publishers, 1972), pp. 205–97. 100 Unless otherwise cited, a discussion of Hatta’s ideas on democracy is based on Taufik Abdullah, “Kebangsaan dan Kerakyatan” — introduction to, Karya Lengkap Mohammad Hatta [Complete Works of Mohammad Hatta] (Jakarta: LP3ES, 1998, Volume I). The introduction is based on Hatta’s writings as collected in the above mentioned books and volume I of his four volumes, Kumpulan Karangan (Djakarta: Balai Buku Indonesia, 1952). The book was published in conjunction with Hatta’s 50th birthday. 101 For the history of the name of “Indonesia” and Hatta’s role in the use of Indonesia as the name of the nation and the country, see Russel Jones, “Earl, Logan and “Indonesia”, Archipel, no. 6, 1973, pp. 93–115. See also Jan B. Avé, “‘Indonesia’, ‘Insulinde’, ‘Nusantara’: Dotting the i’s and the t. “, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 145, no. 2–3, 1989, pp. 220–34. It should be noted, however, that the first organization to use “Indonesia” was the Partai Komunis Indonesia (in 1921). But apparently it did not catch the imagination of the nationalists. Unlike the PKI, which only used the term, the PI propagated its use.

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102 He wrote three articles in Dutch, published in De Socialist (1928), to defend “Indonesia” against the criticisms launched by Dutch socialists. The articles are reprinted in his Verspreide Geschriften, pp. 343–54. 103 The Perserikatan Nasional Indonesia (PNI) was established by the former members of the Perhimpunan Indonesia and Sukarno in 1927. Hatta was a major supporter of the party in the Netherlands. He had planned to join the party after he received his degree in economics. But in 1930, Sukarno was arrested and punished for three years (the punishment was commuted after one year). Sensing that with the punishment of Sukarno, the party would no longer able to perform its task property, the leaders of the PNI dissolved the party. This decision made Hatta and some others angry. For them, this decision was not only a matter of cowardice on the part of the leaders, but also reflected their low opinion of the people — they made the decision without consulting the members — and their dependence on one great leader — Sukarno. This event was of the most important splits in the pergerakan history. Hatta’s reactions can be found in his Kumpulan Tulisan, vol. I. On the split, see among others Ingleson, The Road to Exile: The Indonesian Nationalist Movement 1927–1934 (Singapore, Kuala Lumpur: Heinemann Education Books (Asia), 1979. 104 On the debate between Hatta’s Pendidikan Nasional Indonesia, better known as the PNI Baru (the New PNI), and the Permi, see Taufik Abdullah, Schools and Politics: The Kaum Muda Movement in West Sumatra (1927–1933) (Ithaca, New York: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1971), pp. 170–71. 105 John D. Legge, “Daulat Ra’jat and the Ideas of the Pendidikan Nasional Indonesia”, Indonesia, no. 32 (October 1981), pp. 151–68. 106 Bob Hering, Sukarno: Founding Father of Indonesia, 1901–1945 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002), pp. 160–61. 107 There is still no major biography of Sukarno ever written in bahasa Indonesia. A special bibliography, however, may well be needed to list all the short writings on his life — some are anecdotal stories, some others deal with certain aspects of his life, etc. The best collections of his writings are still the two volumes Dibawah Bendera Revolusi (DBR), published by the publisher with the same name (obviously it was sponsored by the palace). Several collections of his writings have also been published in conjunction with his 100th birthday. On the whole, however, these books don’t differ much from the DBR. In addition, three books or more on Sukarno — with the articles ranging from poetry in praise of Sukarno to rather serious studies on his thinking — have been published on this occasion. Bernard Dahm, Sukarno and Struggle for Indonesian Independence (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1969) can be considered as the intellectual biography. J.D. Legge, Sukarno:

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A Political Biography, has been published three times (the first in 1972 and the latest 2003). It has also been translated into Indonesian. C.L.M. Penders, The Life and Times of Sukarno (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1974) is not well known in Indonesia. Lambert J. Gibbels, Soekarno, Nederlands Onderdaan: Biographie 1901–1950 (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1999) has been translated into Indonesian in conjunction with Sukarno’s 100th birthday. Bob Hering, Sukarno promised to be the most detailed study on Sukarno, but one wonders when the next volume will appear. Dahm, Sukarno, pp. 66–70. Dibawa Bendera Revolusi, p. 6. Translation from Soekarno’s “Mentjapai Indonesia Merdeka”, edited, annotated, translated by B.B. Herrings (Queensland: Southeast Asian Monograph series, Number 1 (1978), p. 32. Sukarno, “Mentjapai Indonesia Merdeka” in his collection of writings, Dibawah Bendera Revolusi (Djakarta: Panitya Penerbit Dibawah Bendera Revolusi, 1963), vol. I, pp. 314–22. Ingleson, Road to Exiles, p. 23. The speech was delivered in Indonesian, but Sukarno never bothered to translate the so many quotations he made from Dutch, English, French, German writers. If he did translate them — and this was also quite often — he also, as he said, adapted “slightly” to the situation in the colonial Indonesia. Actually, as Roger Paget shows, “the adaptations” have practically altered the meaning of the text. See: Indonesia Accuses!: Soekarno’s Defence Oration in the Political Trial of 1930, edited, translated, annotated and introduced by Roget K. Paget (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1975). The speech is not only a masterful defence of a freedom fighter, but also an example of the erudition of the nationalist leader. After analysing the debates between Sukarno and his opponents, Dahm comes to the conclusion, “If Sukarno was often clearly inferior of [sic] Sjahrir (as he was of Hatta, Salim, Natsir, and others) in objectivity as well, as in detailed information, nevertheless, he was much more closely united to the thoughts and hopes of the people”. Dahm, Soekarno and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence, p. 218. The Partai Indonesia or the Partindo was established by the leaders of the former leaders of the PNI. Upon his release, Sukarno said that he would do his best to reunite the Partindo and the dissidents, who were now under the leadership of Hatta and Sjahrir. But as expected, he failed and as predicted again, he chose Partindo. On this affairs, see Ingleson, The Road to Exile, op. cit.

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116 Ibid. But on the alleged differences between the New PNI and the Partindo, such as stressed by Ingleson, see John D. Legge “Daulat Ra’jat and the Ideas of the Pendidikan Indonesia”, Indonesia, no. 32 (October 1981), pp. 151–68. 117 The exchange of opinions of Sukarno and Natsir were published in Pandji Islam (Medan, 1939–1940). Sukarno’s articles are reprinted in his Dibawah Bendera Revolusi. Natsir’s articles and rejoinders are reprinted in Sebuah Dokumen. M. Natsir versus Soekarno (Padang: Jajasan Pendidikan Islam (Japi), 1968). For an examination of the debate, see Deliar Noer, The Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia, 1900–1942 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1973). 118 It was translated into English by Charles Wolf, Jr.; see S. Sjahrir, Out of Exile (New York: John Day, 1949). 119 Howard Dick, “Formation of the ‘Nation State’ 1930–1966”, in Howard Dick et al., eds., The Emergence of a National Economy: An Economic History of Indonesia, 1800–2000 (Honolulu: Unwin & Allen and University of Hawaii Press, 2002), pp. 155–57. 120 Quoted in L. de Jong, The Collapse of a Colonial Society: The Dutch in Indonesia during the Second World War (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002), p. 23. The book is an English summary of a four-volume series of books in Dutch. 121 Already in the early 1950s, G.J. Resink, a expert on international law, stated that if the concept of international law was to be used, then the administrative unity of the so-called pax Nerlandica in the Indonesian archipelago lasted less than four decades. Indeed it took about three centuries before the Dutch could really impose its rule throughout the then Netherlands Indies. 122 Harry A. Poeze, “Political Intelligence in the Netherlands Indies”, in Robert Cribb, ed., The Late Colonial State in Indonesia: Political and Economic Foundations of the Netherlands Indies 1880–1945 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1994), pp. 229–46. 123 M. Yamin, “Sumpah Indonesia Raya”, reprinted in E. Ulrich Kradt, ed., Sumber Terpilih Sejarah Sastra Indonesia Abad XX (Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, 2000), pp. 3–4. 124 On the genesis of the Sarekat Sumatra, see Taufik Abdullah, “Minangkabau, 1900–1927, Preliminary Studies on Social Development” (unpublished M.A. Thesis, Cornell University, 1967). 125 On the nationalist movement in the 1930s, see J.M. Pluvier, Overzicht van de Ontwikkeling der Nationalitische Bewegiing in Indonesië in de Jaren 1930 tot 1942 (s-Gravenhage & Bandung: W. van Hoeve, 1953). 126 Madelone Djajadiningrat-Niewenhuis, “Notosoeroto; His ideas and the Late Colonial Intellectual Climate”, Indonesia, no. 55 (April 1993): 41–72. 127 See Abdurrachman Surjomihradjo, “An Analysis on Suwardi Surjaningrta‘s Ideas and National-Revolutionary Actions (1913–1922)”, MISI 2, no. 3 (1964): 371–406.

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128 See, Kenji Tsuchiya, Democracy and Leadership: The Rise of the Taman Siswa Movement in Indonesia, translated by Peter Hawkes (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987), pp. 60–64. 129 See Achdiat Kartamihardja, ed., Polemik Kebudajaan (Djakarta: Balai Pustaka, 1948). 130 Sjahrazad, Renungan Indonesia, translated by H.B. Jassin from Indonesische Overpeinzingen (Djakarta: Poestaka Ra’jat, 1948), p. 59. In one of his articles, Sjahrir sarcastically questioned the validity of the idea of “glorious history of Indonesia before the Dutch came”. The boasting about “the old greatness of the land and the culture, all that feudal–bourgeois nationalism — it is an empty talk and impede progress”, cited in Mrazek, Sjahrir, p. 73. 131 Reprinted in Kartamihardja, Polemik Kebudajaan, op. cit. 132 Susan Abeyasakere, Batavia: A History (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 80. 133 H. Rosihan Anwar, Menulis Dalam Air: Sebuah Otobiografi (Jakarta: Penerbit Sinar Harapan, 1983), p. 78. 134 On the early history movie industry in Indonesia, see Taufik Abdullah, H. Misbach Yusa Biran, S.M. Ardan, Film Indonesia: Bagian I (1900–1950) (Jakarta: Dewan Film Indonesia, 1993). See also “Le Cinema indonésien”, Archipel, no. 5 (1973). On the Komedie Stamboel, see S. Th. Manusama, Komedie Stamboel of OostIndische Opera (1920). A short description can also be found in Chapter I of Abdullah et al., Film Indonesia. 135 See Noriaki Oshikawa, “Patjar Merah Indonesia” and Tan Malaka, “A Popular Novel and a Revolutionary Legend”, in Reading Southeast Asia: Translation of Contemporary Japanese Scholarship on Southeast Asia, vol. I (Ithaca, New York: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 2000), pp. 9–39. 136 See A. Teeuw, “The Impact of Balai Pustaka on Modern Indonesian Literature”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 35, no. 1 (1972): 111–27. 137 Heather Sutherland, “Pujangga Baru: Aspects of Indonesian Intellectual Life in the 1930s”, Indonesia, no. 6 (October 1968): 106–27. 138 Mohammad Hatta, “Rakjat Indonesia dengan Perang Pasifik” (Pemandangan, 22–23 December 1941) Reprinted in his Kumpulan Karangan, vol. I, p. 143. 139 Sukarno, “Beratnja Perdjoangan Melawan Fasisme” (Pemandangan, 1941), reprinted in his Dibawah Bendera Revolusi, p. 559. 140 Frances Gouda, Dutch Culture Overseas: Colonial Practice in the Netherlands Indies, 1900–1942 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1995), p. 64. 141 On the political movement in the few years before the end of colonial rule, see Susan Abeyasakere, “One Hand Clapping: Indonesian Nationalists and the Dutch, 1939–1942” (Melbourne: Monash Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, 1976). 142 For a short account the period of Japanese Occupation, see, for example, George

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McT. Kahin Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1952). For a more extensive account, see M.A. Aziz, Japan’s Colonialism and Indonesia (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1955). Since the 1980s, several aspects and dimensions of the Japanese period in Indonesian history have become subjects of important studies. The participation of Japanese scholars in this field has significantly enriched the body of knowledge on this eventful three-and-a-half year period. On the origin and the ideology of the Permi, see Taufik Abdullah, Schools and Politics: The Kaum Muda Movement in West Sumatra (1927–1933) (Ithaca, New York: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1971). See, D. van der Meulen, Ik Stond er bij.Het Einde van Ons koloniale Rijk (Baarn: Bosch & Keuning, 1965). The author was the Consul of the Netherlands in Cairo in the late 1920s. See also Mona Abaza, Changing Images of Three Generations of Azharites in Indonesia (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1993) and her Islamic Education, Perceptions, and Exchanges: Indonesian Students in Cairo (Paris: Association Archipel, 1994). On the political activities of the students in the Middle East, see also Abdullah, Schools and Politics, pp. 139–54. Haji Abdullah Ahmad and Syeikh A. Karim Amrullah received their honorary doctor al fiddin from the Conference of Khilafah, held in Cairo in 1926. Abdullah, Schools and Politics, pp. 155–73. On this, see Dahm, Sukarno, op. cit. On this Minangkabau “state myth”, see Taufik Abdullah, “The Kaba Tjindue Mato: An Example of Minangkabau Traditional Literature”, Indonesia (October 1969), pp. 1–23. Mochtar Lutfi and his friends, Iljas Jacub and Djalaluddin Thaib, the three top leaders of the Permi, were arrested and exiled to Digul in 1934. During the war, they were taken to Australia, and in 1946, the Dutch returned them to Indonesia. But only Iljas Jacub and Djalaluddin Thaib were brought back to West Sumatra. Mochtar Lutfi was sent to Makassar where he emerged as an important pro-Republican Muslim leader. In 1950, he was shot dead by the rebellious KNIL soldiers. See for example Merle C. Ricklef, Jogjakarta under Sultan Mangkubumi, 1749– 1792: A History of the Division of Java (London-New York: Oxford University Press, 1974). See also his Modern Javanese Historical Tradition. A Study of an Original Kartasura Chronicle and Related Materials (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1978). See also a short article by Sartono Kartodirdjo, in Sartono Kartodirdjo, ed., Profiles of Malay Culture: Historiography, Religion and Politics (Jakarta: Directorate General of Culture, Department of Education and Culture, 1976). This is a famous and controversial theory of C.C. Berg, who sees traditional historiography as a cultural instead of historical testimony. See his “The Javanese

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Picture”, in Soedjatmoko, et. al, eds., An Introduction to Indonesian Historiography (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1964). On the text, see Pigeaud, Java in the Fourteenth Century (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1962, 5 vols.). See, T. Ibrahim Alfian, Kronika Pasai (Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 1973), p. 197. Dami N. Toda, Manggarai: Mencari Pencerahan Historiografi (Ende, Flores: Nusa Indah, 1999). J.J. Ras, Hikayat Banjar, A Study in Malay Historiography (The Hague: Martinus Nijhof, 1968). Unless otherwise cited, this portion is based on Taufik Abdullah, Islam dan Pluralisnme di Asia Tenggara (Jakarta: PMB-LIPI, 1996, vol. I). See for example A.A. Teeuw & David Wyatt, eds., Hikayat Patani (The Hague: Mouton, 1970). J. Bastiaan, “Persekutuan Limbotto-Gorontalo”, in Taufik Abdullah, ed., Sejarah Lokal di Indonesia (Yogyakarta, 1990), pp. 203–32. J. Noorduyn, “De Islamiseering van Makasar”, BKI 112, no. 3 (1956): 247–66. H.J. de Graaf, & Th.G. Th. Pigeaud, Eerste Moslimse Vorstendommen op Java: Studiën over de Staadkundige Geschiedennis van de 15e en 16e eeuw., VKI 69 (s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhof, 1974). See Taufik Abdullah, “Islam and the Formation of Tradition in Indonesia: A Comparative Perspective”, Itenerario xiii, no. 1 (Special Issue 1989). See also Islam dan Pluralisme di Asia Tenggara (Jakarta: PMB-LIPI, vol. I, 1996). On this very fine 18th century Malay historical text, see Virginia Matheson and Barbara Andaya, The Precious Gift (Singapore, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1982). For a short discussion on the ideas expressed in the Tajus-salatin, see Taufik Abdullah, “The Formation of a Political Tradition in the Malay World”, in Anthony Reid, ed., The Making of an Islamic Political Discourse in Southeast Asia (Clayton, Victoria: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1993), pp. 35–58. See Hamka, Tenggelamnya Kapal van der Wijk. One of the most popular novels, it has been printed several times. On Hamka as a novelist, see A. Teeuw, Modern Indonesian Literature (The Hague: Martinns Nijhoff, 1979), vol. 1. In the 1930s, there were two nationally distributed Islamic “modernist” weekly magazines published in Medan, the Pandji Islam (under the editorship of Zainal Abidin Ahmad) and Pedoman Masjarakat (under Hamka). Jakarta, Bandung, and Solo were also the centres of Islamic publications. See among others, Harry S. Benda, The Crescent and the Rising Sun (Bandung/ The Hague: W. van Hoeve, 1958). C. Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka in the Latter Part of the Nineteenth Century: Daily

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166 167 168 169

170

171

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173 174

175

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Life, Customs and Learning; the Muslims of the East-Indian-Archipelago, translated by J.H. Mohanan (Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1931). Hamka, Ayahku (Djakarta: Penerbit Djajamurni, 1967), p. 65. Michael Francis Laffan, Islamic Nationhood and Colonial Indonesia: The Umma Below the Winds (London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003), pp. 215–28. See McVey, The Rise of Indonesian Communism, op. cit. In his introduction to the book he edited. H.A.R. Gibb, Whither Islam?,(London: Victor Gollanz, Ltd, 1932). It was, perhaps, Mohammad Natsir (the future leader of the Masyumi) who was the first to introduce Gibb’s ‘complete civilization’ thesis to the Indonesian reading public. See his pre-war collection of writings in his Capita Selecta (Bandung/Den Haag: W. van Hoeve, 1956). The 14th century Majapahit empire has until the present day an ambiguous position in the national conciousness. On the one hand it symbolized the unity of Indonesia — the time when Majapahit, as its court poet claimed (Prapanca in his Negarakertagama, became the political centre of the archipelago (Nusantara) — but on the other, it also symbolized the pre-Islamic glory and the domination of the Javanese over the other ethnic groups. See S. Supomo, “The image of Majapahit in Later Javanese and Indonesian Writing”, in Reid & Marr, eds., Perceptions, pp. 171–84. See Helius Sjamsuddin, Pegustian dan Temenggung: Akar Sosial, Politik, Etnis, dan Dinasti Perlawanan di Kalimantan Selatan dan Tengah 1859–1906 (Jakarta: Balai Pustaka, 2001). On this “periodization”, see Taufik Abdullah, “Response to Colonial Power: The Jambi Experiences in Comparative Perspective”, Prisma: The Indonesian Indicator, no. 33 (September 1984): 13–29. Sartono Kartodirdjo, Protest Movements in Rural Java (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1973). Hassan, the leader of the Persatuan Islam, was very sensitive on this issue. On the Persatuan Islam, see Howard Federspiel, The Persatuan Islam (Ithaca, New York: Modern Indonesia Project, Cornell University, 1966). On the debates, see Deliar Noer, The Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1972). This problem was raised by Haji Agoes Salim in his criticisms to Sukarno’s over-zealous (in Salim’s opinion) nationalism. On the debate, see Dahm, Sukarno, op. cit. Old Batavia may be taken as the real prototype of the colonial town, see Taylor, The Social World of Batavia, loc. cit. On inter-racial relations in the segregated society, see Leonard Blussé, Strange Company, Chinese Settlers, Mestizo Women and the Dutch in VOC Batavia (Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1986).

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177 See for example, Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450– 1680, Volume Two; Expansion and Crisis (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993). 178 Van Miert, Dengan Semangat, pp. 21–22. 179 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalis (London, New York: Verso, revised edition, 1991), p. 34.

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Reproduced from Indonesia: Towards Democracy, by Taufik Abdullah (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute War, Revolution, and the Nation-State • 89 of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg >

C H A P T E R

T W O

War, Revolution, and the Nation-State

Prelude to the national revolution

W

hen Abdoel Rivai began the propagation of the idea of “kemajuan” and the need to enter into “the world of progress”, the colonial war in Aceh had just been “officially” concluded (1904). The capture of Panglima Polem (the leader of the opposition after the death of Teungku Cik di Tiro) and Cut Nyak Dien, the legendary heroine, has usually been taken as the end of the longest and bloodiest colonial war in the Indonesian archipelago. With the capture of the two leaders, the colonial war in Aceh that started in 1872, after the Dutch signed the London Treaty with the British, which gave the former the exclusive right to Sumatra, had officially concluded. To the rural population of Aceh, however, the war had not really ended. Until the late 1920s, the so-called “Aceh murder” still took place here and there. Cases where suddenly an Acehnese warrior emerged from the bush or from among the crowd in the market to kill a Dutch official in sight could still occasionally occur. The long colonial war had given the Acehenese not only the heroes they could be proud of, but also a deeply entrenched tradition of resistance to the kafir government, the infidel.1 The continuing opposition to the imposed power of the foreign intruders also took place in the other regions. Not long after the official termination of the “pacification campaign” in Aceh, another type of colonial expansion campaign took place in the other parts of the archipelago. In Bali, the royal families of Klungkung preferred to face death by conducting the puputan, ceremonial death, rather than letting themselves be subjugated to the wishes of the advancing power of the Netherlands Indies. These puputan affairs

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had from the beginning been well stored in the Balinese collective memories.2 The long period — almost one hundred years (1810–1907) — of the efforts of the Dutch, who had occupied Makassar since the late 17th century, to establish their authority in the small kingdoms of South Sulawesi, is also a part of the collective memories of the local population. In 1905 the Dutch troops attacked the kingdom of Bone and exiled its king. Soon after that, the colonial government managed to seize the kingdom of Gowa. By using all kinds of pretexts the Dutch succeeded in occupying the other still independent kingdoms of South Sulawesi. The campaign lasted until 1905.3 In the process, the royal families of Bone, Gowa, Wajo and that of other smaller kingdoms, either lost their lives or were exiled to the other islands in the archipelago. However in the more than three decades under colonial rule, the regions in South Sulawesi, like in Aceh, never really became safe places for Dutch officials. In 1908, the year the medical students of the STOVIA in Jakarta, then called Batavia, established the Boedi Oetomo, and Datuk Soetan Maharadja was still campaigning to bring Padang back into the fold of the Minangkabau world, scattered rural rebellions and mass demonstrations took place in many parts of the residentie of West Sumatra. Local collective memories call these short-lived and scattered rural rebellions parang belasting (war against taxation). These scattered “wars” consisted of several “major wars”. The best remembered “wars” have been the “Parang Kamang” (War of Kamang), which was the rebellion that took place in the nagari or village of Kamang in the district of Agam; and Parang Mangopoh (War of Mangopoh), which took place in the village of Mangopoh, in the district of Padang-Pariaman. Under the leadership of traditional adat-chiefs and the teachers of a mystical order, the tarekat Shattariah, these scattered rural rebellions seriously threatened local authorities to the extent that the colonial government had to send more troops from Java.4 The local population saw the introduction of personal tax, in lieu of forced coffee cultivation, as the betrayal of the Dutch promise, such as stated in the so-called Plakat Panjang (Lange Verklaring — Long Declaration), which was issued during the lull of the Padri war in 1832. The declaration stated that the kompeni — that is, the government of the Netherlands Indies

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— did not come to rule the country, but only to trade and to safeguard peace. The Minangkabau would remain under the leadership of their adatchiefs, the penghulu. It would also not impose taxation on the Minangkabau people, but urge them to cultivate coffee to be sold to the kompeni. When the colonial government introduced taxation, it was immediately seen as a betrayal to the Plakat Panjang and, most importantly, it was considered as a humiliation to the Minangkabau’s sense of dignity. The government introduced the personal tax without properly consulting the adat-chiefs. Led by the adat-chiefs and the rural mystic teachers, particularly those who belonged to the Shattariah — tariqah or tarekat (mystic organization) — the scattered rebellions and mass demonstrations lasted several weeks. It was the last major rural uprisings in the Minangkabau area. The resentment to personal tax-system continued, nonetheless. Occasionally the government could still uncover a plot to attack local authorities. The Plakat Panjang remained until the end of the colonial period a strong political myth5 of the Minangkabau that the Dutch came to the Minangkabau area only to trade and that the Minangkabau people would remain under their traditional authorities. Any traces considered a deviation from this myth could easily raise the people’s indignation. These scattered rebellions were actually local resistance to the deeper penetration of colonial economic and political power into the social fabric of the local communities. This was the kind of opposition that has also crowded the history of Java, the island where the colonial exploitation system had reached its mature stage,6 in the late 19th century.7 Different kinds of peasant oppositions erupted in many parts of Java. At about the same time, the interior of North Sumatra, the Batak land,8 still had to deal with the colonial policy of “pacification” under the leadership of their respective traditional rulers. On the whole, however, by the time the government of the Netherlands Indies had completed the process of the consolidation of its power, the religious teachers, mostly of the mystic brotherhoods, had emerged as the leaders of the local resistance.9 These scattered local rebellions might not have lasted more than a few days or perhaps a few weeks, at the most, but they have never been forgotten in local collective memories. In the course of time, the events that have been

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stored in local collective memories may have gradually transformed themselves into the myths of heroism. These are the myths that sustained the tradition of resistance. These are also the myths that reveal the covenant of friendship between two “nations” consistently betrayed by the Dutch.10 The tradition of resistance remained part of local historical consciousness. However limited in size and scope, the spread of print culture and that of school networks and the growing numbers of voluntary associations could certainly disseminate new ideas or even new ideologies to the local people. But when the objective situation could no longer be tolerated, it was the local tradition of perceiving realities that came to the surface. Translated into the local perception of reality, the urban original idea of the Sarekat Islam, for example, might become a foundation for the politics of opposition in the rural areas. The cases in Toli-Toli (North Sulawesi) or Cimareme (Garut) or — on a much larger scale — in Jambi (1915) show how urban ideas of opposition could be translated into local tradition of resistance. The continuity of this tradition can also be seen in the so-called “communist rebellions” in Banten (1926) and Silungkang (West Sumatra, 1927). The communist leaders might have planned the rebellion in order to show their opposition to the exploitative, capitalist colonial rule, but when the plan reached the small villages, it was the recollection of the past opposition that really mattered. The moment the ideas of opposition had been planted in the rural areas, it was the economic and political plight that shaped the pattern of actions. The opposition to the changes, imposed or otherwise, which had threatened the foundation of existing economic and social status found their channels in the daring and desperate acts against the authorities. Islamic and communist understanding of reality found their affinity in the consciousness of the rebels. While the tragic and desperate rebellions might have dealt a death blow to the communist party in colonial Indonesia and cause the unbridgeable breach among its leaders — Tan Malaka had since separated himself totally from the communist party11 — the rebellions were, nonetheless, glorified as heroic endeavours for some time.12 The beginning of the 20th century, however, also witnessed a dramatic change in the intellectual discourse. The change began to take place in the colonial towns. A few months before the outbreak of the scattered rebellions

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in West Sumatra, a schoolteacher wrote a short column in a newspaper, published in Padang. It was an emotional plea to his compatriots to abandon their intended radical opposition to the government’s plan of introducing personal tax. Rather than opposing the plan, he wrote, it was better for the people to take advantage of the government’s policy of spreading educational opportunities. After all, he continued his plea, the time had come for the people to enter into the “world of progress”, kemajuan.13 However, who could have read the schoolteacher’s plea, except the few who had been part of the emerging plural urban community? The rebellion did break out and it did bring tragedy and catastrophe to the local communities. The termination of the scattered rebellions and mass protests ironically paved the way for the economic and social change of Minangkabau — and this region of West Sumatra entered a new phase of its history since then. It is a history that is, among other things, characterized by economic development, ideological and intellectual controversies, and religious and nationalist movements. It is also through history that the region, and indeed a host of other regions in the then Netherlands Indies, became an inseparable part of a common history. If noting else, one could definitely say that, by the beginning of the second decade of the 20th century, the Indonesian archipelago already had a commonly shared history. An event of importance can since then no longer be seen as something that happened “out there”; its impact was very likely to be felt in other parts of the country. The genesis of this phenomenon can be traced back to the social and political impact of the liberal economic policy introduced in 1870. With the opening of the colony to private investment, the colonial government not only managed to make the Netherlands Indies the most profitable colony, but also completed with relative ease the territorial and political unification of the Indonesian archipelago into the Netherlands Indies. By the end of the 19th century, several important ocean ports in many parts of the colony, such as Padang and Medan in Sumatra; Jakarta, Semarang, and Surabaya in Java, or Manado and Makassar in Sulawesi had been officially opened. In the early 1920s, the people of Medan had the opportunity to admire a new sign of modernity by going to the newly opened airport to see the airplane.14

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Bandung in the meantime had become the central radio network, which could connect the colony with the outside world. By the beginning of the century, the residencies of Aceh, East Sumatra, West Sumatra, and South Sumatra had already had their own railways. The railway system had practically connected the town in the easternmost of Java (Banyuwangi) to its Westernmost town (Serang). By the second decade of the 20th century, the Dutch had not only politically dominated the whole Indonesian archipelago, but had also changed its geographical map. New towns had emerged and hitherto isolated places connected. From the perspective of the change that had taken place, it is not really an irony if the scattered rural rebellions that saw blood and tears shed are almost forgotten in the textbooks of national history. These texts tend to look at history from a linear perspective. Specifically written to glorify the unbroken cultural and political links of the divergent ethnic groups, the texts do not recognize any discontinuity in the historical discourses. It is in this historical vision that the birthday (20 May) of Boedi Oetomo is glorified as the “National Awakening Day”. Also for this sense of historical continuity, the birthday (21 April) of R.A. Kartini15 (1879–1904) is celebrated as the day when Indonesian women began to realize their rightful place in the society. The letters written by Kartini, the daughter of an indigenous district regent on the North Coast of Java (the Bupati of Japara) at the turn of the century, continue to be a source of inspiration to women’s organizations to this day. In the early 20th century, the Netherlands Indies might still have been in the process of consolidating its power throughout the Indonesian archipelago, but it was also the time when the Queen of the Netherlands announced the beginning of the so-called “ethical policy”. The time had come for the colonial government to pay what van Deventer nicely called “the debt of honor” to the “natives”. Centred around three practical programmes, namely education, emigration (from the densely populated Java to the sparsely populated Sumatra), and irrigation, the “ethical policy” was aimed at achieving the solid political unity of the archipelago and a cultural synthesis of its multi-ethnic population, while maintaining its stratified social formation. The government began to introduce — very slowly to be sure — the politics of cultural assimilation. The “natives” would then be given the

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opportunity to assimilate Western traits into their cultural treasuries. The ideas of kemajuan and dunia maju were undoubtedly the creations of this new trend. It was in this cultural and intellectual climate that the Dutch scholars began to cultivate a special system of knowledge called Indologie — the study of anything connected with the cultural lives and social formation of the population of the Indonesian archipelago. With this special branch of knowledge, the students were not only expected to be able to grasp the realities of the subjugated peoples and to find ways of how to rule them properly, but also to construct an idealized picture of the “natives”. What would the “natives” have been if the subversive cultural elements, mostly the Islamic ones, did not make its intrusions into the people’s structure of consciousness and society?16 The colonial government believed that the ability to locate social and cultural niches in the local population through which policies might be introduced, would have spared the government the heavy burden of controlling and ruling the people. The success of C. Snouck Hurgronje in finding the possible niches in the Acehnese society remained a lesson to be learned by the administrators.17 In the course of time, however, the colonial construction of knowledge could give the still very limited number of Western educated intellectuals a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it provided them with an academic foundation for glorifying the past. On this academic foundation, Sriwijaya, the great empire from the 7th to 12th century in Sumatra — an almost forgotten empire, but “recovered” by a French archeologist — has been celebrated as the first unification of the Indonesian archipelago. Majapahit, the major empire of 14th century Java, which remains till the present very much alive in Javanese historical imagination, could be idealized as the representative of the greatness of the past. But, on the other hand, as has been discussed earlier, the colonial construction of knowledge also enhanced the notion of cultural nationalism, which was basically ethnic in character. The study of philology can be taken as example. The tendency of colonial scholars to study anti or non Islamic Javanese texts did really create a picture of Java, which was believed to be true by van Leur, as being a culture where Islam was just “a thin glaze on the flint”.18 More than being just an academic understanding,

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the idea of Islam as an imported religion and, naturally, an imported cultural foundation, not only strengthened an anti Islamic cultural bias among the Western-educated Javanese aristocratic elite, it also provided the Javanese nationalists with some kind of academic sanction. With Islam conceptually set aside, a cultural programme of the ethical policy could be smoothly undertaken. Whether this intention was realistic or not is beside the point, the aim of the cultural programme of the ethical policy was to create a sphere where “East and West” could find a forum of mutual understanding. Each might maintain their separate moorings — local adat, therefore, should be honoured — but a world of cultural affinity should be created.19 The tendency to give more weight to the so-called indigenous tradition, by separating it from alleged Islamic influences, remained one of the cornerstones of Dutch colonial policy to the end. With this intellectual and political predisposition, a small number of indigenous and better-educated elite were beginning to be recruited into the municipality councils, gemeente raad, where they could have some kind of exchange of views with their Dutch or Eurasian or Chinese counterparts. In the beginning, they might perhaps only follow whatever the Dutch masters expected them to do. Datuk Soetan Maharadja, according to Dutch officials, for example, could practically be seen as a “representative” of the government — a fact that explains why he kept his position until his death (1921), since his appointment in 1909.20 However later, Rustam Sutan Palindih who was, like Datuk Soetan Maharadja, also a journalist, emerged as a tough critic to government policies, during his tenure as a member of the council from 1933 to 1938. He took this critical attitude because, as he is reported to have said, “it is exactly the struggle and tension, draws us together [sic]”.21 In spite of the fact that Minahasa had the reputation of being an almost thoroughly “Hollandized” region, some members of the Minahasaraad were also known to be very critical of the colonial government. Dr Sam Ratulangi (1890–1949), who has since the early period of the Indonesian revolution been glorified as the “father of Minahasa”, is still remembered as the defender of the Minahasan interest and as the noble cultural broker who brought his region into the fold of Indonesian nationalism.22 In the history of municipal councils in colonial Indonesia, the

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name of M.H. Thamrin (1894–1941) is legendary. He was widely regarded by his contemporaries as one of the best members of the municipal council of Jakarta. He was certainly the best among the indigenous members. Later, as a member of the Volksraad, Thamrin also emerged as the most articulate defender of nationalist aspirations. “He is too clever,” the conservative Governor General, de Jonge, said in his memoir in explaining why he could not use his extraordinary power to get Thamrin. The Volksraad, however, as has been stated earlier, was not, and indeed, could never be, a forum to channel national aspiration. Despite the fact that it might have given the Indonesian political public some glimpses of what a “national” house of representatives might look like, the so-called people’s council only gave more credence to the popular belief that the Dutch could not be trusted.23 By the beginning of the 1920s, the optimistic mood of the ethical policy had become history — good to be remembered but with no bearing on reality. Later, in the 1930s, after it had become obvious that the idealism of the so-called Leiden-school had created not only modern-oriented indigenous elite, but radical nationalists as well, the conservative Utrecht-school of colonialism got the upper hand in the formulation of colonial policies. In the meantime, however, the networks of modern school had become parts of the geography of the Indonesian archipelago. In the beginning, the district officials had to use both “friendly persuasion” and “forced command” before the village heads were willing to urge parents to send their children to the three-year programme of the volksschool. By the 1930s, most villages in Java and, to a lesser extent in Sumatra, had already had their own “people’s schools”. The number of pupils remained, however, relatively low until the end of the colonial period. The graduates could continue their studies by enrolling themselves in the two-year programme of the vervolgshool or continuation-school, which were usually located in the small towns, the capital of the sub-districts. Within the context of the still tradition-bound colonial society, the graduates of the continuation-schools could be seen as “the semi-intellectuals”, who might serve as the brokers of ideas between their respective villages and the outside world, most likely the small towns nearby. As such they might also be the first groups

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of people to be addressed by the incipient pergerakan, nationalist movement, of whatever ideological persuasion. It is not too surprising, therefore, if it was later found out that the majority of the people exiled by the colonial government to Digul and Tanah Merah, the harshest places of exile in West Papua, were the graduates of the continuation-schools.24 As Sjahrir and Hatta, who were temporarily exiled to Digul, commented, these people could hardly be regarded as communists. Very few of them understood what communism was. They were simply relatively unsophisticated opponents to the colonial government. If by chance the children would like to continue their studies and if their parents belonged to the well-to-do families, they could then enrol into the schakel (“intermediary”) school, which bridged the indigenous system of education, that began in the volksschool, with the European one. In the schakel schools, they began to learn Dutch. The schakel school, however, was only available in the district capital. In cases where the tax of their parents had reached a certain level or if their fathers were government officials, the children could begin their schooling at the Hollandsch-Inlandsche School (H.I.S.), with a seven-year programme, which was available in the district capital. The graduates of H.I.S. and that of the schakel schools could continue their studies at the MULO, the junior high school. If the children were very bright and their parents belonged to the high-income group or were high local officials, then they could enter the five-year programme, HBS, which combined the study programmes of the junior and senior (AMS — Algemeen Middelbaar School) high schools. Yet of course, this possibility hardly existed for the children of the lower local elite. HBS was usually reserved for the graduates of the ELS, the European elementary schools. To what extent this discriminatory policy could really contribute to the spread of education can be seen in the report of the education commission formed by the government. The conclusion of the report (1941) is very revealing. It clearly states that the spread of education in the Netherlands Indies lagged far behind the other colonies in the region now called Southeast Asia.25 The importance of this report also lies in the fact that since the early 1930s, the number of children in schools had actually been growing. One of the reasons for this growth was the relative lenient requirements imposed by the school administrations,

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most notably the H.I.S., the elementary schools for the children of those whose tax had reached a certain level — in accepting new enrolment.26 The great depression that had hit the Netherlands Indies in the early 1930s might have played a role in this relative leniency. How many people could still be classified as belonging to the higher income bracket then? The educational system in the colonial state of the Netherlands Indies can be easily characterized as being elitist and discriminatory. In a period when the notion of progress, the ideas of Islamic reform, and the nationalist spirit had been widely spread among the urban population, it is not hard to understand why private schools were booming. Established by either educational and religious organizations or political parties of divergent ideological persuasions, the private schools had by the beginning of the 1930s become the major channels for people’s education. In West Sumatra, the number of Islamic “modernist” schools and their students had by the 1930s far exceeded that of the government and subsidized schools. One can simply assume that a large number of these private schools did not forget to implant the ideological orientations of their founders. It was for his activities as a teacher in the so-called people’s school in the early 1920s, in Semarang, that the government took the case against Tan Malaka. He was exiled from the Netherlands Indies and began his career as an international communist leader. Not for long to be sure for soon he found himself on a collision course with the Communist party that had been dominated by the Stalisnists.27 So successful were these somewhat ideologically oriented private schools throughout the country, most notably in Java and in many parts of Sumatra, that the government felt the need to introduce an ordinance that was then popularly known as “Wild schools ordinance” (1932). The planned ordinance would have put many restrictions on the unsubsidized (hence, “wild”) private schools. The plan backfired, however. The opposition to this ordinance did not only enhance the prestige of Ki Hadjar Dewantara, the founder of the Taman Siswa school-network, with his Gandhian “passive resistance” (lijdelijk verzet). It was also a cause célèbre that united Islamic and the so-called “secular” parties and organizations. The government was forced to revoke the ordinance.28

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The graduates of the private schools could only expect to find employment in the private sectors unless, of course, they managed to establish their own business ventures. They could not aspire to become a part of the colonial system. This option was reserved only for the graduates of the government schools. The racial category used by colonial system, however, limited the possibility of the graduates to be a part of it and, particularly, to experience upward mobility in the system. Many stories can be retold of how well-trained “native” officials were passed over for promotion just because the European or Eurasian officials were there to fill the newly vacant posts.29 Unintentionally, the colonial system had produced not only a disgruntled educated-class, but also “internal proletariats”, who had found the system they lived in inimical to their aspirations and sense of propriety.30 The exile of radical nationalist leaders and the imposition of the politics of rust en orde had provided the nationalist political parties with very limited options. They should either disband their parties or change their strategy of struggle — from the policy of non-cooperation to that of cooperation. These two options practically meant, of course, either joining the government-sponsored councils, or working underground. As a matter of fact, only the politics of cooperation had any possibility to make its presence felt by the growing number of the politically conscious public. Nevertheless, as has been discussed earlier, even the cooperative option could hardly make any headway in the efforts to attain political emancipation. In the meantime, the prospect of the coming Pacific War began to get closer to home. The prediction of Sukarno and that of Hatta in their respective defense speeches, that sooner or latter the Pacific war would erupt, was becoming a real threat that had to be faced. The Pacific War was approaching at a time when the tradition of opposition was still very much alive in local collective memories, and the number of those among the reading political public who had become more aware of the nature of colonialism, was also on the increase. Commercialized print-culture that had been consistently cultivated by the growing numbers of voluntary associations of whatever ideological persuasion or major activities, political, religious, or otherwise, as well as print-capitalism in the

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bazaar social relationship, had certainly helped to heighten the political consciousness of the urban population. In the meantime, the small number of the “internal proletariats”, who had at one time looked at the colonial system as a possible way towards national and social emancipation, had also become increasingly restless. In spite of trying to be a part of the established colonial system, they found themselves belonging to the marginal group permanently. If this kind of social sphere might only be solved or avoided by a highly personalized individual solution, how could the continuing political uncertainty be settled? Was there any future in the colonial relationship? The question became more urgent when the war that was in the early 1910s only envisioned, had now in the late 1930s and early 1940s become a possibility no one could ignore. Then a fundamental question could not be avoided. What posture had to be taken in the face of the eventual war? It is perhaps ironic that it was not the moderate and cooperative political parties, but the somewhat more radical nationalist party, Gerindo,31 that openly showed its rejection of the Japanese propaganda. The party simply castigated the notion of Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere as a “fabrication of and for Japanese fascists”.32 An historical opportunity might be there, but the opposition to fascism should apparently never be easily compromised. Amid the intellectual and political uncertainties about the proper political posture to be taken in anticipating the Pacific war, L.N. Palar (1900–81), an Indonesian nationalist who had been a member of the Dutch socialist party, came home. He did not stay long, but in a very short period, he managed to conduct dialogues with several Indonesian nationalist leaders. To his surprise, he found out that despite their strong reservation to Japanese militarism, a number of the nationalist leaders, most of them belonging to the so-called “co-operators”, would not really object to the possibility of a Japanese occupation. A Japanese victory over the Dutch colonial power, they reasoned, would have an enormous psychological impact on the Indonesian people. A Japanese victory would instantly destroy the myth that the Western colonial power could not be defeated.33 By the time the Nazi forces occupied the Netherlands in 1940, the moderate Indonesian nationalists had already seen that the politics of cooperation with the colonial government was a lost cause. Even the two thick volumes of the

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Visman Report that promised to introduce major political changes in the colony, failed to recognize their much simpler aspirations, such as changing the term of inlander, the native, into “Indonesian”. The Visman Commission, which was formed in 1940, as M.H. Thamrin, the leader of the moderate and cooperative nationalist party, Parindra, stated, had simply failed to take into account the resolutions of the Volksraad. Since the colonial government had turned its back on the Indonesian people, he and his colleagues argued that there was no reason Indonesian youths should joined the militia,34 as the government wished. The controversies on the proper political attitudes and the uncertainty about the action to be taken could hardly slow down the southward movement of the soldiers of the Rising Sun. Finally the Japanese soldiers landed on Java. It took only nine days for the advancing Japanese soldiers to force the capitulation of the Dutch commander-in-chief. It was on 1 March 1942 that the Japanese army landed on the coasts of Banten, Indramayu, and Ceribon and by 5 March, they had occupied Batavia (present-day Jakarta) amid the cheering crowd. On learning the news, the radio announcer in Bandung could still close its night programme in an optimistic tone, “Farewell, until a better time”. Yet the better time never came. On the same day, Semarang, Surabaya, and other big cities in Java capitulated. On 8 March, the Japanese conquest of Java had practically been completed. On 9 March 1942, General Ter Poorten and Governor General Tjarda van Starkenborgh-Stachouwer had no other option but to surrender unconditionally to General Imamura, the commander of the Japanese 16th Army. On learning the news of the Dutch capitulation in Bandung, M. Hatta, who, together with his friend, Sjahrir, had been transferred from their exile in Banda Neira to Sukabumi (West Java) reportedly said, “The Dutch made [an] appeal to historical rights, now this argument of history has been answered from history.”35 Was it not Colijn, the Dutch conservative former Minister of the Colonies, who uncharacteristically said that the Dutch rule in the Netherlands Indies was an historical right, endowed by God? A new era had begun. However, was it a new opportunity or just another disappointment?

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Japanese Occupation: A Decisive Interlude The myth of the unconquerable West had indeed been debunked by the tremendous speed of events. Suddenly the Japanese soldiers — si Katé, “that Shorty”, as what people jokingly referred to the Japanese soldiers riding bicycles entering their towns — were already there to take charge. In such a hasty process of transfer of power, social chaos could not be avoided. Long dormant hatred and feelings of enmity suddenly came to the surface. Abandoned towns that had become open towns immediately became the scene of plunder. Houses belonging to Dutch officials and shops owned by Chinese merchants were plundered. The lives of Dutch officials themselves were threatened by the increasingly aggressive mobs. A number of Dutch officials and their families were rescued by their former Indonesian subordinates, who appreciated their personal relationship.36 By the time order was finally restored by the victorious soldiers, a number of people had lost their lives. Some Dutch local officials could hardly comprehend the speed of events. The Governor of Sumatra simply refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the surrender. He was determined to defend Sumatra to the last drop of blood. But then rumour spread among the people that the Residency of West Sumatra, the Minangkabau region, would be made the last colonial bastion. The government — again, according to the rumour — would defend the region with a scorched-earth policy. Whether or not it was true, the people’s reaction to the rumour was quick. Suddenly a number of “antiscorched-earth” bodies sprang up in Padang Panjang, the town that had since the early 1910s been known as the centre of religious and political activities in the region37 and its surroundings. They were determined to safeguard their towns, and at the same time, demanded the Dutch government to officially transfer the sovereignty to the Indonesian leaders. The leaders of the movement were arrested and taken to the North as prisoners-of-war. But then the Japanese did not only come from the south, as anticipated, but also from the north, Aceh.38 A short romantic and heroic, albeit a little bit tragic, episode of the last weeks of the Dutch colonial rule had ended. With or without the formal capitulation, the whole of the Indonesian archipelago had fallen into the hands of Japanese occupying military forces.

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So the people of the Rising Sun had conquered the Land in the Equator or the String of Pearls in the Equator, as Multatuli romanticized the colony. In the beginning it was a “honeymoon” between “two Asian nations”. The “older Brothers” had come to liberate their “younger siblings” from the yoke of Western imperialism. “God be praised, Asia has returned to the Asian nation,” (Alhamdulillah Asia telah kembali kepada bangsa Asia) as the propaganda went. How could the people have known that to the Japanese Indonesia was a land to be exploited and a barrier to the return of Western powers? How could they have known that the Japanese culturally looked down on them?39 Although in many parts of the country there were signs of passivity among the population in observing the advance of the Japanese military, in some other regions, the Japanese were joyfully welcomed as liberators. The “honeymoon” with the incoming Japanese military forces, however, lasted no more than a few weeks. Soon after the military administration consolidated itself, the Japanese authorities began to impose many limitations on whatever they considered political in nature. The Japanese authorities forbade the hoisting of the Red and White flag. The celebration of the liberation from the Western colonial yoke was over. The once “united” Netherlands Indies was now divided into three military zones. Java was put under the 16th Army, Sumatra (together with former British Malaya and Singapore) under the jurisdiction of the 25th Army, with its headquarters in Singapore, and the Eastern part of Indonesia, under the jurisdiction of the Navy, with the headquarters in Makassar. The 16th Army and the 23rd Army were directly under the supervision of the commander of the 7th Army, Field Marshal Terauchi, with his headquarters in Dalat, Vietnam. With the imposition of the Japanese military rule, a new period had begun. It was a period well remembered as one of suffering, scarcity of foodstuff, military cruelty, forced labour, and “comfort women”. During this period the historical concept of zaman normal, “the normal period”, was visualized as being the time when everything ran properly without any social and political disturbances. It was the time when the colonial politics of rust en orde was at its peak. Suddenly, the period once discarded as the dark years in the history of the pergerakan, was remembered as “the good old days”. The period that used to be called malaise (depression of the early

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1930s) when economic hardship hit the majority of urban population and plantation workers, was now remembered as a better time. In such a short period, the Japanese military regime deeply penetrated into the social fabric of peasantry. Forced rice delivery and the mobilization of the work force, the romusha, to other areas had not only caused hardship and suffering, but also made the villages more open to outside influences. The war efforts, the ideology of war, which aimed at creating “a total war structure”, and the lack of knowledge about the local situation, as well as straightforward administrative inefficiency, had simply made the suffering of the local people almost unbearable. It was estimated that one out twenty people in Java died of starvation during the Japanese occupation.40 The fact that the Japanese military authorities had assigned the village headmen and the indigenous district officials responsible for all these measures that made the people suffer, directly caused the breach between them and their people. The Japanese anti-Western propaganda might have to some extent strengthened the determination of the people to reject the return of the Dutch government, but the breach that had taken place between the peasants and their heads had also sown the seeds of social revolution in some parts of the country, most notably in Java.41 The short historical interlude of the Japanese military rule made its impact on the people’s consciousness. Many youths received military training, the Indonesian language became the language of the educated elite, and the nationalist leaders could to some extent openly cultivate the feeling of confidence in facing the challenge of the West. In short, it was a transitional period that opened up various possibilities to the people in reorienting their predilections. It was also a learning process that had to be paid with a high price. In the beginning, the people of Aceh, the staunch enemy of the Dutch colonial government, warmly welcomed the coming of the Japanese. A number of Acehnese youths, who had been burned by the spirit of revenge against the Dutch, volunteered to join the Japanese advance groups. Despite this early enthusiasm, it was in Aceh (1943) that the first rebellion against the Japanese took place.42 Later, in several places in Java, such as Tasik Malaya and Indramayu, Japanese mobilization policies resulted in the eruption of peasant

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rebellions. By the end of their rule, the Japanese authorities had also learned the bitter lesson that even the young men they had trained to be good military men rebelled against them. In February 1945, the PETA battalion in Blitar, East Java, took arms against their Japanese masters. The rebellion was brutally crushed. A number of its officers were condemned to death. Its leader, Supriyadi, however, simply disappeared.43 The PETA rebellion and its leaders became part of the national mythology. It was well remembered but it was not the only rebellion the Japanese authorities had to face by the time they learned that their Dai Toa senso (Greater Asian war) had become a lost cause. The Japanese military authorities had to quell several local rebellions, either launched by the Islamic religious leaders or the military units they had trained. It is therefore understandable if the returning Dutch officials were surprised to notice that “the Indonesia” they thought they knew very well was no longer there to be found. The three-and-a-half-year period under the Japanese military occupation had really made a real and deep impact. Since the main objective of Japanese policies was to achieve what they proudly called “the victory of the Greater East Asia”,44 the military authorities needed loyal and helpful subjects. How could they gear the people to participate in the war effort? A number of dramatic changes in the social and political sphere, which were expected to achieve the intended objectives, were introduced. Still, a very common story in the colonial relationship seems to have repeated itself. The Japanese were quite successful in erasing the image of the Europeans as the carriers of the mission civilisatrice. They failed, however, to gain recognition as being the worthy “Older Brothers” of the Indonesians in the family of nations. The Japanese administrative principle of Hakko Ichiu, “the Great Spirit of the foundation of the country”,45 had apparently no bearing on its execution. The Japanese military rule might to some extent have been successful in its campaign to erase the European influences, but it found itself a dismal failure in its policy of “Japanization”.46 In addition to the harshness of the Japanese rule and the unbearable economic hardship that accompanied it, the failure of this policy was also due to the ability of the Indonesian leaders to use the opportunity provided by the Japanese authorities to enhance the people’s awareness on the cause for independence.

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One of the most pressing problems faced by the military authorities was the restructuring of the administrative system, which, on the one hand, should be able to guarantee a well-run administration, and on the other, could make social management easier. The Japanese military began its administrative reforms by continuing the slow process that had been introduced by the government of the Netherlands Indies of appointing indigenous officials to important positions. Only after the administrative system had been put in place, did the militarized Japanese civilian officials take control. Although, on the whole, from the Regency office downwards, the Indonesian staff was maintained, the fact that these officials had the opportunity to administer their respective areas had naturally given them some kind of self-confidence.47 A long-lasting impact of the Japanese administration was the introduction of the Tonari-Gumi or in Indonesian, Rukun Tetangga or Neighbourhood Association, consisting of units of ten to twenty households under the supervision of the neighbourhood head. With this formal association, the Japanese military authorities had actually introduced a new way of governing. They set up a rather effective way to manage social mobilization in the urban areas. Through these neighbourhood associations, the Djawa Hookoo Kai or in Indonesian, Perhimpunan Kebaktian Rakyat, (established in January 1944), the last form of “movement for communal services”, channeled their activities. With this new movement, it was expected that the whole population of Java would willingly sacrifice themselves for the effort of the “Greater Asia War”. In retrospect, it is not difficult to see the similarities between this period and that of Sukarno’s era of Guided Democracy and Suharto’s New Order. Either for the sake of securing the participation of the populace in the struggle for independence, or, later after the revolution, for maintaining authoritarian rule or for facilitating aid to various kinds of social or natural calamities, the successive regimes in post-independent Indonesia gladly continued to keep these neighbourhood associations. Some of the most important impacts of the Japanese occupation were in the fields of social mobilization and the socialization of ideology, or to put it crudely, propaganda. How could they give the impression that they were the liberators of the Indonesian people from the yoke of Western imperialism?

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The first attempt was the introduction of the so-called Triple A Movement. Headed by a lesser-known nationalist leader, the Triple A Movement was expected to implant the belief among the population that Japan was “the leader”, “the protector”, and “the light” of Asia. With such crude propaganda, the Triple A Movement died an early death. Another attempt was made. However, this time the Japanese authorities secured the cooperation of the Empat Serangkai, Four-Leaf Clover. They were four of the most influential leaders since pre-war times: Sukarno (who had been brought back to Java from his exile in Sumatra), Hatta, Ki Hadjar. Dewantara, and Kyai Haji Mas Mansoer (1896–1946), the chairman of the Muhammadiyah. They were put in the leadership of the Putera or Pusat Tenaga Rakyat (Centre of People’s Manpower) which aimed at enhancing the people’s participation in the preparation for the war effort. Again, this attempt was not too successful in the eyes of the Japanese authorities. They suspected the leaders also tried to make use of the organization for their own nationalist agenda. In line with the change of Japanese policy on Indonesia, the military authorities established a new institution, Tyuuoo Sangi-In, Central Advisory Council, with its local counterparts, Tyuuoo Sangi-Kai. Sukarno was chosen as the chairman of the central council. After its meeting (October, 1943), the character of the council became obvious. As Sukarno reputedly observed, “The old People’s Council (Volksraad) was the only organ of opposition of the people against the Dutch rulers, but the present Central Advisory Council is an organ of cooperation with the military authority”.48 In retrospect, the efforts to secure the participation of the nationalist leaders were pale compared with what the Japanese military occupation tried to do in order to gain the support of the rural Islamic ulama and their communities of followers. The so-called Japanese Islam policy had totally changed the map of national politics in Indonesia. National politics could never be same again after this attempt. The military regime reversed Snouck Hurgronje’s “Islam policy”, which had tried to push Islam to be simply a matter of the relationship between the creatures and their Creator. The Japanese authorities brought rural kyai or ulama, religious teachers and leaders, to the mainstream of national politics.49 In December 1942,

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the high military authority invited prominent ulama from all over Java to Jakarta to be addressed and feted. It was a simple invitation, but with it, something unusual had taken place. A group of ulama, the guardians of religion, who are in religious parlance, seen as the warasatul anbiya, the heirs of the Prophet, were for the first time invited to the palace of the infidel umara, the ruler. From July 1943 to May 1945, the military authorities conducted 17 latihan ulama, courses for the religious teachers, each attended by 6o kyai from all over Java. Several attempts were also made to unify all Islamic organizations into one all-embracing organization. The Badan Persatuan Islam (Islamic Unity Agency) was not too successful. The reestablishment of the pre-war M.I.A.I. (Majlisul Islamil A’laa Indonesia, All Indonesia Council of Islam) was also below expectations. Finally on 22 November 1943, the Majlis Syuro Muslimin Indonesia, much better known by its abbreviation, the Masyumi, was formed. Headed by the most influential and respected ulama and one of the founders of the “traditionalist” Nahdlatul Ulama (“The Awakening of Ulama”) organization, K.H. Hasyim Asy’ari (1875–1945),50 the Masyumi was the first genuine, all-embracing Islamic organization that ever existed in Indonesian history. In hindsight, one can say that it was also destined to be the last. In short, the Japanese Occupation had given the representatives of Islam a privileged position in the political system to the extent that the whole traditional system of governing was endangered. In spite of these efforts, the military authorities failed to get what they really wanted to have in return — that is, the announcement of the Islamic leaders that the war against the Allies war actually a “holy war”, fi sabilillah, “a war in the path of God”. Yet how could the ulama make such an announcement in the war when two blocs of the kafir power were confronting each other? Instead of endorsing the war, an influential ulama, Syekh Dr A. Karim Amrullah, a pioneer of the Islamic “modernist” movement, had the courage to refuse to bow in the direction of Tokyo — as if to worship the Tenno Haika, the Emperor. It was religiously unlawful for a Muslim to perform such a sacrilegious act, he stated in a short treatise on the subject. The refusal to bow in the Emperor’s direction may be taken to symbolize the beginning of the opposition to the imposed Japanese military code of ethics.51

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Japan’s military authorities might have thought that the political and social measures they had employed were the ways to secure the participation of the people in their war effort. In retrospect, however, these measures worked almost exactly the way Indonesian leaders had hoped for. When the moment came, the experience in forming and running these different kinds of Japanese-sponsored movements, councils, organizations, and other bodies could be used to secure the participation of the people in the national revolution. Japanese anti-Western propaganda and cultural policy also resulted in similar effects. In order to erase Western influences, the Japanese had made it unlawful to speak Dutch, the language of the Western-educated Indonesians, and promoted the Japanese language. Yet how long would it have taken to make the people conversant in such a difficult language? A new language that could act as the intermediary, however, was needed. That was the time when the Indonesian language, the language that had been promoted by the nationalist leaders, creatively utilized by the new breeds of novelist and poets, and commonly used by the urban population, began to be used by the Western-educated class. The Japanese language policy had, in effect, precipitated the process of maturing the bahasa Indonesia into becoming the real national language. “One could call this flowering of Indonesian a forced growth,” S. Takdir Alisjahbana states, designed to enable it to exercise the function of a mature modern language in the shortest possible time. Apart from this, however, the Japanese were [so] fully bent on mobilizing the total energies of the Indonesian people for the Greater Asian War, that they penetrated to the most remote villages, using Indonesian wherever they went. The language spread rapidly in all directions… The Indonesian language became a symbol of Indonesian unity.52 It was also during the Japanese Occupation period that the first serious attempt to make this national language a language of science started. The authorities established a language commission whose major function was to translate Dutch scientific terms into Indonesian.53 The work of this komisi istilah, “terminology commission”, as it was officially called, was to continue until the 1960s, long after the Japanese Occupation had ended.

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The short Japanese rule had ended the discriminatory school system. If the Dutch Government divided the schools into several categories — ranging from the volksschools for the children of the ordinary people to the HIS for the children of the well-to-do inhabitants and local officials, and the ELS for the children of Dutch and bureaucratic aristocrats — the Japanese simply unified them all into one system. The three-year volksschools or sekolah desa could still continue, but as a system, it was already part of the new sevenyear elementary school. Education in the elementary schools would last for seven years, to be followed up by a three-year programme in junior high schools. With this change, the democratization process of the educational system had begun. One of the hard facts in the accepted history of the Indonesian revolution is the decision made by the Japanese Government to form the volunteer army, Kyodo Giyu Gun, for the defence of the homeland. In Java, it was officially called Tentera Sukarela Pembela Tanah Air (Voluntary Armed Defenders of the Fatherland) or better known by its abbreviation, PETA, while in Sumatra, it was known by its Japanese name, Giyu Gun. As the Japanese authorities themselves acknowledged, the formation of this voluntary army was a response to the demand of the Indonesian nationalist leaders, who had been working with them.54 Officially announced in October 1943, the first recruits of the PETA were mostly the youths who had been members of the youth corps (Seinendan, established in April, 1943).55 A second group was recruited in April 1944. Unlike the earlier auxiliary corps (Hei Ho) the PETA was not part of the Japanese army, although it was trained by Japanese officers and put under the command of the Japanese Army Commander in Java. The PETA was also different from Keibodan,56 which was formed to safeguard the community, in addition to spying on the possibility of the enemy’s infiltration. The PETA was an army, despite the fact that its members were, right to the end of the Japanese occupation, not really trusted by its own creators. In his speech endorsing the decision of the Japanese military authorities to form the voluntary army, Hatta barely concealed the idea behind the nationalist proposal to form such an army. In a public meeting, he counseled the audience not to suspect the intention of the Japanese military government in forming this voluntary army as only for the sake of

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supporting the Japanese war effort. “Look at the problem of these voluntary corps from the need of our fatherland to be defended by its own sons. Therefore let us carry our duties together as the sons and daughters of our nation”.57 With the formation of the PETA in Java and the Giyu Gun in Sumatra and Sulawesi the Japanese authorities had also, in fact, laid a rather solid foundation for the establishment of the Indonesian national army.58 The Japanese military authorities had not only provided the forthcoming national revolution with the people trained in weaponry — however simple they might still be — but also laid down the tradition of military in politics. After all, the recruits to the voluntary armies came from various walks of life. Their officers were recruited from several influential organizations, Islamic or otherwise. Most of the recruits were politically conscious young men. It was widely believed that since the Japanese military authorities had agreed to the demand of the nationalist leaders to form the PETA, they also felt compelled to give something to the Islamic groups. On 8 December 1943, the Military Commander of Java announced that the government would immediately set up special Islamic voluntary corps. Planned as reserve corps for the PETA, the government soon founded the Hizbullah, Allah’s army. It was more significantly put under the direct supervision of the Islamic leaders. In other words, the Hizbullah was “quite explicitly, the army of Masyumi, to whom its members had to swear unswerving allegiance”.59 Unlike the PETA or the Hei Ho, the members of the Hizbullah did not receive any salary. By the end of the Japanese Occupation period, there were already several military and semi-military corps in Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi. Although the exact figure cannot be ascertained, a rough estimate of the numbers of “the people in arms” in Java were more than two million.60 No estimate can be given on their numbers in Sumatra and Sulawesi. When the Japanese finally succumbed to the might of the Allied Forces, the idea of the Indonesian nationhood, which by the end of the Dutch colonial period had reached its maturity, had several important ideological and sociological pillars to lean on. The West could be defeated. The political consciousness of the masses had been raised. The rural Islamic teachers had been recruited

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into the mainstream of national politics. The educated elite had learned to communicate with the mass population in a language that was both democratic and national. And not less importantly, the Japanese anti-West propaganda could easily be transformed into an opposition to any kind of foreign rule. The scattered rebellions that erupted here and there gave proof of this growing new feeling. In the meantime, the already deep-seated antifascist tendencies among the educated youths never subsided under the Japanese occupation. Although they were forced to work underground, they remained alert, waiting for the right moment to act. In the morning, the students of the newly reopened faculty of medicine might still regularly attend their classrooms, but at night, they and the underground youth groups began to prepare themselves for the right moment to come.61 When it finally arrived, all of these trends came to the surface. The national revolution had begun. Recollecting his experiences in the last few weeks before the capitulation of Japan, S. Nishima, a Japanese official who was quite sympathetic to the Indonesian cause, stated that “the Indonesian nationalist movement was like the current of a river, a river which flows. No matter what we did, we couldn’t stop it”.62 As the course of the national revolution itself shows, economic hardship and suffering imposed by the Japanese war policies not only gave more impetus to the spirit of national independence, but also helped to shape the very notion of the revolution itself among the people. The national revolution consisted of many scattered little social revolutions.

Designing a Nation-State By the middle of 1944, it was clear that the Japanese Imperial Army could no longer aspire to achieve its glorious victory in the Great Asia War. As if to amend the disappointment of the Indonesian leaders, because the Japanese had left Indonesia out in the list of future countries to be liberated, Sukarno, Hatta,63 and a leader of the Muhammadiyah, Ki Bagus Hadikusumo, were invited to Japan. The leaders used this opportunity to express their feelings for the failure of the Japanese Government to include Indonesia in the Great East Asiatic Conference in Tokyo in November 1943.64 Soon after they had departed from Japan, the Prime Minister of Japan issued a statement

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proclaiming that independence would be granted to Indonesia.65 “We declare”, he stated in the statement issued in September 1944, “that we intend to recognize their independence in the future in order to ensure the eternal happiness of the East Indian race”.66 Preparations for such an eventuality were soon set in motion. In December, several prominent Indonesians were appointed as the deputy heads of several government branches (sanyo). They were given some kind of job training. It was hoped that when Indonesia gained its independence, these persons could be appointed as the new ministers. People were allowed again to sing the national anthem in public. The national flag could again be hoisted. In May 1945, the Badan Penyelidik Usaha-usaha Persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia (BPUPKI — Investigating Body for the Preparations of the Independence of Indonesia) was formed. Consisting of 68 members, mostly recruited from the list of the so-called “prominent Indonesians on Java”67 and representatives of the Chinese, Eurasian, and Arab minorities, the body held its meetings from 28 May– 1 June, and 10–17 July 1945. The most immediate issues on the agenda were to lay the basic foundation of the state and to draft a provisional constitution. There were several constitutional issues that had to be decided on. What should be the basic foundation of the state? “What should be taken as the “philosophical foundation” of the new state?” asked the oldest member of the BPUPKI, who served as the chairman. A physician by training and profession, an aristocrat by birth, and a philosopher by inclination, Dr Radjiman Wediodiningrat (1879–1951) saw that it was only proper that such a question be asked and answered, if indeed a new nation-state was to be established. This was exactly the kind of questions Soekarno had been waiting for. On 1 June 1945, he delivered his celebrated speech, which was later called, “the birth of Pancasila”. The speech was later taken as the early draft of the preamble of the constitution. The date of the speech is occasionally celebrated as “the birthday of Pancasila”. The next question was what should be taken as the boundaries of the new state? Sukarno and M. Yamin translated the romantic nationalist notion of “greater Indonesia” (Indonesia Raya) into a territorial concept, which

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would include the then Netherlands Indies, plus Portuguese Timor, British Borneo, and British Malaya. Hatta apparently saw the importance of the close-knit relationship between the state, as a territorial concept, and the nation, which despite its subjective foundation, should also be based on common anthropological roots. He therefore preferred to see the future nation-state as consisting of the former Netherlands Indies, minus West Papua, because according to him, the Papuans do not belong to the Austronesian family of race. He did not mind if the people of British Malaya would like to join the new state. The indigenous people in that territory after all belonged to the Malay stock. Other options were put forward, but when the votes were taken, it was clear that Sukarno and Yamin had won the day with a huge majority. The notion of “greater Indonesia”, Indonesia Raya, was simply too persuasive to be set aside. After all, was the Japanese Empire not the sponsor of the formation of the nation-state? This power was still very much the master of the claimed territories. Political realities would later determine that the nationalist leaders could only realistically aspire to claim the territories of the former colonial state of Netherlands Indies. Whatever the case, the deliberation on the state’s territories itself was historically important. That was the first time the “founding fathers” talked about one of the essential dimensions of the state — the territorial boundaries. The moment they talked about it, they had actually reached an unstated recognition that the process of nation formation should now be channeled through a clearly defined state, with its legitimate territories and system of governance and law. The close identification between the concept of nation and that of territory would since then become a dominant theme in any political discourse. The BPUPKI sessions, in other words, had transformed the poetic notion of tanah air, homeland, into a prosaic concept of territorial boundaries of a nation-state. As for the structure of the state, the overwhelming majority of the members of the BPUPKI chose the republican system. A democratic system of government was also the irresistible choice. But how should democratic principles be formulated into the constitution? A member of the drafting committee, who was most likely the chief drafter of the constitution, Supomo

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(1903–53), one of the earliest Indonesians ever appointed as a professor of the school of law, visualized the state as being constituted of a big family. Like in family life, the government, being the father-substitute, would take care of its “children”. The state is an integral order of the society, all groups, all parts, all members are closely related with each other and form an organic societal unity. The most important thing for the state that is based on the integral idea is the life of the nation in its totality. The state does not take sides with the strongest group or the largest group, or the interest of individuals, the state guarantees the safety of the life of the nation in its totality as indivisible unity. Therefore, the most important function of the constitution is to describe the proper arrangement of the state, the job descriptions of its high institutions, and the interconnection of the institutions and their respective branches. “It should also be adapted to the calling of the time, such as the aspirations of the Indonesian state within the Greater East Asia sphere”.68 Supomo naturally referred to the notion that had been made popular by the political campaign of the Japanese militarist regime. “We are drafting a constitution”, Sukarno, the chairman of the drafting committee, said in the conclusion of his report, “on the basis of the sovereignty of the people and not the sovereignty of the individual”. The freedom of man as an individual and the freedom of the sovereign state... are actually in conflict. And as I suggested earlier to you, ladies and gentlemen, this is exactly the internal conflict that has turned Europe and America into two worlds which are full of conflicts, class conflicts, and wars. Sukarno then elaborated a little further on what he considered to be the weaknesses of Western liberal democracy. The system, according to him, had produced not only capitalism and imperialism, but also “narrow nationalism”. This was the nationalism that had reached its climax with the slogan “Deutchland über alles”. Finally he asked a rhetorical question, “Are we going to be a nation that would follow the fate of the nations I have just described?”69

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Hatta, who was at that time undoubtedly second only to Sukarno in terms of influence, was the first to speak. On the whole, he said, he could agree with the draft. He also supported the idea that individualism should have no role to play in the constitution. “I myself have fought against individualism for more than twenty years. There is one thing, however, I am worried about,” he continued. If there is no guarantee given to the people in the constitution of their right to express their opinions, we may end up of having a state which none of us ever want [sic]. With the draft we are having now there is a strong possibility for the emergence of cadaver discipline (“dead discipline”), like what we are now seeing in Russia and Germany, this [is] what worries me. Hatta emphatically warned that with this kind of draft, the nation-state they were now planning to construct would emerge as the negara kekuasaan or Machtstaat — a state that based its existence on brute power, the authoritarian state. From its inception, the national struggle for independence had dreamt of having a “negara pengurus”, a state that manages. “We should never give unlimited power to the state that would make it a negara kekuasaan”.70 After giving a long defence of the draft on the basis of its antiindividualism and anti-liberalism, Supomo rejected Hatta’s worries. But Sukiman Wirjosandjojo (1898–1974), a former leader of an Islamic party, who, during their student days in the Netherlands, was Hatta’s predecessor as the chairman of the Perhimpunan Indonesia, supported Hatta’s contention. The inclusion of the right of the people was needed, he said, because it would “hearten the people”. Yamin, who usually preferred to go along with Sukarno, gave his strong support to Hatta’s ideas on the need for the constitutional guarantee of the right of the people.71 He totally rejected all the arguments put forward by Supomo. The inclusion of the people’s right in the constitution, he stated, had nothing to do with liberalism, but “it is the right that has to be included in any constitution”.72 The right of the people, he insisted, should be plainly stated. “If this is not clear, then there is a flaw in the constitution, a constitutional defect… a great sin to the people who expect (the recognition) this right by the republic.”73

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Some kind of compromise was finally reached. Hatta’s proposal is included in Article 27, which guarantees the right of the citizen to a dignified life and to work; Article 28 states the right of the citizen to organize and to assemble, to express their opinion, in verbal or written form. Article 29 speaks about the right of worship, and others. Despite the compromise, the two trends in the history of political thought in Indonesia continue. These two trends — “the notion of the strong state” and “the idea of the citizen’s rights” — were to continue to have their impact on the course of the political history of the post-independent period. Another controversial issue was the form of the state. Should the future nation-state be a “federal” or a “unitary” one? Although the argument for the formation of a federal state was strong, the ideals of a unitary state were simply too persuasive to be rejected. Hatta, who preferred to have a federal state, said that if the people were more attracted to the unitary state, he would not hesitate to support it. In hindsight, the decision to have a unitary state was perhaps an unavoidable decision. How was the state to maintain its integrity if it had to deal not only with the many ethnic groups, each with its own respective cultural symbols, but also with the divergent degrees of economic viability? How strong could the federal union of the nation-state in the archipelago world be? The history of the political and dynastic relationships of the competing pre-colonial indigenous states did not help the case of the federal state. Experience under the colonial rule did not shed any light on how to run the federal system. Existing federal states in the world could also not be taken as examples. All of them can be defined as continental states and Indonesia would certainly become an arhipelagic nation-state. The attraction of the federal state, however, would remain one of the contested political discourses in post-independence Indonesia. Finally there was the controversy over the foundation of the state — should it be based on Islam or should the state be separated from any religion, despite the fact that Islam was the religion of the vast majority of the population? This was indeed an old debate that had in the past — after the debacle of the so-called communist rebellions of 1926 and 1927 — divided the nationalist movement into two important factions, the Islamic

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and the “secular” nationalists. It can be said that the place of Islam has, from the beginning, been a great divide in the history of nation formation and nation-building in Indonesia. The controversy continued to haunt Indonesia long after the nation-state had been established. In order to settle the critical issue, the BPUPKI sessions gave first priority to the formulation of the preamble of the constitution. The preamble would contain not only the basic principles of the state, but also the raison d’être of the independence of Indonesia.74 The question on the philosophical foundation of the state, however, still had to be answered. Or to put it differently — “how should the preamble of the constitution be drafted?” The members of the BPUPKI consisted of prominent leaders of the pergerakan, bureaucrats, professionals, representatives of the minorities, and so forth. They were, however, wise enough to elect a special commission that consisted entirely of the people, who with different degrees of involvement, belonged to the category of the pergerakan. Referred to as the Panitia Sembilan, the Commission of Nine, represented both factions — four from the Islamic factions and five from the “secular” nationalists (one of them was a Christian from the Minahasa region).75 The draft begins with a statement of belief that every nation has the right to be independent. It then states the historical vision of the nation’s “founders”, and finally the philosophical foundation of the state. The draft preamble states four objectives of the soon-to-be-established nation-state. They are namely, to defend the nation and the country, to enhance the welfare of people, to create an enlightened national life (mencerdaskan kehidupan bangsa), and to participate in maintaining world security on the basis of “freedom, eternal peace and social justice”.76 Presented on 22 June 1945, the draft was overwhelmingly approved by the general assembly of the BPUPKI. The draft was to be known as the “Jakarta Charter”,77 for it was also widely regarded as a covenant between the so-called “Islamic” and “secular” nationalists. Using Sukarno’s historic speech, later known as Lahirnya Pancasila, (The Birth of Pancasila) on 1 June, the Committee of Nine rearranged, and at the same time, redefined the five principles of the state proposed by Sukarno. It also introduced one of the most — and, indeed, the most —

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contested sentences in the history of Indonesian political discourse. It is the “magic seven words” that was supposed to be taken as the first principle of the state, “Ketuhanan, dengan kewajiban menjalankan syariat Islam bagi pemeluk-pemeluknya” (belief in God with the obligation of the Islamic adherents to follow the laws of their religion). The other four principles were humanity, unity of Indonesia, sovereignty of the people, and social justice. In line with this covenant, the BPUPKI finally also agreed to Sukarno’s plea — with tears in his eyes — for a compromise on Article 6 of the provisional constitution. It stated, “The President is an indigenous person, whose religion is Islam.”78 With this compromise, Sukarno’s reputation as the great unifier — since his treatise on Islam, Marxism, and nationalism in the 1920s — remained intact. But how long could this compromise be maintained? So it was decided that the future nation-state would be a unitary one. It was to be a republic with a democratic system of governing. The president would be the head of the state as well as the chief executive. In this structure, Islam would have a special place, for not only was it obligatory for its adherents to follow the legal precepts of Islam, the President should also be an “indigenous Muslim”. The BPUPKI session was, by any criterion, an extraordinary historical event. In spite of the fact that it was the Japanese authorities in Java who appointed its members and that it had Japanese members, who regularly attended the meetings, though preferring to keep silent, the “prominent persons in Java” played their roles in earnest. They acted like they were really the rightful representatives of the people, not only of Java, but also of all Indonesia. Although they were the residents of Java, a number of them originally came from the other islands. It was the first time they talked about the state as the organization of power and its system of governance. It was also the first time all kinds of ideological persuasions were put to the test on a very concrete objective and a clearly defined goal — that of the formation of a nation-state. In less than two months, the BPUPKI members not only managed to bridge all differences among themselves, but also drafted a constitution that reflected their attitude towards the state and power.

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When the draft was completed, the future state had not only acquired a constitution, but also a testament to the meaning of politics and power for its “founding fathers”. The 1945 Constitution, as it would later be known, can rightly be seen as the genuine product of the age of innocence, when politics was still seen as a matter of calling. One can easily get the impression that the constitution has a basic trust of the sincerity of those who have been entrusted to hold power. On the other hand, one may also be tempted to call it an executive heavy constitution, which gives almost unlimited possibilities to the executive branch to manipulate whatever power it has to its own advantage. But then, power to the most prominent members of the constitution drafters, who had spent their lives in the struggle for independence, was a matter of calling, a duty to perform for the sake of the ideals. Soon after the completion of the draft of the provisional constitution, the BPUPKI was dissolved. The Japanese military government established the Panitia Persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia (PPKI-Preparatory Committee for the Independence of Indonesia) (7 August 1945). Chaired by Sukarno, the members of the PPKI consisted of several members of the now defunct BPUPKI, plus the representatives from Sumatra, Sulawesi, Kalimantan, and the then Sunda Kecil (Little Sunda) islands (Bali, Lombok, and others). In spite of the fact that it was the Japanese military authorities who appointed the representatives of these regions, the symbolic significance of their participation cannot be ignored. With their appointment, the Japanese authorities had shown that they had finally recognized Indonesia as one country, despite the fact that it had been administered by three separate military administrations. In historical hindsight, one can say that the participation of the representatives from the four major islands, in addition to Java, gave them the moral legitimacy to serve as the representatives of the soon-to-be-established republican government. Sukarno and Hatta thought at that time — as Hatta79 remembers the historic event of the Proclamation — that the participation of the representatives of several regions in the PPKI would give more credence to the eventual Proclamation of Independence. Their participation symbolized the unity of Indonesia. During the Japanese Occupation, one may say that there were “three

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Indonesia” — namely Java, Sumatra (which together with the Malay Peninsula and Singapore were put under the same military commander) and East Indonesia. Now, with the PPKI, the three parts had been symbolically reunited. As if to visualize the serious complications the newly independent Indonesia might have, the Japanese were cautious enough not to include the representatives from the former British colonies, despite the fact that radical Malay nationalists had shown their desire to be part of the Greater Indonesia, Indonesia Raya.

The Proclamation of Independence On 14 August 1945, Sukarno, Hatta, and Radjiman (the former chairman of the BPUPKI) returned from Dalat, Vietnam, after a short meeting with Field Marshal Terauchi to discuss the eventual transfer of sovereignty from the Japanese authorities to Indonesia. Beaming with the prospect of forthcoming independence, Sukarno gave an impromptu speech to the people who came to the airport to welcome the national leaders. “A few days ago, “Sukarno stated, “I said that our independence would come before the corn produces its fruit, now I can definitely say that Indonesia would be independent before the corn blooms.” The leaders did not realize that by the time they arrived in Jakarta, Hiroshima and Nagasaki had already suffered the severest punishment by the Allied Forces. The two beautiful cities were to be remembered in history as the first to suffer the severest destruction of the newly invented atomic bombs. The two leaders arrived when the Japanese Emperor had just announced the Japanese unconditional surrender to the Allied Forces. The bombings of the two big cities were simply too much for the Japanese to suffer. On the other fronts, the Japanese had also suffered defeats at the hands of the Russian army (on the Western fronts) and the American troops (on the Southern and the Eastern fronts). The Indonesian underground groups, however, had already received the news from their clandestine radio. It was obvious to them that the Japanese military authorities were no longer in the position to fulfill their promise to grant political independence to Indonesia. Japan had to return all the conquered territories to their respective pre-war masters. The drama of the Proclamation of Independence began soon after the two leaders arrived in their respective homes. It was a drama that had, from

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the beginning, become part of the saga of the revolution.80 This is the field, as Hatta a few years later commented, where Dichtung und Wahrheit coalesced and “legends and realities” found their affinities. The pemuda, the radical youth, told the two leaders about the capitulation of Japan and persuaded them to proclaim Indonesian independence. The pemuda argued that the independence of Indonesia should be something that had to be taken from, rather than one that was given by, the Japanese. The two leaders could not be persuaded, however. They had just received the guarantee of independence from the highest Japanese authority. Now, all of sudden, several youths, either those who were active in the underground groups or those who had joined the Japanese-created PETA, pressed them to proclaim independence without the consent of the Japanese authorities. Sukarno and Hatta insisted that the newly appointed members of the PPKI should sanction the proclamation of independence, because this body — unlike the disbanded BPUPKI — was the representative of the people of Indonesia. The two leaders also did not want to put their lives and that of others in danger until they knew what had really happened. On the other hand, the radical youth could not proclaim independence without the consent of Sukarno and Hatta. They were, after all, not only the most influential leaders at that time, but had also become the symbols of the struggle for independence. Failing to persuade Sukarno and Hatta to proclaim Indonesian independence, a group of radical youths, including the members of the disarmed PETA, kidnapped the two leaders. They were taken to a small town, Rengasdengklok, near Jakarta. The pemuda told Sukarno and Hatta that they had to do that in order to protect them from the revolution that was soon to be launched by the youth and the people.81 Nothing happened on that day, however. “One day has [been] lost,” Hatta commented in recollecting the event. On the night the two leaders were brought back to Jakarta, they held a meeting with the members of the PPKI, who had been hurriedly summoned. The meeting was held at the house of Rear Admiral Maeda, who sympathized with the plight of the Indonesian leaders. They all agreed that the Indonesian independence should be declared the next day. Sukarno and Hatta drafted the proclamation. But who should sign the proclamation? Hatta, who might

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have remembered the many signatories of the American Declaration of Independence, suggested that they should all sign it. Sukarni,82 a leader of the radical youths, strongly rejected the proposal. He apparently did not want the proclamation to be co-signed by the “collaborators”. He insisted that only Sukarno and Hatta should sign the historic document. The next day, on 17 August 1945, Sukarno and Hatta, on behalf of the “Indonesian people”, proclaimed the independence of Indonesia at the front veranda of Sukarno’s house. Attended by the members of the PPKI and several officers of the already disarmed PETA, the ceremony for the proclamation was soon followed by the hoisting the Red and White flag, which had hurriedly been sewn by Mrs Sukarno that night; the singing of the national anthem, Indonesia Raya. Indonesia had entered, as the Preamble of the Constitution puts it, “the gate of independence”. It was a very uneventful event, however. It lasted no more than two hours, but the event erected a clear boundary in the history of the nation. A total break with history had been made. The next day, the members of the PPKI unanimously elected Sukarno as the President, and Hatta as the Vice-President of the new Republic. After making some minor revisions, the provisional Constitution, drafted by the BPUPKI, was approved. “We shall make a better and perfect Constitution,” Sukarno said, “soon after we have political stability.” These “minor” revisions, however, were very decisive. As such, they remain until the present time, controversial.83 The first revision saw the Arabic word for “preamble” — Mukaddimah — changed to the Malay/Indonesian word Pembukaan, which simply means “opening” or “preface”. The most important change was the abrogation of the “Jakarta Charter” — that is the “preamble of the constitution” that contained the compromise between the so-called Islamic and “secular” nationalist leaders. The “magic seven words” — with the obligation of the Islamic adherents to follow the law of their religion — were deleted and the first basic principle of the new state has since then been changed to “Ketuhanan yang Maha Esa” (The One Almighty God). The words “dan beragama Islam” “and whose religion is Islam” in Article 6 on the Presidency were deleted. Article 29, I, was changed to “The state is based on the belief in the One

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Almighty God”. By these changes the new Republic may not become an Islamic state, but it is not — as most of the leaders emphasize — a “secular” state either. The Muslims can simply interpret the concept of the “One Almighty God” as nothing less than the Islamic notion of tauhid — that is, the belief in the absolute oneness of God.84 “I could not bear to imagine what would happen to the Indonesia I have fought throughout my life,” Hatta said, “if some Christian regions decide to secede from the rest of the country.” After the changes had been approved, Hatta was on record to have said, “These are the most important changes that unify the whole nation.”85 In the collaboration with the newly-elected President and Vice-President, the PPKI divided the newly established nation-state into eight provinces. Some members of the PPKI were appointed as the first Republican governors in their respective provinces. The PPKI itself was transformed into the Komite Nasional Indonesia (KNI, Indonesian National Committee). After local branches of the KNI had been established, it was known as the KNIP (P-Pusat or Central). In order to carry out daily matters, the KNIP formed its Badan Pekerja, the Executive Council, known by its abbreviation, BPKNIP. With the establishment of the government and the acceptance of the constitution, the nation-state had been established.86 Within a few days, the people of Jakarta held demonstration to show their support. The youth began to form struggle groups. Similar courses of events took place in other towns in Java, later in Sumatra, and on the other islands. In many instances, the youth began to steal weapons from the Japanese armouries, hoisted the national flag in government offices, and on some occasions, the pemuda simply appointed influential local leaders to be the new heads of the districts. With this series of popular support, the legitimacy of the newly proclaimed state had also been confirmed. On the day the young Republic announced the formation of the KNI and urged the regions to form their respective local KNI (23 August), it also formed Badan Keselamatan Rakyat (BKR — People’s Security Agency). The BKR was, in a way, a compromise from Sukarno and Hatta, who were rather hesitant to form a national armed force because of their apprehension in antagonizing the well-armed Japanese military units and the radical

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youth, the pemuda, some of whom belonged to the already disarmed PETA groups. The latter insisted on the pressing need to form the Republican army. The apprehension, however, did not last long. On 5 October, the BKR was officially transformed into the Tentara Keamanan Rakyat (People’s Security Army). Before long, it was officially named Tentara Republik Indonesia and finally Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI, Indonesian National Military). In the meantime, hundreds of people’s militia, the lasykar, had been formed throughout the country. After the failure of the government’s attempt to establish a single national party, and the revolutionary government allowed the establishment of political parties, most of the parties also formed their own respective lasykar.87 Many pupils of the religious boarding schools, the pesantren, joined the Hizbullah and the urban youth, regardless of their ideological orientations, joined the Pesindo or Pemuda Sosialis Indonesia, the Indonesian socialist youth. In Java, the members of the Pesindo might be “socialist” in their political orientation, but in Aceh, it could either be “socialist” (in Langsa) or just a name they shared together (in Kotaraja, later called Banda Aceh). Later in 1948, the government began the serious effort to incorporate all of these lasjkar into the TNI. This rather bumbling process in forming the armed forces of the new Republic would later give the military of the independent Indonesia some kind of historical legitimacy in involving themselves in the national politics.88 On 31 August 1945, the Presidential cabinet was formed. For the sake of continuity, most of the cabinet ministers were the leaders who had been appointed by the Japanese military authorities as the “deputies” in several government branches. The newly formed republican government soon had to face many daunting problems. In the first place, the cabinet received only lukewarm support. It was even ridiculed as the Bucho cabinet, since many of its members were the former bucho, “deputies”. The Proclamation of Independence states “the transfer of power would be conducted with the ultimate care in the shortest time possible”. Yet how could they conduct the transfer of power in such a manner, if the Japanese army had already been ordered by the victorious Allied Powers to maintain the status quo? They were also still very much in arms. Furthermore, with the anticipated coming of the victorious Allied forces, how should the proclamation of independence

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be defended if the winning side accused Sukarno and Hatta of being “collaborators” of the defeated Japanese power? In the meantime, the government of the newly established nation-state had also to deal with the question of the image of the Republic in the eyes of the victorious Allies. Would the Allies treat the new Republic as the creation of the Japanese? How could the Allies be convinced that the proclamation of independence was a genuine expression of the people? Learning about the Proclamation of Indonesian independence in his place of exile, Dr Hubertus J. van Mook, the Lieutenant General Governor of the Netherlands Indies, wrote a letter to the Supreme Allied Commander for Southeast Asia, in which he stated that “It is to be seriously doubted that the puppet state government has much of a following, and it is of particular importance that this extremist organization not be recognized in any way directly or indirectly.” The Republic was, according to him “simply a Japanese creation”.89 Van Mook, who was born in Java, and whose interest and keen knowledge on pre-war Indonesian affairs was beyond doubt, was not alone in giving this sceptical view on the newly formed Republic. The first British mission to land on Java had a similar view. “The bulk of the native population in Java are indifferent to all political movement. The political problem is principally one of the towns, and it is significant that the Nationalist flags follow the main streets and most road[s]. It is most acute in Batavia.” And finally, the members of the mission, who arrived by parachute on the Kemayoran airport on 8 September, concluded their report on an optimistic note. “Once transport and security problems are solved, other tasks will be comparatively simple.”90 At the end of September, the Allied Forces landed in Jakarta, soon to be followed in the other big towns in Java and Sumatra and in the East Indonesian islands.91 Before long, the Dutch army had attached itself to the Allied Forces. Later, much later, van Mook had to admit that the Republic was not merely the work of a few radical nationalists. “When we look back at history,” he stated in his speech in Pangkal Pinang in October 1946, “it is apparent that in the Republic forces [were] at work which signified more and were rooted deeper than a mere surge of terrorism…”92 However, since the landing of the Allied forces with the NICA (Netherlands Indies Civil

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Administration) elements, Jakarta was no longer a safe place for the Republican leaders. At the invitation of the Sultan of Yogyakarta, Hamengkubuwono IX (1912–88),93 who had officially made his sultanate “a special territory of the Republic of Indonesia”, the President and VicePresident moved to Yogyakarta in early January. Although the Prime Minister and several ministers might spend most of their time in Jakarta, Yogyakarta since that time became the capital of the Republic of Indonesia. Jakarta, “the city of Proclamation”, became a city to return to.

The Course of the Revolution Now that independence had been proclaimed, how were external and internal challenges to be faced? In order to cope with the rapidly growing intensity of domestic politics, and because of the desire to have a clear separation of powers among the revolutionary leaders and the growing concern with international image — now that the Allied Forces had landed to recover the “lost colony” — Hatta, the Vice-President, on 16 October, issued the historic Maklumat no. X (Presidential Decree number X).94 The decree officially transformed the KNIP into the provisional legislative body. The Maklumat no. X effectively ended the “absolute rule” of the President (and his Vice-President). Until that eventful 16 October, the KNI was practically under the command of the President. Sometimes, according to the State Secretary, the President gave instructions to the members of the KNI. The Maklumat no. X had changed all that.95 In November, the Vice-President issued another historic presidential decree. It allowed the citizens to establish political parties “in order to defend our independence” and “to fight for social security”. Many years later, after the establishment of the Guided Democracy, these two Presidential decrees, signed by the Vice-President, were condemned as two historical mistakes. In spite of this historical accusation that was made after the signatory, Hatta, had been politically marginalized, these two decrees were actually nothing more than the recognition of the internal political reality of the young Republic. The failure of the government to establish a single state party had shown that the way the people looked at the prospect of national independence differed considerably.96 In the meantime, the presence of the

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Allied Forces, which tended to suspect any trend that might remind them of the fascist regimes they had defeated, could not be taken lightly. So, what had happened? The proclamation of independence had opened up the possibility for pre-war ideological differences to re-emerge. With the issuance of the two historic decrees, the way towards changing the character of the cabinet was already opened. As a result of the pressures of the radical youths, who hated to see important positions held by the persons they thought had collaborated with the Japanese, and as a matter of strategy in confronting the Allied forces, President Sukarno finally agreed to dissolve the presidential cabinet. But was it a silent coup d’état or could it be only a matter of new strategy in facing the Allied forces? This is again an historical event that continues to be debated.97 On 14 November, President Sukarno installed the first parliamentary cabinet. The newly elected Speaker of the KNIP, Sutan Sjahrir, a leader of the underground group during the Japanese Occupation, who had just published a hard-hitting pamphlet, Perdjoeangan Kita (Our Struggle), became the Prime Minister. With the formation of a parliamentary cabinet, a constitutional debate could not be avoided. The provisional constitution, which was later to be known as the 1945 Constitution, explicitly states that the Republic adopts a presidential system of government. The President, in other words, is both the head of the State and that of the government. There is simply no place for a Prime Minister in the constitution. Many years later, in his explanation of the change, Hatta stated that the shift should be seen as a struggle strategy. Sukarno and Hatta remained, as the constitution states, the head and vice-head of the government respectively, but they, for various reasons, delegated the routine matters of governing to a leader they could trust as the Prime Minister.98 So much for theory; the dynamics of the national domestic politics of the revolutionary Indonesia, however, had since then been based on the triangular relationship of the Presidency, the legislative body (the KNIP), and the cabinet.99 The President (and the Vice-President), who had the charisma of power and the constitutional legitimacy, usually had the final say. No major decision, particularly in dealing with outside powers was made without consulting the President and Vice-President. The

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parliamentary cabinet might govern, but in times of crisis, the President and the Vice-President had to come forward to solve whatever crucial problems were there.100 The system of parliamentary cabinet remained, however, relatively intact, particularly in dealing with internal problems. The cabinet continued to be responsible to the Working Body of the KNIP, the provisional parliament. It is therefore understandable if occasionally, the KNIP might give a thumbs-down to the cabinet. On that occasion the Prime Minister had no other option but to return the mandate to the President. In this situation, the President had to appoint another leader he could trust to form a new cabinet. Sjahrir had to return his mandate to the President three times before the President selected a new man, Amir Sjarifuddin to become “his” Prime Minister. Indeed, even during the revolution, when the existence of the Republic was in danger, the tradition, if not as yet, the structure, of parliamentary democracy seemed to have been working quite well. Political stability, however, remained fragile until Hatta, with the approval of the KNIP, became the Prime Minister of the Presidential cabinet. By that time, the Republic had entered its days of deepest crisis. From the early days of the national revolution, the central government of the Republic could only exert relative power in Sumatra, Java, and Madura, the three islands assigned to the British forces. Before the newly established nation-state could do anything substantial in the eastern islands, the Australian military forces had already made their presence felt. This was the second time the former Netherlands Indies was divided by different occupying forces. Given that the occupying Allied Forces arrived when the revolutionary zeal was also at its peak, the breakout of hostility was only a matters of days. Armed skirmishes soon broke out between the occupying Allied Forces and the pemuda groups and lasykar, militia, not only in Java and Sumatra, but also on the other islands, most notably in Sulawesi. The first heroes of the revolution fell in late September in Jakarta. But it was the battle of Surabaya that lasted from October to November that imprinted lasting impact on both sides. November 10, the day the British forces attacked Surabaya from the sea and the air, is still remembered and celebrated as the “Heroes Day”.101

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The day has also become one of the strongest Indonesia’s myths of concern. “The Battle of Surabaya”, as David Wehl, who can hardly be called a defender of the Republic, states in book, was a tragedy of hysterical ferocity, fanaticism, self-sacrifice, and wasted effort, completely beyond the powers of the Republican leaders either to control or to suppress. Had [a] similar rising taken place all over Java millions would have died, and the Republic of Indonesian and the Netherlands East Indies would alike have been drowned in blood.102 Any geographical map can emphatically place the historical Surabaya on the north of the eastern coast of Java, across the Straits of Madura, but as a national myth, “Surabaya” can be found everywhere throughout the archipelago. “Surabaya” symbolizes the heroic struggle in the national revolution. The memory of the heroic struggle of the revolutionary period has since become one of the most important unifying symbols in postindependent Indonesia. A heroes-cemetery is an essential small segment of any big city or small town. Since the main tasks of the Allied Forces to safeguard war prisoners and to disarm Japanese soldiers were nearing completion, the British realized that the colonial conflict in Indonesia should not be their burden to carry. They took the initiative of settling the colonial dispute by having the Dutch representatives and the Republican delegations conduct their negotiations. After several failed attempts, finally in November 1946, under the auspices of the British, the Republic, under the Prime Minister Sjahrir, and the Dutch Lieutenant Governor General H.J. van Mook initialed the Linggajati Agreement.103 The Dutch recognized the Republic as the holder de facto of authority in Sumatra, Java, and Madura. Both factions also agreed to work together for the eventual establishment of a sovereign and democratic United States of Indonesia, which was to consist of the Republic of Indonesia and Negara Indonesia Timur (State of Eastern Indonesia), which had been formed by van Mook, the Dutch Lieutenant Governor General. With the conclusion of the agreement, the British had found the reason to leave the colonial conflict in Indonesia to the hands of the conflicting parties.

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The Linggajati Agreement incited a major uproar among the Republic supporters both inside and outside Java and Sumatra. Many members of the KNIP thought the agreement a sell-out to the Dutch interest. They felt that the formation of a federal state, which was to consist of the Republic and the Dutch-created states, was an insult to the Proclamation of Independence, which visualized a unitary state. The political crisis that might have caused the cabinet to return its mandate could finally be settled after Sukarno and Hatta intervened. The KNIP finally gave its approval to the agreement. The Linggajati Agreement did not last for long, however. Soon the Dutch intensified their demands at the expense of the Republic. Charging that the Republic had violated some items in the agreement, the Dutch issued an ultimatum. By accepting this ultimatum, Sjahrir lost whatever support he still had in the KNIP. He had to return his mandate to the President. His cabinet fell. On 21 July, the Dutch launched their major offensive. It was known in Indonesia as the “first aggression”, but called by the Dutch as “the police action”(politionele actie). After all, they still considered themselves the legitimate rulers of Indonesia. Although the Dutch managed to control more towns in Java and Sumatra, their image was blemished in the international community. That was the time when the Security Council of the United Nations formed the Committee of Good Offices — known in Indonesia as the Three Nations Commission (Komisi Tiga Negara), since it had three members representing Belgium, Australia, and the United States of America. Under the auspices of the Commission, a new negotiation was held aboard an American warship, Renville. Soon after the Renville Agreement104 (1948) was signed by Prime Minister Amir Sjarifuddin (1907–48),105 a major political crisis hit the Republic. The Indonesian delegates had apparently given too much concession to the Dutch. The agreement was generally felt as a major blow to the pride and dignity of the Republic. The agreement obliged the young Republic to order the evacuation of its regular troops from their stations in the areas that had been drawn as part of the regions under the Dutch authorities. It meant that the Republican army units had to abandon the whole province of West Java, because the province was already agreed upon as being “behind van Mook’s line”. This was a situation that eventually

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gave ample opportunity to Kartosuwirjo, the radical former vice minister of Defence of the Republic, to declare the formation of the Darul Islam as a separate entity from the Republic. Unable to cope with the outpouring of criticisms from the KNIP members, Amir Sjarifuddin, who had by that time expelled Sjahrir from the Socialist Party, had no other way to go but to the President. He returned his mandate. In the meantime, Sjahrir had already formed his own party, the Partai Sosialis Indonesia (Indonesian Socialist Party). Sukarno gave Amir another chance to form a cabinet. However, he failed — he could not gather enough votes to support him in the KNIP. The opposition to him was simply too strong. The President finally decided to have a non-partisan and professional cabinet (zaken cabinet) under the leadership of the Vice-President. As the new Prime Minister, Hatta had to deal squarely with the negative impact of the Renville agreement. Before he could really resume negotiations with the Dutch, however, the so-called “Madiun Affair” (1948) broke out. Suddenly the town of Madiun and its surroundings were occupied by the militia under the influence of the FDR (Front Demokrasi Rakyat, People’s Democratic Front), the Communist bloc. Musso (1897–1948), the new leader, who had just come home from exile (in Russia, where he lived several years), could not do otherwise but take charge. To the surprise of everybody, Amir Sjarifuddin, the disappointed former prime minister, claiming himself a communist since his youth, joined in.106 The Republic of Indonesia was facing a serious internal challenge. The causes of the affair may still be debated, but it was an act of rebellion of the communist group against the central government of the Republic. The Madiun Affair occurred when the Republic was at its most crucial and critical moment. Sukarno used his charm by appealing to the people to “choose Sukarno-Hatta or MusoAmir”. In the meantime, a great many ulama and followers of the Masyumi had lost their lives. The government was left with no other choice but to crush it as quickly as possible. With the strong support of Sukarno and the leadership of the army, the Hatta Government crushed the rebellion. The Division of Siliwangi, who had to abandon their “enclaves” in West Java as a consequence of the Renville Agreement, emerged as a proud division in the TNI. Within a few days, the division managed to recapture Madiun.107

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However, this was Hatta’s “sin” that could never be forgiven nor forgotten by the communists. The “Madiun Affair” was one of the most tragic events in the history of the young Republic. It left its scars much deeper than the other tragic events in the revolutionary period. One may see the scattered “social revolutions” as the reflection of the long-lasting social and class conflicts that had been nurtured by the colonial construction of the feudal system, but the Madiun Affair was clearly the hostile penetration of ideological conflict into national life. Tragic as it was, the decisiveness of the Republican government in crushing the communist rebellion had a brighter side. It might have to some extent convinced the American Government of the nature of the Indonesian revolution. The aim of the Indonesian struggle was to achieve national independence, not to create a satellite communist state. Hatta continued the series of negotiations under the supervision of the U.N.’s Committee of Good Offices. However, again, the problems of the transitional government and the Dutch insistence on the imperative of the Indonesian national army to merge into the soon-to-be-formed gendarmeri became the stumbling blocks. These almost insurmountable disagreements forced Hatta and his cabinet to be prepared for any short-cut solution the Dutch, as they did in July 1947, might be taking. The Republican government began the necessary preparations to face such an eventuality. It decided to make Bukittinggi, in Central Sumatra, the centre of the struggle, in the event that Yogyakarta, the capital city, should fall into the hands of the Dutch army. A cabinet minister, Sjafruddin Prawiranegara (1911–89)108 was stationed in the small town, which had incidentally, since the Japanese occupation — particularly after the fall of Medan into Dutch hands — become practically the centre of political activities in Sumatra. The already foreseen Dutch aggression came too soon, however. On the day Sukarno was expected to leave for India and Yogyakarta was practically undefended, in the morning of 19 December 1948, the Dutch launched the second aggression. Within a very short time, they managed to occupy Yogyakarta. Without the TNI troops to guard them, Sukarno, Hatta, and several members of the cabinet could not do anything else, but wait for the arrival of the occupying army at the presidential palace.

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The Dutch arrested them and confined the Sultan of Yogyakarta, Hamengkubuwono IX, to his royal palace. “The Republic exists no more,” General Spoor, the commander of the Dutch military forces in Indonesia, was reported to have said. However, he was wrong. The Republic of Indonesia continued to exist. Although the radio station of Yogyakarta was one of the first buildings to be hit by the Dutch bombs, Sukarno, Hatta, and the Minister of Information, Mohammad Natsir (1907–93),109 managed to smuggle in the speeches they were planning to deliver on the radio. The texts of the speeches were later distributed secretly.110 In Yogyakarta itself, the Dutch were very frustrated. Only those who worked in hospitals and power station continued to give their services to the public. More importantly, a few minutes before the Dutch arrived at the palace, where most of the Republican leaders had assembled, Sukarno and Hatta managed to send a mandate to Sjafruddin in Bukittinggi, to form an emergency government, and to A.A. Maramis, a former member of the Commission of Nine of the BPUPKI, in India. In case Sjafruddin failed in his efforts, Maramis was instructed to form a government-in-exile. The mandate was sent by radiogram. Although Sjafruddin did not receive the radiogram, he and the Republican leaders in Sumatra, took the initiative of setting up the Emergency Government of the Republic of Indonesia (Pemerintah Darurat Republik Indonesia or the PDRI), after they were certain that the top leaders of the Republic had been captured. Within a few days, the emergency government succeeded in establishing communication with the Republican leaders in Java, thanks to the radio services provided by the Republican Air Force and post office. New members were added to Sjafruddin’s cabinet with former ministers, who by chance escaped the Dutch arrest. General Sudirman continued to assume the leadership of the TNI.111 Despite the fact that since the time he abandoned Yogyakarta, the general had been bedridden, he continued to function as the head of the guerilla warfare. The short PDRI episode112 — lasting only until July 1949 — is an almost forgotten part in the “official” history of the revolution. Sukarno had simply no interest in remembering the fact that he was at that time — again, like in

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the 1930s — in exile. Soeharto and his generals hated to think that at the height of the guerilla warfare, when the Dutch army had already occupied most of the towns, except those in Aceh, it was the civilian politicians who were in control. Actually more than any other episodes in the history of the revolution, the PDRI episode can also be seen as proof of the people’s participation in the struggle for independence. How could the urban political elite have survived in the rural areas without the support of the relatively uneducated peasantry? How could guerilla warfare be conducted if the rural population did not give their support to the cause of independence? It shows the time when village organic communities were still relatively intact. Perhaps it is only a matter of historical accident, as if to foresee what lay ahead after the revolution, that the PDRI episode emphasized the difference in the style of governing between Java and Sumatra. In order to guarantee the functioning of the government, despite the Dutch occupation, the military officers in Java were appointed as waradministrators. Colonel Gatot Subroto, for example, was appointed the military governor of Central Java. Several majors became military district heads here and there. In Sumatra, on the other hand, it was the civilian officials or political leaders who were appointed as the military governors or district heads. A.K. Gani, the flamboyant former Republican Minister of Trade, became the military governor of South Sumatra; Muhammad Rasyid, the former resident of West Sumatra, was appointed the military governor of Central Sumatra in conjunction with his position as the Minister of Social Affairs in the PDRI cabinet. Teungku Daud Buereueh, the influential ulama of Aceh, was appointed the military governor of Aceh. This different experience was to have its impact on the relationship between the several regions in Sumatra and Jakarta in the late 1950s. The fighting did not stop with the military occupation of the Republican towns. On 1 March 1949, the Indonesian army attacked and occupied Yogyakarta for a few hours. The attack did not produce any substantial result — and indeed it did not mean to — but it gave clear signs to the international community that the Republic of Indonesia was still around to fight for its just cause.113 The Security Council of the United Nations soon urged both parties to cease hostilities and resume their negotiations. In

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spite of the fact that Sukarno (as the President) and Hatta (as the Prime Minister) had already given the mandate to Sjafruddin to lead the emergency government, they had no other choice but to accept the United Nations resolution to resume negotiations with the Dutch. The international community knew only Sukarno and Hatta. And Sjafruddin was somewhere in the jungle of Central Sumatra, leading the guerilla warfare. Sukarno and Hatta114 practically reoccupied their respective positions without having the opportunity to withdraw the mandate they had given to Sjafruddin. In these capacities, they appointed Mohammad Roem (1908– 83) to conduct preliminary talks with the Dutch representative, van Royen. Understandably, the decision of Sukarno and Hatta to recommence the interrupted process of negotiation temporarily created a dissension among the leaders of the Republic.115 Did the two leaders have the legal right to conduct the negotiations? The negotiation process continued, nevertheless. Both parties agreed that hostilities should soon be stopped, Yogyakarta be returned to the Republic government, and the arrested Republican leaders be freed. Roem and van Royen also agreed that a Round Table Conference, attended by the representatives of the Republican government and that of the 15 “states” and “special regions”, which had been established during the course of the Indonesia-Dutch conflict, would be held in The Hague. Finally “Yogya kembali”, as the popular expression puts it, Yogyakarta had “returned into the fold of the Republic”. Sukarno again occupied the palace. But, as T.B. Simatupang (1920–70), then the Chief-of-Staff of the Republican armed forces, in his reminiscences on the guerilla episode, states, “Yogyakarta was now waiting for Sjafruddin and Sudirman”.116 Would Sjafruddin come after the President and Vice-President/Prime Minister had, in effect, simply abrogated their mandate without even telling him? Would Sudirman come and respect the decision of the civilian leaders? Would he, who was so disappointed by the refusal of Sukarno to go with him to lead the guerilla warfare when the Dutch paratroopers had landed in Maguwo, the airport of Yogyakarta, respond to the call of the President? Would he come after he openly rejected the Roem-van Royen statement? Sudirman and Sjafruddin did come. They came back to Yogyakarta. Pride and the sense of being betrayed could be set aside for the sake of national

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unity. Sjafruddin officially handed over his mandate in a special cabinet meeting headed by Hatta. “The PDRI has no opinion about the Roem-van Royen statement,” he stated, “but we share its consequences together.” This is, again, another important aspect of the PDRI episode. It gave a lesson on the ethics of power — a lesson that was unfortunately easily forgotten by authoritarian tendencies that came later. A new cabinet, under Hatta, as the prime minister, was formed. Sjafruddin was appointed the Deputy Prime Minister, and stationed in Kota Raja (now called Banda Aceh), where he managed to make several important decisions that would later make their impact felt in the relationship between Aceh and the central government. The Republic of Indonesia, which had in the meantime held an Inter-Indonesian Conference, with the representatives of the Dutch created or sponsored “federal states”, was now ready to attend the Round Table Conference in The Hague. Hatta led the Indonesian delegation to the Round Table Conference (RTC), held in The Hague in 1949. The results of the RTC, however, were not very satisfactory. The Republic’s delegation had to accept the establishment of the Republic of United States of Indonesia. The Republic would only be one of the 15 or so states. The RUSI would also be a partner in the Union to be headed by the Queen of the Netherlands. Naturally a new constitution would have to be prepared. The RUSI would have to pay the debt incurred by the Dutch for their military operations in Indonesia. The former members of Dutch royal army, the KNIL, would be integrated into the TNI, which should also undergo a rationalization process. The TNI should become professional and modern military units. It should no longer be a conglomeration of guerilla fighters. This new federal state would cover the whole of former Netherlands Indies, except West Irian. But the sovereignty of this new state was to be recognized. It was the last one that really mattered for Hatta and his delegates. All the unsatisfactory elements could be discussed later. As can be expected, the KNIP gave its approval to the RTC agreement by only a majority vote. The Republic of the United States of Indonesia had been formed. Sukarno kept his position as the President of the Republic of Indonesia, but he was “borrowed” by the RUSI to become its first President. In

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accordance with the 1945 Constitution, which was still the basic law in the Republic of Indonesia, the Speaker of the KNIP, Assa’at (1904–76) became the Acting-President. Hatta remained the Vice-President of the Republic of Indonesia, but he was allowed to serve as the Prime Minister of the RUSI. It was as the Prime Minister of RUSI that Hatta returned to Netherlands to receive “the transfer of sovereignty” from Queen Juliana. The “transfer” took place on 27 December 1949. Soon after the event, Sukarno rejected the term “transfer” and changed it to “recognition”. Since then, the term “transfer” ceased to be used in Indonesian political discourse. Commenting on the confusion of the term, Mohammad Roem, the former Vice-Chairman of the Indonesian delegation to the RTC, admitted that his delegation did not press the issue in the RTC. “Why should we quarrel about this technicality,” he said, “the fact remains we are about to get the sovereignty we had been fighting for.” Whatever the case, with this event, the long struggle for independence had reached its climax. It is, however, a forgotten event. It is neither an event to be celebrated nor it a date to be remembered.

Diplomacy and Struggle The national revolution, however, was not merely a series of fighting between the freedom fighters and the occupying forces of the Allied powers and the Dutch, nor was it simply an array of agreements and their breaches. If the history of nationalist movement (the pergerakan kebangsaan) can also be seen as an era of ideological conflict, then the revolutionary period may also be perceived as a battle of ideas. The national revolution may well be the time when the masses actively engage in politics, but as a battle of ideas, the revolution can take away whatever intellectual privileges the better-educated might have as the masters of discourse. A time of uncertainty as the revolution might have made it, it was apparently also a time for everybody to give meaning to their environment. Hatta’s initiative to make a few, but fundamental, amendments to the 1945 provisional constitution had temporarily settled one of the highly sensitive ideological issues of the newly established nation-state. Soon after “the gate of independence” had been crossed, however, the next question

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could not be avoided. How should the proclamation of independence be defended? The answer was perhaps simple enough for anybody to give. It was through a revolution. Then, what should be the nature of the revolution? Who should lead the revolution? A host of other questions could be asked, but a simple event that took place might eventually create its own realities — divergent and conflicting understanding and interpretations of the revolution had produced unexpected behaviour. In the meantime the threat to the newly established nation-state was approaching. What kind of struggle strategy had to be applied in order to achieve the goals of the Proclamation of Independence? It was in late October 1945, that Sutan Sjahrir, who on 15 August tried unsuccessfully to persuade his friend, Hatta, to proclaim Indonesian independence without consulting the Japanese authorities, distributed his pamphlet, Perdjoeangan Kita, Our Struggle. As it turned out later, this pamphlet had almost practically defined some basic strategies of the national revolution. Sjahrir might not be there, at Sukarno’s house, when Sukarno and Hatta proclaimed the independence of Indonesia in front of the Japanese appointed members of the PPKI. Yet who could forget the fact that he was a leader of a radical nationalist movement during the colonial period? The pemuda was also aware of the fact Sjahrir was a leader of the underground during the Japanese occupation. Therefore the distribution of his pamphlet could not be taken too lightly. Using a straightforward style that was sometimes a little too harsh for the people to take, the pamphlet addressed itself to several pertinent issues of the time. It touched upon the political and social situation of the time, the leadership of the nation, revolutionary strategy in a changing political constellation, and the nature and objectives of the revolution. The pamphlet clearly reflects, as Anderson117 rightly suggests, an “oppositionist” view, which seriously questions the legitimacy of the former “collaborators” to lead the revolution, and strongly criticizes social psychological influences of the Japanese occupation on the behaviour of the youths, who had transformed themselves into revolutionaries. “The present psychological condition of our youths”, Sjahrir stated in his pamphlet, “is deeply tragic. In spite of their burning enthusiasm, they are full of confusion and indecision because they have no understanding of

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the potentialities and perspectives of the struggle they are waging. Thus their vision clings to the slogan Freedom or Death. Whenever they sense that Freedom is still very far from certain, and yet they themselves have not faced death, they are seized with doubt and hesitation”.118 Sjahrir was worried about the fact that the Japanese Occupation policies had actually exerted their deep psychological influence on the youth. These influences, as he stated, were expressed in the “hatred of foreigners, particularly those of whom the Japanese denounced as our enemies: the Allies, the Dutch, the Eurasians (our own countrymen), the Ambonese, the Menadonese (these too are our fellow–countrymen), the Chinese, and the pangrehpradja. In other words our youths were permitted to hate the whole world, so long as they did not direct their hate towards the Japanese”.119 If the psychological condition of the youths could even threaten the course of the revolution, according to Sjahrir, the leadership of the newly established Republic was not better. They had failed to take advantage of the little time opened for the new republic to consolidate its power. They had failed to use “an excellent opportunity to gather its strength” during the time the Allied armed forces had still not set their foot in Indonesia. But why did they miss the opportunity? “In the first place,” as Sjahrir put it “this is because the people in control of the Republican government are men without real character.” Secondly, in his opinion, “many of them still are morally obliged to [the] Japanese, who ‘bestowed’120 on them an opportunity to ‘prepare’ Indonesian independence”. Sjahrir’s solution to this situation was simple enough, but it would at the same demand a turnover of the republican elite and, no less importantly, that of local power structure. “The whole governmental apparatus must be democratized as swiftly as possible, so that the masses of the people can be integrated into the structure of government. This can be accomplished,” Sjahrir continued his admonitions, “by revitalizing, and, where necessary, by setting up popular representative councils from villages right up to the highest level of government.”121 Sjahrir’s remarks that the former “collaborators” had weak character offended the older leaders deeply — a fact that Sjahrir later, after the national independence had been won, regretted very much. In the

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revolutionary sphere, however, that kind of remarks could easily make him very popular among the radical youth. The pamphlet explicitly demanded the change of the government before it had really started to work. Sjahrir, however, had at that time two advantages. Firstly, he had the support of the leaders of the radical youth, who were disappointed by the composition of the cabinet. In their opinion, the cabinet did not properly reflect the revolutionary mood of the nation. Secondly, Sjahrir was also the first leader to define clearly the aims and the goals of the revolution. “Looked at from the outside,” he said, “our revolution is a national revolution. But seen from within, it is a democratic revolution.” Like most of the other nationalist leaders, most notably Hatta, Sjahrir also emphasized the fact that the Indonesian revolution could not be equated with the French Revolution or with any other revolutions for that matter. “Our revolution must inevitably [be] social in character… The social character of revolution,” he continued, “also reveals the social possibilities inherent in our revolution, since all these factors are dynamic.”122 He, nevertheless, emphasized that, “Our national revolution is simply the ‘tail-end’ of our democratic revolution. Top priority must be given, not to nationalism, but to democracy, even though it may seem easier to arouse the masses by encouraging their xenophobia.”123 Sjahrir was certainly very much aware of the danger of the tendency to overemphasize the notion of nationalism. Apparently the ghosts of Hitler and that of the other xenophobic nationalists were still very much alive. But how to achieve these revolutionary goals while the newly established nation-state itself was in danger of extinction? Should the outside world be simply ignored in the effort to achieve the revolutionary goals? Sukarno, as the post-independence history of Indonesia would later show, might have serious reservations about Sjahrir’s hierarchy of revolutionary goals, but at that time, he and, naturally, Hatta, supported Sjahrir’s contention on the position of Indonesia in the political constellation of the world after the Second World War. If Sukarno did not say it openly, he showed it by appointing Sjahrir as “his” Prime Minister three consecutive times and by endorsing Sjahrir’s policies. It was, however, on this particular point that Tan Malaka, who, as will be elaborated below, offered his serious political and ideological challenges.

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“The end of the Second World War has left in existence three military and economic powers which dominate everything else: the United States, England, and Soviet Russia.” Sjahrir also rightly pointed out that while Soviet Russia “is solidly a socialist economy”, the United States and England “require the entire world as lebensraum for their capitalist and imperialist economies”. “We are living in a period which will decide once and for all which system is destined to spread and ultimately determine the fate of all mankind — neo-capitalism or socialism”. In historical hindsight, it is not too difficult to agree with Sjahrir’s prediction that “the competition and struggle between these two ideologies and power system [sic] will continue to form the fundamental conflict in world politics”. Who would have thought then that a few years later (1948), when the young Republic was facing the most serious threat to its existence, it had to solve its own bloody internal conflict as the result of the competition of the two systems? That was the time when the beleaguered young Republic had to suppress the so-called “Madiun Affair”, when members of the communist party occupied the town of Madiun and its leaders posed a challenge to the Republican leaders.124 What should then be the attitude of the new Republic? Perhaps it was much easier to take a stand before the outbreak of the Second World War — it was the conflict between the capitalist, yet democratic, countries against the militarist and fascist powers. Sukarno, Hatta, and Sjahrir were in exile when the Second World War broke out. They, however, threw their intellectual support to the Allied nations, who in their opinion, were basically democratic powers. Now the war was over and a member of Allied power, the Netherlands, had already set foot, under the mantle of the British troops, in Indonesia, in order to resume its interrupted colonial rule. The Dutch propaganda preferred to call it, “the interrupted mission.” “Indonesia is geographically situated within the sphere of influence of Anglo-Saxon capitalism and imperialism,” Sjahrir wrote. “Accordingly Indonesia’s fate ultimately depends on the fate of Anglo Saxon capitalism and imperialism… So long as the world order remains capitalist and imperialist, as it does now, we shall have to live within and [be] surrounded by the Anglo-Saxon capitalist and imperialist ambience. In spite of [our] best

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efforts we shall not, in ourselves, be strong enough to destroy that ambience and thereby win for ourselves the fullest kind of independence.” Therefore, according to Sjahrir, Indonesia should realize that its fate was very much bound up with international relations and world history. By realizing that “we need, more than other nations, a radical transformation of the bases [sic] of human intercourse, so as to eliminate imperialism and capitalism from the world”.125 Sjahrir remained, like most of the leaders of the revolution, a socialist, whose main struggle objective was to create a just and welfare society. Nevertheless, according to Sjahrir, the revolutionary struggle should never be blinded by any doctrinaire attitude. Revolution was something that had to be carried out with proper strategy and based on clearly defined goals. If that was the case, should one be surprised if Sjahrir finally reached a conclusion that “so long as the world we live in is dominated by capital, we are forced to make sure that we do not earn the enmity of capitalism”. In other words, the democratic national revolution that was aimed at the creation of a new society that had been freed from colonial domination and its feudal structure could only achieve its goals if it maintained a good relationship with the capitalist and imperialist powers. It was not then a “multi-complex revolution”, as Sukarno would have liked to lead in the 1950s, but a revolution that recognized the stages in achieving its goals. The publication of the pamphlet coincided with the issuance of the Presidential Decree X (Maklumat X) which was soon to be followed by the issuance of another decree that allowed the establishment of political parties. As has been stated earlier, in a matter of days after the second decree, Sukarno had to agree to the idea of having a parliamentary system of government. Sjahrir became the first Prime Minister of the Republic and he embarked on a policy of securing the friendly posture of the capitalist powers towards the Republic. The debate on the strategy of “diplomacy” and “struggle” began. Should the revolution be carried out without any consideration to the need for some kind of international sympathy or should the international balance of power also be taken into consideration? Sjahrir, with the support of Sukarno and Hatta, would soon face the challenge of Tan Malaka, the veteran revolutionary, who only revealed his identity to the Republican leaders a few days after the outbreak of the revolution.126

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Tan Malaka met President Sukarno and Vice-President Hatta after he had already made up his mind about the two leaders. He was already a leader in exile (1921), when Sukarno and Hatta, as high school students, were still members of the youth organizations — Sukarno joined the Jong Java and Hatta belonged to the Jong Sumatranen Bond. Yet when the time came, it was the two political “novices” who led the country. Sukarno used to admire Tan Malaka, whose book, Massa Actie, written in exile in the late 1920s, had made a deep impact on him. Tan Malaka indeed took pride in Sukarno’s confession that he was very much influenced by his ideas.127 It is no wonder then if Sukarno was quite excited when he met Tan Malaka for the first time. He immediately offered the veteran freedom fighter a position in the cabinet. But Tan Malaka turned it down. Sukarno, who was worried about the future of the revolution in case something happened to him and Hatta, could be persuaded by Tan Malaka’s followers to issue a political testament in favour of Tan Malaka. He drafted a testament to the effect that in case the two leaders could no longer lead the revolution, Tan Malaka would take over the leadership. Hatta, who had met Tan Malaka in Europe, shortly after the Comintern expelled Tan Malaka from the international movement, objected to the testament. He could convince Sukarno that, for the sake of the revolution, the political testament should be changed. Instead of entrusting the nation to Tan Malaka alone, the two leaders agreed to add three more names, namely, Sjahrir, who was thought to represent the radical revolutionary youths, Achmad Soebardjo (1896–1978), the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who preferred to be named as the representative of the Islamic group, and Wongsonegoro, representing the Javanese priyayi. Sukarno and Hatta cosigned the testament. The testament may show the way the two leaders looked at the Indonesian society at the beginning of the revolution, but it is otherwise only interesting as an historical footnote. By the time they met, Tan Malaka had already formed some critical opinions about Sukarno and Hatta. The stories told by several radical youths, such as Sukarni, on the events surrounding the Proclamation of Independence had convinced Tan Malaka that “Sukarno and Hatta had no faith in the tremendous hidden strength of every nation that still has a dynamic and spirit”. Furthermore, Tan Malaka stated that the two leaders

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“took into account only the weapons of force held by the Japanese, the Allies, and the Dutch”. Finally, he said, “as the three and half years of Japanese occupation show, they were prepared to accept whatever promises and status the Japanese decided to grant to the people of Indonesia”.128 Whatever Tan Malaka might have thought about the two leaders, he soon learned a simple fact that no one could match Sukarno’s influence among the people. Tan Malaka’s reputation as a committed freedom fighter, whose writings from the exile had also made their impact on the thinking of the younger revolutionary leaders, however, could also not be taken lightly. Within a very short time, he managed to win influence among the radical youths. Tan Malaka’s opinion of the two leaders clearly shows his understanding of the revolution. It was also on this basis that Tan Malaka designed his revolutionary strategy. It was a strategy that was entirely based on the belief of “the tremendous hidden strength of the nation”. Certainly Sukarno and Hatta would not have proclaimed the independence of Indonesia had they not also believed in the strength of the nation. But then should the belief be the only determinant factor in designing the strategy of the revolution? Tan Malaka’s first concern was actually the Republican policy in dealing with foreign-owned plantations. He might have remembered his experiences as a schoolteacher in the foreign-owned plantation in East Sumatra. It was not the plantations as such that really mattered, but the plantations as the symbol of foreign capitalism in Indonesia.129 What was the attitude of the newly established Republic towards these plantations? Would they return the plantations to their foreign owners? “At that time there were indications,” Tan Malaka says in his memoir, “though it was not yet clear to me, that Mohammad Hatta intended to restore the property rights to foreigners, whether friend or foe.” For Tan Malaka, all these properties and other important enterprises “should be owned, managed and operated by the state”.130 Indeed, in the Announcement of the Government, signed by Hatta, the new Republic explicitly stated that it would respect foreign-owned properties and enterprises. In a way, the Republic saw to it that its policies should not — as Sjahrir also suggested in his Our Struggle — cause the enmity of the capitalist power. To Tan Malaka, the former Comintern representative in the

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Far East, the attempt to lure the sympathy of the capitalist power was out of the question. Not long after the Sjahrir cabinet began to negotiate with the Dutch, Tan Malaka succeeded in forming a formidable political group, the Persatuan Perjuangan (P.P. — Union of Struggle), in December 1945. The P.P. was supported by over a hundred political, economic, social, and military organizations opposed to the Sjahrir cabinet’s policy of negotiations, hence “diplomacy”. Holding its first congress in Solo on 15–16 January 1946, the P.P. offered what it called the Minimum Programme. It consisted of seven programmes, namely: (1) Negotiation on the basis of the recognition of 100 per cent independence; (2) People’s government (the course of the government to accord with the wishes of the people); (3) People’s army (the course of the army to accord with the wishes of people); (4) Disarmament of the Japanese forces; (5) Take charge of European internees; (6) Confiscation and management of enemy-owned agriculture (plantations); (7) Confiscation and management of enemy-owned industry (factories, workshop, mines, etc.).131 In its explanation on the Minimum Programme, the P.P. announced that its “principal aim is to achieve unity on the common struggle against imperialism”. “Let us hope,” the announcement continued, “that such unity can be achieved quickly, since time is pressing. We are not hoping for unity only among the parties but also between the Persatuan Perjuangan and the government.” In other words, the P.P. would not shy away from any possibility to form a new cabinet in order to carry out its minimum programme. The Minimum Programme was clearly an antithesis to the strategy of the Sjahrir government. Even though programmes 4 and 5 were already on the government’s agenda, programmes 6 and 7 clearly posed an antithesis to the government’s basic policies. Programme 1 could practically be seen as a total rejection of any negotiation efforts. Programme 3 was a rejection of the idea that there should be only one national army responsible only to the government. The P.P.’s programmes clearly reflected the idea of the people’s revolutionary struggle. It had a strong belief in the “tremendous hidden strength of the nation”. Therefore it called for a total revolutionary struggle. The programme had no place for the stages of the revolution. It

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was a national, democratic, and social and socialist revolution rolled into one — the idea that was later to be emulated by Sukarno in his notion of “a summary of many revolutions in one generation”. “In short,” as Tan Malaka stated in his book, Gerpolek (an abbreviation of “gerilya, politik, ekonomi”), “for the Guerilla to defend 100 per cent independence and to confiscate the enemies’ properties can be said as the best opportunities that come [sic] down from the sky. They are the gifts to the Indonesian people to undertake their sacred duties.” And, lest the people forget, Tan Malaka made a devastating counter attack. “Only stupid people who [sic] do not understand this good opportunity and only the coward and dishonest people who [sic] refuse to undertake this heavy, but useful work for the society in the present time and later.”132 The climax of the debate on “the struggle” strategy, such as represented by the P.P., and that of “diplomacy”, took place in Purwokerto in January 1946. The KNIP, whose members had been influenced by Tan Malaka’s “minimum programme” rejected Sjahrir’s policies. Confronted by the enormous strength of the P.P.’s influence, Sjahrir had no other option but to return his mandate to the President. For a while, Sukarno was thinking of giving the opportunity to the P.P. to form a new cabinet. But the P.P consisted of so many divergent political groupings and ideological persuasions. To which faction should the President’s trust be given? The P.P. failed to form a cabinet. President asked Sjahrir to form his second cabinet. Soon after he resumed the position as Prime Minister, Sjahrir was determined to clear the way to carry out his policies. In order to do that, the newly formed government simply arrested Tan Malaka and several important members of the P.P. in March 1946. “Diplomacy” had since then become the main basic policy of the Republic. Tan Malaka, however, from his detention, continued his opposition to this basic policy. His book, Gerpolek, in which he divides the revolutionary period into two phases — the “phase of glorious struggle” (17 August 1945–17 March 1946, the day he was arrested) and “the phase of Decadent diplomacy” (from the day he was arrested), is a blueprint of a total guerilla warfare. Tan Malaka and his close associates might have been arrested and politically incapacitated, his influence, however, had reached far beyond

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his immediate surroundings. It had become common knowledge that the Commander of the Armed Forces (Panglima Besar), Sudirman, himself was sympathetic to Tan Malaka’s ideas. Only his ethics as a soldier made him follow obediently the government’s policies, but others, both inside and outside the TNI, continued to find ways to frustrate Sjahrir’s “diplomacy” strategy. A few weeks after Tan Malaka was arrested, his followers — though without his knowledge — kidnapped Sjahrir, when the latter was making a trip to Surakarta. Sukarno had to make a plea on radio to free Sjahrir. “I need him to lead the course of the revolution,” Sukarno pleaded.133 In the meantime, a group of people, under the leadership of a general, came to the presidential palace, with a list of demands, which included the formation of a new cabinet. However, unknown to them, the President and VicePresident had already been told about the plan. The “plotters” were arrested on the spot. They were all put on trial.134 Yamin, one of the alleged plotters, himself a lawyer and romantic historian, used his defence speech not only to defend his action, but also to glorify the past and to visualize the bright future.135 The event remains known in history as the “failed coup d’état”. The controversy on the nature of the revolution was not, however, simply a matter of designing strategy and tactics for the revolution, nor was it simply a matter of competition for power. The debate also reflected the divergent understanding of the nature of the national revolution and the different attitudes towards the outside world. Both factions were fully aware of the fact that, at that juncture of history, the proper attitude towards the outside world should be taken. But how had the changing world to be seen? How should the boat be sailed between the two reefs — as Hatta poetically asked. Hatta answered this question when, on behalf of the President, he defended Sjahrir’s Linggajati Agreement. The reality after the end of the Second World War was the emergence of two major blocs — the capitalist West and the socialist East — in this bipolar world, Hatta stated, Indonesia had no other choice but to conduct a “free and active” (bebas dan aktif) foreign policy.136 This dictum would remain the cornerstone of Indonesian foreign policy, despite the fact that there was time when the meaning of this dictum could be debated.

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However important the outside world might be, the revolution was very much an internal affair. The revolution suddenly created a political tremor and social crisis. How should the sudden feeling of uncertainty be dealt with? Should the legitimacy of every source of power and authority be questioned or even challenged? Suddenly Sjahrir’s words on the need to have a social revolution at the proper time were no longer simply a matter of intellectual or even political discourses. The words became the description of social events of major proportions. The second Dutch aggression that took place soon after the Hatta Government crushed the military challenge posed by Muso and Amir Sjarifuddin, not only managed to arrest the Republican top leaders, but also to occupy most of the major towns in the Republican territories. The military action also transformed the nature of internal controversies among the Republican — from the parliamentary competition for power to the battlefields. The still unfinished process of the “rehabilitation and rationalization” of the programme of the Hatta cabinet that had to some extent added a new factor to the outbreak of the “Madiun Affair”, came again to the surface. Many people’s militia sprang up again and the troops in the process of being demilitarized resumed their combat duties. However, under whose jurisdiction should these armed revolutionaries carry out their patriotic duties? The national revolution had provided the opportunity to anybody or any group to participate in the great event, but at the same time, it also became a field for every conflicting idea and wish to collide harshly. The moment (December 1948) Tan Malaka, who was by that time no longer under military confinement, learned that Soekarno and Hatta had been arrested, he abandoned his house of retreat in Tawangmangu, East Java. He joined the battalion under the command of a certain Major Sabaruddin. He was ready to replace the captured leaders as the new leader of the revolution. He made East Java the centre of his activities. It was too bad East Java was already under the command of Colonel Bambang Sugeng. The clash between the two competing troops could not be avoided. In the event, Tan Malaka tragically met his death. No date can be given for the day of his death and no grave can be marked out. He just died sometime, somewhere.

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The Indonesian “Scarlet Pimpernel” had mysteriously met his destiny. What an irony that he succeeded in escaping the traps of the colonial police in many parts of Asia, but it took only a few weeks of his activities in the country he fought for, before he fell. For many years, the people of his village, near Suliki (West Sumatra), could not believe that one of their adatchiefs, who had become a national figure, had met with a tragic death. But then rationality is not always part of the dynamics of a revolution.

The Dynamics of the Revolution Yogyakarta might be the centre of the Republic but Surabaya was the city where the fiercest battle was fought, and Jakarta continued to be the city to return to. These symbols of the Revolution could only have any meaning with the active participation of the people from other localities and regions. Actually the real strength of the revolutionary government, under the leadership of Sukarno and Hatta, was very much dependent on local participation. The symbolic significance of the national revolution lies in the fact that it had debunked the Dutch firm belief that the former Netherlands Indies was only a geographical expression under their domination. The Netherlands Indies could never be considered as a single country. It was merely a geographical expression, the unity of which could only be guaranteed by the existence of Dutch colonial rule, but the revolution destroyed this belief. Only the political dynamics of post-independent Indonesia would again put this firm belief to the test of time. On 15 October 1945 — after some hesitation137 in understanding the rapid course of events — four of the most prominent ulama of Aceh, under the leadership of Teungku M. Daud Beureueh (1899–1987), issued a statement of support for the Proclamation of Independence. The statement also stated that the Dutch in Java had cruelly tried to annihilate the proclamation. But the people remained united under the leadership of Sukarno and Hatta. “It is our conviction,” the statement continued, “that the struggle like this should be considered as a holy one. It is a war in the path of God (perang sabil). Therefore, trust us, my people [sic] that this struggle is a continuation of the struggle of the Acehnese in the past under the leadership of Teungku Cik di Tiro and other nationalist [sic] heroes. Therefore be alert, my people,

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be united to move forward to follow [in] the steps of our ancestors in the past. Follow obediently all commands of our leaders, for the sake of our fatherland, religion, and nation.”138 The Resident of Aceh, Teuku Nyak Arief, and the chairman of the local Komite Nasional Indonesia, Tuanku Mahmud, officially endorsed and co-signed the statement. On the surface, it was merely a simple official endorsement of the executive and legislative branches of the Republican local administration. However the endorsement was symbolically very important because the resident was an ulebalang, a local aristocratic ruler, and the chairman of the KNI was a scion of the Acehnese sultanate. In other words, the statement also symbolizes the unity of the Acehnese society. Aceh, as the local dictum puts it, is “the country of ulama and ulebalang”.139 The ulama of Aceh did not stop here. After announcing again, that according to religious law, the war to defend the Republic of Indonesia was fardhu aim — obligatory for each individual Muslims — on 23 November 1945, they decided to form the Barisan Hizbullah, under the leadership of Tgk M. Daud Beureueh. After changing its name to Mujahiddin, announcing jihad in the defence of the Republic and establishing its branches in many parts of Aceh, the ulama reorganized the scattered troops into a lasykar rakyat, people’s militia, and named it the Division X/Teungku Cik di Tiro. By the time the central government (3 June 1947) decided to integrate the people’s militia into the national army, the T.N.I., the number of the ulamasponsored lasykar had already consisted of four divisions. It was indeed with great care — due chiefly to the influence of Tgk Daud Beureueh — that the integration of the militia could be carried out without incident. These were the divisions that were ready to wait for the Dutch army, if they launched their second aggression on the Republican territories. But right to the end of the war of independence, Aceh remained the only region (except Weh island, the small island off the coast of the northern tip of Aceh) untouched by the returning colonial forces. Another important stronghold of the Republic outside Java was West Sumatra, the home region of the Minangkabau people. It is not surprising, however, because this region had since the 1920s been one of the centres of

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anti-colonial political activities. Naturally the fact that a number of the Minangkabau intellectuals played an important role in the Republic — either as members of the government or belonging to the opposition, such as Tan Malaka and Yamin — also helped the cause of the Republic in this region. Shortly before the “transfer of sovereignty”, the Dutch Resident in the region stated, “People don’t forget that the really big figures in Yogya such as Hatta, Sutan Sjahrir, and Haji Agoes Salim are Minangs, that the Yogya can with almost as much justice be called a Minangkabau government”.140 The Resident had certainly exaggerated his case, but he was right in suggesting that the Minangkabau were staunch Republican supporters. Except for a few, however, most of the local leaders of the revolution in this region, were not Western-educated intellectuals, like Hatta or Sjahrir, but graduates of the “modernist” religious schools, who had been directly or indirectly active in the pre-war nationalist movement. This factor may also explain why this region became the centre of the PDRI activities and why the Dutch failed to form the “state of Minangkabau” during the second Dutch aggression. By coincidence, on the day the prominent Acehnese ulama issued their historic statement in support of the Proclamation of Independence (15 October 1945), several principal traditional chiefs of South Sulawesi, under the leadership of the raja of Bone and the raja of Luwu, also issued an almost similar statement. In their statement, the Muslim rajas expressed their support for the newly established Republic and its appointed governor, Dr G.S.S.J. Samuel Ratu Langie, better known as Sam Ratulangi (1890– 1949),141 a Christian intellectual from Minahasa, North Sulawesi. The rajas’ statement can actually be seen to be the result of the cautious policy of Ratulangi by approaching the chiefs, instead of following the urges of the radical youths to go ahead by ignoring the established traditional authorities. In the meantime, the radical youth and the former members of PETA organized themselves into a number of barisan perjuangan (struggle units). Time, however, was too short for the newly established Republican administration to function properly. By the middle of October, several hundred KNIL soldiers had landed in Makassar to support the Australian troops that had been stationed in the town since September as part of the

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Allied Occupation forces. Several minor clashes and skirmishes between the foreign troops and the people’s militia and struggle groups could not be avoided. When the clashes became more frequent and the Dutch soldiers felt that they had enough power to tackle the worsening situation, they simply took the drastic measure of arresting the governor and exiling him to a small place in Papua (Serui). Similar measures were taken against the local chiefs or raja. Those who refused to cooperate with the occupying Dutch forces were expelled. Many radical youths, mostly the better educated ones, finally decided to move to Java to continue their struggle for national independence. Local resistance continued, nonetheless, until the Dutch military resorted to applying the cruelest policy of annihilation. This episode is well remembered as the “period of 40,000 victims” in local collective memory. The number of the victims may well be only a myth, but some fifteen hundred or more villagers did lose their lives in front of the Dutch firing squads. In the process, the name of Westerling, the Dutch captain who led the operation, became deeply implanted in the people’s memories. With this series of violent operations, Makassar had already been prepared to become the capital of the Negara Indonesia Timur, East Indonesian State — van Mook had begun his policy of encircling the Republic with separate Dutch created or sponsored states and special regions.142 Every region in the present Republic of Indonesia has its own stories to tell on the early days of the Proclamation of Independence. These stories may share similar main trends — the radical pemuda took the initiative, soon after they learned about the Proclamation, they would form lasykar, attempt to steal Japanese weapons, or whatever — but a closer look reveals that each region differs from another. In some regions, the Hizbullah emerged as the real bulk of the fighting groups; in some other regions, it could be the Pesindo, the socialist youth; while in yet others the national army, the TNI (most likely still using its older names, such as BKR, TKR, or TRI) remained from the beginning till the end the only fighting group that really counted. Each region might have similar aims that had been set by the national leadership, but the course of events and the pattern of leadership were almost entirely dependent on the local situations.143 The fighting against the Japanese army, the Allied Forces, and the returning Dutch army, as well as the series of negotiations between the

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Dutch and the Republican government, may for the sake of convenience be labelled as the “foreign relation” dimension of the history of the revolution. This is the most remembered part in the history of the revolution. The bloody struggle to defend the newly established nation-state and the diplomatic efforts to get international recognition are usually treated as the most important dimensions of the revolution. The most popular studies on the revolution usually deal with these particular aspects. Reminiscences of the freedom fighters almost exclusively concern themselves with the stories of the fight against the Dutch and their colonial lackeys. Many poems and songs have been composed and sung and many short stories and a few novels have been written on the revolution.144 A song, Hallo-Hallo Bandung, immortalizes the determination of the youths to recapture the city of Bandung, and Sepasang Mata Bola eulogizes the romantic meeting between a freedom fighter and a girl who needed protection at the railway station of Yogyakarta. Composed by the famous and very productive composer, Ismail Marzuki, these songs and his other songs can to this day still revive the memories of the revolutionary times. Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s novel, Keluarga Gerilya, may describe the traumatic experience in facing the conflict between maternal love and patriotism, but his Di tepi kali Bekasi is a light romantic story set during the fight against the returning colonial power. Idrus’ Surabaya may give the impression of the revolutionary sphere being a society in a state of anomie, but Mochtar Lubis’ Jalan tak ada ujung shows the meaning of fear during the height of the patriotic struggle. The “foreign relation” dimension of the history of the revolution is not simply a series of tales and recollections of how the fighting nation finally gained its independence, it is also a sphere through which social solidarity and national integration can be strengthened. It is not only a history to remember, but also a myth to live in. The Indonesian military establishment prefer to call this historical episode “the war of independence”, although this term cannot appropriately explain the psychological background of war cries such as “Merdeka” or Merdeka atau Mati (Freedom or Death), “Berontak!” or “rebel”. The people who went to “war” were not only those who were ordered by the state, but also the voluntary militia, the lasykar. It is, therefore, understandable that the episode has also been called “the pemuda revolution”, the revolution of

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the youth,145 whatever the major sources of the forces might have been. Although first coined by Tan Malaka in his book, Gerpolek (Guerilla, Politics, and Economy), the idea of the war of independence was made popular by the army after Sukarno, the untiring ideologue of the revolution, had been politically isolated. That was also the time when “revolution” was replaced by “pembangunan” or development, as the magic political jargon. The fight for independence was a revolution. It was the time when the sociological significance of class, status, and gender, or even age, were made practically irrelevant. The members of the lasykar were only healthy young men who were ready to sacrifice anything for the sake of the revolution. They were the pemuda who wanted to be part of the glorified event. In many regions, several female lasykar were also formed, either by religious or “secular” nationalist organizations. And not all of them stayed behind the front lines — a number of the female lasykar, fought side by the side with either the TNI or other lasykar. The university students might have played important and almost decisive roles in the Proclamation of Independence, but soon enough the high school students joined in the course of the revolution. In several regions, the so-called Tentara Pelajar (TP or students army) were formed. Again they not only served as helpers of the adult TNI or lasykar, they already belonged to the so-called adult freedom fighters. The TP (called the TRIP) of East Java, for example, had an excellent reputation. A number of its officers continued their careers as the military men became part of the TNI leadership. The revolution was also the time when the ulama, religious teachers, did not simply stay behind the front line and pray for the safety of the young freedom fighters. They formed their own military units, the Sabilillah and the Hizbullah or any other name (such as Lasymi or Lasykar Muslimin Indonesia in Sumatra) and quite often officered the fighting units themselves.146 These numerous lasykar would pose a serious problem for the Republican government when it began to see the importance of coordination of the armed corps. The rationalization programme introduced by the Hatta cabinet created such an outcry among the independent lasykar that many suspected the so-called “Madiun Affair” was to some extent triggered by the rationalization programme.

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Revolution was not only a time when the mass population participated in politics; it was also the time when the normal code of conduct seemed to have been suspended. The students went to the front, instead of to the classroom. The santri, religious students, carried guns, instead of religious texts. “This is a revolution,” a British officer remarked in front of Sukarno and Hatta, when he saw youths carrying guns during the lull in the battle of Surabaya in late October 1945.147 As such, it might also have been a time to settle old scores or take advantage of the uncertain period. Local collective memories are the repositories of these aspects of the revolution.148 Suddenly the revolution transformed nobodys into local heroes who gallantly fought for independence.149 Sjahrir might say that the real nature of the revolution was the rapid course of events to create a democratic society and to restructure the social order, though only in gradual stages. Tan Malaka might see the revolution as an opportunity to change the social, political, and economic foundations of the society at the same time. With or without their intellectual influences, the people in several localities reacted immediately in accordance to their understanding of existing social formation and political opportunities. The Proclamation of Independence took place in the fasting month of Ramadhan. In early September — that is, after the celebration of idl fitri (the end of the fasting month) — the people of Jakarta held a huge demonstration to show their strong support for the Proclamation. In the middle of September, Sukarno, in front of the threatening Japanese army, showed his unchallenged charismatic quality as the leader of the revolution. Within a few minutes, he managed to persuade people to disperse and return home peacefully. It was in early October that the people in the other localities really began to react to what they perceived as the opportunities that had been opened up by the Proclamation of Independence. In other words, a few days after the news about the arrival of the Allied Forces in some major cities became public knowledge, the population in the other localities began to take action. Since then, whatever actions the people might be taking, the knowledge that the Allied Forces, and eventually the Dutch, were already there to threaten the independence remained in the background.

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Then a very common social and political phenomenon emerged. Voluntary armed groups were formed and Japanese weapons were stolen, robbed, or confiscated. In some regions, however, the very existence and continuity of traditional social formation and political power became the target of popular suspicion. Some people had even begun to do something about it. The continuing economic hardship that had begun during the Japanese period had made the process of examination more pressing. Should the privileged class remain where they were, while the people continued to suffer economically and — very likely — socially and politically? When the question was answered in positive terms, social revolution at the grass roots could not always be avoided. And the newly established Republic was forced to face a dilemma — should it enforce the law it had inherited from the colonial government or should it just succumb to the demands of the grass root revolution? The first shot was fired in the Residency of Pekalongan, the north coast of Central Java. At the beginning, it was only a joyful moment to celebrate the Proclamation of Independence. Then — like in other places — several patriotic voluntary associations, including lasykar and the BKR (later to be called TNI) units, were formed. And, again like in other places, the headquarters of the notorious Japanese kempeitei (military police) was attacked. Several local heroes lost their lives. But then the next day, on 6 October 1945, the Farmers Association who came from Ujungrusi, took three rice mills owned by the Chinese, in Adiwerna. The next day, a large crowd surrounded the house of a village head. The kempetei moved their headquarters to another Residency. On 7 October, a village head was killed and the head of the sub-district fled to save his life. The social revolution, which was to be known as the “Peristiwa Tiga Daerah” (the Three Regions Affair) had begun.150 Brebes, Pemalang, and Tegal in the Residency of Pekalongan soon experienced the most dramatic events in living memory. The “revolutionaries” chased out members of the pangrehpraja, the local bureaucratic aristocrats. The “revolutionaries”, mostly consisted of rural religious teachers, and “urban proletariats” replaced their positions in the local administration. In the process, not only economic grievances and social indictments were channeled by the revolutionary political acts, but

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the cultural and mythological barracks were set in motion. It was a complex revolution, indeed. The central government, which had in the meantime moved to Yogyakarta from Jakarta, had to face the mass frenzy it had unleashed. The Republican military units had to move in to restore order. But suddenly, the social revolution ceased to be a mere intellectual discourse to be debated; it had become an empirical reality to be faced. In Sumatra a new kind of development took place. The fact that the Resident of Aceh, Teuku Nyak Arief, was a highly respected ulebalang as well as a fomer member of the Volksraad, whose nationalist credential was never in doubt, and that the most influential ulama had finally given their support to the national revolution, was apparently no guarantees that everything would move smoothly. The change of the central government and the fear that the new situation might eventually threaten their positions as the heads of their respective sub-districts, saw the ulebalang group in Pidie district begin to unite themselves (late October 1945). They formed their own bodyguard units, consisting of their followers and unemployed tugs, some of whom were reportedly brought in from other regions. The landing of the Dutch in Medan had also made these local aristocrats more convinced than ever that Indonesian independence had no future. Soon enough, the radical youths, mostly under the influence of the ulama, countered the activities of these local aristocrats. The efforts of the local Republican administration to settle the dispute failed. The leaders of the local administration had even begun to suspect that the ulebalang group was, in fact, waiting for the return of the Dutch government. In January they finally came to the conclusion that the affair could only be settled by violence. In January 1946, the so-called “Cumbok War” broke out. The ulebalang’s troops in Pidie were defeated.151 The first round of “civil war” in Aceh had been concluded. The “Cumbok War” was apparently only the first stage of the “social revolution” in Aceh. This first stage, however, had made the ghost of Snouck Hurgronje’s analysis of Aceh come alive and threatened the very foundation of Aceh’s ideal construct of itself. One of the major academic premises of Snouck Hurgronje, the great colonial scholar, is that despite the fact that the Acehnese share the same religion and local custom, adat, the

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society actually consisted of two competing worlds. The first is the world of adat, under the jurisdiction of the ulebalang, the local ruling aristocrats. And the second is the world of religion, under the guardianship of the ulama.152 Most of the Acehnese intellectuals, literati and a number of Western scholars153 have refuted this so-called great divide in Aceh consciousness. Whatever it might have been in reality, it was on the basis of this presumably mistaken academic premise, however that Snouck Hurgronje designed and executed his Aceh policy. He was successful. The success of the so-called “pacification campaign” in Aceh, as many have argued, was to a large extent due to the consistent application of Snouck’s divide and rule policy. So whatever happened, whatever the academic foundation of a policy might be, if it was carried out consistently, it was sure to create its own reality — for better or worse. And Aceh since the end of the so-called “Aceh war” (as what the Dutch called it) became the scene of the competition between the ulama and the ulebalang. The former had the prestige as being the Acehnese definers of reality and the latter had the legitimate power to rule. The competition became stiffer because the colonial government sanctioned the power of the ulebalang. Who would then be surprised to learn that some sections of the followers of the ulama, particularly the young radical wing of the group, preferred to settle the score once and for all? The second stage of the “social revolution” soon began. Almujahid, a leader of the youth wing of the biggest organization of the Acehnese ulama, the PUSA (Persatuan Ulama Seluruh Aceh — Association of Ulama of All Aceh), found himself without any role to play in the newly formed Republican army. Realizing this, he began to take the initiative to ameliorate this less than ideal situation. Most likely under the influence of the pre-war leaders of the local communist party, Almujahid began his activities in early February 1946. That was the time when the Japanese army had finally agreed to evacuate Langsa, a coastal town in East Aceh. The Japanese made this decision after the fierce battle between them and the Acehnese pemuda had subsided. The town was left entirely in the hands of the competing armed pemuda groups. In this competition for power Almujahid’s group, which had by then called itself Tentara Perjuangan Rakyat (TPR — Army of the People’s Struggle), managed to

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make itself the most dominant one. After securing this position Almujahid and his armed group moved northwards and made himself the master of East Aceh. In the process, he and his TPR almost literally annihilated the ulebalang, both as the ruling class and as a social group. Before the TPR reached Kotaraja, the capital, its strength had already surpassed that of the official Republican army. Under the TPR’s threat, the Resident, T. Nyak Arief, and the military leaders opted to capitulate rather than risk a bloody civil war. T. Nyak Arief and many others who were suspected of opposing the new local regime were arrested and put in several detention camps in Central Aceh. The once highly respected Republican Resident died while he was in the detention camp. Only after the calamity was over did Tgk Daud Buereueh manage to force Almujahid and his armed group to abandon Kotaraja.154 The position of this great ulama became stronger after the Dutch launched their first aggression (the Dutch called it “police action”) in 1947. The Dutch military action forced hundreds of refugees from the Residency of the East Coast of Sumatra to save their lives. In this situation, Tgk Daud Buereueh practically made himself the representative of the Republican government as well as that of the people of Aceh. During this period, the besieged central government of the Republic had left Aceh alone. That was the beginning of the reputation of Aceh as, according to what Sukarno said during his visit to Aceh (1948), the daerah modal (capital region) for the Republic. A much more complicated, but at the same time, more understandable, event took place in East Sumatra, particularly in the Deli region. In the Indonesian historiography and local memories, the event has no other name but “a social revolution”. Since the end of the 19th century, and particularly since the beginning of the 20th century, the region had attracted people from the surrounding regions to come. The Dutch had opened up big plantations, which needed workers. In a relatively short time not only had the population of the region rapidly increased, it had also become, the most heterogeneous region in the then Netherlands Indies. Although the indigenous population was Malay, the Javanese had by 1930 become the largest ethnic group in the Residency of the East Coast of Sumatra. Most of

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them were plantation workers who came to Deli as indentured labourers, and whose sufferings had become a legendary saga in the history of Dutch colonialism and capitalist exploitation. It was their reaction to the situation in the plantations that Dutch humanitarians talked about Millioenen Uit Deli (Millions from Deli) and kras poekoel (heavy punishment). The planters and their aristocratic partners might get millions of guilders, but the people, the plantation workers, had to suffer heavy punishment if their work performances were rated as being below expectations. Tan Malaka, who had been intellectually influenced by Marxist ideas while studying in the Netherlands, became a confirmed social revolutionary after spending some time as a schoolteacher in the plantations.155 The deepest and largest social and economic gaps between the aristocratic elite and the mass population were found in colonial East Sumatra. The tragic events in East Sumatra156 took place after Aceh had settled its internal affairs. In the beginning, East Sumatra followed the same pattern that had taken place in many other regions. Like in other places, the older nationalist leaders did not rush to announce the formation of the Republican government although they had learned about the Proclamation of Independence. The radical pemuda, who in the meantime had formed several struggle groups, became impatient with the slow-paced progress. The pemuda made the first move. They had to convince the still somewhat wavering older leaders about the kind of support they could expect to get from the people. Only after being convinced of the popular support did the older leaders announce the establishment of the Republican government. But Medan was not like any other city or town. The central government of the new Republic had already decided to make it the capital city of the province of Sumatra. A resident of Medan, T. Mohammad Hasan (1906–97) an Acehnese ulubalang, who was a Sumatran representative to the PPKI, had been appointed the Governor. Another resident of the city, Dr Moehammad Amir (1901–50), the former chairman of the Jong Sumatranen Bond in his youth, and another Sumatra representative to the PPKI, had been appointed a Minister without portfolio in the first Presidential cabinet. Later, after a new cabinet, under Sutan Sjahrir, had been formed, Amir was appointed the Vice-Governor of East Sumatra. These two leaders soon had to face the

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hard realities. They could not expect the central government or the Residents of the other residencies in Sumatra to help them. Not only were transportation and communication very difficult, the others already had their own problems. Moreover the residency of East Sumatra, with its capital, Medan, which was at the same time the capital city of Sumatra, was unique. In a time of such uncertainty, the social and historical burdens they had to carry were simply too heavy. In the first place, there were five sultanates in the then Residency of East Sumatra. They were namely the sultanates of Asahan, Langkat, Serdang, Deli, and Riau. In the tradition of the colonial indirect rule system, the sultans were officially still in power. The Sultan of Riau, whose capital, Siak Sri Indrapura, was located far away from Medan, immediately threw his lot in with the Republican cause. Perhaps the sultan had the luxury of “ruling” a relatively homogenous agrarian society. He had nothing to fear in the eventual change of political order. But the other sultans and the heads of some small principalities had to take time to think about their future in the new political constellation. They lived in a highly heterogeneous society and used to be supported financially by the capitalist system of economic exploitation. They might expect the loyalty of the Malays, but could they expect the same loyalty from the growing numbers of migrants who came from several ethnic groups? This short moment of doubt and wavering was long enough to raise the suspicion of the radical pemuda. The suspicion became greater after the Allied Forces landed in Medan and the Dutch prisoners-of-war had been liberated. Would the old world return? Would the aristocrats be given the opportunity again to enjoy luxurious lives amidst the misery and poverty of the general populace? Some members of the aristocrats had actually begun to be active in the Republican administration in several capacities. The great poet, Amir Hamzah (1911– 46), a scion of the Langkat sultanate, had served as the Republican district head. But in such an unstable situation, any action could easily produce different kinds of interpretations. So that was what happened when the Sultanate of Deli held the coronation ceremony for its new Sultan. Either by design or only as a matter of old habit, the palace gave honoured places to the Allied and Japanese officers, but prepared the

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obscure ones for the Republican representatives. This event was taken as a clear sign of the royal attitude toward the Republic. In the meantime, the news about the formation of the Persatuan Perjuangan, under the leadership of Tan Malaka, whose adventures and political activities abroad have been romanticized in Matu Mona’s popular novel, Pacar Merah (Scarlet Pimpernel), published in Medan in the late 1930s, had reached Medan. The radical Minimum Programme of the P.P. immediately caught the imagination of a number of pemuda groups. After all, was it not true that the plantation had been the economic basis of the region? More than any other group, it was the Pesindo, the socialist youth, who emerged as the staunchest supporter of the programme. The radicalization of political and social spheres even influenced the attitude of the used-to-be moderate Islamic “modernist “organization, the Muhammadiyah. But then in East Sumatra, from the beginning of its existence, the organization had always been under the scrutinizing and suspicious eyes of the sultanates and the Malay aristocrats. It was practically a religious organization of the migrants. It is therefore understandable if the Muhammadiyah also took a radical position on several crucial social and political issues. In the meantime, the Republican state apparatus remained relatively weak. So weak was the new government that the Deputy Governor, Amir, a staunch follower of a Theosophical school, found no other way but to abandon his post and put himself under the protection of the Allied forces. That was the tragic end of this peace-loving nationalist, who had from his early youth visualized the emergence of a new nation called Indonesia. Finally, on 3 March 1946, “the night of blood”, as Reid calls it, occurred in several places. Many local aristocrats and their families were murdered and their belongings confiscated or simply robbed. In a few palaces, the TNI managed to get the upper hand and protected the aristocratic families and their palaces. In this “revolutionary” calamity, Amir Hamzah, the Republican district head, lost his life. His sin was apparently unpardonable. He belonged to the aristocratic class. He was the nephew of the Sultan of Langkat.157 It was after the TNI managed to master the situation that the socalled “social revolution” could be terminated. The trauma of the “social revolution” continued to linger on in the memory of the victims.

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In his Perdjoeangan Kita, Sjahrir expressed his fear that social anarchy might take place soon after the outbreak of the national revolution. His fear was well founded, but it was too bad the social revolution occurred when he had just reached the pinnacle of his power. He was the Prime Minister of the Republic when the social revolution broke out in the region where he spent his childhood days. Tan Malaka might have visualized a total revolution — political, social, and economic — but he did not anticipate the event, in which social and political idealisms could easily merge into one undifferentiated system of action. And it was very violent one. Suddenly the rich region, which had since the late 19th century been the centre of attraction, had become the region from which people tried to escape. The “social revolution” in East Sumatra is another example of how the national revolution could also open up the possibility for latent social conflicts to come to the surface. The period of uncertainty in times of political change provided the opportunity for every source of conflict to collide with each other. Tampered by ideology or pure greed or lust for power, differences in social class, ethnicity, and religion, became the preys that could easily be manipulated. The relative vacuum of power was already there to provide the field. The first months of the Republic were indeed a period of uncertainty. In the course of time, the Republican government managed to exert its moral and political authority, although in the meantime in some places the Dutch managed to acquire military advantages. When the time came the Dutch were also able to play with whatever divisive elements existed in the society. The socially, politically, and certainly psychologically wounded aristocratic class could easily be persuaded to establish a separate state within the Republic. There was indeed a time when Medan was widely considered as a centre of nationalist propaganda — to the extent that even “the cheap novels” published in Medan were very much coloured by nationalist sentiments. But for a moment that time could be stored in the history books. The Negara Sumatra Timur (East Sumatran State) was established. Tengku Mansyur, a Malay aristocrat and a medical doctor, became the “head of state”. In 1949, as if to recapture his dream as a member of the Sumatran young educated class,

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Mansyur, the first chairman of the Jong Sumatranen Bond, tried in vain to establish a federal state of Sumatra, separate from the rest of Indonesia. The personal wound was so deep that it was not easy for him and his aristocratic cliques to forget the damage that had been inflicted by some radical backers of the republic of Indonesia.

The End of the Revolution? Whatever the case, one thing is certain — in December 1949, the most immediate political objective of the national revolution had been achieved. After the long struggle, the sovereignty of the new nation-state was officially recognized. A new page in the history of nation-building has been opened. But how should the revolution be defined? Or how should it be described? Some years later, after peace had been restored and the sovereignty of the nation-state had gained international recognition, Sukarno would talk about the need for the rediscovery of the revolution. He would talk of how he missed the romance of the revolution. It was the time to destroy, as it was the time to create. But then Sukarno was not talking about revolution as an historical happening. His revolution belonged to the sphere of metahistory, beyond history. As such, it cannot be argued from a vantage point of historical certainty. It can simply be either accepted as a doctrine or rejected as a faulty idea. But yet he was not entirely wrong. The national revolution is not simply a series of events to be recorded and remembered. It is also not only a collection of memories to be cherished. It is as well a stage of human tragedies. The revolution may well be remembered as the time when mass participation in politics was at its height, and an episode in history when proper and normal conduct was temporarily suspended. As time went by, the national revolution has also become the primeval myth of the new Republic. As the major sources of national myths, participation in the national revolution had for many also become the basis of legitimacy of power. Ironically it can also be a source of political conservatism. The process of nation-building, therefore, can never be fully understood without taking into account the meaning of the revolution to any social and political groupings and to any regions and localities.

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On the war and “ideology” of the holy war of the Acehnese, see T. Ibrahim Alfian, Perang di Jalan Allah (Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1986). Ide Anak Agung Gde Agung, Bali Pada Abad XIX (Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 1989). Christian Pelras, The Bugis (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), pp. 270–76. For a major study of these scattered rebellions and mass demonstrations, see Ken Young, Islamic Peasants and the State: The 1908 Anti-Tax Rebellion in West Sumatra (New Haven: Yale Southeast Asian Studies, 1994). On some incidents of the so-called wars, see Rusli Amran, Sumatra Barat: Plakat Panjang (Jakarta: Penerbit Sinar Harapan, 1985). For a short and analytical description of the affairs, see Taufik Abdullah, “The Anti-tax Rebellions of 1908 in West Sumatra: the Schakel Society in Crisis”, Southeast Asia I: 30th International Congress of Human Scientists in Asia and North Africa, 1976 (Mexico City: El Colegio de Mexico, 1982), pp. 135–53. Schrieke was right in calling the Plakat Panjang a “political myth “of the Minangkabau. See his classic study on the so-called “communist rebellion” in the West Coast of Sumatra (1927), B. Schrieke, Indonesian Sociological Studies vol. I (The Hague/Bandung: W. Van Hoeve, 1957). British and French colonial administrators were so impressed that they regularly sent missions to study the art of governing and exploiting the colonies. See Frances Gouda, Dutch Culture Overseas: Colonial Practices in the Netherlands Indies, 1900–1942 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1995), pp. 11–38. See Sartono Kartodirdjo, Protest Movements in Rural Java (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1973). In his memoir Sitor Situmorang, the renowned poet, tells that his father could still remember the time when he took arms against the advancing Dutch rule. He was still very proud to tell that he was an assistant to Si Singamangaraja XII, the priestly-king of Batak Toba, the leader of the opposition. See Sitor Situmorang, Penyair Danau Toba, Angkatan 45 (Jakarta: Sinar Harapan, 1996). On the local periodization of the history of the armed opposition to the Dutch political penetration and economic domination, see Taufik Abdullah, “Responses to Colonial Power: The Jambi experience in Comparative Perspective”, Prisma: The Indonesian Indicator, no. 33 (September 1984): 13–29. The myth of friendship or partnership can be found in many parts of the Indonesian archipelago. In a way, this myth can be seen as a cultural mechanism to conceal the hard reality of being a subjugated people. The moment the Dutch demonstrated the hard reality that they were the real masters, the whole

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make-believe world crumbled. And rebellion broke out. On the myths of friendship between the indigenous people and the Dutch, see for example, V.E. Korn, “Oosters Visie op Westers Bewind”, BKI, no. 133 (1957): 16–31. See also Taufik Abdullah, “The Making of the Schakel society: The Minangkabau Region in the Late Nineteenth Century”, Majalah Ilmu-Ilmu Sastra, 1977. Tan Malaka, in his exile in Bangkok, founded the Partai Republik Indonesia (Republican Party of Indonesia). This party can to some be seen as the progenitor of the Murba party in independent Indonesia. On the plan of the PKI to stage a rebellion and opposition to Tan Malaka, see Ruth McVey, The Rise of Indonesian Communism (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1965). On the “communist rebellion” in Banten, see Michael C. Williams, Sickle and Crescent: The Communist Revolt of 1926 in Banten (Athens: University of Ohio, 1982). On Silungkang, see Harry J. Benda & Ruth McVey, eds., The Communist Uprisings of 1926–1927 in Indonesia: Key Documents (Ithaca, New York: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1962). This is a translation of the report written by a commission appointed by the colonial government. Quoted in Abdullah, “The Anti-Tax Rebellion”, op. cit. See for example M.J. Soetan Haoendoetan, Sitti Djaoeriah: A Novel of Colonial Indonesia, translated with an introduction by Susan Rogers (Madison: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Monograph 15, 1997). The novel was originally published in 1927. Several books and articles in Dutch, English, and French as well as in Indonesian have been published on Kartini and her letters. For example Joost Cote, Letters from Kartini: An Indonesian Feminist 1900–1904 (Clayton, Victoria: Monash Institute of Asian Studies, Monash University, 1992). See Karel Steenbrink, Dutch Colonialism and Indonesian Islam: Contacts and Conflict, 1596–1950, translated by Jan Steenbrink & Henry Janter (Amsterdam Atlanta: GA, 1993). On the C. Snouck Hurgronje’s policy recommendations and opinions on Islam, see Harry J. Benda, The Crescent and the Rising Sun (The Hague/Bandung: W. Van Hoeve, 1958). See also James T. Siegel, The Rope of God (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969). See Nancy Florida, Writing in the Past, Inscribing the Future: History as Prophecy in Colonial Java (Durhan & London: Duke University Press, 1995); John Pamberton, On the Subject of “Java” (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1994). Both studies show how unjustified was the picture of Java produced by the philologists’ selection of texts. See also Steenbrink, Dutch Colonialism. There is a very strong tendency, Steenbrink states, among colonial scholars to separate Java from Islam. See van Leur’s famous remark in his Indonesian Trade and Society (The Hague/Bandung: W. Van Hoeve, 1955).

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For a short discussion on the ideals of the ethical policy, see for example, Robert van Niel, The Emergence of Modern Indonesian Elite (The Hague/Bandung: W. van Hoeve, 1960). F. Colombijn, Patches of Padang: The History of an Indonesian Town in the Twentieth Century and the Use of Urban Space (Leiden: CNWS, 1994), pp. 99–100. Interview with the Sumatra Bode, 19 February 1937, quoted in ibid. David Henley, Nationalism and Regionalism in a Colonial Context: Minahasa in the Dutch East Indies (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1996). On the people’s image of the Dutch throughout the history of their encounter, see for example, Taufik Abdullah, “History, Political Images and the Dutch in the Indonesian Archipelago, Studia Islamica I, no. 3 (1994): 1–24. The exact figures are cited in van Niel, The Emergence. See also S.L. van Der Wal, ed., Onderwijsbelied in Nederlands Indie, 1900–1942 (Bronnen Publicatie) (Groningen: J.B. Wolters, 1964). “… my fear is that we have been left behind in the efforts to develop education, if a comparison should be made with the surrounding countries”, wrote P.J.A. Idenburg, the Director of Education, on 27 February 1940. He was comparing the Netherlands Indies with Thailand, British Malaya, and the Philippines. “Beginselen van Onderwijs” and “Uitbreiding van het Inlandsonderwijs — het doorbrekingsplan” in S.L. van der Wal, ed., Het Onderwijsbeleid in Nederlands Indie, op. cit. For a short description and the school statistics, see S.L. van der Wal, Some Information on Education in Indonesia up to 1942 (Netherlands: The Hague, 1967). See also Paul van der Veur, Education and Social Change in Colonial Indonesia (I) (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Center for International Studies, Southeast Asia Program, 1969). On this affair, see Ruth McVey, The Rise of Indonesian Communism (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1965). See Taufik Abdullah, Schools and Politics: The Kaum Muda Movement in West Sumatra (1927–1933) (Ithaca, New York: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1971), pp. 110–22. See Akira Nagazumi, The Dawn of Indonesian Nationalism: The Early Years of Budi Utomo, 1908–1918 (Tokyo: Institute of Developing Economies, 1972). Abdoel Moeis’ famous novel, Salah Asuhan [Wrong Upbringing] (1928), beautifully captures the traumatic experience of the marginalized person, who has abandoned his (Minangkabau) society but is rejected by the (colonial) society he aspired to belong to. See for example, Taufik Abdullah, “Historical Reflection on Three Novels of Pre-war Indonesia” in Taufik Abdullah, ed., Literature and History (Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 1986), pp. 215–34.

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On Gerindo, see J.M. Pluvier, Overzicht van de Ontwikkeling der Nationalitische Bewegiing in Indonesië in de Jaren 1930 tot 1942 (‘s-Gravenhage & Bandung: W. Van Hoeve, 1953). Quoted in M.A. Aziz, Japan’s Colonialism and Indonesia (‘s -Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, N.V., 1955), p. 146. See also B.A. Ubani, O.K. Durraini, Mohd. Moein, Indonesian Struggle for Independence (Aundh: Aundh Publishing Company, 1946), pp. 104–14. This is a very good book on the national movement in Indonesia, written by the Indonesian students who happened to be in India when the national revolution broke out. L.N. Palar, “De Indonesische Beweging en Japan”, Socialisme en Democratie (1939): 390. After the war Palar became a member of the Dutch parliament (Tweede Kamer), but the moment he heard the news about the Dutch so-called “police action” (1947), he abandoned his parliamentary seat and joined the Republic. He can be considered the first professional diplomat of the new state. He was a member of the “unofficial” Indonesian delegation to the U.N. during the Dutch-Indonesian conflict. He continued to serve as a diplomat, as an Ambassador, until he retired from government service. M.H. Thamrin was the leader of the nationalist faction in the Volksraad. De Jonge, the conservative, or as some might say, reactionary, Governor General in the 1930s, saw him as a “dangerous man” — for Thamrin did not give him a chance to arrest him. Sukarno was, to de Jonge “very stupid” — Sukarno made himself an easy prey to such a conservative colonial master. D.M.G. Koch, Om de Vrijheid (Jakarta: Pembangunan, 1950), p. 115. On the sphere of the last years of the Netherlands Indies, see Onghokham, Runtuhnya Hindia Belanda (Jakarta: Penerbit P.T. Gramedia, 1987). Cited in Aziz, Japan’s Colonialism, p. 151, from the report of J. Verkuyl (1946), a Dutch theologian. See: Aziz, Japan’s Colonialism, pp. 147–51. Abdullah, Schools and Politics, passim. Leon Salim, Prisoners at Kota Cane, translated by Audrey Kahin (Ithaca: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1986). On Japanese political and cultural attitude, particularly among the military establishment, towards the countries in Southeast Asia in approaching the Pacific War, see Ken’ichi Goto, Jepang dan Pergerakan Kebangsaan Indonesia, translated from Japanese (Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia, 1998), pp. 1–116. See Chapter III, “Starvation in the Indies”, in de Jong, The Collapse of the Colonial Society: The Dutch in Indonesia during the Second World War (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002), pp. 227–81. On the impact of the Japanese policies on the peasantries, see Aiko Kurasawa, Mobilisasi dan Kontrol: Studi tentang Perubahan Sosial di Pedesaan Jawa, 1942–1945,

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translated by Hermawan Sulistiyo (Jakarta: P.T. Gramedia Widiasarana Indonesia, 1993). See also Shigeru Sato, War, Nationalism and Peasants: Java under the Japanese Occupation, 1942–1945 (St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin in association with ASA of Australia, 1994). Anthony Reid, The Blood of the People: Revolution and the End of Traditional Rule in Northern Sumatra (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 84–103. See also Nazaruddin Syamsuddin, Revolusi di Serambi Mekah: Perjuangan Kemerdekaan dan Pertarungan Politik di Aceh 1945–1949 (Jakarta: Penerbit Universitas Indonesia, 1999), pp. 55–58. See, for example, Nugroho Notosusanto, Pemberontakan Tentara PETA Blitar Melawan Djepang (14 Februari 1945) (Jakarta: Lembaga Sedjarah Hankam, Departemen Peretahanan-Keamanan, 1968). The disappeared Supryadi was appointed as the first Minister of Defence of the Republic of Indonesia. He remained a mystery. Many people believed the Japanese had secretly executed him. On the much broader objectives of the Japanese southward movement in the Pacific War, see: Aziz, Japan’s Colonialism, op. cit., see also W.H. Elsbree, Japan’s Rule in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements, 1940–1945 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953). For a short introduction to this “ideology”, Sato, War, Nationalism, op. cit., pp. 12–17. The Japanese calendar was introduced — the year 1942 became 2602. Japanese time should be used, meaning that Jakarta time should be moved forward by 90 minutes. See Aziz, Japan’s Colonialism, pp. 174–82; see also A.A. Zorab, De Japanse Bezetting in Indonesie en Haar Volkenrechtelijke Zijde (Leiden: Universitaire Press, 1954), pp. 74–75. Sukarno’s handwriting in the draft of the Proclamation of Independence put the year at “05”. But in its official text, it was already written as “1945”. On the administrative structure, see Aziz, Japan’s Colonialism, pp. 152–62; see also Zorab, De Japanse Bezetting, pp. 32–42. Quoted in Aziz, Japan’s Colonialism, p. 221. A thorough discussion on Snouck Hurgronje’s “Islam policy” and the Japanese policy of the “politization of Islam”, see Harry J. Benda, The Crescent and the Rising Sun: Indonesian Islam under the Japanese Occupation, 1942–1945 (The Hague/ Bandung: W. van Hoeve, 1958). On the importance of K.H. Hasyim Asy’ari, the grandfather of the 4th Indonesian President, K.H. Abdurrahman Wahid, in the world of the pesantren (boarding religious schools) in Java and Madura, see Zamakhsari Dhofier, Tradisi Pesantren: Studi Tentang Pandangan Hidup Kyai (Jakarta: LP3ES, 1985). The ulama, Dr H. Abdul Karim Amrullah, had been exiled from his birthplace

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(West Sumatra) to Java by the Dutch authorities in the 1940s. On the incident, see Benda, The Crescent, pp. 121–23. On the life of this daring ulama, see the biography, written by his son, Hamka, himself a famous ulama and wellknown novelist in his own right, Ayahku (Jakarta: Djaja Murni, 1967). The treatise written by the great ulama is put as an appendix of the book. The Dutch translation of the article, “God end de Keizer” is published in Indonesia, no. 6 (1952–53), pp. 77–92. S. Takdir Alisjahbana, Indonesia: Social and Cultural Revolution (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 65. See Aziz, Japan’s Colonialism, pp. 174–82, Zorab, De Japanse Bezetting, pp. 74–75; 96–104. Quoted by Aziz, Japan’s Colonialism, p. 226, See also the statement of Gatot Mangkupradja, “The Peta and My Relations with the Japanese: A Correction of Sukarno’s Autobiography”, Indonesia, no. 5 (April 1958), pp. 105–34. For an examination of the statement and the history of the Peta, see Nugroho Notosusanto, The Peta Army during the Japanese Occupation in Indonesia (Tokyo: Waseda University Press, 1979). See also a collection of writings of former Peta and Gyu Gun officers in Purbo S. Suwondo, ed., PETA: Tentara Sukarela Pembela Tanah Air; di Jawa dan Sumatera 1942–1945 (Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1996). As stated in the Japanese document, the youth-corps or Seinendan was established in “order to convince the youth of Java so that they will energetically co-operate with the Military government and render assistance in the building up of the Co-Prosperity Sphere in Greater East Asia”. Quoted in Aziz, Japan’s Colonialism, p. 224. On the keibodan, see for example, O.D.P. Sihombing, Pemuda Indonesia Menentang Fasisme Djepang (Jakarta: Sinar Djaja, 1962), pp. 129–36. M. Hatta, “Sukarela Membela Tanah Air” (Speech delivered on 3 November 1944 in the Ikada Square, Jakarta). Reprinted in Suwondo, ed., Tentara, pp. 5–10. See Benedict R.O’G. Anderson, Java in a Time of Revolution: Occupation and Resistance 1944–1946 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1972), pp. 16–23. For a more general treatment of the importance of Peta and other types of militarily trained groups, see Joyce C. Lebra, Japanese Trained Armies in Southeast Asia (Hong Kong: Heinemann, 1977). Benda, The Crescent, pp. 178–79. See Aziz, Japan’s Colonialism, note 3. The number of the PETA members is estimated at around 37,000, Hei Ho, 25,000, Hizbullah, 50,000, Keibodan, 1,280,000, Pemuda (youth), 500,000–600,000, Student Service Corps, 50,000, Barisan Berani Mati, 50,000, and Pelopor, 80,000. These figures are given in the Report of the 16th Army.

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For a short discussion on the underground groups and their activities, see George McT. Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1952). And Anderson, Java in a Time of Revolution, pp. 33–60. There have been several publications on the activities of the underground movement since the 1970s. On the activities of the students of the medical school, see O.E. Engelen et al., Lahirnya Satu Bangsa dan Negara (Jakarta: Penerbit Universitas Indonesia Press, 1997). “The Story of a Japanese: An Interview with Shigetada Nishijima”, in Born in Fire: The Indonesian Struggle for Independence, edited by Colin Wild & Peter Carey (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1988), p. 85. The cooperation of Sukarno and Hatta with the Japanese military regime is no longer a subject of historical controversy. H.J. van Mook, the former Lieutenant Governor of the returning Dutch government, admits this in his book (Indonesie, Nederland en de Wereld (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1949). Their cooperation with the Japanese authorities was part of the nationalist strategy. Sutan Sjahrir states that it was their agreement because Sukarno and Hatta were too predominant to work underground. See S. Sjahrir, Out of Exile, translated by Charles Wolf, Jr. (New York: The John Day, 1949). The main topic of the conference was to discuss the closer relationship between Japan and several Asian countries that were soon to gain their independence. The countries were China, Manchukuo, the Philippines, Burma and Thailand. Indonesia was not even invited as an observer. On the political process of fulfilling the promise of Indonesian independence, see Aiko Kurasawa Inomata, “Indonesia Merdeka Selekas-lekasnya: Preparations for Independence in the Last Days of Japanese Occupation”, in The Heartbeat of Indonesian Revolution, edited by Taufik Abdullah (Jakarta: P.T. Gramedia Pustaka Utama & Program of Southeast Studies, LIPI, 1997), pp. 97–113. Quoted in Azis, Japan’s Colonialism, p. 232. Orang Indonesia jang Terkemoeka di Djawa (Djakarta: Gunsikanbu, 2604 (1944)). On the social categories of the composition of the members, see Taufik Abdullah, “BPUPKI: Sebuah Episode di Panggung Sejarah” in 1000 Tahun Nusantara (Jakarta: Kompas, 2000), pp. 142–59. Adnan Buyung Nasution, The Aspiration for Constitutional Government in Indonesia: A Socio-legal Study of the Indonesian Konstituante 1956–1959 (Den Haag: CIP, Gegwens Koninklijke Bibliotheek 1992), pp. 90–91. The quotations are from the speech of Supomo in the BPUPKI meeting. The report was presented to the plenary session on 15 July 1945. Risalah Sidang Badan Penyelidik Usaha-usaha Persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia (BPUPKI), Panitia Persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia (PPKI), 28 Mei 1945–22 Agustus 1945 (Jakarta: Sekretariat Negara Republik Indonesia), pp. 249–61. Quotations, pp. 255–56, 260.

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Ibid., pp. 262–63. It is interesting to note that the chairman, Radjiman, refused to appoint Yamin, an expert of constitutional law, as a member of the drafting committee of the constitution, despite the personal plea of Sukarno. Ibid., p. 293. Ibid., but the translation is from Nasution, The Aspiration, p. 124. Mohammad Yamin, Proklamasi dan Konstitusi (Jakarta: Penerbit Djambatan, 1952), p. 16. The members of the Panitia Sembilan were Sukarno, Moh. Hatta, Muh. Yamin, Achmad Subardjo,(a former leader of the Perhimpunan Indonesia and an aide to Rear Admiral Maeda), A.A. Maramis (the Christian Minahanasan leader). They represented the “secular” nationalists. Abikusno Tjokrosoejoso, H.A. Agoes Salim (both were the former leaders of the S.I.) and Wachid Hasyim (the oldest son of the great ulama, Hasyim Asyhari, the founder of the N.U.), and Abdoelkahar Moezakkir (a leader of the Muhammadiyah, an activist in Cairo) represented the “Islamic” nationalists. Aside from the Proclamation of Independence, the symbolic significance of this document is second only to the Youth Oath of 1928, which declares the “birth of a nation”, in the history of nation formation. It was widely believed that Mohammad Yamin coined the Sanskrit name. Soekarno only said that “a friend” suggested the name to him. See the transcripts of the debates in the Risalah. Several studies have made thorough discussions on the debates, see among others B.J. Boland, The Struggle of Islam in Modern Indonesia (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982); H. Endang Saifuddin Anshari, Piagam Jakarta, 22 Juni 1945: Sebuah Konsensus Nasional Tentang Dasar Negara Republik Indonesia (1945–1949), third edition (Jakarta: Gema Insani Press, 1997). On the five principles of the Pancasila, many studies have been published. It needs its own bibliography. “According to our opinion [Sukarno’s and Hatta’s], the Proclamation of Indonesian independence should be decided by the PPKI because its members were regarded as representing the whole Indonesia… With their participation we would have a symbol of unity of Indonesia as a whole. The feeling of internal unity is more important than external legal consideration whether or not this body [is] appointed by the Japanese”. Bung Hatta, “Legende dan Realitet Sekitar Proklamasi 17 Agustus”, Mimbar Indonesia, No. 32/33, 17 Agustus 1951. Reprinted in Pramoedya Ananta Toer, “Koesalah Soebagyo Toer, and Ediati Kamil”, Kronik Revolusi Indonesia, vol. I (1945) (Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, 1999), pp. 510–22. In addition to several studies on the two eventful days in Indonesian history, several memoirs and reminiscences of the participants have also been published.

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See among others M. Hatta, Sekitar Proklamasi 17 Agustus 1945 (Jakarta: Tintamas, 1969). See also his Memoir (Jakarta: P.T. Tinta Mas, 1976). Sukarno’s reminiscences on the event are included in Sukarno: An Autobiography as Told to Cindy Adams (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril, 1965). Oemar Bahasan, Tjatatan Ringkas Tentang PETA (“Pembela Tanah Air”) dan Peristiwa Rengasdengklok (Bandung: Penerbit N.V. “Melati Bandung”, n.d.). Sukarni (a follower of Tan Malaka), later co-founded the Murba Party, and for many years, was the chairman of the party. In his Memoir, Hatta says that he managed to get in touch with several Islamic leaders, among others, K.H. Bagus Hadikusumo, Kahar Muzakir, Wahid Hasyim. He also approached T.M. Hasan, a representative from Sumatra, because he was an Acehnese. The move to attack the Jakarta Charter was led by Dr Ratulangi, the representative of Sulawesi in the PPKI. He reportedly asked a Christian student to see Hatta and told him that if nothing was done on the issue, “Eastern Indonesia will make its move”. See Gerry Van Klinken, Minorities, Modernity and the Emerging Nation: Christians in Indonesia, a Biographical Approach (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2003), pp. 229–31. Ki Bagus Hadikusumo agreed because he understood the change as being nothing but tauhid. On this point, see Anshari, Piagam Jakarta 22 Juni 1945 dan Sejarah Konsensus Nasional Antara Nasionalis Islam dan Nasionalis ‘Sekular’ Tentang Dasar Negara Republik Indonesia 1945–1959 (Bandung: Salman ITB, 1981). M. Yamin, Naskah Persiapan Undang Undang Dasar Republik Indonesia, Vol. I (Jakarta: Yayasan Prapanca, 1959), p. 402. On the critical few weeks after the Proclamation of Independence, see for example, Benedict R.O’G. Anderson, Java in a Time of the Revolution: Occupation and Resistance, 1944–1946 (Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1972). For the most comprehensive bibliography on the Indonesia Revolution to date, see H.A.J. Klooster, Bibliography of the Indonesian Revolution, Publications from 1942 to 1994 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1997). On the lasykar, see Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution. See also, Anderson, Java in a Time of the Revolution, and several other studies. See Salim Said, The Genesis of Power: General Sudirman and the Indonesian Military in Politics, 1945–1949 (Singapore: ISEAS/Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1991). Quoted in Charles Wolf, Jr. The Indonesian Story: The Birth, Growth, and Structure of the Indonesian Republic (New York: The John Day Company, 1948), p. 10. Quoted in David Wehl, The Birth of Indonesia (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1948), pp. 37–38. On the arrival of the Allied forces, see Wehl, The Birth of Indonesia, pp. 31–50; Wolf, The Indonesian Story, pp. 15–28. Quoted in Wolf, The Indonesian Story, p. 18.

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Selo Soemardjan, “In Memoriam: Hamengkubuwono IX. The Sultan of Yogyakarta”, Indonesia, no. 47 (April 1989): 115–17. For an extended biography, see Atmakusumah, ed., Tahta Untuk Rakyat: Celah-celah Kehidupan Sultan Hemengkubuwono IX (Jakarta: Penerbit P.T. Gramedia, 1982). On his place in the nation’s historical consciousness, see Sugiono M.P., ed., Sang Demokrat, Hamengku Buwono IX (Jakarta: Yayasan Budi Luhur, 1988). It was simply numbered X, because the State Secretary, A.G. Pringgodigdo, a Leiden trained lawyer — according to his own account — forgot to bring the record of the state regulations. A.G. Pringgodigdo, Perubahan Kabinet Presidensiil Menjadi Kabinet Parlementer (Jogjakarta: Jajasan Fonds Universitit Gadjah Mada, n.d.). On the failed attempt to establish a state party see, Anderson, Java in a Time of the Revolution, pp. 91–99. On the drama of the change of the government that took place behind the scene, see J.D. Legge, Sukarno: A Political Biography, third edition (Singapore: Archipelago Press, 2003), pp. 239–41. Legge relied on the information provided by Soedjatmoko, then a youth activist, a close confidant of Sjahrir’s. According to the story, there was a “confrontation” between Sukarno’s cabinet and Sjahrir’s cabinet. Finally Sukarno agreed to be merely a “figure head President”. Undoubtedly the presence of the Allied Forces was the major reason for this transfer of power. Soon after Sukarno issued the Presidential Decree on returning to the 1945 Constitution in 1959, and established the Guided Democracy government, he still used this system by naming Djuanda, the former Prime Minister, as the First Minister. See for example, P.J. Drooglever, “The Komite Nasional Indonesia Pusat and Internal Politics in the Republic of Indonesia”, in The Heartbeat of the Indonesian Revolution, edited by Taufik Abdullah (Jakarta: P.T. Gramedia Pustaka Utama & Program of Southeast Asian Studies, LIPI, 1997), pp. 149–80. On the questions of the constitutionality of this rather awkward situation, see Ismail Suny, Pergeseran Kekuasaan Eksekutif (Jakarta: C.V. Calindra, 1965). The book defends the constitutional legality of the power arrangement. On the historic day, see the recollections of Ruslan Abdulgani, who was at the time a leader of the youth group in Surabaya in his book, Heroes Day and the Indonesian Revolution (Jakarta: Prapanca, 1964). Wehl, The Birth of Indonesia, p. 67. On the agreement and the public reaction to the agreement, see for example, A.B. Lapian & P.J. Drooglevers, eds., Menelusuri jalur Linggarjati: Diplomasi dalam Perspektif Sejarah (Jakarta: Grafiti, 1992). The book contains articles by

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Dutch and Indonesian historians. The articles were based on both the archives and personal recollections of the participants and observers. See Anak Agung Gde Agung, ‘Renville’ als Keerpunt in de Nederlands-Indonesische Onderhandelingen (Alphen aan den Rijn: Stijhoff, 1980). The author believes the agreement was decisive in the colonial conflict. It was also the first time the colonial conflict came under the supervision of the international community. Frederiek Djara Wellem, Amir Sjarifoeddin: Pergumulan Imannya dalam Perjuangan Kemerdekaan (Jakarta: Penerbit Sinar Harapan, 1984). See also van Klinken, Minoritiees, pp. 115–50 and passim. No Indonesian national leader believed that Amir Sjarifuddin was a real communist. “He always carried with him his Bible,” Hatta once said. Many believed — as suggested by Kahin — that Amir was very disappointed by the Americans who failed to persuade or force the Dutch to live up to the Renville Agreement. See George McT. Kahin, “A Personal View of the War”, in Wild & Carey, eds., Born in Fire, pp. 188–92. See also his interview “Menuju Masyarakat Egalitarian: George McT. Kahin Tentang Revolusi Indonesia” in F.X. Baskara T. Wardaya, ed., Mencari Demokrasi (Jakarta: Institut Studi Arus Informasi, 1999, the Interview in English), pp. 189–212. See for example the account of Himawan Sutanto, Perintah Presiden Soekarno, “Rebut Madiun…” (Jakarta: Pusataka Sinar Harapan, 1994). The author was a former Commander of Siliwangi. He was a young lieutenant of the division when the “Madiun Affair’ took place. See George McT. Kahin, “In Memoriam: Sjafruddin Prawiranegara”, Indonesia, no. 48 (October 1989): 101–106. George McT. Kahin, “In Memoriam: Mohammad Natsir”, Indonesia, no. 56 (October 1993): 158–65. See also Ajip Rosidi, M. Natsir: Sebuah Biografi (Jakarta: Girimukti Pusaka, 1990). Ibid. On the course of the Revolution see Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution, op. cit. PDRI was for many years an almost forgotten episode in the history of the Revolution. It took a special permission from President Suharto himself before the first seminar on the PDRI could be held in 1989. For the report on the seminar, see PDRI Dikaji Ulang (Jakarta: Masyarakat Sejarawan Indonesia/ Arsip Nasional, 1990). Since then several seminars on some aspects of the PDRI have also been held. On the history of the PDRI, see Mestika Zed, Pemerintah Darurat Republik Indonesia: Sebuah Mata Rantai Sejarah yang Terlupakan (Jakarta: Pustaka Utama Grafiti, 1997). This event was highly glorified by Soeharto’s New Order. As an historical fact, the event, however, was also controversial. Soeharto claimed that he was not

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only the commander of the attack, but also its initiator. In his interview with the BBC, the Sultan of Yogyakarta said that he got the idea of launching a daylight attack on Yogyakarta after listening to the news from his clandestine radio receiver. He secretly related this plan to General Sudirman, who immediately agreed to it. Soeharto was the commander assigned to carry out the order. Wild & Carey, eds., Born in Fire, pp. 184–87. The Indonesian delegation at the UN specifically sent a young diplomat, Soedarpo, to Bangka to see the top Republican leaders. His task was to tell them that despite the fact that they had given the mandate to Sjafruddin, the world community only knew them. The British delegation, according to Soedarpo, insisted that the right to negotiate should be in Sukarno’s hands, they still remembered the way Sukarno handled the British-Indonesian crisis in Surabaya in 1945. Rosihan Anwar, Against the Currents: A Biography of Soedarpo Sastrosatomo, translated from Indonesian by Toenggoel Siagian (Jakarta: Pusataka Sinar Harapan, 2003), pp. 155–60. See for example Ali Sastroamidjojo’s memoir, Tonggak-tonggak dalam Perjalanan Hidupku (Jakarta: Kinta, 1974). T.B. Simatupang, Laporan dari Banaran (Jakarta: Sinar Harapan, second printing 1961). In his “Introduction” to Sutan Sjahrir, Our Struggle, translated with an introduction by Benedict R. O’G. Anderson (Ithaca, New York: Modern Indonesia Project, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1968). Quotations are taken from this translation. Ibid., p. 21. Ibid., p. 19. Pangrehpradja was the group of colonial indigenous bureaucrats; after independence it was renamed pamongpraja, which means the group which takes care of the people. Ibid., p. 20. Ibid., p. 31. Ibid., p. 27. Ibid., p. 28. Italic in the original. “The Madiun Affair” is one of the controversial events in the history of the Indonesian revolution. There is no question that by that event the relationship between Hatta’s government, which had been forced to pick up where Amir Sjarifuddin left off, and the so-called Sayap Kiri, the Left Wing, which strongly opposed the continuing “diplomacy” strategy, had become very tense. In the meantime, the government was also facing the continuing threat from the Dutch. There is also no question that the Left Wing had practical control of Madiun. But who fired the first shots? Whatever the case, “the Madiun Affair” painted a bloody image of the communist party.

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125 Ibid., pp. 23–24. 126 See Tan Malaka, From Jail to Jail, translated and introduced by Helen Jarvis, vol. III, Ohio University, Southeast Asia Series, no. 83. This is a translation of his memoirs, Dari Penjara ke Penjara, which he wrote while he was under the Republican detention for his opposition to the government. On the role of Tan Malaka during the revolution, see Anderson, Java in a Time of the Revolution, op. cit. 127 Sukarno was to state this again to the cheering crowd of the members of the Murba Party — the party that owed its ideology to Tan Malaka — at the official opening of the party congress in 1960. Biro Agitprop D.P. Partai Murba, “Bung Karno tentang Partai Murba, Tan Malaka dan Perdjuangannja: Pidato Amanat Presiden Sukarno kepada Resepsi Pembukaan Kongres ke V Partai Murba di Bandung, 15–17 Desember”, Djakarta. Sukarno received wild applause when he stated that Tan Malaka was a great patriot and “perfect socialist”. He also said that the Murba Party was not a little party but a “committed revolutionary nationalist party”. See “Bung Karno tentang Partai Murba, Tan Malaka dan Perjuangannya: Pidato Amanat Presiden Sukarno kepada Resepsi Pembukaan Kongres ke V Partai Murba di Bandung, 15–17 Desember 1960” (Jakarta: Biro Agitprop D.P. Partai Murba). It is ironic that four years later, Sukarno banned the party. 128 Ibid., pp. 94–95. 129 In his “classic” defence speech in 1930, Indonesia Menggugat (Indonesia Accuses), Sukarno also treated sugar plantation as the symbol of foreign capitalist exploitation. Tan Malaka, it should also be noted, became a radical socialist and nationalist after he spent a few years as a teacher in the plantations in North Sumatra. See his From Jail to Jail, vol. I. 130 Ibid., p. 104. Italic in the original. 131 Ibid., pp. 113–19, see also Tan Malaka, Gerpolek (Yogyakarta: Penerbit Jendela, 2000), pp. 46–147. First print 1948. 132 Ibid., p. 27. 133 Sukarno never forgot this event, particularly after Sjahrir dared to criticize him publicly. “And this was after I risked my neck politically to save him”, Sukarno: An Autobiography, pp. 258–59. 134 On the event, see for example, Anderson, Java in a Time of the Revolution. 135 The title of the defence speech is Sapta Dharma. It is more a political treatise than a defence speech. 136 Mengayuh Antara Dua Karang (Jakarta: Kementerian Penerangan Indonesia, 1951). It is understandable if the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a seminar, in conjunction with the 100th Birthday of Hatta (2002), on Hatta as the formulator of Indonesian basic principles of foreign policy.

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137 In part this was due to Aceh’s internal politics. The Governor of Sumatra, Mr Teuku M. Hassan, himself an Acehnese aristocrat (uluebalang), without consulting anybody, appointed Teuku Nyak Arief, also from the uluebalang social class. But Nyak Arief had excellent credentials both as an intellectual and a nationalist. He was the representative of Aceh in the Volksraad. The ulama finally decided to throw their support for him. The enemy was the Dutch, not the Acehnese aristocrats — so it was thought at the beginning of the revolution. This attitude would soon change. Aceh was about to face its serious political and social crisis. See Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin, Revolusi di Serambi Mekah, pp. 120–28. 138 Quoted in Peranan Tokoh Agama dalam Perjuangan Kemerdekaan 1945–1950: D.I. Aceh (Jakarta: Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan). See also T.A. Tasya, “Batu Karang Ditengah Lautan (Perjuangan Kemerdekaan di Aceh), 1945–1946 (Banda Aceh: Lembaga Sejarah Aceh, 1990), pp. 90–91. The four ulama represented the two major Islamic trends in Aceh — the reformist and the traditionalist ulama. See Sjamsuddin, Revolusi di Serambi Mekah, pp. 129–31. Most of the books on the national revolution in Aceh never forget to quote this statement. 139 See for example, James T. Siegel, The Rope of God (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969), pp. 35–67. 140 Quoted in Audrey R. Kahin, “West Sumatra: Outpost of the Republic”, in Audrey R. Kahin, ed., Regional Dynamics of the Indonesian Revolution: Unity from Diversity (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1985), p. 154. 141 See Van Klinken, Minorities, pp. 85–113, and passim. 142 Barbara S. Harvey, “Puppets and Patriots”, in Kahin, ed., Regional Dynamics, pp. 207–35. 143 See the contributions in Audrey Kahin, ed., Regional Dynamics of the Indonesian Revolution: Unity from Diversity (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1985). See also the series of publication, Sejarah Revolusi Kemerdekaan (1945–1949) daerah…” (Jakarta: Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, 1980). 144 See for example, Sapardi Djoko Damono, “Literature of the Revolutionary era” in Taufik Abdullah, ed., The Heartbeat of Indonesian Revolution, pp. 211–32. 145 Anderson introduced this term in his Java in a Time of the Revolution, Chapter I. 146 A number of books — mostly reminiscences of the participants — and articles on these various militia have been published. Most of the books, however, deal with particular units to which the authors belonged. Several seminars have also been held on the same subjects. See for example, Klooster, Bibliography. 147 Hatta, Memoir. The two leaders went to Surabaya to settle the armed clashes between the Allied Forces and the radical youths of Surabaya. They came practically to secure the safety of the occupying British soldiers. The great battle of Surabaya (10 November) took place after the Allied Forces strengthened their positions and manpower.

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148 See for example Robert Cribb, Gangsters and Revolutionaries: The Jakarta People’s Militia and the Indonesian Revolution (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1999). 149 A movie, Naga Bonar, written by Asrul Sani, made in 1987, nicely catches the revolutionary atmosphere. It is an anecdotal story of a local tug who emerged as a daring freedom fighter and charismatic commander of a lasykar unit. The movie was chosen as the best movie of the year. 150 On the history of the Peristiwa Tiga Daerah, see Anton Lucas, One Soul One Struggle: Region and Revolution in Indonesia (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1991). 151 Nazaruddin Syamsuddin, Revolusi di Serambi Mekah. 152 The major and classic study of C. Snouck Hurgronje is The Atjehnese, translated by Sullivan, 2 vols., London. It has been translated into bahasa Indonesia. Despite the fact that the book is not too sympathetic to the Acehnese, it is still widely appreciated even by the Acehnese. 153 See for example, Benda, The Crescent and the Rising Sun, and James T. Siegel, The Rope of God (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969). See also T. Ibrahim Alfian, Perang di Jalan Allah (Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1987). The writings of A. Hasymi, the poet, the local historian, ulama, and a former Governor of Aceh untiringly emphasize the cultural and religious unity of Aceh. 154 See Sjamsuddin, Revolusi di Serambi Mekah, pp. 176–201, and Reid, The Blood of the People, pp. 204–11. 155 See his From Jail to Jail, vol. I. The situation in the plantations in East Sumatra has become a subject of quite a number of excellent monographs and novels, written before and after the Second World War. In passing, it can also be noted that a report on the situation in the plantation was one of the reasons that caused the Dutch colonial government to change its labour policy. See for example, Jan Breman, Taming the Coolie Beasts: Plantation Society and the Colonial Order in Southeast Asia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). 156 This portion is based on Reid, The Blood of the People, pp. 218–65. 157 It was, perhaps, not an irony, that later the Republic of Indonesia, officially recognized Amir Hamzah, whose name can never be separated from modern Indonesian literature, as a national hero. Teuku Nyak Arief, who died in the detention camp, also received similar recognition.

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Reproduced from Indonesia: Towards Democracy, by Taufik Abdullah (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute Democracy of Integration • 183> of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available and at < Problems http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg

C H A P T E R

T H R E E

Democracy and Problems of Integration

The Return to the Unitary State

“

The 28th of December 1949, Bung Karno triumphantly came ‘home’,” but not to his old house. He came to the palace, which was once occupied by the Dutch Governor General, whenever he was in the capital city of the Netherlands Indies. The return of Sukarno to Jakarta was an unforgettable event. In January 1946, Sukarno and his family left Jakarta in secrecy, now he returned to the kota Proklamasi (City of Proclamation) triumphantly “We could not get through the crowd,” he says in his astold-to-autobiography. “Millions upon millions flooded the sidewalks, the roads. They were crying, cheering, screaming, ‘Hidup Bung Karno’…[Long live Bung Karno]…‘Hidup…. Merdeka’.” It was certainly one of the brightest moments in Sukarno’s biography and indeed in the contemporary history of Indonesia. Never again would Sukarno become the single living symbol of national celebration. It was the greatest moment in his life as the national leader. He might well remain the most influential leader until the end, but on that historic occasion he was the symbol of national unity. At the crucial moment of the Republic, the Dutch might have been able to capture him and Hatta with a number of cabinet ministers and given the two leaders no other choice but to transfer the formal leadership of the Republic to the PDRI. However, when the time for national celebration came, it was Sukarno who emerged as the symbol of unity and victory. It was to Hatta, the Prime Minister of the Republic of United States of Indonesia, that the Queen of the Netherlands “transferred” the sovereignty over the then Netherlands Indies in The Hague, but his return to Indonesia was not greeted as the moment of

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triumph. By the time Sukarno returned to Jakarta, he had been elected as the President of the Republic of the United States of Indonesia (RUSI or RIS — Republik Indonesia Serikat), while keeping his position of the President of the Republic of Indonesia, which he and Hatta proclaimed on 17 August 1945. He remained, as Indonesian political parlance puts it, the President of the Republik Proklamasi, which continued to be perceived as the authentic representation of the struggle for independence. Soldiers beat a path for me to the top most step of the big white palace. There I raised both hands high. Stillness swept over the millions. There wasn’t a sound. Except for the silent tears nothing moved. ‘Alhamdulillah — thank God’. I cried. ‘We are free’.1 The white palace, the Rijswijk palace, was soon to be renamed the Merdeka (Freedom) Palace. Sukarno had certainly somewhat romanticized the scene of his return to Jakarta. Nevertheless, this event could easily remind the people of Jakarta of the time when Sukarno, on 19 September 1945, at the then called IKADA square (now called Merdeka Square), addressed the people of Jakarta, who came to give their support for the Proclamation of Independence. It was the first time he, as the President of the newly proclaimed Republic, gave his public address. That was also the time when Sukarno showed his great charismatic quality. Under the threat of Japanese guns and bayonets, he advised the people, who were eager to hear his rousing speech, to go home peacefully. Within a few minutes, Sukarno had confirmed the moral and political legitimacy of the Proclamation — it was the declaration of independence that was supported by the people. Now, in late December 1949, he stood again in front of the people of Jakarta, flanked by the leaders of the State of Eastern Indonesia (Negara Indonesia Timur, NIT) and the State of West Kalimantan as well as several high ranking officers of the TNI. He was there at the veranda of the Presidential palace, as if to symbolize the historical fact that the reunification of independent Indonesia had already been achieved. Sukarno was to make it a tradition to give his rousing independence speech from the “top most step of the white palace”. Traumatic personal experiences and sufferings during the period when Indonesia had to suffer the longest four-and-a-half years of its contemporary

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history seemed to have been forgotten at this moment of joyous national celebration. Only time would later reveal whether the past experiences were destined to shape the course of history of the new state. When the Dutch armed forces launched their Second Aggression (19 December 1948), they successfully occupied the Yogyakarta, the capital of the Republic, and occupied many other towns in Sumatra and Java. The aggression or, as the Dutch called it, “police action” (politionele actie), had to be launched, as the Dutch propaganda put it, in order “to liberate the Sultan of Yogyakarta”. They failed to win the cooperation of the Sultan but they did manage to send the Republican leaders into exile. Some of them were brought to Prapat, near the lake of Toba, and some others were taken to a small town, Menumbing, on the island of Bangka. This early victory gave the Dutch the opportunity to continue the policy of “divide and rule” by managing or endorsing the formation of separate political entities, “the states” (negara), or “special regions” (daerah istimewa) in and outside the borders of the Republican territory that been agreed upon in the Linggajati Agreement.2 If the formation of the separate states or “special region” was conceived as a way to weaken the position of the Republic of Indonesia in the upcoming formation of the federal state of Indonesia under the tutelage of the Queen of the Netherlands — actually it was — the policy was a total failure. The early successes of Dutch military action backfired. The aggression immediately prompted political reactions3 not well anticipated by the Dutch. The government of the NIT, the biggest and the oldest “federal state” resigned in protest. Its newly formed government, under Prime Minister Ida Anak Agung Gde Agung (1921–2001), the Balinese royal aristocrat of Gianyar, saw no other way to express its disgust to the Dutch aggressive policy. The aggression was a direct affront to the policy designed by the newly appointed Prime Minister. Soon after Ida Agung Agung Gde Agung assumed the position as head of the government, he committed himself to the implementation of what he called the “synthetic policy” — that is, to find common grounds with the Republic in designing the future of Indonesia. When the Dutch launched their Second Aggression, the Republican parliamentary mission was about to leave for Makassar from Jakarta. The KLM plane that would bring them to the capital of the NIT had already taken off when it had to return for “mechanical problems”. The plane could

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not leave on that day. In the meantime, the newly appointed High Representative of the Royal Crown, Dr L.J. Beel, announced that the Renville Agreement did not bind the Dutch any longer. The next day, on the morning of 19 December 1948, the Dutch launched the Second Aggression. The Republican parliamentary mission was left stranded in Jakarta. It was indeed a deep disappointment for Anak Agung’s government, not only because his government had already taken the necessary preparation to welcome the mission, but also because the visit could also have been taken as confirmation of the Republican recognition of the legitimate existence of the NIT. When the NIT’s parliamentary mission came to visit Yogyakarta and met with the top leaders of the Republic in March 1948, the Republic had officially given the NIT its recognition. The gesture of the Republic of Indonesia in sending its own parliamentary mission would have certainly strengthened their relationship.4 Not long after the NIT government resigned, the cabinet of the State of Pasundan did likewise. International reaction was also harsh on the Dutch. In January 1949, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru called the Inter-Asian Relations Conference with a special focus on Indonesia in New Delhi. The conference sent recommendations to the Security Council of the United Nations to stop the hostilities.5 The Committee of Good Offices of the U.N., which had been working to find a solution to the “Indonesian problem”, also reacted negatively to the Dutch occupation of Yogyakarta and to its policy of exiling the Republican leaders. Not less important was the fact that the United States, which up to this time had almost consistently supported its Western ally,6 had now also realized that the Dutch had transgressed the boundaries of political propriety a little bit too far. The Security Council pressured the Dutch to resume negotiations with the Indonesian leaders. By the end of January 1949, as Taylor says, “although a prisoner on Bangka, Hatta was in a far stronger bargaining position than he had been as Prime Minister in Central Java on 13 December”.7 On 23 March 1949, the Security Council issued a resolution ordering the Dutch to return Yogyakarta to Republican hands and to cease hostility. When the formal dialogue between the Republican leaders and the Dutch representatives was about to begin, Sukarno and the Minister of

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Foreign Affairs, the “grand old man of the Republic, Haji Agoes Salim, who together with Sjahrir, was exiled to Prapat, joined them in Menumbing.8 The small town that was hardly mentioned in any geography textbook had practically become the centre of the Republic, despite the fact that Sjafruddin, the Chairman of PDRI, was legally still in power. But where could Sjafruddin be found? Many years later, his former associates would say in English that he and the members of the PDRI were” somewhere in the jungle”.9 He and his PDRI administration were always on the move. It was during this time that Anak Agung Gde Agung, the Prime Minister of the NIT, led the delegation of a loosely structured federation of the “federal states”, Bijeenkomst voor Federale Overleg (BFO — Federal Consultative Assembly) to meet the Republican leaders in Bangka. For Anak Agung, the visit was a way to confirm his commitment to his “synthetic policy”. It was the first meeting that would end in everlasting friendship between him and Hatta. But more importantly, the meeting of the Republican and the BFO leaders resulted in a confirmed agreement that the participation of the Republican leaders in any negotiations could only be undertaken if the Dutch recognized their official positions in the Republic. In other words, the BFO rejected the Dutch’s stand, which insisted of treating them as merely the leaders of the Indonesian people. By this attitude the BFO renounced the basic foundation of the Dutch policy, which denied the legitimate existence of the Republic. More significantly, the BFO had practically killed the political ploy of Dr L.J. Beel to form the United States of Indonesia with the exclusion of the Republic of Indonesia. Beel practically wanted to divide Indonesia, the former Netherlands Indies, into two, perhaps, three competitive states. The Dutch-sponsored “federal states” were usually labelled in the Republican political parlance as the negara boneka or puppet states. But at the decisive moment, when the question of existence was put into question, the BFO states (except a few small “states”) made an independent choice. Whatever political orientations these so-called “puppet states” might have shown during the time of uncertainties, when the moment of truth came the consciousness that they belonged to “one nation” became the determinant factor. The burden of the idealized and ideologized past events and the growing influence of the national-oriented vision of history were simply

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too strong to be ignored even by those who could still expect to receive Dutch protection. The unofficial communication between Hatta and the Dutch officials finally resulted in an agreement to hold a formal dialogue. It was not an easy dialogue for either side to begin with. The Dutch High Representative of the Royal Crown, L.J. Beel, objected to such a dialogue. He had his own plan to settle the Indonesia–Dutch conflict. The Republican side had some sensitive problems to deal with. Constitutionally, Sukarno and Hatta had no legal right to order Mohammad Roem (1908–83), the fine and highly regarded diplomat who had some experiences in dealing with the Dutch, to conduct such a dialogue. Sjahrir simply rejected the appointment as an adviser to the delegation. “Only Sjafruddin has the right to appoint me,” he was reported to have said. Hatta could forgive this rejection — he had known Sjahrir’s temperament since they were both still in the Netherlands— but Sukarno, who had already felt slighted by Sjahrir during their short internment in Prapat, saw it as nothing less than an insult. If for nothing else, the Prapat internment had resulted in the total political as well as personal break between Sukarno and Sjahrir. Sukarno and Hatta also appointed Natsir, the former Minister of Information, as an adviser to the Roem’s delegation. He too had to face a dilemma. His friend and party colleague, Sjafruddin, was still holding the legitimate power as the head of the PDRI, but then Roem was also his close friend and a party colleague. He finally decided to go along with the appointment; he had, after all, excellent personal relation with Soekarno. More importantly, something much more essential than constitutional certainty was at stake. The establishment of an independent state could not be taken too lightly. It took about a month before the two delegations could reach an agreement. On 7 May 1949, the two representatives issued their separate statements. “As the Chair of the delegation of the Republic of Indonesia I have been authorized by President Sukarno and Vice-President Hatta to state their own promises, in keeping with the 28 January 1949, Security Council Resolution”, to facilitate among others the cessation of hostility. The Dutch representative agreed to return the Republican leaders to Yogyakarta. Both sides agreed to hold a Round Table Conference to determine

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the future of Indonesia and its relationship with the Netherlands. Since the Dutch cabinet and parliament in The Hague finally accepted the van RoijenRoem Statement,10 the High Representative of the Royal Crown, L.J.M. Beel, was left no other option but to tender his resignation. With the return of Yogyakarta into the Republic’s hands, further contacts between the Republic and the BFO could be held rather easily. That was when two successive Inter-Indonesian Conferences were held in Yogyakarta. The first Inter-Indonesian Conference was held from 19–22 July and the second took place from 31 July–2 August 1949. These conferences were not only politically, but also symbolically, significant. After being separated by the returning colonial power, the time had come when the representatives of several regions of Indonesia finally had the opportunity to have a meeting of minds. At these conferences the leaders of the BFO and the Republic could form an “all Indonesia” stance in the forthcoming Round Table Conference (RTC). Anticipating the formation of a United States of Indonesia, the conferences offered an excellent occasion for the leaders to agree on some basic constitutional issues — the President would be the symbol of the state, it would have two chambers, and so forth. Not less important was the fact that they agreed to maintain the three fundamental symbols of the nation-state — the Red and White flag, the national anthem, Indonesia Raya, and the national language, bahasa Indonesia.11 The RTC was held in The Hague from 23 August to 31 October. The results of RTC were not, however, very satisfactory to either side. Indonesia had to pay a huge debt owed by the Netherlands Indies government in its effort to destroy the Republic of Indonesia. The moment Indonesia gained the recognition of its sovereignty, it was already in debt of 4.6 billion guilders — 3 billion in internal debt and 1.6 billion in foreign debt. The Netherlands refused to return West Irian, which they claimed could not be considered to be part of the Indonesian nation. The Dutch had seen the economic potential of the western part of this second biggest island in the world. Furthermore, the Dutch felt that for emotional reasons, they simply could not abandon the still largely under-populated island in the tropics. It was not easy for the Dutch sense of honour to relinquish all its “possessions in the East” to the new state, which, as one of their overseas colonies, they

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used to call “the Indies”. Not only the leaders of the political parties, but also the large majority of the population, hated to see the inclusion of West New Guinea into the soon-to-be-formed Republic of the United States of Indonesia.12 In his reminiscence on the RTC, Roem, the vice-chairman of the delegation of the Republic, says that the BFO delegation appeared to be more radical on the West Irian issue.13 Anak Agung had even warned that the decision to postpone the final solution on that issue would create repercussions that might result in the abolishment of the federation.14 However deep the disappointment of the Republican and the BFO delegations might be, they could still console themselves with their success of totally rejecting another controversial issue — that is, the right of the “state” to secede from the united states. “The Republican delegation,” the head of the Republican delegation, Hatta, stated, “can only declare to find it impossible to cooperate in the destruction of the Republic.”15 One important thing cannot be denied, however. The RTC sealed the fate of the four-and-a-half-years of armed conflict with a major and fundamental agreement — the Indonesian State finally gained recognition of its sovereignty. Whether this event should be called “the transfer of sovereignty” (as its legal term states — “souvereiniteit overdracht” or penyerahan kedaulatan) or “the recognition” (“pengakuan” as Sukarno and other Indonesian political leaders prefer to call it), one hard fact cannot be denied. With the conclusion of the RTC, the national revolution had succeeded in achieving its most immediate goal — its independent state had been officially acknowledged. The claim of the the Preamble of the 1945 Constitution had been fulfilled. — “With the blessing of God,” it states, the national movement had successfully brought the nation “to the front of the gate of independence”. So when Hatta and the members of the Republican delegation came home, the cabinet officially endorsed the RTC agreement. On 15 December, the plenary session of the KNIP gave its approval to the agreement with a majority vote — 226 versus 66 votes. Curiously enough, most of the members of Sjahrir’s PSI voted negatively to the agreement. “Many people thought,” Hatta says dryly in his memoir, “the PSI rejected it because it was not Sjahrir who accomplished the RTC successfully.”16

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A provisional constitution that had been prepared was announced. The RUSI would have two chambers — the House of Representatives and the Senate. Two senators would represent each federal state, to be appointed by the respective government on the basis of the recommendation of their state legislative bodies. Article 46 specifically states that any region may elevate itself into a separate “state”, provided it could fulfill all the necessary requirements. The legitimacy and the rights of all existing swapraja (selfgoverning region, zelfbestuur) are recognized. The President is the Head of State but not the Chief Executive. The President has the prerogative to appoint the Prime Minister of the parliamentary cabinet. The President is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.17 Soon after the KNIP approved the RTC agreement, the birth of RUSI was officially announced. The Republic and the BFO representatives unanimously elected Sukarno as the first President of the RUSI on 16 December 1949. There were 16 states and special regions of the RUSI.18 Three days later, the cabinet of RUSI was formed under Prime Minister Hatta. In accordance with Hatta’s political inclination, it was a professional cabinet (zaken cabinet), comprised of the members who came from the Republic of Indonesia and the BFO. The RUSI, however, soon found itself on fragile political and ideological ground. The supporters of the BFO, the so-called “federalists”, were not very happy with the composition of the cabinet. To them, the cabinet was very much under the domination of the Republicans.19 In the parliament, most of the representatives of the BFO states were actually “unitarist” Republicans, who had been campaigning for the return of the Republic of the Proclamation. The question of West Irian, which was still under Dutch colonial rule, was certainly a major issue to settle. As the majority of the political public saw it, without West Irian, neither the integrity nor the sovereignty of Indonesia could be considered complete. Since West Irian was still not a part of the new nation-state, as Sukarno never forgot to remind the people, the national revolution had yet to be completed. In the meantime, the newly formed Republic of the United States of Indonesia had to face a number of challenges that threatened not only its territorial integrity, but also its very existence. The RUSI government was still in the process of establishing its credentials when colonial time bombs began to explode here and there.

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As required by the RTC agreement, the modernization and the rationalization of the armed forces had to be undertaken. Certain criteria had to be fulfilled before one could be accepted as a member of the newly modernized national armed forces. With this kind of agreed modernization programme, suddenly a great number of the freedom fighters might find that they were not qualified to be the members of the armed forces of the state they had fought gallantly to defend. And, what an historical irony it would be if the better-educated and better-trained KNIL members, if they wanted to, could wear the new uniform provided by the nation-state they had tried to destroy. How should this kind of political and ethical dilemma be dealt with? Who could then be surprised to learn that some of the former freedom fighters simply returned to the jungle to resume the interrupted guerrilla warfare? Only this time, it was not against the colonial power, but against the very nation-state they had given their services to in earnest. How could this and a number of other post-revolutionary social, political or even psychological problems be solved by the still inexperienced state managers? In the meantime, Indonesia was also burdened by the debts incurred by the Dutch in their attempt to destroy the young Republic. Its economic and social infrastructure was in shambles. The irrigation networks in Java could no longer function properly. Java could no longer boast that it was the rice granary of the islands. The industrialization efforts that had begun in the early 1930s had to be restarted again from the beginning. The demand for the expansion and restoration of the infrastructure was on the increase. Many bridges had to be restored or reconstructed and built, and many school buildings and other facilities had to be repaired and erected. It was estimated that the cost of the destruction of economic infrastructure was equal to the current GDP. In the meantime, the Indonesian economy was still very much dominated by the “big five” — that is the five biggest Dutch companies. The Dutch-owned-and-managed De Javasche Bank continued its colonial function as the circulation bank. And, finally the Darul Islam, with its centre in West Java, was still keen on making Indonesia an Islamic state no matter what, regardless of the method to be used. The long separation with the Republic — after the Renville Agreement — had apparently deepened the conviction of Darul Islam’s leaders that the only

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way to solve existing social-economic and political problems was the transformation of the basic foundation of the young Republic. The most pressing political problem, however, was the ideological and historical legitimacy of the RUSI itself. The ex-KNIL and the aristocratic class in some regions, most notably in East Sumatra, would certainly like to maintain the existence of the RUSI. The federal sphere could at least give them ample freedom to move without worrying too much about the watchful eye of the revolutionary Republicans. After all, the State of East Sumatra (Negara Sumatra Timur) was the state they established as a reaction to the assault launched by the Republican supporters with their self-styled “social revolution”. The rajas, the Protestant priests, and the KNIL veterans in Ambon preferred to have a separate political entity within the RUSI and cease to be a part of the NIT. Separation from the NIT to them could mean having a relative independent sphere to maintain their cultural attachment to the Netherlands, the colonial power that had given them special privileges in the former colonial state. The NIT was after all a multi-cultural entity, where the better-educated Menadonese might compete with the more politically assertive Buginese and Makassarese or with the better-placed Balinese. How should the smaller ethnic communities locate themselves politically? To the supporters of the Republic, on the other hand, the RUSI was nothing more than a compromised state. It was not for this kind of state that the freedom fighters had sacrificed their lives. Sukarno, the Head of State, might be “the President who can do no wrong” according to the Provisional Constitution of the RUSI, but no one could compete with his stature and influence as a national leader. And he was the person who consistently promoted the idea of a unitary state. Hatta, being the Prime Minister and the former leader of the delegation to the RTC, might be the strongest person constitutionally and politically, but his hands were tied by both the Constitution and the agreement of the RTC. He could not simply follow the wishes of the man in the street. Moreover he was by inclination a legalist. He preferred to pursue everything in a smooth and legal manner. The real forces behind the unitarist movement, however, were not the political elite in Jakarta or the high officials who lived and worked in the capital cities of the federal states, but the people on the streets. Or to put it

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more correctly, the real forces of “unitarism” were the local informal leaders, whose political orientations had been very much shaped by the sense of being part of the great moment of the national revolution. It was these local leaders who actively played the role of brokers of ideas throughout the process of the campaign to return to the unitary state.20 Whatever merits the federal system might offer to the integration of the state or even to the process of nation-building, they had already been buried under the stigma of being part of the Van Mook’s “divide and rule” policy. In South Sulawesi, the centre of political activity in the NIT, most of the leaders of the “unitarist” movement were the aristocratic local rulers, who might also have remembered the time when their fathers or grandfathers fought against the imposition of the Dutch rule in their respective regions.21 Despite the interruption caused by the Japanese military occupation and the revolution, the political position of the local aristocracy apparently remained powerful. The early support of the local rulers for the cause of national revolution and the fact that the Dutch exiled some of the prominent aristocrats were certainly some of the factors that helped their social and political standing among the people. In some areas, most notably East Sumatra, the pro Republican local leaders were the political activists, leaders of labour organizations, and journalists, who had from the beginning opposed the formation of the East Sumatran State (Negara Sumatra Timur, NST). The Malay aristocrats in East Sumatra could hardly forget the trauma of the “social revolution” of 1946. The re-emergence of the unitary state was for them a promise to a bleak prospect. Soon after the “transfer” of sovereignty, local political leaders in the Dutch-sponsored states or “special regions” that remained outside the existing power structure, began their movement of returning to the “fold of the Republic”. The street demonstrations they helped to organize became daily affairs. The demonstrators demanded the dissolution of their “state” or its inclusion into the Republic of Indonesia, the capital of which remained Yogyakarta. The fact that the formation of these states was initiated, endorsed, or supported by the Dutch was reason enough for the inability of the governments of these states to deal properly with this situation. The Dutch army, their protectors, was about to leave and, even if they were

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still around, they had no right to interfere in the internal problems of the sovereign state. By April, most of the Dutch-sponsored or established states had practically crumbled, either by joining the Republic or simply dissolving themselves and letting the RUSI government take care of the regions directly. In some states, however, most notably in Pasundan and NIT, there were strong and violent reactions posed by the KL (Koninklijk Leger, Royal Army) and KNIL (Koninklijk Nederlandsch Indisch Leger) against the popular “unitarist” movement. On 23 January 1950, Captain Westerling (the “butcher of South Sulawesi” in the notorious so-called “40,000 victims affair”), with about 500 members of his APRA (Angkatan Perang Ratu Adil — Armed forces of the Messianic Just King), most of them members of the KNIL and KL, launched a massive military attack on the city of Bandung. Claiming to defend the State of Pasundan, the APRA managed to capture several strategic points, and in the process killed 79 members of the RUSI army and a number of civilians. The APRA troop finally agreed to abandon the city after the Dutch Commander of the KL garrison in Bandung persuaded them to do so. The APRA affair was over, but it left a deep political and social impact on the State of Pasundan, from which the Dutch-sponsored state never recovered. A week after the event, the President of the state of Pasundan, R.A. Wiranatakusumah,22 resigned. His position as the Wali Negara (“Head of the State”) was no longer tenable. In the meantime, the RUSI authorities arrested some members of its previous Pasundan cabinet due to their alleged complicity in the Westerling’s APRA affair. The parliament of the state of Pasundan issued a vote of no confidence to the government and passed a resolution demanding the state to transfer its authority officially to the RUSI. The state of Pasundan had practically ceased to exist. Prime Minister Hatta appointed Sewaka as the RUSI Commissioner in charge of the administration of the region. The the state of Pasundan had since then belonged to history — not something, however, the Sundanese people would feel very proud of. The APRA affair revealed another aspect of RUSI politics. A Minister of State in the RUSI cabinet, the most loyal subject of the Queen of the Netherlands, Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who was also the Sultan as well as

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the Head of State of West Kalimantan, turned out to be the mastermind the conspiracy. He was found guilty of planning to kill Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX, the Minister of Defence, Ali Boediardjo, the Secretary General of the ministry, and the Chief-of-Staff of the Armed Forces, Colonel Simatupang. The conspiracy was his ruthless method to get appointed as the Minister of Defence. The plot was uncovered at the right time. The immediate consequence of his complicity in the affair was the abolishment of the state of West Kalimantan. A large number of guerilla freedom fighters might have returned by choice to civilian life — to continue their interrupted studies, to return to the rice fields they had left behind or whatever. But a sizeable number of the former freedom fighters were worried about the possibility of being excluded from the Angkatan Perang Republik Indonesia Serikat (APRIS, Armed Forces of the RUSI), because of their lack of education and professional training. They joined the national revolution just as a matter of calling, not as a way to pursue a profession. The KNIL members,23 however, were deeply concerned with the fact that they were going to be put under the command of the TNI officers, their former enemies. Captain Andi Aziz of the KNIL was one of them. A Buginese aristocrat who had the reputation of being one of the best-trained and brightest KNIL officers, he was also very much concerned with the place of South Sulawesi in the unitary state of Indonesia. For him the NIT should remain as what it was, that is a state within the RUSI. After learning about the plan of the RUSI government to send APRIS troops to South Sulawesi, Andi Aziz took action. On 5 April, he arrested the head and members of the APRIS liaison group who had been stationed in the NIT, and announced that he and his company would repel the arrival of the APRIS military units. Soon after learning about this event, the Prime Minister of NIT, D.P. Diapari, resigned. He could not agree with the action taken by Andi Aziz, but had no power to counter it. The KNIL was not under his jurisdiction. The initial reaction of the RUSI government was to settle the matter peacefully. But soon after observing the situation more thoroughly, the RUSI Prime Minister gave Andi Aziz an ultimatum on 12 April — in two days he should report to Jakarta or else. On 14 April, he failed to appear. President Sukarno called him a “rebel”. But finally at the urging of President Sukawati of NIT, Andi Aziz decided to go to Jakarta.

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His time as a free KNIL officer had, however, expired. On his arrival, the military police were already waiting. He was arrested. On 18 April, the APRIS troops landed in a harbour north of Makassar and Andi Aziz’s followers surrendered. On 9 May, a “liquidation cabinet” was formed under the Prime Minister J. Poetoehena, a pro-Republican. In the meantime, a former Minister of Justice, Dr Mr. Soumokil, with the support of the Ambonese KNIL, proclaimed the formation of the Republik Maluku Selatan (Republic of South Moluccas). For the first time, Indonesia had to face a real separatist movement. The Darul Islam might consistently refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the RUSI government and want to replace it with its system of governance, but it continued to see itself as part of the Indonesian state. With the series of street demonstrations and political manoeuvring that practically made the Dutch-sponsored federal states and special regions unable to function properly, the return to the unitary state was no longer a question of “if”; it had become a matter of “when” and in “what way”. The process was, nevertheless, a hotly debated issue. Should the return to the unitary state be carried out by the inclusion of the still extant states or special regions in the Republic? Or should it be carried out by dissolving all units, including the Republic, and making them integrated parts of the RUSI, which would then “de-federalize” itself? The Republic of Indonesia, which saw itself as the legitimate continuation of the “Republic of Proclamation”, certainly insisted on the first alternative. The BFO states, most notably the NIT, fought for the latter. A compromise was reached in May when the NIT and NST agreed to the formula that the RUSI and the Republic would jointly work out the process towards the establishment of the unitary state. The governments of the two federal states asked the Hatta cabinet to represent them in the negotiations with the Republic of Indonesia. The rather tiring negotiations were concluded after the RUSI parliament accepted Natsir’s mosi integral or motion for the reintegration of the state, on 1 August 1950. The President finally announced the return to the unitary state of Indonesia on 16 August.24 Not unlike the date of the so-called “transfer of sovereignty”, the date of the return to the unitary state also belongs to the list of dates to be recorded, but forgotten. In either the collective memory or national historiography, the date has been treated as nothing but a correction of an historical deviation.

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But for now the Republic of the Proclamation of Indonesia had returned. The dream of having a unitary state, which was undivided by ethnic or religious differences or historical experiences, such as was visualized in the BPUPKI and PPKI sessions, when the national leaders assembled to discuss the future state of Indonesia, had finally been accomplished. The state symbol, designed in the early months of the RUSI, Bhinneka tunggal ika, “diversity in unity”, had ideologically and symbolically become more meaningful.25 More importantly, the historical stigma implanted by “van Mook”, the name that remains the personification of the Dutch policy of “divide and rule” in the people’s historical imagination, had been erased. The time had come to start with the new agenda of nation-building. How should the promises of the Proclamation be fulfilled? How could the state be of service to the long-suffering masses? The RUSI lasted only about nine months. History, geography, and cultural diversities, might provide strong arguments for the viability of the federal structure of a nation-state. However, the stigma of recent history — the history that had been deeply entrenched in the spirit of national revolution — that had been attached to federalism was simply too strong for the new state to withstand. Nevertheless the idea of federalism, like the idea of the Islamic State, could still emerge as an alternative whenever the power of the centre was felt to be too oppressive. The idea might never have posed any serious challenge to the unitary state, but could still be used as the last resort whenever the opposition to the centre was beginning to be exhausted. This was the case — as will be elaborated later — when the PRRI/Permesta rebellion had been effectively encircled by the armed forces of the central government. It proclaimed itself the Republik Persatuan Indonesia (United Republic of Indonesia) in 1960. In 1961, the leaders of the RPI began to surrender to the central government. Qahhar Muzakkar, who refused to be part of the RPI and cut his relations with the Darul Islam, finally announced himself the Chalifah of the Republik Persatuan Islam Indonesia (Islamic United Republic of Indonesia) in 1962. Expectations were very high and varied, but hardly anyone dared to predict that with the return to the unitary state, everything would run smoothly. For one thing, West Irian was still in the hands of the colonial

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power. The RMS had also announced itself to be a separate political entity. The problems of ex-freedom fighters and the modernization of the armed forces gave the Republican leaders a serious headache. The Darul Islam, which had proclaimed itself (7 August 1949) Negara Islam Indonesia, posed ideological and military challenges to the young national state. A host of other social and economic problems were already waiting for the young sovereign Republic to solve in its attempt to really start with the process of nation-building. But for now, after the sovereignty of the nation-state had been recognized, the second objective of the struggle had also been accomplished — Indonesia had again become a unitary state. The third stage was about to begin in earnest and increasingly in a radical manner — the inclusion of West Irian into the fold of the Republic.

“The Inheritors of World Culture” Glorious patriotic struggle is certainly not the only message the national revolution could offer. The revolution was also a time of suffering and uncertainty. In the process, differences in understanding the dynamics of the revolution could not be avoided. These differences were not simply a matter of intellectual discourse, but also a problem that deeply influenced the formulation of policy in dealing with the outside powers and in organizing the state. The national revolution is, perhaps ironically, also a sphere in which violent internal conflicts cropped up here and there. When the revolution as an empirical experience was over, some people might have reflected on the outburst of the deep-seated but covered internal social conflict, but others might have simply looked at it as a competition for power. The emergence of the Darul Islam and the outbreak of the so-called “Madiun Affair” may give the impression of the existence of various kinds of violent ideological conflicts that occur during the revolutionary period. The other violent events, such as the “three regions affair” in Central Java, despite their historical and ideological justifications, could also be seen as ways to settle old scores. A number of “social revolutions” did indeed break out during the national revolution. A number of stories, sad and tragic, even farcical, can be told about all these minor but tragic events. But when the moment of victory came, one could be easily persuaded by Sukarno’s

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vision of independence — it was the “golden bridge” to attain the long cherished dream. The recognition of sovereignty had really given the people some kind of sense of dignity and self-confidence. The national revolution had been won — at least, that was the political reality. To the large majority of the people, the time to fulfill the promises of independence had come. But to some others the time might well be the moment when the meaning of independence should be contemplated culturally. Where is the place of Indonesia in the family of nations? Should political independence be accompanied by social and cultural changes? This intellectual sphere reflects the situation as if the old and earliest notion of social emancipation, “kemajuan”, albeit in a different form, came to the surface again. A new kind of cosmopolitanism began. But for how long would this trend last before the inward looking nationalism demanded the return of its alleged rightful place? On 18 February 1950, Asrul Sani (1928–2004), a young poet and brilliant essayist, on behalf of his literary colleagues, issued a cultural declaration, the “Surat Kepercayaan” (A letter of credential) in a literary section, Gelanggang, of a weekly, Siasat, published in Jakarta. “We are the legitimate inheritors of the culture of the whole world,” he states, “and we shall transmit this culture in our own way. We come from the ordinary people and for us the people are a mixture of everything from where a new and healthy world would be born.”26 Only a few months had passed since Indonesia succeeded in defending, with blood and tears, its separate political identity as a new nation-state. Now suddenly, some of its fine patriots declared that they were “the inheritors of the world culture”. Did the national revolution make no political and psychological impact on the way they looked at themselves and the world? What was the meaning of the revolution to them? Remembered and glorified as the time when the youth came to the fore to determine the fate of the nation,27 it was also a series of tremendous events that suspended the importance of internal cultural differences in the arena of internal politics.28 The incessant Dutch attempt to create internal dissension on the basis of regionalism and ethnic differences only strengthened the notion of national unity. Feith might have been right in his statement that “In 1950 nationalism was triumphant. Its power as a cohesive force binding the archipelago together was at its zenith.29”

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What an irony if at this “zenith of nationalism”, the supporters of the Surat Kepercayaan made the political boundaries of the state, which had been heroically erected, culturally irrelevant. Growing up at this juncture of world history — when the destructive Second World War was about to be transformed into the hostile, though less violent, Cold War — the young literary figures and painters did not look at their revolutionary experiences as the drama of life that could be used as the foundation of their special position in the national community. The supporters of this cultural statement might have nostalgic feelings about the revolution — warm comradeship, travelling to unknown places, and romantic dreams about the uncertain future. Some others might have sad stories to tell — their interrupted education, the destruction of the beloved villages, the lost of loved ones. They, however, preferred to look at these experiences as part of the process towards maturity. Many of their best literary pieces were very much influenced by their revolutionary experiences, but they preferred to look at the revolution as a period of intense creativity. And, not less importantly, creativity for them was the very essence of culture itself. “Revolution is to us the creation of new values in the place of the old values which have to be abandoned. Therefore we are of the opinion that the revolution of our own fatherland has not yet been completed.” The revolution was then not merely the course of the struggle and the pains to achieve national independence. It should also be conceived, as the drama where the agonizing process of what Nietszche once called “Umwertung aller Werte” — the revaluation of all values — should have taken place. It was a gigantic programme, indeed. But what else would they dream about — being young, idealist, erudite, mature beyond their age, and having the feeling of entering a period full of promises? But what is the Indonesian culture? Their “Indonesianness”, ke-Indonesiaan, as they declared in the historic statement, “does not rest in our brown skins and cheek bones but rather in the expressions of our hearts and minds”. Indonesian culture is not something that is already “here and now” but something that continues to be in the process of creation. Not unlike the declaration of independence, which is mostly based on the determination to win political liberation and on the confidence of the people’s patriotic impulses rather than on a clear strategy and well-planned preparations, the Surat Kepercayaan is also not a clearly and neatly conceived cultural

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programme. The signatories of the Surat Kepercayaan, who are known in the history of Indonesian literature as the Angkatan 45 or the ’45 Generation,30 did not make a clear-cut definition of what they meant by Indonesian culture. “If we talk about Indonesian culture we are not thinking of polishing up and refining the heritage of old cultures in order to make them more glittering and become something we can be proud of, we are instead thinking of creating a new and healthy cultural life.” In short, for them the Indonesian culture is the creative reproduction of impulses and inspirations that come from all corners of the world. To these young men of letters, the Indonesian culture is not something to be inherited passively, but one that has to be earnestly searched in the course of the ongoing dialogues, both with the outside world and the heritage of the past. Written at the time when this young nation was still in the process of learning how to run a modern nation-state, the supporters of the Surat Kepercayaan curiously enough tended to treat politics as the business of other people who could not foresee things beyond their immediate affairs. The attitude of separating culture, the realm of ideas, from political concerns may reflect the spirit of the few months after the transfer of sovereignty. Now that independence had been achieved, everything seemed to be within reach. The early 1950s was the time when the young and inexperienced nation still saw independence as the gate of opportunities to be entered by anybody with any kind of ideas to offer. The proponents of the Surat Kepercayaan implicitly defined culture as the continuing process of creativity or, a struggle, in their own parlance and, more importantly, a sphere where the divergent local cultures may find their affinities. Although refusing to make a clear boundary between “tradition” and “modernity”, they implicitly dreamed of creating a cultural world where all these elements would blend congenially and harmoniously. Culture was then conceived of as a sphere where any meaningful communication could be established. It was a sphere where creativity could be developed and cultivated. Culture was at the same time the process of creativity itself. In one of his essays, Asrul Sani made a cynical remark on the attempt to design clear cultural boundaries between “the East” and “the West”. This attempt, he said, was the work of the people who had nothing else to do. It

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was a useless endeavour. The world was an open cultural space in which anybody, any national community, for that matter, could learn from each other. Likewise, Indonesia could be seen as a national cultural space, where every possible and relevant cultural idiom could be put forward.31 He simply took it for granted the existence of the divergent local cultures. Local cultures were there and alive and well. Although he and his colleagues might enjoy and feel at home with the cultural spheres and symbols of their respective ethnic environment, they refused to confine themselves to these ready-made cultural moorings. For the young cultural ideologues, culture was not only a symbolic communication, but a creative and audacious intellectual and aesthetic adventure as well. S. Takdir Alisjahbana, who in the late 1930s talked about the need for the new Indonesia to look to the West, expressed similar cultural concerns. In the paper he presented at the second Cultural Conference (the first one took place in Magelang, in 1948, during the revolution), held in Jakarta, in August 1950, he again conceptually rejected the division of the world into several cultural realms. Indeed there were differences, but culture, being what it was, should be conceived as the development of every potentiality of the human mind. As such it could only survive and develop if it refused to acknowledge conceptually the existence of cultural enmity. He lamented the fact that “our nation’s independence and sovereignty for most of us is still clouded with the aura of sacredness which refuses to be disturbed by rationality and reality”.32 The first half of the 1950s may be said to be an era characterized by the strong desire to form a new cultural world. In a cultural sphere such as this, who would then be surprised to see that some painters were experimenting with surrealistic and expressionistic paintings and some others continuing to cultivate inherited artistic cultural forms and symbols? Kroncong, gamelan, jazz, and classical symphony, were simply styles of music that had their own rules and aesthetic theories. They all had equal right to be enjoyed and listened to. The early 1950s was also a booming period of movie productions with patriotic themes. Freedom fighters emerged as both heroic figures in times of war and romantic ones when peace had been restored. For the

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first time, movies were produced by indigenous movie producers.33 It is not without symbolic significance that the first day of the shooting of the movie, Darah dan Doa: Long March Divisi Siliwangi (Blood and Prayer: The Long March of the Siliwangi Division, 1950), has been taken as the “Day of Indonesian Movie”. The movie depicts the return of the Siliwangi Division to its original base, the province of West Java, after having had to abandon it as the consequence of the Renville Agreement (1948). The movie was produced by a newly formed film company, Perfini, and directed by Usmar Ismail (1921–71), a poet and a theatre director, who was at one time, during the revolution, a Republican intelligence officer. He, however, did not only produce patriotic movies. He was determined to make movies an aesthetic creation, not simply a commercial product. At a time when Italian neo-realist movie had become a fashion, he produced and directed Krisis (1953, Crisis) — a down-to-earth sketch of life in Jakarta in the early 1950s. As it turned out it was the first Indonesian movie ever shown in the first class movie theatre in Jakarta. Armijn Pane, whose novel, Belenggu (The Shackle) has until to day been widely considered to be one of the best Indonesian modern novels, wrote a script of a controversial movie, Antara Bumi dan Langit (Between the Earth and the Sky, 1950). The movie depicts the psychological and sociological dilemma that had to be faced by the Eurasians in the newly established nation-state. How would they look at themselves now that their special social status had been taken away34 ? In this open cultural sphere, a Muslim film producer, himself a leader of an Islamic political party, introduced a new beginning to the Indonesian movie industry. He collaborated with a Filipino movie producer to produce a movie in colour. Without any sense of embarrassment, he took an epic from the reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century. The movie, Rodrigo de Villa (1952) depicts the gallantry and bravery of a Spanish warrior against the Moors. The early 1950s can be considered to be an epoch of cultural innocence. It was a time when adventures in introducing something new, for commercial, cultural, or even political sake, were taken as what they were. The adventure was a value in itself. It was a time when the national community was still seen — as it was in the past — some kind of cultural

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bazaar where every possible symbols and idioms could be exchanged. It was a bazaar where the “market forces” could determine which “goods” to be purchased by the prospective “buyers”. In a way, the cultural climate of the 1950s can be compared to a Sumatran folk dance. It is a dance to be seen, but it is also an event to join in. It is a festival in which a spectator can at the same time be a participant. “After a demonstration the girls in their shapeless mantles and the boys with sarongs wrapped kilt-wise over loose trousers would turn to the audience,” an English lecturer said, reminiscing about the reception held in conjunction with the 4th Anniversary of the Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, and urge or drag new partners onto the floor. Roars of friendly laughter greeted the clumsy efforts of novices such as myself. Other victims were more skilful — for example President Sukarno himself, … But the students were not satisfied till they had drawn his wife into it too. Shedding her shoes, Mme. Fatmawati joined in the fun, and before long the dance floor boasted not only the President and First Lady of the Republic, but also the Prime Minister and his wife, the Sultan, Prince Paku Alam, the Vice-Premier, Minister of Information and Chief of the General Staff. It was a triumph of democracy and the dance”.35 It was, indeed, a triumph of both. What sort of social, cultural and political issues were not openly debated at that time? An amateur anthropologist came up with the idea that man was by nature polygamous, only his attachment to religious and ethical values would make him monogamous. At a time when women organizations were fighting for a monogamous marriage law, this opinion certainly created some kind of “national intellectual calamity” to the extent that the visiting worldrenowned anthropologist, Margaret Mead, was drawn into the controversy. A playwright boasted that he would stage, like Sartre or Camus did in Paris, what he called an “existentialist” play, but this was only to be rejected by the critics as a piece of dilettantism. The 1950s was a flourishing period of literary activities. A number of novels, books of poetry, collections of short stories

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worth mentioning were published. That was the period when the writers of the “45 Generation” were at the peak of their creative activities. That was also the time when the seeds of the new literary generation were sown. In spite of all these activities, the possibility of a literary crisis was also debated.36 Now that independence had been won, it was about time people know and understand the dynamics of their own struggle. Myths about the past might have given inspiration to visualize the future, but history was a way to understand social dynamics. But what was the kind of history that should be told? How should history be described and appreciated? In this intense period of cultural activities and intellectual discourses — and, of course, ideological and political controversies — several intellectuals, political leaders, and school-teachers began to reflect on the so-called national history. No one ever questioned the fact that historical images and symbols had been a motivating factor in the formation of the new nation and in the struggle to establish a nation-state. In fact the knowledge of history and even myth since the early period of the nationalist movement had been used as the sources of inspiration as well as a motivating factor in the struggle for independence. The Western-educated intellectuals might know something about the past — the verified past that was based on the proper study of history. This was, however, almost entirely related to the so-called vaderlandsch geschiedenis, that is the history of the fatherland, meaning, the Netherlands. At best they might have acquired a knowledge of colonial history — that is, the history that was seen from a distance without any attempt to understand the world of history of their own people, the indigenous people. It was the history that was “observed from decks of the ship, the ramparts of the fortress, and the high gallery of the trading house”, as van Leur,37 the iconoclast38 in his historical study of Indonesia, puts it. How should the history of the nation be studied and taught? A more pressing problem was not so much about the “recovery” of the forgotten past, but the “understanding” of the already known history. Hatta, in his defence speech at the court of The Hague in 1929, might have, like the other contemporary nationalist propagandists, transformed Diponegoro and Tuanku Imam Bonjol39 from the leaders of local opposition into “the national heroes”, but how about other figures and events? Sukarno

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might have imagined the “glorious past” which had once been interrupted by the colonial power and he might also have been more interested in — in his words — ”the flame of history”, but a thorough knowledge of empirical history could not be ignored. But how should this empirical history be approached? What kind of questions needed to be asked? Would the change of ethical foundation in historical judgement be adequate? Indeed a number of history textbooks had been using this strategy — the Dutch hero was easily transformed into a culprit in the national history and the other way around. A local agrarian rebellion might also be described as a failed heroic revolt for national independence. Indeed, nationalistic concerns could easily make the probable intrusion of anachronism in historical thinking ineffective. A more fundamental problem, however, could not be avoided. History as an attempt to describe the past remained as it was — it was the Neerlandocentred history. How should the still prevailing Neerlando-centred view be countered? The change of ethical foundation — from “colonial” to “national” — might satisfy the nationalist thirst for the past, but the kind of history that this approach managed to produce remained the colonial “discovered” history. The unfolded past was a reflection that had its origin in the colonial intellectual concern. It was at this juncture that Yamin came up with the idea of the need for having an “Indo-centric view of history”, that is, looking at history from a national perspective. It was not simply a matter of “history seen from within”, as one may now call it, but a look at it from a nationalist perspective. The kind of historical questions to be asked should have their origin in national consciousness and concerns. Yamin actually demanded nothing less than a change of historical perspective and, perhaps, more important to him, the conversion of historical perception and understanding. In Yamin’s view of history, the local and fragmented series of recorded events could be seen as the movement towards the formation of the nationstate of Indonesia. From this teleological perspective, Yamin could see the 7th–13th-century Sriwijaya and the 13th–16th-century Majapahit as the precursors to the unitary state of the Republic of Indonesia. As a matter of principle, G.J. Resink, a professor of the history of international law, could agree with the notion of an Indo-centric view of

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history, but he, nonetheless, warned of the danger of slipping into the trap of what he called “the regio-centric view of history”, that is, looking at history from one’s own ethnic and local perspective. Resink’s concern was well founded. Most of the major ethnic groups have their own distinctive historical traditions or traditional historiographies. Historical certainties and truths of this historical genre may be doubtful, but they never fail to reflect the historical concerns and vision of the communities they represent. What would happen to the national history if it fell into the traps of these divergent regio-centric views of history? After all that’s said and done, he argued on another occasion, all those great ideas would be meaningless without detailed knowledge of the past.40 In the meantime, political parties also came up with their respective ideological views of history. The (first) Seminar of National History can be rightly called the climax of the search for the basic foundation of the Indocentric history. Held on the campus of the Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, in mid-December 1957, it can rightly be judged an historic seminar. Various theoretical, ideological, and philosophical and pedagogical approaches to history were put on the table.41 How history should be taught and what sort of history textbooks were really needed by the schoolchildren? Was there something that could be called the philosophical foundation of national history? And a number of other related problems. The seminar was, in many ways, still unique because it was the first time — and very likely the only time — scholars, teachers, military officers, and most notably, leaders of the political parties met and exchanged their ideas and views on national history. The seminar was actually a panorama not only of the images of the past, but also of the divergent ideological perceptions of history and attitudes towards the past. In spite of the fact that the seminar unanimously endorsed the writing of a national history, nothing ever came of it. The seminar was, however, the closing stage of the common effort to search for the so-called national approach to history. In the meantime, the continuing intense political controversies was gradually leading Indonesia towards the system President Sukarno had been preaching. Although constitutionally remaining the symbolic Head of State, Sukarno had emerged as the most powerful force behind any important

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political decision made by the cabinet. “Sukarno, as Chief of State, can do no wrong,” Hatta was reportedly to have said. “In reality he has been doing many things, right or wrong, but the law says he can do no wrong.”42 The Dutch continuing occupation of West Irian gave him an ideological and historical weapon to rekindle the spirit of radical nationalism. Ironically it was during this period of the dominating state, which had forced the thinkers of history to “withdraw”, that professional historians began to sift through the dusty archives and to reconstruct empirical events in the past.43 In spite of the continuing dominance of the nationalist and romantic history, as time went by, critical history, with its divergent subjects of scrutiny and theoretical concerns, gradually managed to make its presence felt in the world of learning. However, in the meantime, some basic ideas on national — or, perhaps, better called nationalist — history had, nevertheless, been formed. It was the history of how the divergent historical experiences of the many regions and ethnic groups moved towards the formation of one unified nation. Whatever discontinuities and disjunctions may have been found in empirical history, they should all be seen as the movement towards the formation of a nation-state. Divergent local historical differences were only variations within the context of a unified common history. Yamin’s “five periods of history” — ranging from prehistory and culminating with the “The Age of Proclamation” — was taken as the unofficial periodization of national history. History textbooks were organized in accordance with this division of history. In the process, some kind of mainstream of history should be developed. The end-result of this process could be expected. It was a history with a high concentration on Java and, to a much lesser extent, on Sumatra. The other regions became peripheral to the so-called mainstream of national history. The Age of the Proclamation of Independence, however, was not simply the apex of history. The event that had determined the boundaries of the nation-state was also used as the marker of the limit of national history. Pre-colonial empirical history may treat the Strait of Malaka as an undifferentiated historical unit, but this is not the case in the national history. This kind of history limited its attention to the Indonesian part of

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the Riau Archipelago. Another aspect of the national history is the inclusion of local heroes into the national pantheon. Hero worship may not be part of the national history, but giving honourable places to local heroes may be tantamount to recognizing them as being part of the long struggle to establish the nation-state. It was in 1959 that, for the first time, President Sukarno issued a Presidential Decree recognizing a former leader of Sarekat Islam and an important novelist (the author of the very famous pre-war novel, Salah Asuhan44), Abdoel Moeis, as a national hero. The decree was actually a legal basis for the government to support the family of former leaders of the pergerakan. K.H. Dewantara, the founder of the Taman Siswa schools, was the second recipient of such an honour. Since then the President has issued official state recognition to a number of nationalist leaders. In the beginning, it might well have been dependent on the mood of the President, but after the New Order regime consolidated its power, it introduced a well-arranged procedure. In the process, the leaders of the local opposition to the Dutch have become the occupants of the national pantheon.45 Cultural exploration, intellectual discourses, and aesthetic creativity might not directly influence political processes. At a time when printculture had spread out and the use of national language, bahasa Indonesia, had become more widespread, these divergent types of cultural activities might also deepen the feeling of being part of the emerging nation. All issues of social and political significance, except, perhaps, the need for the rapid democratization of education, could easily become the subjects of ideological and political controversies. Not as a part of a policy, but rather as a matter of expediency, the successive governments paid special attention to the development of senior high schools. After all, the early 1950s was also the time when the former “student-soldiers” (tentara pelajar) returned to schools. It was exactly because the number of high schools was still very small that the government could afford to provide them with various necessities, most notably, school libraries. With these facilities, unintentionally, perhaps, high school students were drawn into these cultural explorations and intellectual discourses. In spite of the claim of the writers of the Surat Kepercayaan that they were “the inheritors of world culture”, the

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cultural climate they helped to create invited other people to be part of the great moment of the nation-building process. While talking about “world culture”, did they not actually reflect on the problems and concerns of the new nation-state? Many dreams were dreamed during the revolution — “soon after national independence has been achieved, we could do this and that and we would have this and that”. Now that the period of uncertainty had passed, the time to fulfill the old dreams had come. The national revolution might have given certain feelings of uncertainty, occasionally; however, it could also have provided the opportunities to invent substitutes for the desired treasure. In Bukittinggi, the revolutionary capital of Sumatra, for example, some local leaders opened the so-called People’s University. It was not really a university, but an adult-education programme. There was practically no one with university training who was not already too preoccupied with different kinds of roles in the revolution. Whatever the case, the people’s university was enthusiastically attended. There were after all still many unemployed youths who did not go to the battlefront. But Jakarta and Yogyakarta presented different stories. Not long after the Proclamation of Independence, Balai Perguruan Tinggi Republik Indonesia (Institute of Higher Learning of the Republic of Indonesia) was established in Jakarta. It consisted of the faculties of medicine, law, and letters. It is obvious that the initial objective of this institute was only to provide the opportunity for the students of the three separate existing faculties to resume their interrupted studies. By the end of the year, however, the Allied Forces, including the NICA with its military arms, had practically controlled Jakarta. The President and the Vice-President had to move to Yogyakarta. Other officials and professionals, including a number of former lecturers and professors followed suit. They abandoned Jakarta and moved to Yogyakarta and its vicinities. It was not only because Jakarta had become increasingly unsafe for the pro-Republicans, but that Dutch soldiers had even raided their school buildings in April 1946. Sometimes the students had to study in the lecturers’ houses. In the Republican territories, particularly in Yogyakarta, Klaten, and Malang, the former lecturers established several faculties — medicine, social sciences, law, and agriculture.

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Sponsored by the Sultan of Yogyakarta, these faculties were organized under one private foundation, called the Gadjah Mada Foundation. On 19 December 1949 — exactly a year after the Dutch launched their Second Aggression and occupied Yogyakarta but a few days before the “transfer” of sovereignty — the private university was taken over by the Republic of Indonesia. With this decision the first Republican university had been established. It was officially called Universiteit Negeri Gadjah Mada46 or Gadjah Mada State University. It is then understandable that for many years, notably during the Guided Democracy period, this university prided itself as being the socialist and “revolutionary university”. The military raid on the buildings of the Jakarta-based Balai Perguruan Tinggi R.I. was perhaps not only due to the suspicion that the university might have become a sanctuary for the republican youth. In January 1946, the Dutch authorities had also established the so-called Nooduniversiteit (Emergency University) van Indonesie. This Dutch initiated university had four faculties, namely law, medicine, letters (in Jakarta) and agriculture (in Bogor). On 10 March 1947, this “emergency university” was transformed into a full-fledged university and called itself Universiteit van Indonesië, with the faculties scattered in five cities: Jakarta, Bandung, Bogor, Surabaya, and Makassar. In 1948, there were not more than 936 students enrolled in this multi-city university. There were, however, very few indigenous Indonesians enrolled in the university. The majority of the students were Indonesians of Chinese descents. As can be expected, the teaching staff consisted mostly of Dutch professors. On 2 February 1950, soon after the “transfer” of sovereignty, the Balai Perguruan Tinggi and the Universiteit van Indonesië were merged. And the University of Indonesia was born.47 Although the history of some of its faculties (such as the technical school in Bandung; medicine in Surabaya; and law, medicine, and letters in Jakarta) can be traced back to the colonial period, the university was “officially” born during the RUSI period. It was a university founded by an independent and sovereign state. Up until 1954, the Gadjah Mada University (UGM) and University of Indonesia (UI) were the only state universities in Indonesia. The UGM might boast that it was born amidst the national revolution, but the UI could also claim that it was actually older and had better teaching staff.

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After all, Dutch professors were still around. The UGM students might look down on UI’s alleged “elitist” attitude and ridiculed its students’ slogan, “book, party, and love”, as being “un-revolutionary”. The UI students, on the other hand, might ridicule the alleged inward-looking outlook of the UGM students because of their lack of knowledge of foreign, most notably Dutch, language. This competition, however, belies the fact that these two universities actually shared a number of professors. About half of the professors in the Faculty of Letters of the UGM, for example, could be categorized as “flying lecturers” — the lecturers who came on monthly basis to other universities by plane — from the UI. Most of them were Dutch professors. Whatever the case, it was to these two universities that students came from all over the country. Students who came from the socalled Outer Islands swarmed Yogyakarta, one of the centres of Javanese culture. During the national revolution, Yogyakarta might be the centre of the Republic; in the early 1950s it became a magnet for aspiring students to study. It had since then been known as “kota pelajar”, “the city of students”. Competition was a very common phenomenon between and among universities. But being born after the attainment of national independence, the two universities soon faced the problem of identity. Should they simply resume the interrupted colonial system? Or should they find a new foundation for academic life? The President of the UI, Prof. Supomo, the legal expert who always played an important role in drafting the three constitutions the new Republic ever had, joined the the cultural discourse that been started by the Surat Kepercayaan. It is wrong, he said, to assume that all Western trained Indonesian intellectuals are alienated from the people’s desires. The Indonesian intellectuals who came from Western universities can apply Western technical knowledge and can think in Western terms, but internally they still posses their own ways that are certainly not Western. We are Eastern people, we want to become a modern nation, but we don’t want to imitate the Western world.48 The language of instruction was certainly one of the core issues. From the beginning, however, a decision had already been made that the language of instruction should be the bahasa Indonesia. The anti-Western policy of the

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Japanese Occupation authorities gradually bore its fruits in the early stage — the national language was already on its way to becoming a language of science. Since a great number of the lecturers were foreigners and most of the textbooks were written in foreign languages, the students were strongly advised to improve their knowledge of foreign language. Still, at a time when the Continental system of “free study” was still very dominant, the difficulties of having to master a national language and foreign languages could gradually be overcome. After all, there was no written obligation for the students to attend the class regularly. They could take the exam. whenever they thought they were ready. And enterprising senior students could mimeograph their own notes and Indonesian summaries of the required readings, mostly written in Dutch, and sell them to junior students in order to get some additional pocket money. In 1954, the third university was opened. The Airlangga49 University in Surabaya was the third oldest national university in the country. The decision is understandable not only because Surabaya was — and still is — the second largest city, but also because it already had its incipient medical school, the NIAS, since the colonial period. The UGM had also opened its spin-off faculty of law in the city. In 1956, two universities, namely Hasanuddin50 University in Makassar and the University of Andalas51 in Padang were founded. The two universities are the oldest in the regions outside Java. Like the Airlangga University, these universities can also be seen as the reorganization of the already separate existing faculties.52 In Padang, the faculty of law was already in existence before the state university was officially established. It began as a private institution. The local judges and lawyers had the bright idea to work together to found such a faculty. As can be expected, most of the students in first year of the faculty were aspiring young bureaucrats. By the end of 1950s, there were already 10 state universities (including the institute of technology) established. The rapid growth of the universities and other institutions of higher learning would take place in the 1960s and most notably in the 1970s. In the meantime, the rate of growth of private universities was much faster. The oldest private university, Universitas Islam Indonesia, in Yogyakarta was founded in 1945. In 1949, a pro-

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Republic university, Universitas Nasional, was established in the Dutchoccupied Jakarta. By the end of 1960, however, there were already 25 private universities officially recognized by the Ministry of Education and Culture. Not unlike the state universities, the tremendous growth of the private universities took place from the 1960s to the 1980s. It should, however, be emphasized that the more state and private universities were opened, the greater the need for the number of the lecturers and professors who joined the group of “flying lecturers” (and, naturally, “visiting or commuting lecturers”). One of the most immediate sociological impact of sharing professors can be seen in the internal working relations of the divergent student national organizations. Students from various universities could easily exchange notes on both academic and organizational or even political issues. In 1953, the government introduced a programme called the Penempatan Tenaga Mahasiswa (Placement of Students Manpower). It was a programme to recruit third-year students to become teachers in the senior higher schools in the regions outside Java. The selected students were automatically appointed as full-fledged government employees and after serving two to three years as teachers in the senior high schools in the regions, they would return to the universities to resume their interrupted studies. The most immediate impact of this programme was certainly a more rapid expansion of high school networks. At the same time, the programme gave the students more exposure to the communities far outside their own. It was also not too strange to find that when the student-teachers returned to their respective universities, their wives already accompanied them. Transient geographical mobility in an orderly manner may well be a factor that had encouraged early marriage and, more importantly, inter-ethnic marriages. In the meantime, the country had to face another matter for its survival as an independent state. The economy for one was still under Dutch domination. This fact was not only a strong reminder of the still far-fromcomplete independence Indonesia had gained, but it was also a political and economic fact that could easily control the dynamics of the new independent state. For one thing, the Dutch-owned De Javasche Bank still served as the circulation bank. In 1951, the government (by issuing Law

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number 24, 1951) decided to nationalize the bank. It was a very smooth operation. In a relatively short time, the government managed to buy around 97 per cent of the shares of the bank in the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. In 1953, the government issued a new law that made the newly nationalized bank the central bank and changed its name to Bank Indonesia. Sjafruddin Prawiranegara, the former minister of Finance in the previous cabinets and who had acted as the governor of the nationalized De Javasche Bank, was appointed as the Governor of the bank. But it took several years before the Indonesian staff could replace the Dutch high officials of the bank. The smooth process of nationalizing the bank continued in the year when the government, under Prime Minister Ali Sastroamidjo, decided to buy a 50-per-cent share of Garuda Indonesian Airways owned by the KLM. After that, the role of the KLM was limited to providing technical aid. Garuda Indonesia became Indonesia’s flag carrier. Time would show, however, that these steps were far from adequate to satisfy the growing new sense of nationalism. At a time when almost everything could become a subject of controversy, the democratization of education and the expansion of school networks were perhaps some of the few items that were spared. Educational orientation and the system of teaching, however, remained under public scrutiny. The expansion of education, cultural explorations and intellectual controversies were certainly part of the process of nation-building. These activities were only one dimension of the democratic life of the new Republic. There were other dimensions which had from the beginning practically forfeited a onetrack development in the process of nation-building. The moment the path to the re-establishment of the unitary state had been paved smoothly, a separatist movement emerged in Ambon. At a time when the central government had the opportunity to exert its authority in the region, resentment to the centre was growing. No one argued against the need for rationalization and modernization, but how should these processes be conducted without sacrificing the revolutionary solidarity and spirit? The year 1956 can be noted as the year the escalation of the crisis of the parliamentary democracy in Indonesia began. That was the period when the principle of civilian supremacy over the military was seriously tested and internal dissension within the military seriously damaged the

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authority of the cabinet and, not too surprisingly, that was also the time that gave more room to Sukarno to increase his political clout. But, on the other side of the coin, it was also in this year that several prominent people in the world learning founded the Majelis Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia (MIPI — Indonesian Council of Sciences). It was established after the Dutch Organisatie van Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Organization of Scientific Research) decided to dissolve itself. Like the organization it had replaced the MIPI remained officially a private organization, although it was from the beginning fully subsidized by the government. It was through the MIPI that the government funded research projects proposed by university lecturers and through this body also Indonesia undertook international scientific cooperation. In 1958, the MIPI held the first ever National Congress of Sciences (Kongres Ilmu Pengetahuan Nasional), in Malang, East Java. The congress was officially opened by President Sukarno. The scientific community gave the honor to Hatta, the former Vice-President, to deliver his keynote address on the role of social sciences in the nation-state. In 1960, the government decided to enlarge the function of the MIPI from being merely the coordinating council of scientists to becoming the national research centre as well. The MIPI was to have eight national research centres — ranging from geology, physics, biology, oceanography, chemistry, social sciences, and humanities to instrumentation and standardization and metrology. In 1967 the MIPI changed its name to Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia (LIPI — Indonesian Institute of Sciences). Though remaining the institute that still had the right to hold the national science congress regularly, it lost its function as the “unofficial” academy of sciences, where prominent scientists of all major disciplines could meet regularly. In this open cultural bazaar, the price demanded by the symbols and idioms of the Surat Kepercayaan and the political ideologies and formats that might have supported them, proved to be too expensive. So “expensive” was the price that its “competitors” could easily make the idea of the open cultural bazaar appear as the unwanted or even the smuggled “imported goods”. Along with that, the legitimacy of their historical roots could also be thrown into the wastebasket of history. The continuing search for identity and the attitude of treating culture as an unending struggle — not merely

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something that should be inherited from the glorious past — were “cultural prices” that could easily be manipulated for the political advantage of the other options.

Local Concerns and National Imperatives Sukarno and other leaders might only express a conventional wisdom when they used the metaphor of “golden bridge” in describing the meaning of national independence. The bridge is a vital requirement to reach what lies across the river. It is a promise to the better life. But what is the meaning of the better life? The pergerakan leaders had since the early period of the nationalist movement argued about the meaning of the better life and the way to achieve it. The controversies continued well after the formation of the nation-state. Heated ideological controversy was actually one of the most prevalent — if not the most important — characteristics of the early decade of post-independent Indonesia. In a way, the 1950s can be seen as a replica of the situation in 1920s and early 1930s — “the decade of ideologies” — when almost all possible known ideologies were put on the table. There was, of course, a major difference. In the 1950s, ideology was no longer simply a framework through which realities should be perceived, strategy pursued, and the vision of the future systematized. It was also a strategy as well as a programme for power sharing. Major ideologies and even their respective branches had since the early period of the revolution found their channels in the numerous political parties. The two general elections that were held were naturally a way to elect new members of the House of Representatives and that of the Constituent Assembly. At the same time, the general elections were also a panorama of ideologies and as well as simple formulations of primordial concerns. It may not be too difficult to grasp the meaning of the communism of the PKI, the nationalism of the PNI, or even the Islamic modernism of the Masyumi and other well-known ideologies, but how should one understand the meaning of “communism, Islamic faction” or the political ideology of a certain mystical movement? As a system of discourse, ideology might reflect the ideals and the basic political assumptions of political parties. But how should the ideology be

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understood and translated into a definite system of political action? However, at a time when the only sphere of consensus was still very much utopian in nature and the ability of the state to accommodate all realistic wishes was very limited, these aliran-bound ideological differences could easily become a major source of political instability. The anti-colonial dimension of nationalism had succeeded in establishing national unity, as Sukarno never forgot to emphasize, to defeat colonial regime. The strength of its integrative dimension, however, was apparently put to serious test soon after national independence had been achieved. Some of the ideologies can perhaps be said to be the Indonesianization of established major ideologies.53 The different versions of nationalism and Marxism belong to this category. Other ideologies might be the result of the effort to ideologize religion, while yet others were nothing less than the attempt to systematize primordial predilections and concerns. Islam had from the beginning a special place in the process of the ideologization of the sacred belief. Islam is not only by far the religion of the majority, it is also tightly bound to the history of power and trade. The pre-colonial states of the Indonesian archipelago can to some extent be seen as a landscape of competing Islamic maritime kingdoms. But at the same time, Islam had laid down a strong basis of communication and integration, either by its basically universal claim or by the nature of its spread or, more likely, by both. Nevertheless divergent political and social structure of the ethnic communities had undoubtedly helped to sustain cultural differences of the local Islamic communities. The uneven penetration of modern concerns and influences in the Islamic ethnic communities complicated the matter even further. In the process, the different types of ideologization of Islam could have taken place. In political reality, one may be able to detect the amalgamation of these divergent sources in the so-called ideologies.54 Once the ideology ceased to be simply a matter of written discourse, its process of transformation into existing cultural cleavages was very likely to take place. The acceptance of an ideology, as Geertz,55 who observed Java in the early 1950s states, was very much determined by its adaptability to the existing pattern of aliran (stream), which moulded, and at the same time, strengthened the adaptability of the ideological discourse. From this cultural

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perspective, it is not difficult to understand the rapid penetration of political ideology into the social fabric of the still tradition-bound local people. Perhaps more than anything else, the attitude towards the state was the most crucial aspect of contention in the early period of independence. Should the unified nation-state be considered something new and scarcely related historically and sociologically to the segmented primordial worlds of the past? Should the nation-state be seen as a purely new creation of concerned nationalist thinkers, defended by the freedom fighters, and supported by the patriotic mass? If this attitude is taken as a starting point, then the proper political conduct would naturally fall within the constraints of the constitutional framework. That was, at least officially, what the political parties had been doing. Sukarno, as a constitutional President, never concealed his negative view of a political party and his opposition to the idea of an Islamic state, but in one of his speeches, he complimented the Masyumi, the party of the Islamic “modernists”. Even though the party strove for the creation of an Islamic state, he said, the party followed the path that had been laid down by the constitution. That was the big difference between the Masyumi and the Darul Islam. In a way, the leaders of the Darul Islam, either those who were active in West Java, and particularly those in Aceh, conceived the new nation-state as but the continuation or the re-emergence of the old primordial organization of power, or they wanted to recreate the state that was already culturally and historically familiar. The new state should be the sphere in which traditional concerns could find their congenial environment. The way to achieve the familiar world was also in accordance with the already known traditional way of achieving something of significance. With this kind of attitude, the tradition of resistance against the threatening bigger power was very likely to reappear. But this time it was the resistance against the state they helped to establish and defend. Primordialism,56 the feeling of being at home, is something that is already inherent in any region of the new state. It remains dormant as long as the new state is cautious enough to deal with it. It is sacred and can occasionally be made sacred when something has come to threaten its sphere of cultural intimacy. Imbued with different kinds of ideological strategies, primordialism may react when its custodians feel that the new

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nation-state has insulted its sense of justice. If that really happens then primordialism may appear in its most violent form. The different types of social movements launched by the peasants in the early phase of colonial exploitation can attest to the reaction of primordial concerns with its existence.57 The rebellion of Qahhar Muzakkar and his D.I. in South Sulawesi can be taken as another example of the wounded primordialism in a nation-state. He rebelled not only because he felt the newly formed nation-state had abandoned him and his fellow freedom fighters. He took to arms because of his sense of obligation to his fellow freedom fighters and to their common cause. He refused to be separated from them, as the state wanted him to by officially making him a high brass in the national army. With this kind of attitude, who could then wonder that even after his death he was still respected? The second question that was implicitly addressed to the newly established state was the nature of the state itself. Could the state be considered something neutral which would act and behave in accordance with the kind of policy imposed on it? Or should it be regarded as something that had its own wishes that might deeply influence the existence of its citizen for good or bad? Political parties might try to accumulate power in order to enable them to influence the conduct of the state. Some traditional communities, however, might feel threatened by the formation of the new state. After so many generations had been living under a certain kind of state and, in the process, making peace with that state, a basic question could not be avoided. “What would the new state bring about?” If this question has been asked, should one then wonder that the 1950s were deeply felt by the contemporary political public as a decisive period? That was the period when the foundation of the state should have been carefully laid down. Whatever assumption one might have on the state, it was the foundation of the state, as many argued at that time, that would determine the system of the state and the policies to be pursued by its managers. Members of the Malay aristocratic class of East Sumatra, who were the victims of the so-called “social revolution”, had reasons to be worried about their place in the new unitary Republic. Was it not true that from the ranks of the Republican ardent supporters, the so-called “social revolution” was

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launched, and in the process, not only killed their families and relatives, but also destroyed their feudal sanctuaries? If they preferred to defend the existence of the Negara Sumatra Timur, despite the colonial stigma that had been attached to it, no one could blame them. The Malay aristocrats might have occupied a privileged position during the Dutch colonial period, but when the new era came, they as a social category, did not try to frustrate the establishment of the new nation-state nor did they ever betray the nation. Perhaps they knew well enough that they were too weak to do anything about it, but the fact remains that they did not do it. Except for the feeling of having been the target of unjustified and unjust actions during the revolution, they could still find ways to be optimistic about the future. The return to normalcy might eventually open up new kinds of opportunities. If social conflict later broke out in East Sumatra, it had nothing to do with the Malay aristocrats. Whatever the case, the Malay aristocrats could still console themselves with the knowledge that they still belonged to the Muslim majority in the unitary state of Indonesia after all. Their style of music and dance and their literary tradition could still adorn the lives of the new republic. The Malay aristocrat of Langkat, Amir Hamzah, has after all been widely regarded as one of the greatest poets of modern Indonesia. Although condemned to death by the “social revolutionaries” in 1946, he was later officially recognized as one of the “national heroes”. The Ambonese elite — “the rajas, the pendeta (Protestant pastors), and the veterans”58 — had a different story, however. What prospect was waiting for them after the unitary state had been established? In the colonial state, they belonged to the privileged class. They were well-educated and had better prospects for promotion, compared with other ethnic groups. In the military service, only the ethnic Minahasa of North Sulawesi could compete with the Ambonese. On the island of Ambon itself, the colonial government had from the beginning of its rule marginalized the Muslims, whose adherents comprised about a third of the population of the island.59 How would life have become in the Muslim- and Java-dominated unitary state? The moment Captain Andi Aziz failed in his efforts to defend the integrity of the NIT, the members of this old elite could easily be swayed by the persuasion of the soon-to-be-demobilized KNIL troops and some former

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members of the NIT bureaucracy. The Ambonese KNIL troops could not simply face the prospect of living under the unitary Republic, the state they had tried to destroy. How could Soumoukil, the former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the NIT, forget the simple fact that he was instrumental in sentencing Wolter Mongisidi, a freedom fighter, to death, despite the pleas of the local community to save his life? (Mongisidi has since his execution been glorified as one of the country’s heroes). Whatever the case, to be part of the unitary Republic of Indonesia had obviously been seen as an intolerable, bleak prospect. The refusal to be included into the unitary Republic was actually not the only alternative ever been debated in Ambon. Maintaining the NIT was naturally an available alternative. But now the NIT itself was already on the verge of dissolution. Ethnically speaking, the NIT was a very complex state. Comprising many islands, which under the Netherlands Indies were divided into three provinces — Sulawesi, Lesser Sunda Islands, and Moluccas — the NIT had a number of highly distinct ethnic groups. The Christian Minahasan might dominate the bureaucracy, the Christian Ambonese might have to compete with the Minahasan in the military, but it was the Hindu Balinese who held the upper hand. At the crucial period, both the President (Sukawati) and the Prime Minister (Anak Agung Gde Agung) were Balinese.60 The centre of the NIT was Makassar, the city of the Makassarese and their neighbour, the Buginese. They had the reputation being devout Muslims. So what should the Ambonese elite do? That was the time when a movement to separate Ambon, West Timor, and Minahasa from the rest of the NIT began to take shape. The majority of the population of these three regions were Catholic and Protestants. However, it was the Partai Indonesia Merdeka (PIM — the Party of Indonesian Independence) the proRepublican party which consistently won local elections in Ambon. The party was dominant in the Dutch-sponsored local council and its members represented Ambon in the NIT parliament. In the RTC, it was also the chairman of the PIM, who represented Ambon. The support of the Muslims and the urban pemuda and the activities of the PIM leaders were instrumental in securing the election victories. The conservative raja seemed to have taken for granted that the urban politicians still could not match

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their power and influence on the people. The changing course of events, however, had proved them wrong. The RTC and the gradual but rapid disintegration of the RUSI soon made their direct impact on the Ambonese political scene. On 7 January 1950, a series of clashes between the radical pro-Republican pemuda and the police took place. The pemuda were eager to be part of the winning nation-state. It was during this time that the Ambonese KNIL soldiers came home. While waiting for their reorganization the local political situation in Ambon rapidly changed. The soldiers were very amazed to find that the Dutch government had done so little reconstruction work in Ambon, when they, the sons of Ambon, had fought side by side with the Dutch soldiers against the Republic. Soon enough the returning soldiers got involved in the clashes with the radical pemuda, who were eagerly waiting for the establishment of the Republican authority. During this tense period, the KNIL soldiers announced, on 24 March 1950, that they were no longer under Dutch command. The fiasco of Captain Andi Aziz precipitated the course of event. Soon after the new NIT cabinet under the pro-Republican Prime Minister was formed, President Sukawati of NIT announced that the NIT was prepared to join the unitary state. This announcement was countered in Ambon with the statement “Once RUSI, forever RUSI. But since RUSI is to be liquidated, we would establish the Republic of East Indonesia”.61 Very soon, the Ambonese leaders, who had tried to find some middle ground, made a decisive choice. On 24 April, the Republik Maluku Selatan (RMS — Republic of South Maluku) was proclaimed. It was to be a state separate from whichever form the rest of Indonesia would have. With the proclamation of the formation of the new separate state, the military supporters of the RMS began to arrest and kill important pro-Republican leaders. The first separatist rebellion had begun. In order to settle the separatist movement peacefully, the RUSI government sent several peace missions, including one led by the most prominent national leader of Ambonese descent, Dr J. Leimena, to Ambon, but they all failed. The rebel leaders simply refused to deal with the new nation-state they had rejected. When all efforts had been wasted, the RUSI

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government finally took a decisive action. Despite the plea of the Dutch High Commissioner, the central government — the RUSI, and later, the unitary state — launched its military campaign. In December 1950, the island of Ambon fell into the central government’s control. But skirmishes with the remnants of the rebel continued well until 1962 in the island of Ceram. The separatist rebellion had been crushed but the rebellion had left deep political and most notably sociological impact on the local communities. This event had added a new source of friction to the already strained relationship between Indonesia and its partner in the Union, created by the RTC, the Netherlands. On its part, the Netherlands had no other alternative but to take its former Ambonese soldiers to Netherlands. Occasionally these former soldiers and their biological and ideological heirs would disturb the relationship of the two countries, by politically embarrassing or physically harassing the Indonesian Embassy and its personnel. The dream of a having an independent state continued to linger on among the descendants of the former supporters of the RMS. In times of crisis the dream would surface again and, as can be expected, the horizontal social conflicts between the supporters and the opponents cannot always be halted at the right time. The RMS affair, sad and tragic as it was, did not really pose a serious psychological and ideological dilemma to the national government and the TNI. The RMS was a straightforward separatist movement, staged by the former members of the KNIL, who had fought against the Republic. The leaders of the RMS were also, from the beginning, the opponents of the Republic. During the revolution the KNIL, the soldiers employed by the colonial power, were the enemies on the battlefronts. Some of RMS’s leaders collaborated with the Dutch to encircle the Republic. After the “transfer” of sovereignty, they continued their opposition. But this time it was the opposition against a legally recognized state. The only problem the RUSI, and later, the RI government and the TNI, had to face was how to bring to an end to the separatist movement as soon as possible with the smallest sacrifice possible. When several attempts to solve it peacefully had failed, the government and the TNI finally came to the conclusion that a military campaign was the only solution left.

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Political and ideological dilemma, however, would have to be faced by the young state when the former staunch supporters of the Republic opposed its authority. This was the case when Qahhar Muzakkar (Kahar Muzakkar) rejected the decision of the newly formed central government and the military headquarters to simply reorganize the former freedom fighters of Sulawesi into the National Reserve Corps (Corps Tjadangan Nasional). It was also a dilemma the central government had to face with the opposition of Aceh to its newly ascribed status. How could the leaders of Aceh simply swallow this as if nothing had happened when the central government, the Republic of Indonesia (Yogyakarta) took away the administrative status of the Province of Aceh? The region, the backbone of the Republic during the Revolution, was downgraded to merely a part of the province of North Sumatra soon after the sovereignty of the nation-state had gained international recognition. In one of his writings, General Abdul Haris Nasution reflects on his role as the Chief of the Staff on the Army in 1949–52. “The way I solved the TNI problems at that time … too technocratic and I failed to put the element of ‘pejuang’ (freedom fighting spirit) in its proper place”. He also admits that he “tended [to be] too technical and less political”.62 Nasution and many other leaders, military and civilian, had to make the choice between administrative rationality and revolutionary solidarity.63 Conceptually this might not be considered a genuine dilemma, but in the political sphere, where every interest should have been deliberated, the choice of one option could easily be interpreted as ignoring others. Time might later lighten the nature of the political dilemma, but in the meantime an internal conflict had occurred. What would those who put more emphasis on revolutionary solidarity say in historical retrospect? The story of nation-building is the story that is clouded by many uneasy dilemmas. The choice between rationality, with all its political and administrative consequences, and revolutionary spirit was, however, not the only political and psychological dilemma the young Republic had to cope with. Perhaps more than any other event or series of events, the national revolution had cemented the feeling of being part of one nation among the people. Suffering, death and tears, and above all, the feeling of being part of the heroic

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struggle against the common enemy had really made a deep psychological and emotional impact on the people. At the same time, however, the national revolution had created new local realities. Furthermore, the revolution had also inspired the birth of local revolutionary myths. At a time when every locality had to live by its own resources — due to the relative mutual isolation imposed by the Dutch Occupation — there were very limited choices available. They should collaborate with the imposing Dutch presence or stay aloof from the rapid change of events, or join the opposition against the Dutch in whatever manner. To conduct guerilla fighting from the jungle was intellectually the easiest choice, but at the same time, the most risky option. For a large number of the freedom fighters of South Sulawesi, joining the war for independence right at the centre of the struggle, on the battlefronts of Java, was the most rational option available. The ever-growing presence of the Dutch colonial army and the formation of the NIT had practically limited the space in which the freedom fighters could operate. When the moment of victory had been celebrated, these guerilla fighters began to think of their future careers and the place of their corps in the constellation of the military establishment of the new state. In this situation, the normative social and political sphere that had been visualized during the revolution played an important role. How could these divergent wishes be properly accommodated by the new nation-state? In the meantime the process of economic and administrative consolidation could also not be simply set aside. When the choice had to be made national integration was immediately put into question. If Qahhar Muzakkar of South Sulawesi can be taken as an example of the disappointed freedom fighter after the attainment independence, then Aceh can be seen as the case where a region felt betrayed by the state it had gallantly defended and supported. Both cases, however, show that they were not simply a matter of the recalcitrant region and stubborn former freedom fighters facing the rational decision of the legitimate central government. In both cases, not only the whole political groupings in the respective regions were involved, but the divergent political interests in the centre also played their roles. Neither Qahhar Muzakkar in South Sulawesi nor Daud Buereueh in Aceh wanted to be separated from rest of the country.

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They continued to look at themselves as part of the Indonesian nation. At a time when the conflict had reached its most delicate stage, they just rejected the legitimacy of the central government in Jakarta. They announced themselves to be part of a “counter state”, which had already made itself available as the “right” alternative to the so-called “secular state” of the Republic of Indonesia. They joined Darul Islam. Later, another group of former freedom fighters from South Kalimantan also joined the West Javabased Darul Islam, which had announced its existence on 7 August 194964 — the time when the negotiations between the leaders of the Republic and the Dutch had reached its most crucial stage. Qahhar Muzakkar’s career can be taken as an example of a tragedy of a revolutionary patriot in a post-revolutionary political and social environment.65 He was caught between a secure personal career and the sense of duty to the community and honour. Although he had never been given the honour to be the commander of any military division or brigade — mostly due to his tendency to ignore or even reject orders from higher authority66 — he was the most influential leader among the guerrilla fighters who came from South Sulawesi. When the guerilla warfare was about to end, in August 1949, the scattered guerilla troops in South Sulawesi held a conference in Maros. Here they managed to form the Kesatuan Gerilya Sulawesi Selatan (KGSS, Guerilla Association of South Sulawesi). For the first time, there was one guerilla unit under one leadership in the region. At a time when the armed struggle was still very much in evidence, the newly formed KGSS issued a resolution addressed to the soon-to-be-formed government of the RUSI. The KGSS demanded that its guerilla organization “should be transformed into the Hasanuddin Brigade and that Lieutenant Colonel Kahar Muzakkar [sic]67 be appointed as the Brigade Commander”68? For the conference participants, the resolution was not simply an urgent political demand. The acceptance of the resolution for them also meant the official acknowledgement of the historical fact that not only “in Java and Sumatra” had people fought for the independence of Indonesia. As it turned out later, for Qahhar, the acceptance of the resolution was also a matter of honour. In spite of the fact that his education paled compared with that of the other leaders, it was he who was really trusted by the

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freedom fighters in South Sulawesi. As a Buginese historian puts it, “If the Hasanuddin Brigade could be formed and he would become its commander, Abdul Qahhar Muzakkar would then acquire two things simultaneously; first he would have been able to return siri’na and secondly he could enhance his standing in the eyes of his family and community”.69 Suddenly the traditional sense of honour (siri’) had entered into the arena of national politics.70 It was the consciousness of siri’, according to tradition, that the real boundary between human being and animal can be found. The concept may not be related to the notion of transcendental holiness, but to the still tradition-bound community, nonetheless, this sense of honour belongs to the sphere of non-negotiable sacredness.71 On the other hand, either obliged by the RTC agreement or not, the RUSI and later the government of the unitary R.I. and the military headquarters saw the rationalization and modernization of the armed forces as important necessities for the new nation-state to undertake. How could these programmes be carried out? Should they be carried out even if they had to ignore sensitive sociological and historical factors? Or should these factors be taken into account with the consequence of slowing down the process? Should one region be treated differently from the others? What should be the criteria for making a decision — the national imperative or the local special request? The discord within the army headquarters on this matter would indirectly invite the involvement of the civilian parliamentarians later. But for now the internal discord had its direct impact on the way the headquarters tackled the situation in South Sulawesi. By the time a proper political solution had been formulated, the crisis of trust had penetrated deeply into the system of action. On 17 August 1951, local dignitaries and the Commander of Army, Region VII, Colonel Alex Kawilarang, and the people of Makassar waited in vain for the arrival of Qahhar and the CTN (Corps Tjadangan Nasional — National Reserve Corps) battalions from the interior. That was supposed the time when CTN battalions were to be officially reorganized into the Hasanuddin Brigade. They did not come. They instead took with them trucks and military armory into the jungle. Colonel Kawilarang issued a statement to condemn the “a-national” elements in the CTN and stated that the army

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would immediately take firm action against the people who had disgraced national honour and posed a threat to internal security. Two days later, the military Merdeka Operation was launched. On 29 August, Prime Minister Sukiman issued a radio message that gave the CTN five days to report or else. No response was coming. South Sulawesi had returned again to a period of uncertainty. However, this time, the fighting was among the comrades of arms who had fought side by side during the war of independence. The force of the argument put forward by Qahhar and his followers in opposing the government’s policy might have been somewhat weakened by their failure to be instituted as part of the TNI, but that was also the time when he received the support of the people. A number of local leaders, several members of the local aristocrats, and the ulama joined him in the jungle. It was during the long process of conflict that Qahhar Muzakkar really began to conceptualize the causes and aims of his struggle. He remained an Indonesian patriot and could, and would, not like to see the Indonesia he had fought for become disintegrated. However, he saw Indonesia as being still colonized by its own educated elite72 — therefore, as he said, he was now leading a “people’s liberation army” — and visualized an Indonesia that would be based on Islam, rather than on Pancasila. In the letter he addressed to President Sukarno, he stated that, “Those who love Truth cannot deny the fact that Pancasila has no moral foundation to guarantee its survival.”73 On 7 August 1953 — exactly four years after Kartosuwirjo, the leader of the Darul Islam announced the establishment of the Negara Islam Indonesia (NII — Indonesian Islamic State) in West Java — Qahhar Muzakkar declared his movement and his troops to be part of the NII. This unification was real only on paper, however. In the meantime, the central government had to face another type of conflict; the PRRI/ Permesta rebellion had erupted in Sumatra and North Sulawesi. Qahhar Muzakkar refused to be part of the new challenge to the central government. He did not support the rebels’ last bastion in announcing the formation of the United Republic of Indonesia. Later he noticed that he had some basic ideological disagreements with Kartosuwirjo. In May 1962, he denounced the legitimacy of two proclamations — 17 August 1945 and 7 August 1949 — and announced the formation of Republik Persatuan Islam Indonesia

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(RPII — United Islamic Republic of Indonesia). A cabinet was formed and he himself became the Chalifah (Khalif) of the new Islamic Republic. But Qahhar’s time was already running out. By the end of the 1950s, Qahhar Muzakkar and his troops had become no more than armed gerombolan, the armed gang of political outlaws. In the meantime, the better educated and better trained Javanese and Minahasan no longer dominated the military and the bureaucracy of South Sulawesi. Gradually, the Buginese and Makassarese had filled up the bureaucracy. South Sulawesi had already had its own brigade under the Buginese commander. Hasanuddin University had been established. There was not a single thing ever demanded by Qahhar Muzakkar in 1950 that had not been gradually granted. About this time, the fate of the PRRI/Permesta rebellion was already sealed. The military had become much better equipped. Not less important was the fact that Qahhar Muzakkar’s supporters were no longer united as they were at the beginning of the rebellion. Many of them had opted to return to the fold of the Republic and fought against their former commander, Qahhar. Finally the moment of truth had come. Qahhar was shot to death during a military operation in 1965. His understanding on the cultural call of siri’ had made Qahhar opt for the jungle rather than occupy the position of a deputy commander of the newly formed Hasanuddin Brigade. It was because of siri’, that he preferred to face death rather than let himself be subdued by the lure of peace, and lead a normal life as a respectable former freedom fighter. Perhaps it was due to his attachment to notion of siri’ that Qahhar remains to this day74 respectable in the eyes of the local people. Right or wrong politically, Qahhar’s career, nonetheless, depicted an authentic Buginese expected pattern of behaviour. At the same time, his career also shows the long and difficult path that has to be pursued in the process of nation-building. He was just an example. An extraordinary one, perhaps, but it was still only an example of the possible discord between the demand of the new state and the persistent local concept of significance. South Sulawesi, like Aceh, had from an early period been part of the historical dynamics of the Indonesian archipelago. In the history of opposition to the advancing colonial power, both regions can be proud of

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their local heroes, who were later enshrined in the national pantheon of heroes. But compared with Java and other parts of the then Netherlands Indies, these two regions can be said to be the victims of their own bravery — they were still relatively independent from foreign domination and exploitation when the already colonized and exploited regions were beginning to receive modern education. When the other regions began to have a taste of the modern nationalist movement, these two regions had just embarked on elementary modern schools. Should one wonder then that the people of these two regions felt themselves in a disadvantaged situation when the time to construct a modern nation-state and modern army began? The Qahhar Muzakkar rebellion shows a reaction of a group of freedom fighters who felt they have received unfair and insulting treatment by the “educated people from the other regions”. The Acehenese felt the same way when the Republic they had defended simply dissolved their province. In December 1949, the Deputy Prime Minister, Sjafruddin Prawiranegara — the former Chairman of the PDRI — who was stationed by Prime Minister Hatta in Kotaraja, the capital of Aceh, reconfirmed the appointment of Tgk Daud Beureueh as the Governor of Aceh. But soon after the formation of the RUSI in which the Republic of Indonesia was only a state, the newly formed cabinet of the Republic of Indonesia refused to acknowledge it. Sjafruddin’s decision was issued two days after the Hatta’s Republican cabinet, to which Sjafruddin belonged, had been officially disbanded.75 Both Hatta and Sjafruddin were already sitting in the cabinet of the RUSI. In spite of the refusal of the government of the Republic, nothing had really changed. Everything continued as it was. But in January 1951, the newly formed government of the unitary state of Indonesia decided to officially dissolve the province of Aceh. Mohammad Natsir, the Prime Minister, who might have thought that only a few influential leaders really wanted to have the separate province of Aceh, continued the process of dismantling the province of Aceh by merging the region with the residencies of East Sumatra and Tapanuli, into the Province of North Sumatra, with the capital in Medan. This decision aroused the anger of the ulama, notably that of the PUSA. They immediately showed that Aceh as a separate province was not the wish of a minority. Sensing the volatile situation, the highly respected

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Vice-President, Hatta, and Prime Minister Natsir, came to Aceh to discuss matters thoroughly with the Acehnese leaders. Only after the visit of the two leaders did Tgk Daud Beuereuh agree to turn over his authority to the new governor of North Sumatra.76 He and the other Acehnese leaders could trust the two leaders. Natsir was after all a leader of the Masyumi, the most influential party in Aceh. In order to run daily governmental affairs the Central government appointed an Administrative Coordinator. The decision to merge Aceh with the other residencies was strengthened by the fact that the Yogyakarta-based RI and the RUSI had agreed that the unitary state would have only ten provinces. In Sumatra there would be only three provinces (North, Central, and South). Tgk Daud Beureueh was appointed as a governor seconded to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and a member of the parliament in Jakarta. The Prime Minister might have thought the loyal Acehenese would never oppose the central government.77 But Tgk Daud Beureueh never came to Jakarta to assume his position. In hindsight, the decision to station him out of Aceh can be compared to taking the fish out of the pond. In 1952, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the succeeding cabinet made another blunder by officially retiring Tgk Daud Buereueh as the governor. The great leader of the PUSA could have swallowed this treatment silently, but the Acehnese considered this as nothing but another insult. The rumours of rebellion began to circulate in Aceh. The situation became worse after the newly formed cabinet, under Ali Sastroamidjojo, excluded the Masyumi, the party to which the majority of the Acehnese leaders belonged. Apparently all of sudden — only a day after President Sukarno officially opened the Pekan Olahraga Nasional III (the Third National Sports Week) in Medan — Tgk Daud Beureueh on 21 September 1953 announced that Aceh would since be part of the Negara Islam Indonesia (NII) — of the Darul Islam. The rebellion had begun against the central government. Ironically, it broke out only a day after the symbolic unity of the nation was celebrated with sports. The Ali cabinet responded to this rebellion by using a very common weapon — that is, military action. Although the government forces managed to control most of the towns in October, in the provinces, it took several years before Aceh returned to normal life. Most of the leaders of the rebellion were prominent revolutionary leaders, who came from

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several regions in Aceh. Like in the past, the major fighting took place in four districts (kabupaten) on the North and Eastern coast. In the process, like Qahhar Muzakkar, Tgk Daud Beureueh fashioned himself as the Civil and Military Governor of the NII. Again, like the Buginese in South Sulawesi, the Acehnese rebellious ulama found themselves in disagreement on several major issues with Kartosuwirjo of Darul Islam, though remaining committed to the idea of an Islamic state. In 1955 Tgk Daud Beureueh announced that Aceh was a state within the federal state of the NII. It was then to be called Negara Bagian Aceh (NBA). The relation with the NII, however, continued to be less than cordial, despite the fact that, on paper, for some years, Tgk Daud Buereueh belonged to the same cabinet under the formal leadership of Kartosuwirjo. One of the big issues that separated these two parts of the NII was the fact that the Acehenese put more stress on the traditional structure of an Islamic state, in which the council of ulama should play an important role. The Darul Islam of West Java preferred to organize the state along military lines of command. Whatever their differences and similarities might be, the relationship of the three parts of the NII — Aceh, South Sulawesi, and West Java — was hampered by the slow, but gradual political and military successes of the central government. The hawkish military policy of the central government had succeeded in controlling the towns, but it was not successful in weakening the open or tacit support of the people in several kabupaten in Aceh for the rebel’s cause. At the end of 1956, however, the central government and the TNI, under General Nasution, who had just been re-appointed as the Chief of Staff of the Army, took two important steps. The President and the newly elected Parliament agreed on the formation of the Province of Aceh and the army headquarters decided to form the Komando Daerah Militer Aceh (KDMA — Aceh Regional Military Command). Ali Hasymy, the poet, and a leader of the Pesindo during the revolution, was appointed the first governor of Aceh.78 Syamaun Gaharu, the former military commander of Kotaraja, who managed to escape from the prison of the PUSA youth during the revolution, became the commander of the KDMA. These two decisions had to some extent weakened the argument for continuing the rebellion against the central government. Finally Aceh had the possibility to develop itself without

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the intermediary of Medan. The central government also gave a relative free hand to the new province and military regional command to pursue whatever economic and political policies they deemed necessary to bring Aceh back to normalcy. To the delight of the people on the Eastern coastal towns, for example, Colonel Gaharu opened the barter trade again. The second factor that had somewhat undermined the strength of the NBA/DI was — like the case in South Sulawesi — the split in the ranks. Two important non-ulama leaders of the NBA announced they could no longer support Tgk Daud Beureueh.79 When they left the ranks, they took with them a number of military units and weapons. The governor and the military commander of Aceh and their police counterpart did not waste this opportunity. They successfully held a secret negotiation with the leaders of the splinter groups sometime in April 1957. The meeting finally concluded with the so-called Lam Teh Agreement (Lam Teh is the name of the venue). The agreement states that they and the government would work together to promote Islam, to develop Aceh, and to carry out every effort to give the people of Aceh prosperity and happiness. They agreed to cease hostility. From the beginning, however, the agreement had to face many difficulties. Not only because it was not supported by the person who really counted — Tgk Daud Beureueh — but because internal politics in Aceh, dissension in the military establishment, and most notably the outbreak of the PRRI rebellion, complicated the agreement even further. However, the splinter group, who had in the meantime formed the Dewan Revolusi (Revolutionary Council), cut their allegiance to Tgk Daud Beureueh as the Wali Negara and the Commander-in-Chief of the NBA. Together with the local administration the Dewan Revolusi represented Aceh in the negotiations with the delegation of the central government. Although the demand of Dewan Revolusi for the central government’s recognition of Aceh as a federal state within the Republic of Indonesia was rejected, it had made itself a respectable representative of Aceh in the eyes of some sectors of the population. In 1958, the PRRI/Permesta rebellion broke out in Sumatra and Sulawesi. Both for personal and ideological reasons, Qahhar Muzakkar from the beginning refused to have anything to do with the rebellion. The

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ideological differences between his Islamic oriented movement and the Permesta, which was finally led by Christian Minahasan officers, was simply too large. But Tgk Daud Beureueh was very receptive to the approach by the PRRI leaders from West Sumatra. He trusted Sjafruddin, the leader of the PRRI, and Natsir, the former chairman of the Masyumi to which he used to belong. Both factions agreed to put the military under one command and to work together to form the federal state, which was to have a religious basis. By the time these two factions could really embark on a common front, however, the central government had managed to discover the plot. In February 1960, the NBA and PRRI still managed to agree on the establishment of the Republik Persatuan Indonesia (RPI — United Republic of Indonesia). In the meantime, two important events had taken place that gradually weakened the position of Tgk Daud Beureueh. The time was already running out for the rebellious regions and political groupings to do something significant. Sensing that the phase of the armed struggle was almost over, Tgk Daud Buereueh, in his capacity as the Wali Negara (Chief of State)/Military Commander of the Tjik di Tiro Division of the Tentara Islam Indonesia (Islamic Indonesian Army) issued a statement that states, “the struggle to apply the syariah law in Aceh specifically and Indonesia generally would continue, as stipulated by the content and the spirit of the Proclamation of 21 September 1953”.80 That was, however, the only thing he could still undertake. By December 1961, about 12,000 NBA/DI soldiers surrendered to the TNI. On 7 April 1962, the newly appointed commander of KDMA, Colonel Jassin, who had personally visited and managed to hold a long and intimate discussion with Tgk Daud Beureueh, announced that Aceh was allowed to apply the Islamic law. Aceh had officially acquired the status of Daerah Istimewa (Special Region). On 8 May, after so many years in the jungle, Tgk Daud Buereueh prayed at the great mosque of Kutaraja. “At the people’s request, I return to the people,” he said. “This also means that there is no more dispute among us, within the nation, that had taken place eight years, ten months plus twenty-seven days.”81 By that time, political parties had practically lost their power. Masyumi had been banned. The course of the Guided Democracy was already in full speed.

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Why did the people of Aceh, the gallant supporters of the Republik Proklamasi during the national revolution, rebel against the state they had defended soon after the immediate desired goal had been achieved? The feeling of being betrayed by the central government was, however, only a factor in the conflict, albeit an important one. The merger with the two other regions into the Province of North Sumatra did bring some disadvantages to Aceh, both in terms of political positions and socialeconomic opportunities. Aceh was still fighting against the Dutch when East Sumatra had become an important centre of the plantation economy. By the beginning of the 20th century, Deli was already known as the “dollar territory”. In other words, the people in the residencies of East Sumatra and Tapanuli (particularly the Toba region, where Christian missionaries had successfully introduced modern schooling) had already got an advantage in the competition to get good positions in the bureaucracy. Furthermore, local newspapers never failed to make comparisons on what the three regions had received. These reports show clearly how Aceh had been treated as a “step-child”. The conclusion was clear enough. No justice and no fair treatment could Aceh hope for if the region remained a part of the province of North Sumatra. For many years since the outbreak of the revolution, Aceh had practically been an autonomous region administratively and economically. Aceh managed to keep its region economically afloat. In many cases, it managed to give support to the revolutionary government. The people of Aceh bought the first airplane for the use of the Indonesian Air Force.82 One of the sources of the economic viability of the region was barter trade with Singapore and Penang. In 1952, the central government put to an end to the barter trade. Naturally a modern state could not simply allow one of its regions to conduct international trade without its knowledge. But the ban made a direct grave impact on the economy. All of these factors certainly deepened the people’s resentment towards the central government. But then which regions were really satisfied with the government of the new state? History and ideology were perhaps not less decisive in determining the Acehenese reaction to the central government’s policy. Since Tgk Daud Beureueh had been appointed the Military Governor of Aceh,

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Langkat and Tanah Karo, he was also given the titular rank of General Major. In addition to being the most influential leader in Aceh, he also belonged to a certain section of the Acehnese leaders. He was the great leader of PUSA, the organization of the “modernist” ulama of Aceh. He was certainly opposed by the ulebalang — the local aristocrats who had been swept out by the PUSA youth section during the revolution. The dissolution of the Province of Aceh would certainly give the ulebalang group two advantages. In the first place, the ulebalang could get rid of their enemies, the ulama, from the centre of power. Secondly the inclusion of Aceh in the Province of North Sumatra would give them the opportunity to assume their lost political positions. It was the aristocrats, not the ulama, who had the qualifications to assume the administrative functions in the modern nation-state. There were indications83 that the central government did try to isolate the PUSA and to promote the reemergence of the ulebalang as holders of political power in Aceh. The PUSA ulama strongly resented this move.84 On this point the non-ulama and nonaristocratic Western-educated leaders supported the PUSA. The “traditionalist” ulama, who were members of the West Sumatrabased organization, the PERTI (Persatuan Tarbiyah Islamiyah — Association of Islamic Educational Institutions) were also opposed to the continuing power of the PUSA ulama, most of whom were believed to be adherents of the “modernist” Islamic orientation. Since the “tradionalist” ulama were very influential in West and South Aceh, soon after the breakout of the rebellion, the government approached them. They threw their support for the central government. It was in the effort to show their support that the Perti of Aceh held a joint conference with the Javanese “traditionalist” organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama, which had just withdrawn from the “modernist” dominated political party, the Masyumi. Held in Bogor in 1954, the conference was expected to discuss the religious legality of the rebellion. It was not too successful, however. “The Aceh problem”, Mohammad Natsir of the Masyumi commented on learning this agenda, “must be seen as a political question and should not be made a problem of religious law because it could widen the friction”.85 Whatever the case, one thing was clear enough — throughout the conflict the “traditionalist” ulama remained

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the loyal supporters of the government. This internal competition for influence and power on the one hand might give the opportunity to the government to weaken the PUSA-led rebellion, but, on the other hand, it had also strengthened the determination of the PUSA to persist in their politics of resistance. Ideology was another reason for the PUSA to continue its opposition to the central government. Tgk Daud Buereueh could never forget his discussion with President Sukarno during the latter’s visit to Aceh in 1948. Sukarno could not give a guarantee that Indonesia would be based on Islam, but as Beureueh remembered it, he promised to open up the opportunity to fight for it constitutionally. This discussion had since that time become a kind of a myth among the Acehenese. How disappointed Tgk Daud Buereueh was when he learned of Sukarno’s historic speech in Amuntai, South Kalimantan. “The state we want is a national state consisting of all Indonesia,” he said. “If we establish a state based on Islam, many areas whose population are not Islamic… will secede. And West Irian which has not yet becoming part of the territory of Indonesia will not want to be part of the republic.”86 Given by the President, who as the symbol of the state was supposed to be above politics, this speech created an uproar among the Islamic parties. Practically all leaders of the Islamic parties, most notably that of the Masyumi, attacked the speech as a transgression of constitution. But to the PUSA leader, the speech meant nothing less than a betrayal of trust.87 Was it not Sukarno who promised to give the opportunity to Muslims to make Islam the foundation of the state through constitutional means? The formation of the Ali Sastroamidjojo cabinet, which excluded the Masyumi, and the not-too-satisfactory result of the general election of 1955 to the Islamic political cause, added to the disappointment of the PUSA leader. And the rebellion continued. The Ratu Adil Affair in Bandung, the “near-rebellion” of Andi Aziz, and the open separatist movement of RMS can be considered to be the colonial time-bombs. These events had a direct connection with the Dutch political and military exploits since 1945. In retrospect, the explosion of these colonial-bombs could have been anticipated. But, then who could have predicted where and when the colonial bombs would explode? When

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they did, they took place when the new national government was still learning to run a newly independent state. It was neither politically nor psychologically easy for some sectors of the population to take the sudden and drastic change of government. Only yesterday the Dutch still occupied the towns, now suddenly the “enemy” had become the master of the country. Only yesterday the federal state seemed to work properly, now the change of power had already threatened the working arrangement. The change meant nothing less than a highly possible change of fate. Who would then accept the negative prospect idly? The scattered rebellions of the former freedom fighters can be more than the price the new independent state had to pay for gaining its sovereignty through negotiations rather than in the battlefields. Rationalization and modernization of the wretched guerilla fighters may well be the requirement of any modern nation-state, but at the same time, these requirements were felt not only to have insulted the former fighters’ sense of propriety, but also their patriotism. In the meantime, ideological controversies and the ever-changing political alliances in the new democratic state had direct impact on the way the central government dealt with the divergent local challenges. “We belong to one nation” was, despite all the challenges, undoubtedly a widely shared slogan and commitment. But who should determine what the nation, and the state for that matter, were and should be? The political elite in the centre, who were entrusted to carry the burden of administering the young state, might conceive a nation-state with a certain kind of rationality, but the people in the region might have seen reality differently and develop other kinds of rationality. It was perhaps not too difficult to unify the political objectives of the newly proclaimed nationstate during the revolution; after all, despite internal dissension, there was only one common enemy. The returning Dutch colonial power should be rejected and expelled. Strong arguments about its strategy and tactics, by “diplomacy” or “struggle”, or other types of controversies might have occurred, but Indonesian independence was a common goal. Once independence had been won, divergent subjective views and values, either those that had been rationalized in certain ideologies or not, collided with one another. And the state was still too young to deal with this sudden

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outburst of wishes and opinions. It was apparently not easy to transform oneself overnight from radical nationalist freedom fighter into responsible statesman and efficient administrator. In the meantime, new challenges and new problems also had to be dealt with.

Parliamentary Democracy and the Political Parties Whether merely a fad in the process of entering “the world of progress” or a reflection of the desire to acquire social equality or, more likely, a conviction of what a political system should be, the idea of democracy had, from the beginning, been very much an inseparable part of the notion of Indonesian nationalism. Whatever emphasis one might give to this modern idea, democracy occupied the central place in the history of the nationalist movement. It is, therefore, understandable if from the inception of the pergerakan nasional (nationalist movement), the political party was usually conceived to be the carrier of this noble idea. It was through political parties that the idea of democracy, both as a social ideal and as a system of government, was thought to function as a foundation for social and national integration of the multi-ethnic and multi-historic national community. It is understandable if, soon after the proclamation of independence, some efforts were made to establish a state political party. If the state could be taken as a world of power, with a well arranged system of hierarchy, then a political party could well be conceived as a sphere of deliberation among equals. The effort failed; despite this, the composition of the board, which consisted of most of the big names in the first weeks of the Proclamation of Independence, was completed. The failure of this effort, however, did not mean the loss of faith in the political party. It only made the leaders of the newly proclaimed nation-state realize that the idea of having a single state political party and democracy simply could not go hand in hand.88 The Presidential Decree of November 1945, signed by Vice-President Hatta, opened up the opportunity to form political parties in order to achieve the ideals of the state. Aware of the fact that political parties in a democratic system could be carried away in their political behaviour, proper political behaviour in the democratic system had been one of the major themes of Hatta’s speeches.

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He rarely failed to warn about the inherent disintegrative dangers of any political system. In one of the speeches he made in February 1946, he stated that, If the people have the power to make regulations on social life in the state that means the people should also be responsible to the consequences of the regulations they have made. The sovereignty of the people gives them the biggest power, but it also put[s] the heaviest responsibility on them. The principle of a just government is that those who have the power should also be accountable.89 For him, democracy can only have any meaning if it is accompanied by discipline and responsibility. At the peak of the political parties’ squabble for power in the 1950s, Hatta again repeated his warning. “Democracy cannot possibly live without a sense of responsibility. Therefore our people, who have never known democracy at the level of the state, must first be trained in democracy”.90 He sometimes repeated his pre-war idea of the educational role of the political party. “Democracy for the sake of democracy” means nothing less than the death of democracy itself. In his now considered to be a classic article, Demokrasi Kita (1960), Hatta criticized political parties for their alleged reckless political behavior. They not only failed to function as the channels of people’s aspirations they were even engaged in an adventurous political course of action. This was the situation that produced “anarchy in politics and in the economy” and prepared the ground for rampant “corruption and demoralization”.91 Sukarno, the great unifier, never shifted his attention from the need for maintaining national unity. Indeed, more than anything else, his obsessions had always been national unity and the integration of the state. In time of crisis, during the revolutionary struggles, his appeal to unity could work effectively. His incessant appeal for the integration of the state, which demanded the inclusion of West Irian (now called Papua, after the local people rejected the name Irian Jaya) into the fold of the Republic of Indonesia, however, not only intensified domestic political conflicts, but also caused the break of diplomatic and economic relations with the Dutch (1958).92 The

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West Irian-campaign, nonetheless, gave Sukarno an opportunity to rekindle the spirit of radical anti-colonial nationalism and, more importantly, to remain at the centre of political affairs, despite his constitutional position as the symbol of the state. His obsession with unity was perhaps the major reason for his failure to play the proper role of being above day-to-day politics, such as prescribed by the 1950 Provisional Constitution. Not unlike Hatta, Sukarno also saw the competition among political parties as the major source of political instability in the new nation-state. But, unlike Hatta, who never tired of reminding people of the central position political education should occupy in the platform of any political party, Sukarno could sometimes lose his patience. He could hardly console himself with what he perceived as the basically disintegrative tendencies of competing political parties. In one of his famous speeches, President Sukarno said that he dreamed of all political parties willingly burying themselves. He was to repeat this theme on several occasions. “I dreamed they [the leaders of the political parties] took a decision: Let us together bury political parties.” And, recalling the fact that it was Hatta, not him, the President, who signed the government’s statement of 15 November 1945, which allowed the people to form political parties, Sukarno condemned this historic decision. “We made a serious mistake. We suggested the establishment of parties … Now it is taking its tolls [sic].”93 For him, the multi-political party system was the source of the problems of the state. The general election was expected to reduce the number of political parties, he once said, but it was too bad it even increased the number of political parties. “And then I said, ‘so be it; we have so many parties, let them be, as long as we can maintain the unity of the political parties, let them be parts [sic] of a samenbundeling van alle revolutionaire krachten (unity of all revolutionary forces),’ I said.”94 That was apparently one of the problems with the Indonesian experience with parliamentary democracy — the most influential leaders constitutionally could only serve as the symbols of the state. If that was not enough, the two paramount leaders also saw the problems from different perspectives and played their roles in accordance with their understanding of their political and social roles. These divergent attitudes directly influenced the relationship of Sukarno and Hatta with the ruling cabinet, which had to

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be responsible to the parliament. Although the appointment of the cabinet formateur was constitutionally the prerogative of the President, once the cabinet had been sworn in, Sukarno never tried to conceal his disposition towards the cabinet. In the meantime, the political parties, the real and the aspiring ruling classes in the new nation-state, always found it difficult to collaborate with each other until they felt they had reached the most advantageous compromise possible. Some parties might find it congenial to collaborate with certain parties, but loathed to think about any collaboration with other parties. In the meantime, the parties, particularly the bigger ones, had also its internal factions. These internal factions came to the surface whenever one controversial decision made by the cabinet created an uproar in the parliament. The outsider-faction would see to it that the Prime Minister, who might come from its own party, could find no other way but to return his mandate to the President. The cabinet crisis would open up the possibility for the formation of a new cabinet. Sometimes the real trouble began whenever the leading faction in a certain party only wanted to collaborate with the members of the weaker faction in another party. Before long, the compromise that had been achieved on the major programmes to be undertaken by the soon-to-be-formed cabinet would simply have to be put in the wastebasket.95 The unitary state was still less than three years old, but the sense of political crisis had already been felt by a sizeable number of the political leaders. Some of them had already expressed the need for a strong and trusted leader to lead the cabinet. Many political leaders thought that the only person who had this quality was Hatta, the Vice-President. But here lies the problem. Under the 1950 Provisional Constitution, the Vice-President could never be the head of the government. The only possibility for Hatta to hold the office had been killed by the PNI, PKI and, curiously enough, also by the PSI, in the months before the return to the unitary state. The Masyumi proposed the inclusion of what was then called the “escape clause”, which states that in the case of the state facing a political crisis, the President could be authorized to appoint the Vice-President as the cabinet formateur and to become the Prime Minister of the parliamentary cabinet. Now in the 1950s, some parties, especially the PSI, regretted the rejection of

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the “escape clause”. And Hatta remained on the fence until his patience ran out. In December 1956, he tendered his resignation and became — what people preferred to call him during and after Suharto’s New Order — “the nation’s conscience” (hati nurani bangsa). Whoever dared to become the Prime Minister of any coalition cabinet — the only form of cabinet that seemed possible in the multi-party system — would immediately find that every major policy had the potential to produce a vote of no-confidence, both from the opposition and the government parties. The first cabinet, under Prime Minister Mohammad Natsir of the Masyumi, could stay in power only for six months. The cabinet fell because it wanted to apply the regulation introduced by the Minister of the Interior of the Republic of Indonesia (Yogyakarta), who was, by the way, a leader of the PNI, on regional legislature. According to the regulation, only the existing organizations could nominate their candidates in the election. The case in Yogyakarta, where the first regional election was held, showed the Masyumi emerging as the big winner. That party was after all a conglomeration of several Islamic organizations (including the NU and the Muhammadiyah). Who would then be surprised to learn that the PNI, which had been excluded in the coalition cabinet, emerged as the most determined faction to offer the vote of no confidence? The crack in the coalition cabinet left Natsir with no choice but to return the mandate. The core supporters of the second cabinet, under Prime Minister Sukiman (Masyumi), were the Masyumi and the PNI, plus some minor parties. The divergent understanding on the Cold War politics and the interpretation of the Indonesia’s foreign policy orthodoxy, “independence and active policy”, brought it down. For a while, the cabinet could maintain its legitimacy to govern even though Achmad Soebardjo (Masyumi), the Minister of Foreign Affairs, had joined the peace agreement with Japan in San Francisco (1951). The Minister managed to secure a bilateral talk to be held with the Japanese on the details of the agreement. But when he dared to sign the Mutual Security Act with the United States, he had, according to many parliamentarians, actually transgressed the basic foundation of Indonesia’s foreign policy. In spite of the economic and military advantages this MSA might offer, the alleged pro-American foreign policy was rejected.

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At a time when the successive cabinet would like to establish itself as a responsible government in the eyes of the outside world, by, among other things, returning the plantations confiscated during the war and the revolution or safeguarding the security of other foreign investments, the radicalized supporters of nationalism saw the situation differently. In 1952 the so-called “Tanjung Morawa affair” (East Sumatra) took place. The landless peasants had occupied the land belonging to a foreign plantation company. A clash between the military and the peasants could not be avoided when the former tried to evict the latter from their illegally occupied lands. Who was to blame? The cabinet might have been able to find a commonly agreed solution, but the political parties thought otherwise. The Masyumi ministers wanted to honour the state’s obligation to foreign companies, but the leaders of the PNI saw the event as an opportunity to defend the people.96 The consequence of these different perspectives was easy to predict — the cabinet had to return its mandate. The highly regarded PNI-Masyumi coalition cabinet, under Wilopo (1908– 81) was forced to return the mandate to the President (1953). During the process of the radicalization of nationalism, directly sponsored by the President, again foreign, most notably Dutch, companies became the targets. Again, the cabinet found itself internally divided.97 Since the time when the parliamentarians took military matters into their political debates in 1952, the relationship between the military establishment and the political parties, and naturally the cabinet they represented, had steadily worsened. This situation was getting worse with the half-hearted attempt of the cabinet to solve the internal problems of the military. In the first place, the army itself was not united. The “October 17 Affair” of 1952, in which the army leadership urged the President to dissolve the parliament, by arranging mass demonstrations, not only failed dismally, but also created a long-lasting internal dissension within the army. The dissension was so deep that it directly influenced the relationship between the army and the cabinet. Any move of the cabinet could easily create a stir among the competing factions and might immediately provoke resentment that threatened the effectiveness of the cabinet. When the PNI-led cabinet (without the Masyumi) under Ali

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Sastroamidjojo (1903–76) installed a new Chief-of-Staff of the army, the headquarters shunned the swearing-in ceremony and even sabotaged it. The army leadership openly showed its deviance. Facing this open challenge that had instantly worsened the credibility of the cabinet, the Prime Minister simply found no other way but to return the mandate to the Vice-President (July 1955), without waiting for the return of the President from the haj pilgrimage to Mekka. But the internal dissension of the army continued. The aftermath of the “October 17 Affair” of 1952 demonstrates how deep the tendencies of warlordism among the local commanders still were. The fact that the local commanders had to be responsible for the welfare of their respective troops was a well-acknowledged imperative. But should they do it by ignoring the law, such as conducting illegal smuggling? On the other hand, how should the army headquarters solve these tendencies if it could hardly be considered united? The Chief-ofStaff of the army had to be replaced several times either because of the rejection by the army itself or the loss of nerve of the new appointee. Finally in 1955, after deliberating all the available options, Prime Minister Boerhanoeddin Harahap (1917–97) of the Masyumi had no better option but to re-appoint Nasution, who had lost his position for his alleged involvement in the “October 17 Affair”. The process of the consolidation of the army continued, but the state had to pay a higher price with the eruption of the PRRI/Permesta rebellion in 1958. Not less important was the fact that Nasution, who had used the time of his temporary forced retirement to reflect on his previous role and the place of the military in politics, had already prepared new ideas for what he thought to be the proper role of the military and the future of the state. There was some grain of truth in the suspicion that many political parties had mixed feeling about holding the long-awaited general election. How could they be sure they would again get the parliamentary seats they had been enjoying without election? The laws and regulations of the general election had been agreed upon and preparations had been made, but the decision to conduct the election still had to wait. But when the new name in national politics, Boerhanoeddin Harahap98 of the Masyumi,

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was appointed the cabinet formateur and became the Prime Minister, he made the holding of the general election the priority, second only to the programme of “restoring the government’s moral authority”.99 Two general elections were to be held — the first one to elect the members of the parliament, and the second, to elect the members of the Constituent Assembly. The first election took place on 29 September or a few days thereafter. More than 90 per cent of the registered voters cast their votes. Twenty-seven political parties and one non-party individual managed to get at least one seat in the parliament. Twelve parties received only one seat. The second general election was held in December — 34 participants (including three participating individually) managed to get some seats, at least one, in the Constituent Assembly. The outcome of the general election of 1955 was not very promising. It failed to show that its results would eventually bring the long-desired political stability. No party emerged as the big winner. The first free election produced four big parties (PNI, Masyumi, NU, and PKI) that could hardly agree on any important problem. Consequently it had practically maintained the sphere of “business as usual” — competition, shifting alliances, “horse trading”, and in the meantime, political uncertainties continued. In a harshly worded statement, a former military officer, Lucas Kustarjo, who had become a parliamentarian, representing the IPKI, the party co-founded by the outof-service Nasution, stated that the army had no longer any respect for the politicians. He disclosed that there were already two schools of thought among the military. The first one simply wanted to abolish the political parties and the parliament and form a military council to govern the country. The second school of thought “merely demanded that the politicians be honest and sincere in facing the problem of the people or, if this proved to be impossible, then the formation, by Sukarno, Hatta, and the army, of a government of really sincere and responsible men”.100 When he made this statement, however, none of the two or three prospects looked promising enough to solve the problems of the country. Nonetheless the statement did clearly expose the military disappointment with the political parties. Undoubtedly, the first and the newly formed coalition cabinet, under the leadership of Prime Minister, Ali Sastroamidjojo, from the PNI, in the post-general-election period soon had to face many daunting problems.

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The tendencies of the members of coalition to look at the problems — whatever was there — from different perspectives certainly could not help the cabinet in its tasks. Whatever the case, the general election revealed several important tendencies of the post-independent politics. In the first place, the political parties knew for certain who their major constituencies were. Since the military personnel participated in the general election, it was not too difficult to find out which battalion supported which political party. In spite of the fact that the PKI, the communist party, remained outside the government — regardless of Sukarno’s wish that all big parties should be represented — the cabinet could hardly agree on any problem of major importance. Secondly the general election shows that political parties, which allegedly represented certain ideologies, can also be seen as the modern channels for tradition-bound political assumptions and aspirations. The year 1950 might well be the “zenith of nationalism”, but the mid-1950s can be seen as the test of that nationalism in the real arena of politics. The euphoria of winning the national revolution was over and the enthusiasm for returning to the unitary state was declining. The time of political reckoning had come. That was the time when every possible political assumption was put to the test and that was also the period when every possible political grouping, based on whatever basic foundation — religion, ethnicity, or even social class — tried to be involved in the process of power distribution. Riding high with the West Irian issue, Sukarno not only enhanced his political stature at the expense of the more moderate leaders and political parties, but also directly radicalized the political sphere. In the meantime, whatever successes the previous cabinets had achieved in the economic field gradually dwindled in the late 1950s. This was exactly the situation that could easily be manipulated by the leftist parties, which remained outside the power structure. As if by design, the structure of the prevailing political sphere had given rise to the opportunity to aspire other types of governance. The sphere could easily make people lose faith in democracy — the very system that was once perceived as the best system for the multi-ethnic nation-state and the system that really needed time to master its workings properly. But it provided the opportunity for Sukarno to condemn the so-called “liberal democracy” and inspired him to introduce

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his concept of what he said in Dutch — as he usually did whenever he wanted to introduce a new idea — geleide democratie (guided democracy), whatever it might mean. This was also the sphere that had caused Nasution to make a daring statement to a visiting foreign journalist, by saying, ”I believe in the 1945 Constitution and never understood why it was scrapped.” It was, as the journalist found out later, one of the most important statements ever made to him on domestic affairs.101 In his memoirs, Ali Sastroamidjojo lamented the fact that he, despite so many efforts to solve the many facets of political crisis he and his cabinet had to face, had to finally return the mandate to the President on March 1957. He lamented the fact that he failed to persuade Hatta to remain in his position as the Vice-President. He understood very well the disappointment of Hatta. How could Ali forget Hatta’s stand? He and Hatta and two other friends spent some time in the Dutch prison for their activities in the Perhimpunan Indonesia during their student years in the late 1920s in the Netherlands. He knew well enough that Hatta was already fed up with the behaviour of the political parties and, perhaps also, that of Sukarno, who despite his position as the Head of State, kept interfering in daily politics. He tried to reunite the dwitunggal, but both leaders simply said that they still loved each other as “brother[s]”; only in politics could they no longer see eye to eye. Hatta had by that time decided that he could no longer stay in the government. Later Hatta was to tell a visiting American journalist that he had to leave the government, because “I don’t want to be the prisoner of other men’s policies.”102 There were simply too many critical issues and problems the second Ali cabinet had to deal with. When the cabinet was formed, it received a lukewarm reception and when it fell, it carried with it a deep disappointment. The cabinet failed to solve the problems of the smuggling undertaken by local commanders, most notably in North Sulawesi and North Sumatra. It could hardly touch the split in the ranks of the army or tackle the growing regional opposition. If that were not enough, the direct intervention of Sukarno from the sidelines could never be ignored. Now it was clear that the resignation of Hatta did not only mean the resignation of one of the highest officials in the country, it also meant the end of a myth. Rightly or

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wrongly Hatta had been regarded as the representative of the regions outside Java. Now he had resigned. The personification of the notion of national unity might have come to an end. The call for the return of Hatta would continue until one day Sukarno, at the urging of Nasution, made the decisive decision to change the system of the state. Finally the coalition cabinet could no longer maintain its existence. Ali Sastroamidjojo returned his mandate. “With the fall of this cabinet,” he says in his memoirs, “the system of parliamentary democracy in Indonesia also came to an end.”103 Writing the memoirs several years after the event, Ali was not aware of the fact that he was almost repeating the same feelings expressed by the note sent by the leader of the Masyumi to his cabinet in November 1956. “What is at stake now is not only this cabinet,” the letter states, “but democracy itself.”104

A Plethora of Conflicting Wishes How many “Indonesias” were there in the 1950s? There was perhaps an “Indonesia” that could be proud of its accomplishment. It had passed through the severest and gravest test to its very existence with flying colours. Not only did it gain international recognition, this “Indonesia” could also return to the form of state its founding fathers had hoped for. The sovereign unitary state of Indonesia had firmly established itself in the world community. This was the “Indonesia” that had the self-confidence to look at its citizens as being mature enough to embark on a new and unprecedented experience of having a modern and democratic state. This “Indonesia” gallantly faced the New World — experimenting with new opportunities and preparing for the future. This was “the Indonesia” that was full of youthful enthusiasm. Sociologically a little bit backward perhaps since only about ten per cent of the population was literate in the Latin script, and tradition-bound was for sure, but it was brave enough to venture into the slippery task of laying the foundation of democracy. It was this “Indonesia” that earnestly made serious efforts to build a better tomorrow. The process was too slow perhaps, but what else could this “Indonesia” do, if it had only about 500 university graduates among its more than 75 million population when it achieved its independence? This was also the “Indonesia”

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that kept itself busy with the cultivation of a solid foundation on which the newly formed nation that consisted of several hundred ethnic groups, big and small, could feel confident of their respective places in the new nationstate. It developed divergent meaningful symbols of communication and created several myths of concern that might remind its citizens of the fact that they belonged to one nation — the nation that they together created and defended with blood and tears. However, there was another “Indonesia”, the “second” one. It began its political career with high hopes and lack of experience perhaps, but it dared enough to venture onto the slippery road of democracy — parliamentary system, general elections, the Supreme Court, and the rest. Press freedom, political parties, non-governmental organizations, and the rest. In short, this is “the Indonesia” that was in the process of laying the foundation for the development of a healthy civil society. In the process, however, it had to find out that there were so many conflicting demands that had to be met. Suddenly this “second Indonesia” found out that it had to deal not only with the demands of the present and the challenges of the future but also, unfortunately, with the revenge as well as the dreams of the past. Before long the youthful enthusiasm of “the second Indonesia” was taken over by the “third Indonesia”, the Indonesia that had known and tasted the meaning of power. This is the “Indonesia” that came to dominate contemporary politics and to characterize Indonesia as a whole in the historical scene. This is the “Indonesia” that the succeeding regimes liked to use as an historical foundation for their respective claims to power. Justified or not, this “Indonesia” was used as an example of how liberal democracy might easily be tempted to follow the divergent sort of weaknesses that could make the idealized democratic system practically unworkable. How should democracy be designed as an operational political system? Enough has been said on what a democratic system should be, but then how should it work properly when its ideals had to face the test of so many historical burdens and structural constraints? The notion of civilian supremacy might have passed as the ideal political construct, but then how was it to deal with the force of the historical claim of the military, the revolutionary army? Was it not the daring military exploits that really made

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it possible for the civilian “diplomacy” to bring the revolution to its most immediate objective? Without the support of the guerilla warfare, no fruitful diplomacy could have been carried out. Then the question of authenticity could also be brought into political discourse. Modernization was indeed a necessity, but what about the heritage of the past? Modernity was still something out there to be reached but the heritage of the past was already “with us and within us”. How could the two forces find their affinity in defining the programme of the present? Rationalization of any modern organization should certainly be undertaken, but then should this mean ignoring all the sacrifices that had been made without ever thinking of giving something in return? The problems of workable democracy, in which political parties should have a decisive role, and the place of the military, soon occupied centre stage in the newly reunited Indonesia. The question of the place of the former freedom fighters was apparently not simply a matter of finding them proper jobs and so on; the solution could cut deep into the psyche of the military establishment. The “October 17 affair” was not only the climax of a very complex problem; it also at the same time opened up hitherto suppressed issues. Regional demands within the context of a nation-state were another sensitive issue that the young nation-state had to deal with. Who should take care of the daily affairs of the country? The availability and the good distribution of well-trained administrators and bureaucrats were certainly prerequisites for any state to be properly run. Yet, who were they and from where did they come? It just happened that Indonesia was not only a multi-ethnic nation-state. It was also multi-historic one. Modern education might have reached Java by the end of the 19th century, but most regions in the other islands, with the notable exception of Minahasa, and, to a much lesser extent, West Sumatra, were still at that time either fighting against the aggressive expansion of the Dutch power, or had just been included in the ever expanding pax Neerlandica. In the competition for government positions, these latecomers would surely lose. If that was to be the case, what was then the purpose of fighting for the independence of the nation? Should it mean the continuation of the tutelage period? When regional concerns had found its support from the religiously sanctioned

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sense of propriety, the non-negotiable state of affairs could hardly be avoided. Aceh and South Sulawesi can only be taken as examples in this case. Their cases were extreme but not unique. Civil–military relations, regionalism, religious apprehension had their own distinct and separate problems, which might come to the surface on their own, separate “time-table”. These sources of wishes and conflicts might even collide with one another in the structural context of the nationstate. The earliest Darul Islam movement took place in West Java, but it had no claim to being the representative of the Sundanese concern in the nationstate. The head of the Darul Islam movement, S.M. Kartosoewirjo (1905– 62), was not even a Sundanese, but a Javanese. The relatively non-violent regionalism became a serious matter in 1953 when the PNI-dominated Ali Sastroamidjojo cabinet began to be seen as being too-Jakarta centred, which meant nothing less than it tended to give more attention to Java. During the period, when the military dissensions were gaining momentum, the people from several regions also began to show their dissatisfaction openly. In 1956, for example, the Front Pemuda Sunda (Front of the Sundanese Youth) was formed. It demanded proper treatment in both the political and economic fields. The long dormant organization of the Minangkabau settlers in Jakarta, the Minang Saiyo (Minang in Accord) held a huge meeting, protesting the disbanding of the West Sumatra-based Pagaruyung battalion, while it was still stationed in West Java. If the Front Pemuda Sunda did not go any further than their publicly expressed demands, the former freedom fighters and the local leaders of Minangkabau took the disbanding of the battalion as an insult. It was an insult that finally became a factor that led to the outbreak of the PRRI rebellion in 1958. The achievement of independence also meant the opportunity to reflect on the nature of the plural society that the colonial government had managed to sustain. The state had indeed set aside several seats in the provisional parliament for the representatives of the Chinese, Arab, and Eurasian communities, and they had equal political rights. Before long, the Arab community ceased to be a political or even economic problem, though it might for some time, remain, in one or two localities, a sociological curiosity. The Eurasians either gradually “Indonesianized” themselves or

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simply moved to the Netherlands, the country they hardly knew, but where they expected to find a more congenial living space. However, the situation for the Indonesians of Chinese descent remained as in the past a problem in the process of social integration. In the official colonial system of social status they, as part of the “Foreign Orientals”, were considered as the “second class citizens”, while the indigenous people had the honour to occupy the lowest social ladder. Except in West Kalimantan, and on Bangka and Belitung islands, and some other parts of the country, where they belonged to the peasant or fishermen communities, the majority of them were engaged in trading and business activities. Urbanite, energetic, and enterprising, the Chinese, most of whom were very likely peranakan (born locally) instead of totok (newcomers), had a much better economic position. It had been like this since people became aware of the differences in their economic status. A serious question then had to be asked. If that was the situation during the colonial period, should it remain the same after independence had been won?105 If that kind of question had been asked, the image of the Chinese communities as being no more than observers in the national revolution, if not outright opponents, came easily to the surface. The fact that many Indonesian Chinese were daring enough to release the Republic from the Dutch policy of isolating the newly proclaimed nation-state from the outside world during the revolution, could easily be forgotten or simply ignored.106 In the meantime, the birth of the People’s Republic of China (1949) had made matters worse. The new state claimed the citizenship of the overseas Chinese. In accordance with the RTC agreement, Indonesia had agreed to recognize all Indonesia-born Chinese as Indonesian citizens, unless they refused. The political attitudes of the PRC, which never hesitated to attack anything they considered to be pro-America and proimperialist, did not help the cause of the overseas Chinese at a time when the three successive Indonesian cabinets, particularly the third, the Sukiman cabinet, were, despite the foreign policy orthodoxy of “independence and active”, basically anti-communist.107 In this political climate, it is easy to understand why the ways of the newly established Chinese embassy to remind the Indonesian Chinese of the land of their ancestors could be felt as an affront to the new state.

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It took several years before the problem of citizenship could be finally solved. The solution could be achieved only after the Peking (Bejing) government had realized the importance of looking at the overseas Chinese in Asia, and Asia as a whole from a different perspective. That was the time when Peking began to embark on the policy of peaceful coexistence. In the meantime under Prime Minister Ali Sastroamidjojo of the PNI, Indonesian foreign policy had shifted its attention to the need for having a common front of the new nation-states of Asia and Africa. It was not by chance that the final agreement was reached on 20 April 1955 — shortly before the two states joined the other Asian and African states in the historic Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung. The 1955 Sino-Indonesian Dual Nationality Treaty stipulated that the overseas Chinese in Indonesia had for a while dual citizenship, but two years after the agreement was ratified, they had to make their choice — to become a citizen of Indonesia or that of PRC. The Peking government pledged that those who preferred to remain as Chinese citizens “would abide [by] the laws and regulations” of Indonesia, and they would not participate in political activities. For her part, Indonesia pledged that it would protect the proper rights and interests of the Chinese nationals. Instead of passively accepting the Indonesian citizenship, such as stipulated in the RTC agreement, the Sino-Indonesia Dual Nationality Treaty stated that the Indonesians of Chinese descent should make their decision actively.108 On paper at least, the political problems of the Chinese in Indonesia had been solved. Yet the so-called Chinese problems were more socioeconomical than political in nature. The fact that the Chinese — regardless of whatever citizenship they would finally choose and whichever groups they might belong to — had on the whole, a higher economic status, remained a fact that could not simply be wished away.109 Like it was in the past, during the colonial period, this simple empirical fact remained a source of social apprehension and a threat to social harmony. Whatever political and cultural, let alone economic, hardship or adversity felt by the local people could become an occasion to look for a scapegoat. It needed only a simple incident between the two communities to start an antiChinese mass demonstration. Suddenly the mob would attack Chinese

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property, which had apparently been taken as the symbol of the felt unbalanced economic situation. Should this situation continue as if nothing had changed, after national independence had been achieved? Already in 1950, some indigenous importers had organized themselves into what was then called the “Benteng group”. By the middle of 1952, the members of the group had reached 741, from 100 at the beginning of 1950. The government, particularly the Sukiman and the first Sastroamidjojo cabinets, gave them exclusive rights to import certain categories of goods. These privileges, however, became the subject of public criticism. Some of the so-called importers simply had nothing — no capital, no experience, no enterprising capacity — except the right political connection. That was the time people talked about “briefcase importers”, whose capital was only the briefcase they carried. That was the time when many companies were nicknamed by the public as “Ali Baba” — the “Ali” in front was the symbolic name of the indigenous entrepreneur, but the “Baba” behind referred to the Chinese, who was the real owner of the company. That was the time when Jakarta was full of political and economic anecdotes. Novels and short stories might simply create an imaginative world, but on these particular themes, they reflect reality in the capital city of the new republic.110 This rather anecdotal but pathetic sphere became more serious in 1956. On March 19, the All-Indonesia Congress was held in Surabaya. Assaat, the former Acting-President of the Republic of Indonesia during the RUSIperiod and former Minister of Internal Affairs in the Natsir cabinet, who had become a businessman, gave the keynote address. It was a hard-hitting speech. Assaat’s frank, perhaps a little too frank, assessment of the Chinese as “an exclusive group”, which resisted the entry of others, actually reflected the feelings of a great many Indonesians but who, as Feith puts it, “hesitated to express it in public”.111 “The position of the Dutch businessman is acknowledged and regulated in the Round Table Conference,” Assaat stated. “It is therefore easy to liquidate his special privileges by canceling this agreement. The power of the exclusivist and monopolistic Chinese in the economic field is far more dangerous for the progress of the Indonesian people, but the power is not regulated in any agreement; rather it has been rooted and entrenched in

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society for centuries”. One obvious solution he could think of was that “Native Indonesian citizen must receive special protection in all their endeavors in the economic field, from the competition of foreigners in general and the Chinese especially”.112 Assaat’s speech received wide support, particularly among indigenous trading communities, but the government gave no open reaction. The strength of the speech lies in the fact that Assaat did not simply express his opinions and wishes, but also gave empirical examples of how people might already have had confrontations with the Chinese in their daily dealings. Expressed at a time with a volatile political situation, Assaat’s speech precipitated the crisis of parliamentary democracy. A small incident in which Chinese and indigenous persons were involved could be twisted into becoming the beginning of a major political crisis. In the process, the reputation of a minister was blemished and the Ali Sastroamidjojo cabinet was weakened. It was left to the next cabinet to look into the Chinese problem from a different perspective. However when it did — by issuing a decree which forbade the alien Chinese to be engaged in retail trade in the rural areas (1958) — a new diplomatic crisis with PRC had to be faced and a new kind of social dislocation in some areas could also not be avoided. Sukarno might have not exaggerated his case when he stated that Indonesia should “rediscover the revolution”. Already in his message on the Sixth Anniversary of the Proclamation of Independence, he lamented that, “On all sides we see our people drifting, rudderless, suffering from confusion and dullness of spirit.”113 As time went by, the simplicity of the revolutionary period might have very likely gradually diminished. Suddenly democracy no longer simply meant a certain system of governing, with its slogan “by people for the people”; it had become a thorny question in the distribution of power and a perplexing question on the foundation of the state. But at the same time, Sukarno might also have been wrong when he tried to make the image of the revolution the political reality. The hope for a better future that had been entertained for so long gradually evaporated. The “second Indonesia” might later be supported by the “first Indonesia”, the Indonesia that was proud of itself, as a fighting nation. But

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how could this “second Indonesia” find a niche in the gradually dominating “third Indonesia”, the highly ideologized and politicized Indonesia?

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Sukarno: An Autobiography, pp. 262–63. Sukarno is actually describing both his feelings and the event. On the formation of these Dutch-sponsored states, see A. Arthur Schiller, The Formation of Federal Indonesia (The Hague: W. van Hoeve, 1955). On the political process of the formation of the “federal states” see George McT. Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1952), pp. 351–90. Ide Anak Agung Gde Agung, Kenangan Masa Lampau: Zaman Colonial Hindia Belanda dan Zaman Pendudukan Jepang di Bali (Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia, 1993). Ide Anak Agung Gde Agung, From the Formation of the State of East Indonesia towards the Establishment of the United States of Indonesia, translated by Linda Owens (Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia, 1996), pp. 352–61. Abu Hanifah, Tales of a Revolution, edited by C.L.M. Penders (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1972). The author was a medical doctor and a noted playwright. At the beginning of the revolution, he was a leader of a local based struggle organization. He was appointed as the head of the Indonesian delegation to the conference. He became the Minister of Education in the RUSI cabinet in 1950 and was a leader of the Masyumi. In his memoir, Kahin gives ample evidence of this support. Two successive American representatives in the Good Offices Committee were replaced when the State Department realized that they had begun to support the Republican points of view. Kahin suspects that Amir Sjarifuddin announced himself to be a communist because of his deep disappointment in the failure of the Americans to pressure the Dutch to follow the Renville Agreement, sponsored and endorsed by the United States. See George McT. Kahin, Southeast Asia: A Testament (New York/London: Routledge Curzon, 2003), pp. 48–53. Alastair M. Taylor, Indonesian Independence and the United Nations (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1960), p. 195. On the impact of their presence on the people of Bangka, see Mary Sommers Heidhues, “When We Were Young: The Exile of the Republic’s Leaders in Bangka, 1949” in Daniel S. Lev and Ruth McVey, eds., Making Indonesia: Essays on Modern Indonesia in Honor of George McT. Kahin (Ithaca, New York: Southeast Asia program, Cornell University, 1996), pp. 81–95.

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This expression is used as the subtitle of Mestika Zed’s book, Pemerintah Darurat Republik Indonesia: Sebuah Mata Rantai Sejarah yang Terlupakan (Jakarta: Pustaka Utama Grafiti, 1997). The full text is included in Anak Agung Gde Agung, From the Formation of the State of East Indonesia, pp. 565–67. Ibid., pp. 595–614. See C.L.M. Penders, The West New Guinea Debacle: Dutch Colonization and Indonesia, 1945–1962 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002), pp. 30–54. Mohammad Roem, Bunga Rampai dari Sedjarah (Djakarta: Bulan Bintang, 1972). Penders, The West New Guinea, p. 51. Quoted in Penders, The West New Guinea, p. 46. Mohammad Hatta, Memoir (Jakarta: P.T. Tinta Mas, Reprinted 2006), p. 561. A.K. Pringgodigdo, Tiga Undang-Undang Dasar (Djakarta: P.T. Pembangunan, 1957). The members of the RUSI were the Republic of Indonesia, the State of East Indonesia (N.I.T., Negara Indonesia Timur), West Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, Southeast Kalimantan, Dayak Besar, Banjar, Madura, Bangka, Belitung, Pasundan (West Java), Central Java, East Java, East Sumatra (N.S.T., Negara Sumatra Timur), South Sumatra, and Riau. On the composition of the Hatta cabinet, see Herbert Feith, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1964), pp. 46–54. As Feith says, “only five of new ministers were men from the BFO states. Of these five, only one, Sultan Hamid, came from the BFO ‘right wing’, which had most constantly endorsed Dutch actions again the Republic. Only two of the five, Sultan Hamid and Anak Agung Gde Agung, were committed supporters of a federal structure”. See J.R. Chaniago, Menuju Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia: Peranan Pemimpin Lokal dalam Dinamika Politik di Sulaesi Selatan dan Sumatera Timur, 1950 (Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, 2002). See Anhar Gonggong, Abdul Qahhar Muzakkar: Dari Patriot hingga Pemberontak (Jakarta: Grasindo, 1992), pp. 107–109. R.A. Wiranatakusumah was a highly respected former Bupati (Regent) of Bandung. He was the Minister of Internal Affairs in the first cabinet of the Republic, under President Sukarno. He was later appointed the Chairman of the Supreme Advisory Council of the Republic. He resigned from this position to assume the Presidency of the Dutch-sponsored State of Pasundan. His children, however, were the defenders of the Republic. One of his sons was an officer in the Republican TNI. On his career as the Bupati of Bandung, see Nina H. Lubis, Kehidupan Kaum Menak: Priangan 1800–1942 (Bandung: Pusat Informasi Kebudayaan Sunda, 1998).

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It was estimated the number of the KNIL members was about 45,000, while the number of the KL, 80,000. Quoted in Penders, The West New Guinea, p. 47. See Chaniago, Menuju Negera Kesatuan, and a shorter discussion, Feith, pp. 68– 69. What an irony if we also realize that Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the darling of the Dutch colonial master, designed the symbol of Garuda that is used to describe the motto. Since it was originally published in the cultural appendix of the Siasat (lit. Strategy and tactic) magazine, called Gelanggang (lit. Arena), the statement is better known as the Surat Kepercayaan Gelanggang. Reprinted in the collected works of Asrul Sani, Surat-Surat Kepercayaan, edited by Ajip Rosidi (Jakarta: Pustaka Jaya, 1997). See, Benedict R.O’G., Anderson, Java in a Time of the Revolution: Occupation and Resistance, 1944–1946 (Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1972). This is clear if one looks at the revolutionary epoch from local perspective, see among others, John R.W. Smail, Bandung in the Early Revolution, 1945–1946. A Study in the Social History of the Indonesian Revolution (Ithaca, New York: Modern Indonesia Project, Cornell University, 1964). The 1980s can be seen as a “booming period” for the publication of histories of national revolution in the regions. Feith, The Decline, p. 74. For a historical introduction to the “45 Generation”, see A. Teeuw, Modern Indonesian Literature, vol. I (The Hague; Martinus Nijhof, 1979). Sani, in Surat-Surat Kepercayaan, “Dalil-dalil Preadvis Mr. St., Takdir Alisjahbana” in Konperensi Kebudajaan (tanggal 5, 6, dan 7 Agustus), 1950, n.p., n.d., pp. 21–34. “Le Cinema Indonesien” in Archipel (Etudes interdisciplinaires sur le monde insulindien), no. 5, 1975. This section gives an almost complete list of films produced in the then Netherlands Indies and Indonesia, from 1926 to 1971. It was the first Indonesian movie where two lovers, an indigenous Indonesian and his Eurasian girl friend, have a kissing scene. The news about the scene created such an uproar that the Censor Bureau had to cut the scene, but the author refused to acknowledge the authenticity of the movie. The producer had to change its title to Frieda. Harold Forster, Flowering Lotus: A View of Java in the 1950s (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 73; first published in 1958). The event took place on 19 December 1954 — the 4th Anniversary of Gadjah Mada University. The author was the first English lecturer at the English Department. He and his wife stayed four years in Yogyakarta. On the history of Indonesian literature, see A. Teeuw, Modern Indonesian Literature (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967), p. 2 vols. See also H.B. Jassin, Kesusastraan

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Indonesia dalam Kritik dan Esei (Djakarta: Gunung Agung, 1967, printed, revised, and enlarged several times. The poems of Chairil Anwar, widely regarded as the pioneer of modern Indonesian poetry, were mostly published posthumously in the early 1950s. Some of the well known Pramudya Ananta Toer’s novels, such as Keluarga Gerilya, Di tepi Kali Bekasi, Dia yang dilumpuhkan, Dia yang Menyerah, and collections of short stories, such as Cerita dari Blora, were published in the 1950s. Mochtar Lubis’ Jalan tak ada Ujung, Idrus’ Surabaya, Achdiat Kartamihardja’s Atheis, and a host of other noteworthy novels were also published in this period. It was also the time when people talked about the crisis of literature. This debate was first launched by Asrul Sani, who was at that time spending a year in the Netherlands as a guest of Dutch cultural foundation, the Sticusa. Jassin, then the editor of the literary journal, Zenith, rejected his contention. J. van Leur, Indonesian Trade and Society (The Hague/Bandung: W. van Hoeve, 1955). That is how Hans Resink calls van Leur in his Indonesia’s History Between the Myths (The Hague: W. van Hoeve, 1968). Diponegoro was a prince of the Yogyakarta court, who led the opposition to the Dutch “interference” in the internal affairs of Yogyakarta. This opposition started the so-called Java War that lasted from 1825–30. It was one of the costliest colonial wars. Tuanku Imam Bonjol was the leader of the Padri War. It began as a civil war, when several religious reformers were keen on purifying religious practices of the Minangkabau in the late 18th century, and intensified their activities in the early 1800s. In 1821, the Dutch, who already had their trading factory in Padang since the 17th century, intervened. In the course of time, the civil war changed its character to become the war of independence. The war lasted until 1837. Diponegoro was exiled to Makassar, where he died. Tuanku Imam Bonjol was first exiled to Sukabumi (West Java), but was later moved to Ambon, and finally to Lotak (Minahasa, North Sulawesi), where he died. G.J. Resink, Indonesia’s History Between the Myths (The Hague: W. van Hoeve, 1968). This is a collection of Resink’s writings on historiographical problems. An expert on international law, he showed what Indonesian colonial history looked like if the approach of international law is applied. For a good description of this historic seminar, see Mohammad Ali “Historiographical Problems”, in Introduction to Indonesian Historiography, edited by Soedjatmoko et al. (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1964). His talk with the famous American writer, Louis Fischer, Story of Indonesia (New York, Evanston & London: Harper & Row Publishers, 1959), p. 236.

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For a short description on the history of historiography in Indonesia, see Taufik Abdullah, “The Study of History” in The Social Science in Indonesia, edited by Kuntjaraningrat (Jakarta: Indonesian Institute of Sciences, 1972), vol. I, pp. 79– 120. See also H.A.J. Klooster, Indonesiërs Schrijven hun Geschiedenis: De Ontwikkeling van de Indonesische Geschiedbeoefeing in Theorie en Praktijk, 1900– 1980 (Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1985). In addition to its aesthetic and literary merits, Salah Asuhan can be seen as a political and sociological novel. It s widely regarded as one the most important pre war Indonesian novels. For an historical interpretation of the novel, see Taufik Abdullah, ed., “Historical Reflections on Three Novels” in Literature and History: Papers Presented to the Dutch–Indonesia History Conference, Yogyakarta, 1984 (Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 1986). See Taufik Abdullah, “The Hero in Historical Perspective”, Prisma: The Indonesian Indicator, no. 14 (November 1976). See also Klaus H. Schreiner, “The Making of National Heroes: Guided Democracy to New Order” in Outward Appearances: Dressing and Society in Indonesia, edited by Henk Schulte Nordtholt (Leiden: KITLV, 1997). Gadjah Mada is the name of the great Mahapatih (“prime minister”) of the 14th century empire. He was the prime minister under Hayam Wuruk, arguably the greatest emperor Majapahit ever had. Gadjah Mada was said to have taken an oath that he would never eat palapa until all regions in the Nusantara united under the rule of Majapahit. He was then taken to be a symbol for nation unifier. Gerhard Junge, The Universities of Indonesia: History and Structure (Bremen: Bremen Economic Research Society, 1973), pp. 6–10. See also R. Murray Thomas, A Chronicle of Indonesian Higher Education (Singapore: Chopmen Entreprises, 1973), pp. 40–86. Quoted in ibid., p. 12. Originally printed in a weekly magazine, Mimbar Indonesia. Airlangga is the name of the 13th century king of Kadiri, East Java. Hasanuddin is the name of the Sultan of Gowa (Makassar), who gallantly fought the V.O.C. in the 17th century. Andalas (or Andaleh) is the name of Sumatra in the Minangkabau tradition. Another name of the island is Perca. Since in Sanskrit the island is called Swarnadwipa, the island of gold, in tradition it was also known as Pulau Emas. For short histories of the new universities, see Thomas, A Chronicle, pp. 96–128. During the Guided Democracy, the nationalist party, PNI, took Sukarno’s Marhaenism as its ideological pillar. The Marhaenism was defined as “Marxism adapted to Indonesian condition [sic]”. On this panorama of ideologies, see Herbert Feith and Lance Castles, eds.,

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Indonesian Political Thinking, 1945–1965 (Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1970). Clifford Geertz, The Religion of Java (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1960). On the relationship between primordialism and the new state, see the seminal article by C. Geertz, “Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in New States”, in Old Societies and New States, edited by Clifford Geertz (New York: Free Press, 1963), pp. 105–57. See for example, Sartono Kartodirdjo, Protest Movement in Rural Java (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1973). Richard Chauvel, “Ambon: Not a Revolution, but a Counter Revolution”, in Regional Dynamics of the Indonesian Revolution: Unity from Diversity, edited by Audrey Kahin (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1985), pp. 237–64. For a major study on colonial Ambon and the RMS, see Richard Chauvel, Nationalists, Soldiers, and Separatists: The Ambonese Islands from Colonialism to Revolt, 1880–1950 (Leiden: KITLV, 1990). The first Prime Minister of the NIT was a Buginese, Nadjamuddin Daeng Malewa. He had to resign because of the accusation that he had swindled the state’s treasury. Quoted in Ben van Kaam, Ambon Door de Eeuwen (Baarn: Anthos, 1977), p. 117. A.H. Nasution, “17 Oktober 1952”, in Wilopo 70 Tahun (Jakarta: PT Penerbit Gunung Agung, 1979), pp. 356, 381. Using a Weberian “ideal type” approach, Feith divides the post independent Indonesian leaders into two categories. They are namely “the administrators” or “problem solvers” — Nasution’s confession reflects the time when he played the role of the “administrators” — and the “solidarity makers”. Sukarno was naturally “the arch type of the solidarity maker”. See Feith, The Decline, op. cit. For a general discussion on the regional Darul Islam movements, see C. van Dijk, Rebellion under the Banner of Islam (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981). On the participation of the pemuda of South Sulawesi in the national revolution, see Barbara Harvey, “Tradition, Islam and Rebellion: South Sulawesi 1950– 1965” (Ph.D. Thesis, Cornell University, 1974). At one time he arrested the newly appointed commander of his division. A new commander had to be appointed. Qahhar remained in his position as the deputy commander. Harvey, “Tradition”, ibid. Actually this is the most common spelling of the name, but all publications issued by the rebels spell the name of the leader as Abdul Qahhar Muzakkar. This is obviously the spelling he preferred. It maintains the Arabic origin of the name.

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Quoted in Anhar Gonggong, Abdul Qahhar Muzakkar: Dari Patriot hingga Pemberontak” (Jakarta: Grasindo, 1992), p. 94. Ibid., p. 220. The importance of this cultural factor in the case of Qahhar Muzakkar is usually emphasized by both the local historians and scholars of South Sulawesi. See also Gonggong, ibid., pp. 58–72. The book devotes one whole chapter to this issue. On the attachment of Qahhar to the Buginese sense of honour and justice, see also Mattulada, “Kahar Muzakkar: Profil Patriot Pemberontak”, in Manusia dalam Kemelut Sejarah, edited by Taufik Abdullah et al. (Jakarta: LP3ES, 1978), pp. 174–88. In her thesis, Barbara Harvey shows the competition between the educated class of Sulawesi, which was still very limited in number, who could easily enter the national educated circle, and Qahhar Muzakkar and his less educated compatriots. See Harvey, “Tradition”, op. cit. Quoted in Gonggong, Abdul Qahhar, p. 141. B.J. Boland, The Struggle of Islam in Modern Indonesia (The Hague: Martinus Nijhof, 1982). On the legal and political complication of the formation of the Province of Aceh in 1949, see S.M. Amin, Kenang-Kenangan: Dari Masa Lampau (Jakarta: Pradnya Paramita, 1978), pp. 69–84. The author, a lawyer by training and profession, was a former governor of North Sumatra (including Aceh) during the Revolution, that is before the formation of revolutionary Province of Aceh, Langkat and Tanah Karo. After the formation of the province, under the military governor (Tgk. Daud Buereueh), the author was appointed the Commisioner of North Sumatra. Feith, The Decline, p. 345. For a comprehensive account on the case of Aceh, see Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin, The Republican Revolt: A Study of the Acehnese Rebellion (Singapore: ISEAS, 1985). Ali Hasymi was very likely involved in the preparations for the rebellion. But since he lived in Medan and was about to be appointed the Head of the Office of Social Services, he preferred to remain in town. His initial involvement was discovered. He was arrested for a few months. Sjamsuddin, The Republican Revolt, p. 261. Perhaps, it was exactly because of this initial involvement that he was appointed the governor. On the internal dissension, see also, M. Isa Suleiman, Sejarah Aceh: Sebuah Gugatan Terhadap Tradisi (Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1997), pp. 373–467. Appendix 31 in M. Nur El Ibrahimy, Peranan Tgk. M. Daud Beureu-eh dalam Pergolakan Aceh (Jakarta: Media Da’wah, 2001), p. 350.

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Quoted in Sjamsuddin, The Republican Revolt, p. 310. The airplane was called Seulawah. During the Dutch blockade, it was used as a commercial plane serving Bangkok-Rangoon. The birthday of the company has been taken as the official birthday of Garuda Airways, the Indonesian flag carrier. Syamsuddin, The Republican Revolt, ibid. On the ulama-uluebalang conflict as a factor in the Daud Buereueh’s rebellion, see also Nur El Ibrahimy, Peranan Tgk. Daud Buereu-eh, pp. 104–11. Insider, Atjeh Sepintas Lalu (Jakarta: Fa. Archipelago, 1950). Sjamsuddin, The Republican Revolt, pp. 130–32. Antara News Agency, 29 January 1953. It was quoted by several publications, The intimate dialogue between Sukarno and Tgk Daud Buereueh in 1948, when the President of the struggling Republic of Indonesia visited Aceh, is one of the best-remembered pieces of history among the Acehnese. In the mid 1980s, it was still treated as a kind of revolutionary folklore. Taufik Abdullah, “Islam, Sejarah, dan Politik di Aceh” in his Islam dan Masyarakat: Pantulan Sejarah Indonesia (Jakarta: LP3ES, 1987), pp. 159–200. In the emotional meeting, Sukarno promised the ulama that he would also strive through democratic channels for the application of Islamic law in Aceh. A “reconstruction” of the dialogue is given in El Ibrahimy, Peranan Tgk M. Daud Buereu-eh, pp. 77–79. On this attempt and its failure see Anderson, Java in a Time of the Revolution, pp. 85–109. Neither Sukarno nor Hatta said a single word on this failed attempt in their respective memoirs. Ali Sastroamidjojo lamented the failure of the establishment of the state political party in his memoirs, Tonggak-tonggak dalam Perjalanan Hidupku (Jakarta: Kinta, 1974), op. cit. Mohammad Hatta, “Kedaulatan Rakyat”, a speech delivered in Surakarta, 7 February 1946. Reprinted in his Kumpulan Karangan, vol. IV, pp. 211–13. Italic is in the original. Mohammad Hatta, Past and Future (Ithaca, New York: Modern Indonesia Project, Cornell University, 1960). This is a translation of the speech he delivered at the Gadjah Mada University, on December 1956 — a few days after he officially resigned as the Vice-President. Hatta delivered this speech when the university conferred on him the honorary doctoral degree. Mohammad Hatta, Demokrasi Kita (Djakarta: Pandji Masjarakat, 1960), p. 15. On the West Irian dispute, see for example, Robert C. Bone, The Dynamics of Western New Guinea (Irian Barat) Problem (Ithaca, New York: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1958). The speech was delivered in October, 1956. Excerpted in Herbert Feith and Lance Castles, eds., Indonesian Political Thinking, 1945–1965 (Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1970), pp. 81–83.

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Indonesia, 1957. Reprinted in Bung Karno: Wacana Konstitusi dan Demokrasi: Kenangan 100 Tahun Bung Karno (Jakarta: Penerbit PT Gramedia Widiasarana Indonesia, 2001), p. 158. On the empirical events of this, see Feith, The Decline, op. cit. In the beginning, there were three major factions in the PNI; the Wilopo faction, the Sartono and Suwirjo faction, and the Sidik Djojosukarto faction. But later the last two worked together. In the Masyumi there were also two major factions: the Natsir faction and that of Sukiman. The Natsir faction could work harmoniously with the Wilopo faction but distrusted Sidik’s. The latter preferred to work with the Sukiman faction. These internal factions were common knowledge among the political public. Their existence was clearly exposed in the newspapers and the members of the factions also openly showed to which faction they belonged to. On the affair, see Feith, The Decline, pp. 292–96. For a lengthy discussion on the series of cabinet crisis, see Feith, The Decline, pp. 147–302. It was perhaps a matter of luck. Ali Sastroamidjojo had to return the mandate while President Sukarno was on the pilgrimage to Mekka. He returned the mandate to Vice-President Hatta, who for the first and only time, had the prerogative to appoint the cabinet formateur. In giving the task, he only suggested that the persons invited to become members of the cabinet be “honest and well regarded” (jujur dan diseganii) — the two words that for a while caught the people’s imagination. The complete programme of the cabinet is included as an appendix in Badruzzaman Busyairi, Boerhanoeddin Harahap, Pilar Demokrasi (Jakarta: Penerbit Bulan Bintang, 1987), p. 186. Feith, The Decline, p. 512. Louis Fischer, The Story of Indonesia (New York: Evanston & London: Harper & Row, 1959), p. 291. Fischer, The Story of Indonesia, p. 287. Ali Sastroamdjojo, Milestones, p. 351. Quoted in Feith, The Decline, p. 512. For a good short introduction to the Chinese minority, see G. William Skinner, “The Chinese Minority”, in Indonesia, edited by Ruth McVey (New Haven: Human Relations Area File, 1963), pp. 97–117. On the trading activities of the Indonesian Chinese during the revolution, see for example, Twang Peck Yang, The Chinese Business Elite in Indonesia and the Transition to Independence, 1940–1950 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 195–253. The heroic adventures of Major John Lee of the Indonesian navy during and shortly after the revolution was, however, legendary.

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107 On the uneasy diplomatic relations between Indonesia and PRC, see David Mozingo, Chinese Policy toward Indonesia, 1949–1967 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1976), pp. 78–100. 108 Ibid., pp. 114–20. 109 Quoted by Feith, The Decline, p. 219. 110 See for example Mochtar Lubis, Twilight in Jakarta, translated by Claire Holt, New York, 1963. It is a translation of Senja di Jakarta (Kuala Lumpur, 1964: The Indonesian edition was published much later by Pustaka Jaya). The translation and the Kuala Lumpur edition were published when the author was still in Sukarno’s house of detention. On the “Benteng group” and the government policies, see Leo Suryadinata, Pribumi Indonesians, the Chinese Minority and China, 3rd edition (Singapore: Heinemaan Asia, 1992), pp. 128–32. 111 Feith, The Decline, p. 481. 112 Assaat, “The Chinese Grip on Our Economy (1956) in Herbert Feith and Lance Castles, eds., Indonesian Political Thinking, 1945–1965 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1970), pp. 343–46. 113 Quoted in Feith, The Decline, p. 223.

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Reproduced from Indonesia: Towards Democracy, by Taufik Abdullah (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior permission Institute National Identity in the a Revolutionary Stateof •the269 of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg >

C H A P T E R

F O U R

National Identity in a Revolutionary State

Democratic Ideals and Political Disappointment

A

few days after Hatta formally resigned as the Vice-President, the Gadjah Mada University conferred on him the honorary doctoral degree. His acceptance speech was, as Kahin rightly stated,1 “one of the clearest recent expositions of salient aspects of his political and socioeconomic thinking”. The speech, however, could also be taken as a thesis that continued to haunt Sukarno until the end of the Guided Democracy. Reading Sukarno’s speeches one can easily get the impression that Sukarno found it very difficult to extricate himself from the intellectual “ghost” of Hatta’s acceptance speech, and of course, that of his other speeches and writings.2 In spite of the failure of some political parties, most notably the Masyumi and the PSI (but not the PKI and the PNI) and local military commanders to secure the re-entry of Hatta into the national government,3 Sukarno could not disengage himself from Hatta’s counter discourses in his political speeches. It may well be that this was Sukarno’s strength as an ideologue — he needed a counterpart or, in the case of Hatta, an opponent, to formulate his ideas.4 In his acceptance speech, entitled Past and Future, Hatta briefly described the growth of national consciousness and ideals. As usual, he also touched on the cooperative as the proper economic foundation, and the educational roles of the political parties. He stressed the importance of decentralization and local autonomy, which, according to him, should reside at the kabupaten/ district level. He criticized the behaviour of the leaders of the political parties. In his opinion, their political behaviour was endangering the survival 269

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of the democratic system itself. Actually, several issues he raised in the speech had already become common knowledge, since Hatta had been talking about the ideas for some years.5 He touched on “the old feudal states, ruled by autocratic kings” and on the “village democratic system”. However ideal the “village democracy”, with its gotong royong (mutualhelp) spirit and its emphasis on unanimous decision might be, Hatta, who continued to adhere to the notion of “collective democratic system”, said it was impossible to apply it without proper adjustments in the modern nation-state. “In this matter,” he stated, “whether one likes it or not, one has to accept the system of Western democracy whereby decisions are taken by a majority of votes”.6 How, indeed, would the system of the relatively homogenous society, with its agrarian sense of time, be applied to the multi cultural modern nation-state which has acquired a new sense of time? In a rather reflective yet critical mood, Hatta expressed his opinion on the recent political situation in Indonesia. “A thoroughgoing social analysis would show,” he said, that all our rebellions and our splits, our political anarchy and adventurism, all the steps taken in the economic field which have created chaos are the result of the fact that our national revolution was not dammed up at the appropriate time. Those who say that our revolution is not yet completed are wrong indeed. A revolution is a sudden explosion of society, which brings with it an Unwertung aller Werte. A revolution shakes the floor and the foundations; it loosens all hinges and boards. Therefore, a revolution should not last too long, not more than a few weeks or a few months. It should then be checked, the time would have arrive[d] for a consolidation, which will realize the result produced by the revolution. What is left unfinished is not the revolution itself, but the efforts to carry its ideals into effect over a period of time after the foundations have been laid.7 President Sukarno could never forget this speech of Hatta’s. He was also there, at the Gadjah Mada University, as a guest of honour, when Hatta

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presented this acceptance speech. Sukarno might have remembered his own acceptance speech, as the first person to be conferred the honorary degree by a “revolutionary university”, the Gadjah Mada University, on 19 September 1951. At that time he only managed to repeat his preindependence speeches — again in replying to Hatta’s idea on the need to establish parties of cadres. “The extent of the willingness of the mass to struggle is determined by the goals and the objectives of the struggle. It is also, secondly, determined by how the mass would judge its ability. Thirdly, by the real power of the mass”. Sukarno ended up his speech with what he called the tridharma (three duties) “Keep alive geest, wil, daad (spirit, desire, action)”.8 Since he delivered the speech — actually long before that — he had been cultivating and preaching about the “three duties”. At the opening of the Constituent Assembly in mid-1956, he advised the assembly members to draft a “constitution, which is in harmony with the Spirit of the Proclamation; to make a Constitution which is accord [sic] with the spirit of the Revolution”. Now, with the university’s solemn gathering in front of him, Hatta talked about the importance of “rationality”, “analysis”, “the revolutionary period of consolidation” and then also on how the ideals that were nurtured during the colonial period had now “become rather shapeless since we gained our independence”. Yet Hatta was no longer the VicePresident of the Republic of Indonesia. He had chosen to stay out of the power circle in the Republic of Indonesia, to the cause of which he had devoted his life earnestly. Suddenly the almost forgotten pre-war intellectual debates between the two leaders were reinvigorated.9 But, of course, times had changed. Hatta had since then been politically marginalized, while Sukarno had the power to realize his ideas or, in his rhetoric, “to translate the will into deed”. He might occasionally have the advantage of proving the correctness of his (using his terms) “theory” and “ideology” and challenging his unnamed opponents by saying, “leave it to history to decide”. But “to dam up the revolution”, as Hatta had suggested? “Well, frankly I tell you,” Sukarno used to say, “I belong to the group of people who are spiritually bound in spiritual longing by the romanticism of Revolution. I am inspired by it, I am fascinated by it, I am completely absorbed by it. I

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am obsessed by the romanticism of Revolution. And for this I express my gratitude to God Who Commands the Whole Universe.”10 Until the end of his regime, the Revolution — mostly as a state of mind, not necessarily the glorious event as it was in the past — and its concomitant “national personality” (which institutionally expressed itself in the concept of the Guided Democracy), were to remain the pillars of Sukarno’s political discourse. It was through the prism of these two interrelated and intertwined ideas that he perceived realities and formulated and defended his policies. On these premises also, he attacked his opponents, whom he had branded as “the enemies of the revolution”. Sukarno’s efforts to promote the notions of the still unfinished revolution and the Guided Democracy were intensified after he sensed, correctly apparently, the gradual growth of his political clout. In his speeches, Sukarno not only frequently referred to the ideas he put forward in his Mentjapai Indonesia Merdeka (To achieve the independence of Indonesia), “written thirty years ago” (as he used to remind his audience), his style of rhetoric seemed also to incite the memories of his older audience to a very short speech he delivered at the First Indonesia Raya Congress, held in Surabaya, a few days after his release from the prison (January 1933). “Give me one thousand old men,” he said in the five-minute historic speech he gave, “and with them I shall have confidence to move Mount Semeru. But give me ten youths who are fired with zeal and with love for our native land, and with them I shall shatter the earth.”11 In this ideological climate, Sukarno’s notions of the unfinished revolution and Guided Democracy were gradually transformed from a prescriptive stance into an ideological orthodoxy. It was an orthodoxy that was cleverly harnessed to support Sukarno, who despite his acknowledged position as the great leader of the nation, was not as yet, at the time, a powerful President. It was Hatta, the Vice-President, who, as the Prime Minister, was the captain of the Republican ship sailing to the shores of the sovereign state. It took several years before Sukarno could really reach the time of “his greatest formal power”.12 There was a time when he was reprimanded, albeit politely, by the cabinet for his attempt to press the cabinet to follow his policy. Sukarno’s interference in the cabinet’s policy to

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deal with the question of West Irian so much annoyed the Prime Minister, Natsir of the Masyumi, that he was forced to challenge the President’s right.13 There was also a time when his attempt to steer the course of ideological debates was harshly criticized. After his “historic” speech in Amuntai (22 January 1953), in which he rejected Islam as the foundation of the state — “many areas whose population is not Islamic …will secede”— his reputation as being a leader above political parties had declined in the eyes of the leaders of the Islamic parties. His great moment in the “October 17 Affair”, in which he turned down the demand of the military brass to dissolve the provisional parliament, soon turned sour, because the affair triggered continuing internal conflicts in the army.14 Observing the situation in 1955 — that was the time when the Masyumi-dominated Boerhanoeddin Harahap cabinet had just replaced the first PNI-dominated Ali Sastroamidjojo’s cabinet — an English lecturer captures the scene of Java in the 1950s in his book. “The new government criticised him (Sukarno)”, he writes, for identifying himself too much with the previous National Party15 administration and its interest in the coming elections; the army criticised him for the support of the unlucky General;16 the students criticised him for his undue loyalty to certain comrades convicted of corruption— and the women criticised him for his second marriage….the militant Women’s Movements, fighting for their new marriage law, were furious at his failure to set an example of modern monogamy.17 In 1955 the first national general election was held. Until Indonesia held its 1999 election, this election was widely considered as the “cleanest” election. The PNI, the Masyumi, and, surprisingly, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU, the “traditionalist” Islamic party), and the PKI emerged as the “big four”. The Socialist Party (PSI), the highly influential party during the revolution, became merely one of the medium-sized parties (5 seats). The general election had apparently failed to bring some kind of political stability. No single party emerged as the party of the majority. The two biggest parties, the PNI and the Masyumi gained the same number of parliamentary

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seats (57 seats). But they were not too excited about collaborating with each other. The NU, the party that had separated itself from the Masyumi in 1952, might be willing to collaborate with the PNI, but was rather cool to the Masyumi. Finally, both the Masyumi and the NU simply had no stomach for any collaboration with the PKI. The real issue, however, was the fact that the parties, to a large extent, also represented existing aliran, stream, of political orientations, which were very much moulded by ethnic and religious political cultures. The “Islamic modernist party”, the Masyumi can rightly be considered as the only “national” party, since it was the only one that managed to get parliamentary seats in all electoral districts. It also emerged as the winner in 12 out of the 15 electoral districts. The Masyumi, however, came only as the number four in the most populous electoral districts of Central Java (it was behind the PNI, PKI, and NU) and East Java (behind the NU, PKI, and PNI).18 One may add that in these two electoral districts, the non-santri (the non-Islamic-oriented aliran) factions, had overcome both the “modernist” (Masyumi) and “traditionalist” (NU) factions. At a time when regional dissatisfaction to the central government had become a serious political issue, the Masyumi found itself the only defender of the regions in the centre of power. Although the PNI and Masyumi occupied the same numbers of parliamentary seats, the PNI had actually received more votes. The party emerged as the number one winner in the most populous electoral districts. The PNI received 22.3 per cent of the votes, Masyumi, 20.9 per cent (NU, 45 seats with 18.4 per cent of the votes, the PKI, 39 seats, 16.4 per cent of the votes).19 Either because of the electoral returns or, more likely, because of President Sukarno’s concern with the strength of the Islamic political parties which were certain to reject the Pancasila as the foundation of the state, he appointed Ali Sastroamidjojo of the PNI, the former Prime Minister, as the cabinet formateur. It was not an easy task for the future Prime Minister, particularly since he could clearly see that the President wanted him to form a cabinet to the latter’s liking — that is a “four legs cabinet”, which consisted of the four biggest parties. Finally the cabinet was formed. It was a cabinet under the PNI leadership, but supported by the Masyumi and the NU and some small parties. When Ali reported the new cabinet composition

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to the President, he had to face the displeasure of the President. Instead of receiving complimentary words, the Head of State slightly reprimanded him. “As formateur you have not been fair to the PKI,” the President, who had been promoting the idea of having “all members of the family at the eating table”, rebuked him. “Why have you not included such a large party which secured more than six millions votes?”20 But of course there was a limit on how far the constitutional President could do. When the cabinet was sworn in, the President could still say that he was happy with the formation of this cabinet, even though “it was far from perfect”. Ali and the political elite were certainly well aware of the fact that the President saw the solution to the present political instability as lying in the inclusion of the communists in the cabinet, which, as Sukarno perceived, should be the “conglomeration of all revolutionary forces”. Political realities were then simply too complex to follow the President’s wish. Whatever the case might be, Sukarno had apparently made up his mind that he would continue to play the role he saw fit for the struggling country. He began to talk about the inadequacy of parliamentary democracy and the need for a having a guided democracy and associated himself with the former revolutionary radical youths.21 From the beginning, the newly formed coalition government of the PNI, Masyumi, and NU (March 1956) under Ali Sastroamidjojo had to face a number of difficulties. The coalition government found it very difficult to agree on several fundamental problems that had beset the country. At a time when the newly installed Chief-of-Staff of the Army, Major General Nasution, was still in the process of consolidating his position, the antiNasution elements in the army managed to blemish the image of Ali Sastroamidjojo, the Prime Minister, by arresting a minister from his party (the PNI). The minister was accused of transgressing the government’s regulations on foreign exchange. It was after the intervention of the Prime Minister and the Chief-of-Staff of the Army that the minister could board the airplane and get on his way to attend an important international conference. The problem had been solved, but the damage had been inflicted on the prestige of the cabinet. In the meantime, the constitutional debates in the Constituent Assembly continued with no clear sign of reaching the most

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basic consensus. Neither the supporters of Pancasila nor that of Islam managed to master two third of the votes. The direct intervention of Sukarno — who, as the President, was constitutionally expected to be above all political parties — in the constitutional debates only made the situation worse. In the eyes of the leaders of the Islamic parties, President Sukarno had already transgressed his constitutional rights. Natsir, the leader of the Masyumi party, who was during the Revolution a close confidante of Sukarno,22 seriously expressed his worry about the future of Indonesia. He correctly sensed that it was exactly the presidential political interferences that had made Sukarno gain political support. But then a question could not be avoided — what was the future of democracy? If democracy had since the beginning been seen as the most potent and powerful basis for national integration, how come the trend towards abandoning democracy had become stronger every day? “It is not an exaggeration,” he stated, to say that the Indonesian people stand today at the crossroads. If we accept the fact that only democratic system of government can preserve the Republic of Indonesia, then there is a crucial question: Are the democrats of this generation in Indonesia able to restore full confidence in democratic institutions? Are those who cherish democratic ideals prepared to prove beyond any doubt that our problems can be solved?23 Prevailing political trends were bound to make Natsir disappointed. The answers to his questions were loud and clear. He himself and a few other leaders would later have to find out that they not only had to search for political havens but also personal shelters. The still continuing local rebellions, in Aceh, West Java, South Kalimantan, and South Sulawesi had put the Masyumi in the collusion course with the Java-based parties, most notably the PNI and the PKI. After all, the Masyumi was not only the party that managed to gain parliamentary seats in all electoral districts, but it was also the party that emerged the winner in the troubled regions. The resignation of Hatta in December 1956 only made matters worse. Rightly or wrongly the local leaders in the

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regions outside Java had looked at him as their representative in the top leadership of the Republic. Hatta resigned when the exporting regions of Sumatra and Sulawesi, under the leadership of the army local commanders, began to feel that they did not get their share of the national income properly. They tried to take over the administration in North Sumatra (but failed) and Central Sumatra (succeeded). In the meantime, local elections, which were held in 1957, had made the PKI, to the detriment of the PNI and to a lesser extent, the NU,24 a very strong party. Its local victories and its endorsement of Sukarno’s increasingly radical West Irian campaign not only gave the PKI an opportunity to exacerbate the crisis of other political parties and to display the image of being a truly nationalist party, but also, more importantly, to win the heart of Sukarno. During this period of political uncertainty President Sukarno stated on many occasions that he had the right answer to deal with the worsening political situation. He promised that at the appropriate time, he would offer his konsepsi or concept to solve prevalent national predicament. The socalled appropriate time finally came on 21 February 1957. In front of the leaders of all political parties, the President revealed his long awaited konsepsi. It was an appeal for a thorough re-examination of the present parliamentary political system. Hatta might have criticized the behaviour of the political parties, which, according to him, often failed to function properly as the pillars of democracy, but Sukarno saw the nature of the democratic system itself as the real cause of Indonesia’s political instability. “Democracy is the animating principle of our soul,” he said, and the inspirer of all our acts. However, the experiences of these eleven years have convinced me that the democracy we adopted, the democracy we have been using, is a democracy, which is not in harmony with the soul of the Indonesian nation. It is what I call Western democracy or, if you like, parliamentary democracy. After describing at length the differences between this “Western democracy” and “our personality”,25 he explicitly put forward the idea of changing the parliamentary democracy to a “guided democracy”. The

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ensuing political uncertainties, according to him, could only be solved if the gotong royong (“mutual-help”) cabinet could be form. It was what he then called a “four legged horse” cabinet — meaning the inclusion of the PKI in the cabinet. Finally the President also proposed the establishment of a Dewan Nasional (National Council), which would consist of the representatives of the functional groups. The konsepsi was an anti-climax. If anything, it only intensified the already critical political situation. On 2 March 1957, the Masyumi, NU, Catholic Party, and PSI issued their joint statement in which they rejected the konsepsi on a constitutional basis. Only the Constituent Assembly, they argued, had the right to change the existing political system. Obviously they were also very much upset by the open political endorsement of the PKI by the President.26 On the same day, Lieutenant Colonel Ventje Sumual, the army commander of East Indonesia, assumed the control of Sulawesi, Maluku, Nusa Tenggara (and West Irian). Two days later, he issued a declaration, which among other things, demanded full regional autonomy, a balanced distribution of the national income, and the formation of a new cabinet under the leadership of Sukarno-Hatta. Confronted with the massive challenges to its prestige and legitimacy, the cabinet found no other way but to return its mandate to the President. On 13 March, the cabinet officially tendered its resignation. The next day, President Sukarno declared a state of war and siege and stated that the government “is temporarily in my hands as the head of state and the supreme commander of the armed forces”.27 The year 1957 can be said to be a turning point in the history of the Indonesian experience in democracy. In less than two years, the high expectation that the general election28 would bring about political stability had been practically dashed. The fact that no party emerged as the real winner made a balanced coalition among the winning parties an unavoidable political imperative. But how could the coalition work properly if at the same time the political parties were also engaged in ideological controversy over the constitutional foundation of the state? The NU might get along well with the PNI — the two political parties, which along with the PKI, were strongly rooted in East and Central Java — in the cabinet and in the

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parliament, but at the Constituent Assembly, the “traditionalist” Islamic party, fought alongside the Masyumi. Both of them and the smaller Islamic parties wanted to have the modern nation-state based on Islamic principles. In its turn, the Masyumi, the Islamic “modernist” political party, found it more congenial to work with the “secular”-oriented socialist party, the PSI, and the small Catholic party, in both the government and the parliament. They were, however, on conflicting courses in the Constituent Assembly. The political complication continued with the intensification of regional opposition to the centre over the questions of the decentralization of power and the balanced distribution of the national income. The internal affairs of the army only made the situation even more complicated. The military headquarters had to deal not only with the necessity to modernize the army, but also perhaps more pressingly with the continuing tradition of “warlord-ism”, whereby every military region was totally under the domination of its respective military commander. It was the commander who had to take care of not only the integrity and discipline of the troops under his command, but also the daily necessities of the military personnel. At a time when the ability of the central government was still very limited to maintaining its military personnel, who would be surprised to learn that the “warlord” had to find whatever ways he could to fill the financial gaps? Smuggling was certainly against the law, but then who could guarantee that the legitimate state apparatus of violence would not react to the situation in the way they knew best?

Democracy and National Identity In the meantime, the peaceful approach of the succeeding cabinets to settle the West Irian dispute with the Dutch government seemed to have gone nowhere. “We have sworn,” Sukarno stated in his 1950 Proclamation Day speech, “that we will go on fighting till doomsday as long as there is one part of our country, be it one tiny island, be it no bigger than an umbrella that is not yet free.”29 True to his word, Sukarno continued to fight for the solution to the Indonesian claim of West Irian, regardless of his constitutional function as being merely the Head of State and the symbol of the state. The West Irian claim was not only the major argument for the continuation of

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the “national revolution” and the struggle against colonialism and imperialism, but also a prism through which the state-sponsored new nationalism could be channeled. More than that, the West Irian issue might also be used a vehicle to sustain his claim as the paramount unifying factor of the nation. West Irian, as Hatta rightly points out, “is a national claim backed by every Indonesian parties [sic] without exception”,30 but in the hands of Sukarno, it also became a divisive national issue. What should be the strategy to apply and at what tempo? When Ali Sastroamidjojo (March 1957) finally handed over his resignation as the Prime Minister, Sukarno appointed another leader of the PNI to form the cabinet. Despite his serious efforts, he failed to form a new cabinet. There were simply too many conflicting demands he had to face in order to formulate some kind of political compromise among the political parties. Some parties might agree with the programme, but they found it difficult to give their consent to the solution of the existing problems. Then, the personalities to be appointed had to be agreed on and then again, what portfolio should be given to what parties. The cabinet crisis continued. Sensing that the military, most notably the army, and the already strengthened PKI, not to mention the always loyal PNI, were behind him, while the other parties were beginning to lose their political clout, the President finally appointed a “citizen”, whose name happened to be Sukarno, and whose position also happened to be the President of the Republic, as the new cabinet formateur. On behalf of the “citizen Sukarno”, the President invited all leaders of the political parties to the palace, and distributed among them a slip of paper to fill in the answer to the question he posed on whether or not they would be willing to be appointed members of the new cabinet. The majority of those present put “yes”, but several leaders, most notably the leaders of the Masyumi, including its chairman, the former prime minister, Natsir, and that of the PSI, flatly stated “no”. It was a depressing moment for Natsir because Sukarno treated him so kindly in the meeting. Who could really liberate himself from Sukarno’s charm? It was as if the warm relationship the two leaders cultivated during the revolution had returned, but then politics was, after all, politics. Sukarno was already “out there” and Natsir preferred to maintain his position “in here”. A leader of the PSI, Soedjatmoko (1923–89), who was once Sukarno’s young favourite,

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also refused to put the word “yes”. It took several years before Sukarno could forgive him. Whatever the outcome of the Presidential poll might be, “the emergency extra-parliamentary cabinet of experts”, called Kabinet Karya (Working Cabinet) was finally announced on 9 April. The widely respected Djuanda (1911–63), a non-party professional, who had served in many of the previous cabinets, was appointed the Prime Minister. It was not a gotong royong cabinet, however. Sukarno could still not convince the army on the need to include the communists, the PKI leaders, in the cabinet. The formation of the cabinet was the first item on Sukarno’s agenda, as prescribed by his konsepsi. On 12 July 1957, President Sukarno announced the formation of the National Council, which consisted of the so-called functional groups (teachers, farmers, youths, women, etc), regional representatives, leaders of political parties, and several cabinet ministers. Sukarno himself became the chairman and the former foreign minister, Roeslan Abdoelgani (1914–2007), was appointed the vice-chairman of the council. The National Council, according to Roeslan, was “an organization parallel to, but in no way replacing, a cabinet”. At the same time, however, the council could also act as a pseudo parliament. In short, with the formation of the National Council, the political public could sense that a way towards the imposition of authoritarian rule of the unitary state had begun to be laid down.31 The West Irian conflict, the continuing interparty friction, and the incipient regional unrest as well as local oppositions were there to provide the pretexts. The period from 1957 to 1960 was politically one of the most hectic episodes in post-Independence Indonesia. The year 1957 was “the year of decision”, as Sukarno titled his Independence Day speech. That was the time, as he saw it, when “our national dignity” was already in deep crisis. Therefore it was high time to end the period of the “unguided democracy”. “Our democracy”, he said “is the democracy in which niets wordt onzien behalve vrijheid zelve (“nothing is spared but the freedom itself”, as he stated in Dutch). Therefore, as he continued his speech, “Our democracy should be one that is state-centric, not the democracy that would bring people to the ego-centric or group-centric or party-centric or crony-centric democracy.”32

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In the meantime, regional resentment to the still insensitive political centre continued to escalate. In this heightened political tension, the political public of Jakarta had practically been polarized between the supporters and opponents of the President’s konsepsi. The PKI and other leftist groups emerged as the most radical supporters of the konsepsi. Gradually intimidation became the rule of the day. Many of the opponents of the konsepsi, including several former ministers and prime ministers, such as Mohammad Natsir, the former Prime Minister and the current chairman of the Masyumi; Sjafruddin Prawiranegara, then the Governor of the Bank Indonesia (the nationalized De Javansche Bank), the central bank inherited from the colonial period; Professor Soemitro Djojohadikusumo, the former minister of finance and of trade; were forced to flee from Jakarta. Other leaders soon followed their moves. The former Acting President of the Republic of Indonesia, Assaat, and the former Prime Minister, Boerhanoeddin Harahap, also found Jakarta to be an intolerable place to stay in. Most of them joined the rebellious army officers in Central Sumatra. On 8 February 1958, the rebellious officers issued an ultimatum, which demanded the dissolution of Djuanda’s cabinet and the expulsion of all alleged Communist sympathizers from the central positions in the government. They also called for the formation of a new cabinet under Hatta and Sultan Hamengkuwono IX, the former Minister of Defence. By issuing the ultimatum, the rebellious officers had reached the point of no return. Whatever high hopes they might still entertain from their former colleagues, who were now in strategic positions in the army headquarters, with this ultimatum the high expectation became nothing but subjective illusions. On 11 February, the cabinet rejected the ultimatum. Indonesia was already on the verge of a civil war. The rebellious officers and some former cabinet ministers who had assembled in Padang had no other way to go but pursue the path they had, perhaps unwittingly, laid dawn. On 15 February, they proclaimed the formation of a countergovernment, Pemerintah Revolusioner Republik Indonesia (PRRI — Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia). Sjafruddin Prawiranegara, the former Chairman of the PDRI during the revolution, was unanimously elected as the President. In his maiden speech, he

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declared that the PRRI was “not a separatist movement to disrupt the integrity of the Republic of Indonesia”. He was right. Despite the fact that some of the rebellious officers might have contemplated forming a Sumatran state or of separating Sumatra and Sulawesi from the rest of Indonesia, none of them ever seriously thought of really taking either one of these extreme alternatives. The red and white flag remained the national flag of the PRRI and Indonesia Raya continued to be the national anthem. The PRRI was formed only to correct the central government, which, they thought, had deviated too far to the left from the right direction of the nation-state. Sukarno and Nasution, however, could never tolerate the existence of a counter government, whatever the rebellious leaders might have said to defend their act of deviance. Despite the efforts of several leaders from outside the government, including Hatta, to avoid armed conflict, on 22 February, the first military operation was launched against the rebels. The civil war had started. While foreign reporters, who observed the civil war, might get the impression that it was “the most civil civil war”, bloodshed could not be avoided and the suffering of the civilians could not be prevented. In the meantime in Jakarta, the Communist-backed labour union radicalized the West Irian campaign by seizing Dutch companies. The military had to take over the occupied offices, but a new dimension to Indonesian political crisis had been added. That was the period, which Sukarno in his Independence Day address, called “a year of challenge”. It was the year which demanded, as Sukarno put it by citing Danton, the French revolutionary, “de l’audace, encore de l’audace et toujours de l’audace (courage, once again courage, and always courage), for the great struggle not only demands sacrifice, but also courage”. Since the present situation could no longer be tolerated, “I urge the whole nation to work hard for ‘the retooling of the future’ ”, as he put it in English. The political phase of the Indonesian revolution had already passed. Now the nation was entering the economic-social phase of their revolution. This new phase demanded new orientation. This is the guided democracy, which would “throw away all the defects of the free fight liberalism”.33 In a series of lectures on the five principles of Pancasila he held at the state palace, Sukarno again attacked the system of “parliamentary

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democracy”, which, according to him, grew up during the advance of capitalism. “Actually for us democracy is not only a matter of technicality,” he said (22 July 1958) in his elaboration of the concept of kedaulatan rakyat (“sovereignty of the people”, the fourth principle of the Pancasila), “but also our state of mind and feeling. However we should be able to place this state of mind and feeling of ours in our own personality, in the efforts to realize our idealism to create a just and prosperous society, which obviously cannot be achieved by the democracy we are having now. Therefore I have been propagating for the introduction of the guided democracy”.34 From the day he presented his konsepsi and particularly after he formed the new cabinet, Sukarno, who had by then become the holder of the ultimate authority within the context of the already imposed martial law, intensified his attack on the prevailing parliamentary system and propagated the idea of a guided democracy, that is “the democracy which is in tune with our national personality”. “Our centuries-old heritage of democracy as practised in the villages,” he said on one occasion, “is known as musyawarah, which means ‘discussion’, and gotong royong, which means ‘collective and mutual help’ — will be a big asset for the basis of our democracy.”35 Sukarno simply took it for granted that village democracy would do well in a modern multi-ethnic nation-state. On this point, Sukarno differed from Hatta. In spite of his continuing search for the cultural foundation of the concept of ‘collective democracy’ from the tradition of village-democracy, Hatta also tried to find ways of translating village democracy into a workable system in the modern setting. In the meantime, the elected Constituent Assembly had still been unable to reach a consensus on the basic ideological foundation of the state. So many constitutional problems had been solved — the structure of the state, the separation of power, citizenship, and the like — but still no agreement could be reached on this symbolically significant issue. Should the state be based on “Islam” (230 votes) or “Pancasila” (273 votes) or what the socalled nationalist-communist faction, the followers of Tan Malaka, called their platform, “social economy” (9 votes)?36 No faction managed to get the necessary two third of the votes. On 19 February 1959, the President, who had already become the chairman of the National Council, openly declared

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that he wanted to “return to the 1945 Constitution”. On 2 March, the Prime Minister officially informed the parliament that the government endorsed the President’s proposal. At the suggestion of the cabinet, on 22 April, the President addressed the Constituent Assembly. He urged the elected body to adopt his proposal of returning to the 1945 Constitution. “Because by taking that step”, he stated, the members of the Constituent Assembly, as the sons and daughters of the Indonesians, will show that they deeply understand the mind and the personality of our nation. Because the members of the Constituent Assembly, as the representatives of the Indonesian people, will show that they profoundly understand the desires of our National Revolution at this stage and the desires of our present epoch. Furthermore the President urged the members of the assembly to realize that, The life, spirit, and personality (kepribadian) of the Indonesian nation and the message of the suffering of the people must and should be used by us as a guide, especially during the physical and mental revolution which has been raging since 1945 and is continuing. It also must and should be the basis of our ways of life in the days to come.37 But what is the meaning of “the personality of the Indonesian nation” or the so-called “kepribadian bangsa” (national personality)? If the reasoning of the Preamble of the Constitution can be followed, then these concepts could only mean something to fight for and to achieve. The formation of the individuality or personality of the nation was a continuing agenda. It was based on a normative desire to achieve a united, just, democratic, prosperous national community. By tampering democracy with the notion of “national personality”, however, Sukarno had in effect retaken the position he and Supomo had fought for gallantly in the BPUPKI — Indonesia was to be an

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integralistic state, which was based on the family system. As such, he also abandoned the spirit of the Preamble of the Constitution, which he himself helped to write. One of the four objectives38 of establishing the nation-state, as the Preamble states, was “to create an enlightened national life” (mencerdaskan kehidupan bangsa). What should be taken as the criteria of “an enlightened national life”? On 30 May, the Constituent Assembly voted on the government’s proposal. It failed to receive the required majority, which was two thirds of the members. Only 269 members supported the proposal, but 199 members rejected it. The next day, when the members voted again, the same thing happened — 264 members agreed but 204 disagreed. Shortly before the third and final vote was about to be taken, the Prime Minister, Djuanda, warned the Constituent Assembly that the failure to approve the proposal might drive the military into the centre of political power. The members of the assembly were apparently not to be persuaded or threatened by such a bleak political prospect. The proposal did not do well enough to be accepted — 263 members were in favour of the proposal, but 203 members remained adamant in their rejection. The negative votes were mostly cast by the Islamic faction. This result should have been interpreted as the Constituent Assembly rejecting the proposal to return to the 1945 Constitution. Instead of allowing the elected Constituent Assembly to resume its interrupted deliberation, the government simply took the already predicted step. The next day, the Chief-of-Staff of the Army, as the war administrator in the absence of the President, who was visiting the United States (as a delegate of the Non-Bloc countries), banned all public meetings and demonstrations and other actions, “that might influence or decide the course of the state of Indonesia”.39 The Chief-of-Staff of the Army, Nasution, had apparently sealed a sacred covenant with the President at the expense of the political parties and, in effect, the democratic system in the multi-ethnic nation-state. Nasution’s long desire to return to the 1945 Constitution was about to be fulfilled. The day of the political parties with their parliament was approaching its end. The executive heavy constitution, which was stated by Sukarno on 18 August 1945, as being far from perfect, was about to be operative again.

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On 3 July, President Sukarno returned from abroad. On 5 July, in defiance of the decision of the elected body, President Sukarno issued the historic Presidential Decree, which announced the return to the 1945 Constitution and the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. He said he had to take this action because this was the only possible way to save the state, and that he was also convinced the majority of the people would support his decision. As if to appease the politically conscious Muslims, President Sukarno stated that the Jakarta Charter of 22 June 1945 — with its “seven magic words” which gives special place to Islamic law — should be seen as the soul of the 1945 Constitution. It was that charter that gave life to the 1945 Constitution; therefore it could never be separated from the Constitution. With this statement, Sukarno had not only negated the consensus Hatta managed to get from the Muslim leaders in the PPKI on 18 August to delete the “seven magic words”, he also took what he wanted to have — that is, the position of both the Head of State and that of the government. If later the promise to make the Jakarta Charter the soul of the 1945 Constitution was totally forgotten or simply ignored, one could easily take it as a sign that the Guided Democracy had already consolidated its power. By “returning to the 1945 Constitution” Sukarno not only made “the far from perfect constitution” (as he once said) operative again, he also paved the way for the re-enactment of the “absolute rule “of the President in the first twomonth period after the Proclamation of Independence. That was the time when the members of the KNIP could only function as the assistants to the President. Only now some kind of justification should be given. The rhetoric of the “rediscovery of our revolution”40 was there to provide the legal and historical justification as well as ideological rationality. The next day, the Prime Minister, Djuanda, and his cabinet members returned their mandate to the President. The moment Indonesia reenacted the 1945 Constitution the Djuanda cabinet instantly lost its legitimacy. Despite the fact that the cabinet was formed by “the citizen, Sukarno”, the cabinet was instituted under the 1950 Provisional Constitution, in which the President could only serve as the Head of State. With the resignation of the Djuanda cabinet, a total break with the parliamentary democracy had been officially made. And with it, Indonesia was entering the second period

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of its experiment in democracy. Would it be a real democracy or would it be only a different system using the name of democracy? If the second possibility was the case, then one can also say that another break in the history of political thought had also been introduced. Democracy had ceased to be the guiding principle of the multi-ethnic nation-state, despite the fact that it remained one of the foundations of the state, as was explicitly affirmed in the ideology of Pancasila. On 8 July, President Sukarno, the Chief Executive, formed a new cabinet, on the basis of three programmes (food and clothing, security, and West Irian) and appointed Djuanda as the First Minister, and General Nasution as the Minister of Defence. The era of the Guided Democracy had begun. And Indonesia, as Sukarno explained later, had “returned to a Constitution which grew out of our revolutionary struggle, and out of history and the way of life of our people, and which are [sic] suitable with the character and identity of the Indonesian people”.41 The Constitution is then something that reflects the genuine identity of the nation. It should not be something that can be expected to work as a basis of social change. President Sukarno was right when he said that the majority of the people supported him. In spite of all political crises, he was still the most influential leader, regardless of the nature of the political decisions he had made. No one could challenge his stature among the ordinary people. On 22 July 1959, the parliament accepted Sukarno’s assumption of revolutionary powers, despite the accusation of the leaders of the Masyumi that the President’s decrees were constitutionally illegal. The next day, the Constituent Assembly was dispersed. The assembly had lost its function to formulate a new constitution. In conjunction with an article of the constitution, on 30 July the Supreme Advisory Council was formed. Its members consisted of prominent members of the political parties, including the PKI, but excluding that of the Masyumi. Although the main constitutional function of the council was to advise the President on state matters, whether requested or not, Sukarno appointed himself its chairman. In other words, he had made himself his own Chief Adviser. On the same day, the National Planning Agency was formed. The process towards the consolidation of the Guided Democracy was already in full speed. With the formation of the Supreme

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Advisory Council, the National Council gradually lost its significance and was finally disbanded. One of the first tasks of the Guided Democracy regime was to secure the ideological and moral legitimacy of the new political system and state orientation. That was the first duty of the Supreme Advisory Council. On the basis of Sukarno’s speech, the council issued the so-called Manifesto Politik, political manifesto (to be known by its abbreviation, Manipol). “The 1945 Constitution is the genuine reflection of the identity of the Indonesian people,” the political manifesto states, who since the ancient times have based their system of government on musyawarah and mupakat with the leadership of one central authority in the hands of a sesepuh — an elder — who did not dictate, but led, and protected. Indonesian democracy since the ancient times has been the Guided Democracy, and this is the characteristic of all original democracies in Asia.42 Just like in the old days, when Sukarno was still formulating his political ideas, Indonesian political tradition was again seen as an inseparable part of Asian tradition. From the ideological perspective, therefore, the political history of Indonesia from the time of the formation of the parliamentary cabinet during the revolution until the Presidential Decree of 5 July, should be seen as an historical aberration. Now with the abandoning of Western parliamentary democracy, Indonesia had returned to its authentic historical continuity. From the perspective of the history of discourse on democracy, however, the establishment of the Guided Democracy can be seen as the return of the literati, who adhered to the notion of cultural nationalism, to the central stage of political history. Their ideas on cultural nationalism had now been practically taken over by the most prominent leader of the radical anticolonial nationalist movement. The state should no longer be conceived simply as a constitutional and legitimate system of power, but more importantly, as an expression of cultural values as well. The establishment of the Guided Democracy not only created a break in the history of the

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post-independence period; it also began the history of the state’s hegemony of meaning in political and intellectual discourses. The state was about to embark on its career as the only legitimate arbiter of both symbolic meaning and hegemonic power. The foundation of a greedy state had already been laid down. “State nationalism”, with its authoritarian tendencies, had gradually emerged as the dominant ideology. “The democratic development, which ended in anarchy, had opened up the door to dictatorship”, Hatta wrote in an article, entitled Demokrasi Kita (Our Democracy), published in Islamic journal, Pandji Masjarakat (1960). “This is the iron law of history”, Hatta continued. But history has also pointed out that personal dictatorship does not last very long. Therefore the system that had been introduced by Sukarno would not last longer than Sukarno’s life. Human life is limited. When Sukarno dies his political system would be crumbled like a house of cards.43

“A Summing up of many Revolutions in One Generation” If 1957 can be said to be the time when the seeds of of the Guided Democracy had been planted, the time between 1958–59 was the critical period of the newly planted seed. Could the newly formed alliance between the President and the Chief-of-Staff of the Army, General Nasution, bear fruit with the emergence of the state on the basis of the executive-heavy 1945 Consitution? The period can also be seen as a theatre of political paradoxes in the history of contemporary Indonesia. The outbreak of the PRRI/Permesta rebellion posed a real threat to the integrity of the state. However, the rebellion itself ironically demonstrated the strength of Indonesian nationhood. The rebellion can in some ways be seen as an alliance of the Muslims of Central Sumatra and the Christians of North Sulawesi in their opposition to the central government. When resentment of the centralization tendencies of the state had reached its culminating point, rebellion seems the only solution available. By the middle of 1959, it was obvious that the PRRI/Permesta had no chance to replace the government or to force a tolerable compromise. The

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rebels had miscalculated the resolution of Sukarno and Nasution to use force to settle the internal conflict. The secret intervention of the CIA on the side of the rebellious regions had practically erased whatever genuine and sincere intention the PRRI/Permesta might have had. The clandestine support of the CIA to the rebel’s cause only strengthened the determination of the duo to settle the rebellion by the use of arms. On the other hand, the PRRI/Permesta that was engineered by the deeply disappointed army officers and supported by the already politically marginalized prominent national leaders, could never allow itself to become merely gerombolan, an armed gang. Without the support of the population, they realized no guerilla type of rebellion could last long. Furthermore the uncovered CIA support was a tremendous ideological blow to the prestige of the PRRI/Permesta. One by one the leaders of the rebellion surrendered to the central government. In the meantime, the Darul Islam that had officially transformed itself into the Negara Islam Indonesia (NII — Islamic State of Indonesia) continued to remain as it was — scattered local rebellions. In the meantime the radicalization of the conflict over West Irian that had “inspired” the leftist labour movement to take over a number Dutch companies finally gave the government no other option but to officially nationalize the companies and enterprises. The immediate consequence of this series of actions was the repudiation of the debt to the Netherlands, that was agreed on at the RTC (1949). By this action, the NetherlandsIndonesia union was also put to an end. The repatriation of Dutch nationals soon took place.44 Military personnel who could still be proud of their past as the freedom fighters had now been entrusted to take care of the economic enterprises they never learned to run. Indonesia might have finally liberated itself from the domination of the Dutch, but it had to pay the high price of economic decline it soon had to endure. But then, that was also the beginning when Indonesia had finally, as Sukarno reminded the people, “rediscovered” its revolution. “The rediscovery of our revolution” meant, as Sukarno said, the resolution of the divergent types of dualism. This was the dualism between “the Government and the leadership of the Revolution”, the notions of “just and prosperous society and capitalist society”, “the idea of continuing

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revolution or the need for consolidation”, and “democracy for the People and the People for democracy”.45 With this speech and his other speeches, Sukarno wanted to emphasize the importance of the national revolution not only as a history to remember or a glorious moment to cherish, but also as a national myth to emulate. The mytologization of the revolution had from the beginning become one of the ideological pillars of his regime. As such, it was also one of the most important symbols in the process of nation-building in the post-independent Indonesia. In the process, however, the intellectual and ideological debates that helped to shape the course of the revolutionary struggle and the events that finally led to the establishment of the nation-state were made something beyond the affairs of the revolutionary nation-state. Sukarno, the Great Leader of the Revolution, was never interested in history as a series of events in the past. His history is the reflection of the spirit and the idea that could be garnered from the chain of empirical events. On 13 January 1960, President Sukarno, who had apparently become accustomed to rule by decree, issued several presidential decrees that gave him wider powers. The President had the right to ban any political party considered to have failed to support the state and the government, or to discharge its members who were directly or indirectly involved in the rebellion, and to dissolve the party that did not have branches in at least a quarter of Indonesia’s provinces. The President had the right to institute and to head a National Front, which was soon to be formed in order to “mobilize and to unite all revolutionary forces in Indonesia and to work closely with the government in all matters” as the way to “complete the national revolution”. Finally the President had the right to appoint and to dismiss the members of the Provisional People’s Consultative Assembly (MPRS, Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat Sementara), which was to consist of the members of the current parliament, representatives of the functional groups and that of the regions.46 For the first time, the constitutional concept of “functional group” was made explicit. Several professions were included in the category of the functional group; they were, namely, the bureaucrats, workers, professionals, peasants, and the military. By recognizing the military as being part of the functional group, the President had not only simply

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acknowledged the important role the military was expected to play but had also practically opened up the door for the eventual dominant role of the military in politics. One can say that the concept of the functional group was “a golden gate” for the military to enter and to participate in practical politics directly and officially. When the time was ripe, the military could easily make its way into the central stage of national politics. The political significance of the rapid course of events had apparently escaped the reflective attention of the elected members of the parliament. They still thought the parliament could, if it had to, reject the government’s proposal. That what happened when the majority of the members turned down the government’s budget proposal. What a nuisance this move was in a period when “the revolution had just been rediscovered”. The axe finally fell. Basing his argument on the failure of the parliament to collaborate with the revolutionary government and that it had endangered “the unity and the security of the state” and obstructed the national efforts to achieve “a just and prosperous society”, the President dissolved the elected parliament on 5 March. On 27 March, the President announced the names of the appointed members of the “mutual help house of representatives” (DPR-GR, Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Gotong Royong). On 25 June, a few days after his return from his two months’ absence from the country, the President officially installed the new parliament, the DPR-GR. It was expected to strengthen the cooperation with the government on an equal basis. This cooperation was secured by the banning of the Masyumi and the PSI (August 1960), for their failure to condemn their members who were involved in the PRRI/Permesta rebellions. Another decree soon followed. This time it gave the right to the authorities to ban eight newspapers suspected of being the organs of the forbidden political parties or considered to be sympathetic to their ideologies and political orientations.47 The government also confiscated the printing house of the Pedoman, then the largest newspaper in the country. “I shall not allow destructive criticisms to my leadership,” Sukarno said in “autobiography”, “nor do I permit freedom of the press. We are too young a country to encourage more confusion than we already have.”48 For someone who looked at himself, correctly, for sure, as “a man who knows the power of the press, a man who has taken up his

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pen in the service of the struggle”,49 Sukarno’s attitude clearly shows how power had created its own irony in the mind of the idealist nation builder and freedom fighter. “The Decree of the 5th of July, 1959, was an extraordinary and very revolutionary measure with the most far reaching consequences”, Roeslan Abdoelgani, the vice-chairman of the Supreme Advisory Council, stated in his series of radio lectures on the state ideology.50 He was right. The consequences of the decree were indeed far-reaching — the system of the state and the nature of the political structure had to be reshaped, the ideological orientation had to be redefined, and new basic policies had to be reformulated. The President could always cleverly make use of the Independence Day address to give the direction of the course of the revolutionary state of Indonesia. The 1959 Independence Day speech was extraordinary because it became the basis of the ideology of the new regime. The Supreme Advisory Council (DPA), which was ironically chaired by the President himself, used this speech as the basis of what was to be known as the Political Manifesto, the Manipol.51 In line with a requirement of the 1945 Constitution, this document should also be understood as the “garis-garis besar haluan negara (GBHN, broad lines of the policy of the state), despite the fact — according to the constitution — that it should have been produced by the People’s Consultative Assembly. The Manipol is, as Roeslan emphasized, the official elucidation of the Presidential Decree of the 5th of July 1959. Actually it is no more than an attempt to systematize and summarize the Presidential Address on 17 August entitled “The Rediscovery of the Revolution”. Although without Sukarno’s highly rhetorical style, the document leaves the substance of the speech relatively intact. The document is, as it claims, “a systematic method which allows uniformity of interpretation’” of the speech. Sukarno was to repeat some of the main themes of the speech in his 1960 Presidential Address, which was entitled,” Like an angel strikes from the sky: the march of our Revolution”. In both speeches, Sukarno was very much obsessed with the idea of the Revolution and of the need for arousing the people’s consciousness of living and being part of the “a multi-complex revolution”, which is actually “a summing up of many revolutions in one

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generation”. “One year ago I said that …we should move fast, we must run like the obsessed, we must [be] dynamically revolutionary, we must, … extract every idea, all fighting energies, every creative energy…in order that the outcome of our Revolution can balance the dynamic[s] of social consciousness which surges in the breast of the society as a whole”.52 Like in his 1959 speech, Sukarno continued his attacks on Hatta’s idea on the need to “dam up the revolution”. “Those are the people,” he said, “who say in the midst of the journey the Revolution is over — while in fact the revolution is not yet concluded and still goes on, on, and again on. This is the Revolutionary logic: once we start off a revolution we must continue until all its ideals have been implemented. This constitutes the absolute Law of Revolution, which can be denied no longer, this can be debated no further! Therefore do not say ‘The Revolution is already over’, whilst the Revolution is on the march…”.53 On the basis of the Presidential Address of August 1959, the Political Manifesto is divided into five sections. The first states the principles, objectives and tasks of the Indonesian revolution (which is “congruent with the social conscience of man”). The second lists the social forces of the Indonesian Revolution, which are the 1945 Constitution, the fruits of thought, the armed forces, the territory, the confidence in the ability and tenacity of the people, and natural wealth. The third defines the character of the Indonesian Revolution(“anti imperialism and colonialism”). The fourth outlines the future of the Indonesian revolution (the formation of “the socialist society based on the Pancasila”). And the fifth names the enemies of the revolution (“the Hollandized groups, the reformist groups, conservative groups, contrarevolutionary groups, chameleon and the ‘hypocrite’54 groups”).55 With the issuance of the Presidential Decree number 2/1959, the Guided Democracy regime fulfilled another requirement of the constitution. The MPRS (Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat-Sementara — the Provisional People’s Consultative Assembly) was officially formed. Tasked to elect the President and to draft the Garis-garis Besar Haluan Negara (GBHN — Broad Outline of the State’s Policies), the MPR is constitutionally the highest political institution in the Republic. Consisting of all members of the DPR, the representatives of the functional groups, and that of the regions, the

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MPRS had its first sessions from 10 November to 7 December. One of the first decisions of the appointed MPRS was to endorse the President’s address, “The Rediscovery of our Revolution,” as the basis of the Political Manifesto. It also affirmed the position of the document as the GBHN. The MPRS confirmed the fact that the President was constitutionally the legitimate Mandataris or the Mandate Holder of the MPR,56 which could mean that the President was actually the personification of the people’s sovereignty. Finally, most likely at the request of the President himself, the MPRS designated Sukarno as the Great Leader of the Revolution. “Our democracy is not a battlefield of opponents,” Sukarno said in his Independence Day Address of 1960. ”Our democracy is nothing less than a search for synthesis, a search for an accumulation of ideas and energies.” This system of democracy naturally needs, as Sukarno also emphasizes in his “autobiography”57 a strong leadership. “Revolution needs leadership. Without it there is panic and fear.”58 But what should be the content of the revolutionary and democratic state? As Roeslan Abdoelgani reports in his writing, the President gave further explanation of his 17th of August 1959 speech in his address to the Youth Congress, held in Bandung in February 1960. The President said, according to Roeslan, If the youth throughout Indonesia are indeed going to implement Manipol truly then they must first understand and be convinced about the Constitution of our Revolution, namely the 1945 Constitution. And when we have already taken a firm stand on the 1945 Constitution, then the consequence is Indonesian Socialism, so that we must [be] pro Indonesian Socialism; further consequence of that is Guided Democracy, therefore we must be pro Guided Democracy and the consequence of that is Guided Economy, and all of these are the Indonesian Identity.59 The Manipol was the ideology of the revolution, which, being what it was, aimed at “retooling”, “destroying”, “rebuilding” and “herodening” (restructuring) everything. But this ideology and plan of action should be seen as the way to return to genuine “Indonesia Identity”. Constitutionally

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and institutionally, this identity consisted of five interrelated elements. There were namely the 1945 Constitution, Indonesian socialism, Guided Democracy, Guided Economy, and National Personality. With the Indonesian penchant for acronyms, these five elements were called USDEK60 (which are the first characters of the five elements). USDEK, as Roeslan argued, “is the essence of Manipol”. The five elements actually represented one single idea that was kepribadian nasional, national personality or identity. Since these elements would consistently express themselves in the continuing revolution, one can say that the whole ideological barrack of the Guided Democracy rested on two pillars — the kepribadian nasional and the Revolution as the “summary of many of revolutions in one generation” or “the multi-complex revolution”. By the end of 1960, the Guided Democracy had not only consolidated its power, it had also made itself the holder of the hegemony of political discourse and meaning. The state had practically controlled the meaning of any ideological or political terms. Ideological competitions might still be there, but in the final analysis, it was the word of the Great Leader of the Revolution that really mattered. Under this sphere of hegemonic discourse, one could never be certain what the others had been thinking. Without exaggerating much, one could say that gradually the unified nation had almost become populated by people who were strangers to each other. In the process, new seeds of national disintegration could had been planted and new sources of social conflict could had been inadvertently created, but the dominant position of the President as the great definer of reality could have somewhat concealed these sources of social and political disintegration. Under the Great Leader of the Revolution, who had by then also called himself the Penyambung Lidah Rakyat, Mouthpiece of the People, the country was ready to embark on its revolutionary course. It took some time before the Guided Democracy reached this stage of political hegemony. In the beginning, the regime had to face the opposition of the members of the elected parliament. The dissolution of the elected parliament and the formation of the appointed one created a political uproar. Soon enough several leaders of the Masyumi, NU, Catholic Party, Protestant Party, PSI, and the IPKI (Ikatan Pendukung Kemerdekaan

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Indonesia, Association of the Upholders of Indonesian Independence61 ), and other non-communist parties, formed the Liga Demokrasi, the Democratic League, which, as many contemporary observers said, can also be seen as the anti-Communist league. The main objectives of the league were to reject the legality of the dissolution of the elected parliament and to demand the preservation of the parliamentary system. Sukarno, who had become more aware than ever of the strength of his political clout, utterly ignored them. After announcing the names of the new members of the DPR-GR, he went abroad to meet the other leaders of the non-bloc countries. In the meantime, the Democratic League continued its campaign against Sukarno’s policies. Since it was widely believed that some important commanders of the army were sympathetic to the league, rumours of a coup began to be circulated in Jakarta. In the meantime, the PKI did not observe the situation idly. The communist youths, as recorded by Jones, “waving posters and shouting support for Sukarno and the new Parliament, stormed into the meeting of the Democratic League on 15 May and broke it up”. Learning about the continuing activities of the league, Sukarno lambasted its members as newcomers who did not understand the people’s suffering. He charged them with being sympathetic towards the rebels. He accused them of “trampling democracy underfoot”.62 It was at the height of the controversy and when the rumour of a forthcoming coup d’état was still very much in the air, that the Dutch government announced its plan for the reinforcement of West Irian. Suddenly the whole political attention of both the government and the political public shifted to the West Irian problem. Democracy had to make way to statesponsored nationalism. The Dutch had unintentionally given ammunition to the leftist press to attack Sukarno’s opponents as being anti-nationalist and to accuse them of furthering Dutch aims. Sukarno was, as a political leader commented at that time, “a lucky man”. The hatred for the Dutch of the politically conscious public might be proverbial to Sukarno, but the announcement of the reinforcement for the defence against its occupation had released Sukarno from his domestic problems. “I am the Chief Executive and no longer just a symbolic head of state”, Sukarno announced on his return from abroad on 10 June. Two weeks later

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(25 June 1960), by totally ignoring the Democratic League’s call for the restoration of democratic norms, he officially installed the new parliament, the DPR-GR. The President also appointed a new Speaker of the DPR-GR, after the then Speaker of the elected, but now defunct, Parliament, Sartono — Sukarno’s long-time comrade-in-arms in the national struggle for independence, refused to comply with the new system. So that was what happened — another breach of parliamentary rights had been committed. President Sukarno, however, did not reshuffle the cabinet, as many had expected, most likely due to the opposition of the military. But of course, he continued his attack on the people, who, according to him, could not liberate themselves from their “communist-phobia”. He was determined to clear the political sphere of all of non-progressive elements. There was a time, during the parliamentary democratic period, when Sukarno — as he told his audience — might have dreamed about the willingness of all leaders of the political parties to “bury their parties”. Now in the period of the Guided Democracy, he had the power to make the dream a reality. He had the possibility to clean up whatever he thought to be a menace to the revolutionary democratic system. On 15 April 1961, the President issued a decree that gave eight “progressive parties” the right to exist. They were namely the PNI, PKI, Catholic Party, Parkindo (Partai Kristen Indonesia — Protestant Party), IPKI, Murba and the newly founded leftist-nationalist party, Partindo (Partai Indonesia).63 The requests of the former Masyumi and the PSI leaders to form new parties were rejected. The eight parties constituted the core of the Nasakom (Nationalis, Agama, Komunis or Nationalist, Religious, Communist groups), the political and the ideological cornerstones of the Guided Democracy. In historical hindsight, the “June 25 affair” — the time when Sukarno formed the new parliament, the DPR-GR, replacing the elected one — may well be seen as the beginning of the long history of parliamentary subservience to the executive branch. The Democratic League was finally banned. Its efforts might have been forgotten, but its very short career shows the courage of its leaders to expose the ideological flaws of the Guided Democracy. Its attempts also demonstrated the strengthening political alignment between Sukarno and the PKI. The failure of the

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Democratic League, however, revealed the fact that whatever ideological flaws the regime of the Guided Democracy might have had, the new regime had already made itself the master of political discourse. The notion of being in “a multi-complex revolution” and the urgent need of returning to the authentic “national personality” as the basic foundations of ideological orthodoxy could indeed be easily manipulated to reject any alleged distortions. Everything could be returned to the double-edged notions of both the revolution and the “national personality”. Under the aegis of these twin ideas, “musyawarah” and “mufakat” could also be enforced. Centralization of the leadership could be ideologically maintained. Even the lack of freedom of the press, despite the Manipol’s glorification of the “four freedoms” (of speech and religion; from fear and want), could be defended. In 1961, the government announced that all civil servants should follow the indoctrination programme and both the matriculating and graduating university students were obliged to take special courses on the ManipolUSDEK. The ideological twins, “revolution” and “national personality”, which were popularized by the teachings of the Manipol-USDEK, and politically supported by the idea of Nasakom, became the foundation of the indoctrination courses throughout the country. The source of the indoctrination kept enlarging as the President continued to make speeches. But then not only was the international stature of Sukarno as a world leader growing; internal security was also improving — despite several attempts on Sukarno’s life.64 By the beginning of 1962, the rebellions of the PRRI/ Permesta were practically over. Their leaders “returned to the fold of the Republic”. Several hundreds lost their lives during the PRRI/Permesta65 affair. The rebellion that invited “secret” foreign intervention66 became an important factor that shaped Guided Democracy’s foreign policy. In 1962, Kartosuwirjo, the leader of the Darul Islam and the head of the so-called Negara Islam Indonesia (Islamic Indonesian State), was captured. With this success the DI ceased to be a major security problem. The West Irian issue was beginning to be settled. The conflict over West Irian that been escalated with the break of diplomatic relations with the Dutch (1960) and scattered skirmishes in East Indonesian waters were officially terminated in August

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1962. For the first time since the Round Table Conference (1949) Indonesia could hope for the eventual inclusion of West Irian in the legitimate territory of the Republic. In the same year, Jakarta successfully hosted the Asian Games at the newly constructed sport complex, financed by the Japanese war repatriation. The Asian Games of Jakarta is well remembered as the only occasion when the Indonesian athletes could rate themselves among the best in Asia. The Indonesian team came second, below Japan. Never since would an Indonesian team ever reach such a high standard of performance. The Asian Games, however, is also well remembered as the occasion when the close friendship between India and Indonesia was seriously tested. The Indian representative in the Asian Games committee strongly criticized the failure of Indonesia to invite Israel and Taiwan — to the extent of calling the games illegitimate. Sport and politics could apparently not be separated. The international body of sports censured Indonesia, but the Asian Games could still be called as claimed. Indonesia’s international reputation, nevertheless, began to be blemished. The theatrical withdrawal of Indonesia from the Olympic Games, in Tokyo in 1964 only made the situation worse. The year 1962 may well be the best year for the Guided Democracy. Sukarno was at the zenith of his power. In domestic politics, as many observers had noticed, he managed to balance the unsaid, but blatantly obvious to the political public, competition between the army and the PKI. By elevating Nasution to the powerless position of Chief-of-Staff of Armed Forces, though keeping him as the Minister of Defence, Sukarno had politically weakened Nasution, whom he now saw as his competitor for power. At the same time, he could also hope to lessen the PKI’s animosity towards the army. In May 1963, martial law was abolished. The military no longer had a free hand to deal with political matters. The political parties could have a bigger share in the decision-making process — at least on paper. Many people expected that, from then on, the revolutionary government would give more attention to the economic plight of the people. But unfortunately, they were bound to be disappointed. The revolution could not be simply “dammed up” just because some problems had been

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solved. Soon enough, Indonesia was involved in the anti-Malaysia campaign. Apparently the revolution should continue, the neo-colonialist forces were still around to threaten Indonesia. The “crush-Malaysia” campaign, better known as the period of konfrontasi, was to reach its climax in 1965, but 1962 and 1963 were the years of hope. And who would blame Sukarno if in his Independence Day Addresses in those two years he challenged all the “doubters”, the “anti-revolutionaries” and the anti-Nasakom? In 1961, when the brighter future of the Guided Democracy seemed to be in the air, President Sukarno symbolically announced the beginning of the “eight years [sic] plan”. The plan was prepared by the National Planning Council, chaired by Mohammad Yamin, the Deputy First Minister in charge of Special Cases/Minister of Information. The ultimate objective of the Eight-Year Overall Development Plan (Rencana Pembangunan Nasional Semesta Delapan tahun) was the creation of an Indonesian socialist society, based on the harmonious blend of socialism with “Indonesian elements of social justice and national identity as expressed by gotong royong and the family system”. The plan consisted of seventeen volumes, divided into eight books, comprising 1,945 paragraphs — a symbolic arrangement that linked the document to the date of the proclamation of independence (17-8-1945). Actually the 5,000page long plan provided for two categories. Plan A consisted of the projects that would promote the welfare of the people, economically, mentally, and spiritually. Plan B consisted of the projects that were expected to finance Plan A. In spite of all the fanfare at the beginning of the plan (1961), in December 1964, it was disclosed that out of the 335 projects in Plan A only 200 had been or were being implemented. But not even one of the B-projects had been realized.67 In 1963 the government issued the Economic Declaration (Deklarasi Ekonomi, better known by its acronym, Dekon). It was initially expected to become the economic counterpart to the political Manipol-USDEK. The Dekon, was however, a thoroughly compromised document. Although foreshadowing some important economic reforms, such as the need for investment, the strengthening of international economic relations, the necessity to define the scope of activities of the three main segments of the

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national economy (the private sector, the co-operative sector, and the state sector), and other related matters, the Dekon emphasized the idea that “the Indonesian socialist economy “could be achieved only after the destruction of feudalism and imperialism abroad as well as within the country. In the meantime, the economic situation still showed no signs of improvement. Double-digit inflation no longer made news, it had become a fact of life from which no one could escape. Several political and economic events, such as the preparation for military campaigns, the hosting of the Asian Games (which needed a huge sport complex), and the declining productivity, had not only resulted in rampant inflation, but also in the worsening of people’s welfare. The tendency of the state-centred economy to over-regulate had practically frustrated private entrepreneurs. The system, however, provided fertile ground for corruption and graft.68 In his address to the MPRS, Sukarno admitted that the efforts to settle the unfinished political objectives of the state, such as the liberation of West Irian, had caused the government to subordinate economic well-being to political objectives. But this was characteristic of the Indonesian virtue, he explained, “of putting first thing first”. The attempt of the First Minister, Djuanda, to somewhat liberalize the economy (with the May Regulations of 1963) soon became the target of attack by the leftists. His sudden death (November 1963) meant the end of the regulations. Whatever the case might be, there was always an ideological argument for everything. The government explained “the country can afford to deliberately neglect its wealth because it is concentrated on the nationbuilding”. In April 1964, Sukarno, who had since 1962 divided the world into the “Nefos” (New Emerging Forces) and the “Oldefos” (Old Established Forces), announced a “complete reversal of economic strategy to self-reliance” or banting stir untuk berdiri di atas kaki sendiri or Berdikari for short. Since then this acronym, Berdikari, too became a national slogan. It was also on the basis of this revolutionary ideological pretext, that President Sukarno made one of his political mistakes — that is, announcing the withdrawal of Indonesia from the UN membership, as a protest against the election of Malaysia as a non-permanent member of the Security Council (1965). By this announcement Indonesia simply increased its isolation from the world community.

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Slogans, symbols, and myths had become part of the realities of the Guided Democracy. The boundaries between empirical and made-up realities had become blurred. Whatever the President had done or whatever policy the government had introduced should be conceived as telling these two realities — the empirical and the symbolic ones. The stadium was a stadium, but at the same time, it was also a symbol of Indonesia’s determination to excel in the world of sports. Likewise, the new hotel was indeed a hotel, like any other hotel, but it was also a symbol of Indonesia’s hospitality. “Revolution” and “National Personality” or “National Identity” were the key words in ideological parlance. Names of streets, movie houses, and restaurants should reflect national identity. That was the beginning of the period when the names of national and local heroes were used to rename the streets. Almost every town had its own Diponegoro or Tuanku Imam Bonjol streets. They and other heroes symbolized the heroic struggle against colonialism. A street might also be renamed after the death of a respected leader who happened to live on that street. Beautiful movie stars of Eurasian descent willingly changed their names to more Indonesian-sounding names and the President himself might suggest new names for them. Music that was thought to have affronted the national dignity and sense of serenity was forbidden. Members of a youth rock band were put to jail for their recalcitrant behaviour of continuing to play rock ’n roll music — the Nekolim music genre. The students who were sent abroad were not only the persons who went to study in the foreign countries, but also the “nation’s ambassadors”. Everything was carried out as if they were part of the military operations. The radicalization of the West Irian campaign began after the President issued the “three people’s commands”, and the konfrontasi (anti-Malaysia campaign) was started with the “two people’s commands”. The effort to rehabilitate the economy was put under the supervision of the Kotoe (Komando Tinggi Operasi Ekonomi — High Command of Economic Operation). Every time Sukarno was about to give his speech, somebody would come forward, informing the President that they were ready to carry out whatever “command” the Great Leader of the Revolution would give. It had become a ritual. However, like any other ritual, asking for the President’s “command” also gradually became a routine matter. When

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finally in its session of 1963, the MPRS, under the chairmanship of Chaerul Saleh, who was also a cabinet minister, decided to appoint Sukarno as “the President for Life”, people just accepted it without protest.69 It was simply treated as a routine matter, though it had in effect made Sukarno the personification of the already defined national ideology. Sukarno, the son of a schoolteacher, became in effect, a monarch in a Republican state. In the meantime, an almost “genuine” mutual-help (gotong royong) cabinet was already in existence. All chiefs of staff of the armed forces, the attorney general, the chairman and vice-chairmen of the MPRS and Speaker and vice-speakers of the DPR-GR, the vice chairman of the DPA and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court had become the members of the cabinet. The head of the cabinet was naturally the President, the Mandate Holder of the MPRS, who was also, according to the Constitution, the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. The notion of the separation of power had been totally abandoned, either in theory or in practice. The Guided Democracy only recognized the idea of the division of power, but not the separation of power. Since D.N. Aidit, the Secretary General of the PKI, was one of the Vice-Chairmen of the MPRS, and Nyoto, a member of the Politburo, was one of the Vice-Speakers of the DPR-GR, they naturally became members of the cabinet. Although the PKI leaders were members of the cabinet without portfolio, Sukarno had found ways to have a “four legged cabinet”, albeit a pseudo one. With this structure, one may wonder where the centre of power resided. How was decision to be made if all members of the political elite had to sit around the same “family table”? How should the socalled musyawarah be conducted, and how could it be expected to result in mufakat if the representatives of all revolutionary forces, who not only might have different perspectives, but also divergent constitutional functions, had to deliberate strategic or trivial matters together? Voting was after all a “liberal practice” that had to be avoided. But, then, was it not Sukarno who never forgot to emphasize the importance of a strong leadership? The beauty of the principle of the Guided Democracy can perhaps be seen in the role played by the leader. He leads, yet at the same time, he can be expected to give the final conclusion of the deliberation process. A tragedy of the Guided Democracy may lie in the fact that President Sukarno of the late

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1960s remained the ardent supporter of Sukarno, the rising star in the nationalist movement in the late 1920s.70 Furthermore, the principle of Nasakom should be materialized and institutionalized at all levels of the administration. The governor and the bupati (the district head) should have their respective local consultative bodies, which consisted of the Nasakom elements. The consultative body was part of the local administration. Regardless of the fact that the number of followers of each strand might greatly differ from one region to another, the Nasakom principle should always be expressed in the formal elite composition. Like the structure in the old days, when the palace was conceptually imagined as the centre of the universe, the local power structure should also be the replica of the structure in the centre. Later when the crisis hit the Guided Democracy, this system not only failed to function, it intensified the crisis even further. The system became the target of hatred and revenge. The logic of the revolution as President Sukarno never forgot to emphasize was to consistently pursue the still unknown territories. Revolution means to “destroy, to reconstruct, to retool, to renew”. Sukarno rejected Hatta’s opinion on the need to “dam up revolution”, but he did actually confirm Hatta’s reasoning that the revolution was actually a sphere where “Umwertung aller Werte” — the revaluation of all values, took place. That was the time when the value and merit of everything were politically uncertain, except those that had been glorified as part of the revolutionary social and political components.

Indonesia and the Divided World It was in 1956 that Sukarno went to Germany, to Europe for the first time. He went to Europe after completing a successful trip to the United States, where he lauded the legacies of George Washington, the democratic ideals of Thomas Jefferson, and the noble heritage of Abraham Lincoln. After all as he stated the moment he arrived in the United States, America was for him, not only a country, but also “a state of mind and a centre of an idea”. In Germany he was invited to give a talk at the old university of Heidelberg. As could be expected from a man with such erudition, Sukarno would

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certainly not give his speech without making references to the beautiful Rhine and naturally to the intellectual debt he owed to German thinkers and authors — such as Goethe and Schiller. He, like some other Westerneducated nationalist leaders of pre-war Indonesia, did not forget to recite German poetry. He quoted a couplet of a beautiful poem of Schiller, “Wir wollen sein einig Volk von Brüdern”. He talked about freedom, democracy, and other noble ideas, but at the beginning of the speech, he eulogized the beauty of his country, Indonesia, saying it was “like a string of pearls in the equator”. He might have forgotten it or just simply ignored the fact that this was Multatuli’s expression in his praise of the Dutch colony in the East. Sukarno reminded his audience that it was the attraction of the Spice Islands that had driven Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese explorer, to venture gallantly into the still unknown route in the search for the way to the East. He also boasted about the natural richness of his country that tempted the Europeans to colonize and exploit it. It took many years of struggle for the Indonesians to recapture its lost independence but the struggle still had a long way to go.71 Praising the beauty of the countries he visited can be said to be a personal trademark of Sukarno. He also never failed to mention how much he owed the countries he visited, intellectually. Finally he would usually end up with his famous theatrical sigh, “but no country is more beautiful than Indonesia”. Sukarno was not alone in his praise of the beauty and the natural richness of Indonesia. Practically every pergerakan leader never forgot to remind the people about the blessing of God on their beloved tanah air, homeland. The rich and the beautiful tanah air also happened to be strategically located — between two big oceans and two continents. The population of this biggest archipelagic state on earth could also be proud of their inherited high civilization — the past glory of the great empires, the long distance trade since the earliest historic time, the major religions, splendid monuments. How many poems and songs had been composed to eulogize this beautiful country? But then it was Sukarno who never forgot to repeat over and over again what he considered to be an historical fact that Indonesia had been for centuries — since the penetration of Western capitalism and imperialism — regarded as “the nation of coolies and the

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coolie among nations”. History should not be repeated. History should move on to capture “the bright and promising future” (as he said in his classic defence speech). The question then was how to safeguard the independence of the country and to enhance the dignity of the nation and the people. Self-respect as a nation should remain the cornerstone in facing the outside world. Indonesia was entering the second month of its existence as the proclaimed independent state when it began to design its foreign policy. How should this newly established state position itself in the new political constellation of the world? The October Maklumat signed by Vice-President Hatta was the earliest political statement that clearly stated the commitment of the newly established Republic to respect international law and to safeguard foreign properties. One aspect of the debate between “perjuangan” and “diplomasi” dealt with the question about the proper attitude towards the changing world after the end of the Second World War. Although the leaders of the revolution realized that each struggling former colonized country had its own distinctive problems, they realized the importance for Indonesia to seal solidarity and friendship with the other ex-colonies. Indonesia should never isolate itself from the rest of Asia. At the Asian Relation Conference, held in New Delhi (23 March–2 April 1947), Prime Minister Sjahrir emphasized this theme again, but added the higher idea the still struggling Indonesia was aiming at. “I am of the opinion,” he said, “what has impelled the nations of Asia to struggle for independence is not only based on truth but also in keeping with the dictates of humanity.”72 In another Asian Conference, again held in New Delhi (1948), in support of the Indonesian struggle for independence — when the Dutch launched its first major aggression into the Republican territory — the Indonesian delegation emphasized again the importance of Asian solidarity. During his time as the Prime Minister cum Foreign Minister, Sjahrir made a clearer stand on the foreign policy of the struggling nation. He made the position of Indonesia clear when the Dutch–Indonesia conflict had come under the supervision of the UN’s Commission of Good Offices, and the Indonesian Leftist group had begun to establish closer relations with the Russian bloc. In his speech, entitled Mendayung antara dua karang (“Sailing between two cliffs”), to the KNIP, the Republican legislative body,

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on 2 September 1948, Prime Minister/Vice-President Hatta began by asking a question, “Have the Indonesian people fighting for their freedom no other course of action open to them than to choose between being pro-Russia or pro-America?” Hatta refused to choose either of them. He instead put forward an independent policy, in which Indonesia “should not be a passive party in the area of international politics but that it should be an active agent entitled to decide its own standpoint”. Naturally the policy to be pursued “must be resolved in the light of its interest”, the interest of the Indonesian state. “The lines of Indonesia’s policy cannot be determined by the bent of the policy of some other country which has its own interest to service”, Hatta concluded.73 The “independent and active” (bebas dan aktif) principle that was designed during the national revolution was also taken as the fundamental political guideline after Indonesia gained the recognition of its sovereignty, despite the fact that West Irian had become the main focus of its foreign policy. A slight misstep in interpreting this basic stand could result in the cabinet crisis. This was what happened when Achmad Soebardjo, the Foreign Minister in the Sukiman cabinet (the second cabinet after the return to the Unitary State of Republic of Indonesia) signed not only the Americansponsored peace agreement with Japan, but also the Mutual Security Act (1952).74 In spite of the possible benefits that might come to Indonesia, by signing the MSA, the opposition parties could simply accuse the government of having transgressed the political taboo. The cabinet lost its credentials in the parliament. The “orthodoxy of foreign policy” should be safeguarded at all costs. The orthodoxy, however, as Prime Minister Ali Sastroamidjojo (1954), who was the first Indonesian Ambassador to Washington, D.C., seems to believe, should also be based on the confidence that Indonesia, and indeed Asia, as a whole, had changed. The expressions of “Storm over Asia” and “the Awakening of Asia” must have made him more aware of the importance of Asia. The mid-1950s was also the time when Red China had emerged as a strong country. Its intervention in the Korean War was proof that this country was ready to face what their leaders thought to be the unfriendly powers. It was, however, also the time when the People’s Republic of China gradually began to change its belligerent posture. In the meantime, Ho Chi Minh had already threatened the French protected South Vietnam.

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It was during this period, from 28 April–2 May 1954, at the initiative of the Indian Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, that a conference of five heads of government, namely, India, Sri Langka, Pakistan, Burma, and Indonesia, was held in Colombo. Ali Sastromidjojo had found a forum where he could present his ideas. In this meeting he brought forth the idea of holding an Asian-African Conference to be hosted by Indonesia. The aims of the conference, as he put it, were to relax the Cold War and to serve as a rallying point for the continuing struggles of Asia and Africa. No definitive decision was made, but Ali continued his work among the four leaders. The moment the highly respected Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru changed his rather sceptical view of the prospect of the conference, Ali knew he had already received an important support. At the invitation of the Indonesian Prime Minister, the four Asian heads of government finally agreed to go to Bogor in West Java. In the Bogor meeting they succeeded in drafting the tentative agenda and making a list of prospective participants. The Asian-African Conference was a great success. Officially opened on 18 April 1955, the AA Conference was held in Bandung. Thirty Asian and African states sent their delegations. 75 It was the first time Indonesia had the honour to host an international conference that had from the beginning already been predicted to be an historic occasion. That was also for the first time Soekarno had the opportunity to address such a big international gathering. “Let this Asian-African Conference be a great success!” Sukarno extolled. Make the ‘Live and let live’ principle and ‘Unity and Diversity’ motto the unifying force which brings us all together — to seek in friendly, uninhabited discussion, ways and means by which each of us can live his own life, and let others their own lives, in harmony, and in peace. If we succeed in doing so, the effect of it for freedom, independence and the welfare of man will be great on the world at large. The Light of Understanding has again been lit, the Pillar of Cooperation again erected. The likelihood of success of this Conference is proved already by the very presence of you all here

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today. It is for us to give its strength, to give it the power of inspiration to spread its message all over the world.76 In his speech, Sukarno attacked colonialism that was still “not yet dead”. Sukarno might later forget the above quoted lofty idea, but he always remembered the fact that colonialism and its new form, neocolonialism remained a threat to contain. The 10 Principles (human rights, territorial integrity, no intervention, the right to defend one’s self, etc.) produced by the AA Conference can still be considered the ideas worth defending. Since then, many political pundits perceived the AA conference as the beginning of a new area for the two continents, despite the fact that some countries were at that time still under colonial rule. The success of the AA Conference in Bandung was certainly a great political boost for the Ali Sastroamidjojo cabinet in domestic politics.77 At the same time, by looking at the Ten Principles, the success of the AA Conference, can also be seen as “a realization of her independent and active foreign policy in its purest form”.78 Whatever the case, the AA Conference remains until the present a moment to be cherished, because that was the time when Indonesia could finally be proud of seeing itself not simply as a country on the geographical map. That was the first time Indonesia showed its leadership on the world stage. In short, the AA directly made its contribution to the process of nation-building. In an array of different types of AA conferences that soon followed — AA solidarity conference, AA journalists, AA Islamic, AA youths, or various other AA conferences — the AA “ten principles” remained the guiding principles for deliberating the more specialized and limited concerns. The desire to ease world tension was unchanged, but for Indonesia, there was still no breakthrough in the West Irian problem. In the meantime, domestic politics had undergone a process of radicalization as time went by. The leftist trade unions, the special members of the PKI, began to take action by occupying Dutch enterprises. The government finally decided to cut diplomatic relations with the Netherlands. Then it was disclosed that America’s CIA had been secretly giving its support to the local rebellious officers. That was the time when Sukarno, already on the verge of taking

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the country to “return to the 1945 Constitution”, intensified his campaign against colonialism and imperialism. Undoubtedly his visit to the People’s Republic of China, where he received such a warm welcome — now that the problems of “dual nationality “that had for sometime influenced the relationship of the countries had been settled — helped Sukarno see how an Asian country could emerge as a strong state. He became more convinced than ever that the time had come for Indonesia to play a far more active role in world politics. Still, the West Irian dispute should be settled once and for all. With the establishment of the Guided Democracy and the dissolution of the parliament, Sukarno had a relatively free hand to begin the military build-up. The increasingly cool relations with the Western powers did not bother him, because in the meantime, the Soviet Union had offered Indonesia a loan to purchase all the weaponry that might be needed by the military. It was a loan “on commercial basis”, Nikita Khruschev, the Russian Premier, said. The Dutch diplomatic initiative in announcing its plan for the rapid process of the “decolonization” of West New Guinea (the West Irian) only intensified the conflict even further. This announcement could mean nothing but a plan for the total and permanent separation from the rest of Indonesia. This rapid radicalization of the politics of confrontation against the Dutch rule in West Irian invited the involvement of the UN and the United States, with its newly elected president, John F. Kennedy. It was not really “diplomacy” and “struggle” again on play. By that time, Indonesia had already determined to carry out its “revolutionary diplomacy” — that is “diplomacy as an instrument of revolution”.79 But an agreement was finally reached. West Irian would be put temporarily under the UN’s supervision and then under Indonesian jurisdiction until finally in 1969, the people of West Irian would determine their own future. It was a victory for Sukarno.80 His serious war preparations as well as bluff had paid off. “This is the victory of History”, Sukarno said in his Independence Address of 1962. ”Every struggle against colonialism will end with the victory of those who fight for freedom, because History has always shown that those who fight for freedom will win”. It might have cost Indonesia a heavy debt to Russia and other countries in the Communist

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bloc for purchasing weaponry, but for the first time, the “reunification” of Indonesia was no longer something to fight for, but something to be defended and safeguarded. In the meantime, Sukarno had become more convinced than ever that the struggle of a nation in revolution should never be confined only in its own territory. The world should also be the stage of the struggle. Sukarno began to pay attention to the role he had begun to enjoy immensely since his speech at the UN General Council in 1960. To the members of the UN, the speech might have been only one of those daring speeches of the leaders of the former colonized countries, which occasionally illuminated its annual General Session, but to Indonesia, it was an event worth remembering. Sukarno not only talked about the importance of maintaining world peace, the continuing threat of colonialism and imperialism in their new coats, etc., but also chided the world famous British philosopher, Bertrand Russel, for saying the world was divided into blocs, the democratic West and Communist East. “Sorry Lord Russel”, there was the third way of life. Then Sukarno gave a long lecture on Pancasila and promoted it as the best foundation for the new world.81 At the end of his speech, Sukarno acted as the spokesman for five non-aligned countries (India, United Republic of Arab, Ghana, Yugoslavia, and Indonesia) and urged the leaders of the two major powers, the US and the USSR, to conduct dialogue in order to ease world tension. Sukarno had emerged as a leader on the world stage — a role he cherished until the last minutes of the Guided Democracy. The active participation of Indonesia in the Conference of the NonAligned Countries in Belgrade (September 1961) may still be seen as a commitment to the principle of “independent and active” foreign policy, but at the same time, it was also the beginning of a new departure. Unlike most Asian leaders, notably that of India, Sukarno had already radicalized his stand on his opposition to colonialism and imperialism. He saw these forces as the sources of all injustices in the world. Sukarno no longer saw the world as one that was divided by ideologies, continents, or civilizations. It was a world that was divided by the divergent attitudes toward colonialism and imperialism.82 Although this new way of looking at the world was not widely accepted, Sukarno had entered a new phase of his career as a leader

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on the world stage. Washington and Moscow might have been disenchanted with the Belgrade conference, but for Sukarno it was not only a political advantage for his newly designed “politics of confrontation” against the Dutch over the territory of West Irian, it was also a boost to his international standing. The Belgrade conference might not really be a turning point for anything significant, but it had certainly radicalized Sukarno’s politics of confrontation even further. The consensus that had been reached between the radical and the moderate non-aligned states did not satisfy him. The settlement of West Irian had apparently convinced him that colonialism and imperialism could not be dealt with using nice words and subtle diplomacy only. Militancy should then be an ingredient of the “revolutionary diplomacy”. In the meantime, the relationship between Indonesia and China had become closer just as its relationship with India became cooler. His reputation as a leader of the oppressed people among the new African states and some Arab countries was also rising — this was the reputation that died hard no matter what fate might befall Sukarno.83 He began to introduce to the Indonesian political public a new concept against which they and the rest of the still oppressive peoples in the world should fight. They had to fight against capitalism because this economic system actually meant nothing less than “l’exploitation de l’homme par l’homme” (The exploitation of human being by human being). This might well be a new lesson in French expressions for his nation, but as Sukarno saw it, this economic system was definitely the source of social and political ills that were raging around the world. Sukarno gradually began to see the world as consisting of two antagonistic forces, the Old Established Forces and the New Emerging Forces. In the beginning of 1963, he already made a clearer demarcation line between the two forces: Those who want to lead a life in which all nations enjoy independence and people are free from exploitation and oppression, i.e. the group known as ‘ the new emerging forces’ … those nations or persons who want to preserve the evil state of the past, to continue the practice of colonial domination and oppression… the ‘old established forces’.84

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The test for the thesis came when the Prime Minister of the Federation of Malaya, Tuanku Abdul Rahman, announced the plan for the creation of Malaysia, which would consist of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore, and the three British colonies in North Borneo. The initial reaction of Indonesia to this plan was quite positive. In November 1961, Foreign Minister Subandrio (1914–2004) stated in the UN that Indonesia had no objection to the formation of the new federal state and “that we wished the success with this merger so that everyone might live in peace and freedom.”85 By the beginning of 1963, this position, however, had changed. Suddenly Sukarno felt that the formation of Malaysia was a British ploy to encircle Indonesia. This change of policy undoubtedly raised a number of speculations. Did Sukarno really believe in his theory that the project of the formation of Malaysia was a way to encircle Indonesia? Foreign, as well as domestic, cynics simply argued that the opposition to the formation of Malaysia was Sukarno’s way to shift people’s attention from their economic plight. Now that the West Irian issue had been settled, he needed another target for the people’s hatred. The credibility of this assumption, however, had its limitation. One should never forget the fact that Sukarno was a master of the politics of avoidance. He could easily find ways to evade the problems he could not solve. Surely there were a number of much less dangerous options he could have taken to avoid this domestic economic plight. Perhaps Sukarno’s well-known obsession with the greatness of Indonesia had a role to play in his opposition to the formation of Malaysia. Some foreign scholars, who had studied Sukarno’s speeches, accused him of trying to fulfill his “Indonesia Raya” dream, as stated in his speech in the BPUPKI meeting in 1945. In this speech, he visualized the proposed Indonesian State to consist of the former Netherlands Indies plus the whole of the Malay Peninsula, Kalimantan/Borneo and Portuguese Timor. Sukarno, however, must have been aware of the big difference between the dream and hard reality. When he visualized the territorial Indonesia Raya, he, like many other Indonesian founding fathers, believed that the Japanese occupying authorities would eventually grant national independence on a silver platter. Now that he had learned the hard reality of the international politics that had to be faced by an independent state. Another factor that

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was widely offered was the influence of the PKI. The Central Committee of the PKI had issued a statement that charged Malaysia as being a form of neo-colonialism. This statement can certainly not be taken too lightly. However Sukarno still had to consider the opinion of the military. Finally the eruption of the rebellion in Brunei might also have played a role in changing his opinion about the formation of Malaysia. It was only after the outbreak of the rebellion that the Indonesian Government began to show signs that it opposed the plan. In the meantime, President Macapagal of the Philippines began to claim Sabah as the rightful territory of the Sultanate of Sulu, which was already a part of the Philippines. In short, Sukarno’s understanding of world affairs and his image of the place of Indonesia in the bipolar world — the colonialist and imperialist forces against the emerging independent states — was apparently the major reason for his decision to oppose the formation of Malaysia. The politics of konfrontasi had a short career — it lasted only three years — but it has a very long, varied, and confusing history. There is the diplomatic history — a hopeful, albeit romantic one, of the three heads of government, Sukarno, Macapagal, and Tuanku Abdul Rahman, enjoying the “Manila spirit” when they were contemplating the formation of a loose federation of the three states belonging to the Malay race. The Maphilindo was certainly a romantic prospect but it soon proved to be far from a well thought out idea. While Indonesia never believed in any military alliances, the Philippines was an important member of the SEATO (Southeast Asian Treaty Organization) and Malaya was a member of ANZUS (Australian, New Zealand, United States Treaty). It had a military base in Malaysia. Then, there is the history of a secret war, when the Indonesian “volunteers” gave military support to North Kalimantan rebels86 or infiltrated the coasts of Malaya and Singapore. There is also the history of the possibility of undertaking the most hated policy during the revolution that was “divide and rule”, when Malaysia and Singapore parted ways. On the whole, however, the politics of konfrontasi caused a lot of damage to Indonesia, politically and economically. Officially, Indonesia’s Guided Democracy really believed that Malaysia was a neo-colonialist project, which was aimed at weakening the revolutionary élan of Indonesia, as a bastion of the New Emerging Forces.

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The Malaysia project in Sukarno’s eyes was nothing but a policy to preserve imperialist and neo-colonialist influences in Southeast Asia. As the official statement of Indonesia’s Department of Foreign Affairs put it: The forces of colonialism, imperialism, and neo-colonialism have been inflicting many sufferings upon the people of the whole region. And now the neo-colonialists of ‘Malaysia’ has brought a situation that threatens to erupt at anytime into a conflict of much greater proportions, the fore-runner of a world conflagration.87 In the meantime, the domestic political situation had also been radicalized. The agrarian conflict had begun to erupt in East Sumatra, Central, and East Java. The era of konfrontasi might give the opportunity to the government to eliminate the economic and fiscal domination of Singapore in the Riau islands, but the people had to pay the economic price dearly. In the meantime, the PKI and its affiliates intensified their anti-West campaign. The leftist cultural organizations took the lead in sabotaging American movies. These movies were accused of not only bringing moral degradation, but also reducing the militancy of the revolutionary spirit. That was the time when Indonesian movie-goers were taught to enjoy Russian movies. At the peak of the anti Malaysia campaign in 1964, the leftist mobs burned the embassy of the United Kingdom. Was it not Great Britain that continued its efforts to maintain colonial supremacy in the region by masterminding the formation of Malaysia? On the international scene, the “promising days” of 1962–63 were anything but over for Indonesia. Sukarno found out that the Second NonAligned Conference in Cairo (September 1964) was simply not interested in the politics of confrontation. The decline of the influence of the Non-Aligned nations had begun. Whatever the case, the official formation of Malaysia was announced on 30 September in accordance with the original plan. The reputation of Indonesia, the self-proclaimed champion of freedom and world peace, was further blemished with the vindicated accusation of the Malaysian delegates of the armed infiltration of Indonesian military personnel onto Malaysian soil. After a long debate, in which Indonesia was

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saved by the threat of the Soviet Union’s veto, the Security Council finally censured Indonesia.88 Soon after learning about the high possibility of Malaysia being elected as a non-permanent member of the Security Council, Sukarno threatened that if that really happened, Indonesia would withdraw from the United Nations. Malaysia was elected. Indonesia, the country that felt very honoured to become the 60th member of the international body in 1950, withdrew from the United Nations in disgust. The international community had apparently rejected Indonesia. The only country that applauded Indonesia’s decision was the People’s Republic of China. But China was then still not a member of the United Nations. Sukarno did not at all regret the rejection. After all, he had also been teaching the doctrine of “living dangerously” — he actually used a Latin expression (not the right one, according an expert on the Latin language), vivere pericoloso and translated it into a Javanized Indonesian expression. He remained adamant in his conviction that “there is no journey end “for the revolutionary people in their struggle against colonialism and imperialism or their new forms, the neo-colonialism and imperialism (Nekolim), because that was also the way to achieve perfect self-reliance. “For us,” he said in his Independence Day Address, 1965, entitled “Reaching the Stars: A Year of Self-reliance”, the fight against Nekolim is nothing but beneficial to the Indonesian Revolution, beneficial to the Indonesian soul, beneficial to the Indonesian development, beneficial to Indonesian independence. The anti-Nekolim struggle has given Indonesia a new spirit, has brought powerful unity, has given a resolve of steel, has given the freedom to organize its own national affairs, “the freedom to be free.89 In the meantime, Sukarno had been working on his new project of establishing a forum that would eventually replace the United Nations, the international body, which, in his opinion, was still very much under the control of the Oldefos. Already in 1963, in defiance to the censure of the

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International Olympic Committee, Indonesia hosted the GANEFO, Games of the Emerging Forces. The athletes came from Asian, African, and Latin American countries. Not all of them, however, represented their countries, but then, as the officials of the GANEFO stated, “the concept of the emerging forces does [not] necessarily refer to states or nations, it may also be to social forces”. Domestically the GANEFO was successful. For the first time, the people in Jakarta could admire the Chinese athletes, who dominated several branches of sports. If the government still could not provide “rice”, why not give the people “festivity”? Now Sukarno was planning to hold CONEFO, Conference of the New Emerging Forces. A building for that important occasion was erected. But his time was running out. Before the big event took place, the night of terror hit Jakarta. Several generals lost their lives on that eventful night of 30 September 1965. How ironic that Sukarno lost his presidency in 1967 in exactly the building in which he was planning to make a new chapter in the history of his nation, and indeed, as he had wished, of the world.

The Revolution that Devoured its Creator In the world that had been seen as being divided into two antagonistic camps, the Oldefos and the Nefos, Sukarno was determined to become a leader of the latter. This option had not only isolated Indonesia from the Western world and forced it to associate itself closely with the People’s Republic of China, it had also radicalized the domestic political situation. The PKI — the “kom” element, the most important, and by far, the biggest entity of the Nasakom — continued to intensify its political initiatives. The party that had gained immense political advantage by endorsing Sukarno’s politics of confrontation against the Western powers expanded its sphere of the politics of radicalization. With the slogan “politics is the commander”, the PKI and its cultural organization attacked any aesthetic expressions and cultural manifestations that were thought of as being not the genuine representation of the idea of social realism. Under the banner of “land for the people”, the PKI’s farmer organization in East Java and North Sumatra took the initiative to expedite the implementation of the newly promulgated agrarian law. The so-called “one-sided action’ (aksi sepihak) began to take its

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toll among the farmers and peasants.90 Agrarian tension began to inflict serious damages on the social fabric of the densely populated Java. In the process, the “one-sided action”, whereby the landless peasants, under the aegis of the communist-affiliated farmers’ association, confiscated the land owned by the relatively rich farmers, had prepared the field for a serious agrarian conflict between the poor and the not-too-poor landed peasantry. Since many of the latter belonged to the Nahdlatul Ulama, the ideologization of the conflict could not be avoided. The material foundation of classconsciousness in rural Java might well have been very thin and the understanding of the meaning of the ideology might also have been very vague, but in time of crisis the affinity of the two notions could take place harmoniously. When it did, a conflict of major proportions was already waiting to explode. In the meantime, the PKI, the ever loyal supporter of Sukarno, intensified its demand for the formation of the “fifth branch of the armed forces”, which would consist of the people’s militia. The party demanded that in addition to the already existing four branches — the army, the air force, the navy, and the police — the people’s militia had the right to exist. If this demand were fulfilled, the PKI’s influence among the poor peasantry would certainly be much greater. But it is exactly this potentiality that deepened the suspicion of the army of the proposal. The more the PKI tried to ally itself to the President’s ideological discourses, the greater the suspicion of the army. The PKI also demanded that the concept of Nasakom be applied to the military. The proposal of the Nasakomization of the military — that is, making the military establishment comprise the representatives of the three major ideological strands — hit the army at its weakest ideological stance. If indeed the army supported Nasakom, as the PKI could argue, why should they refuse to apply it to its own organization? The army could well remember their experience during the revolution, when the leftist Minister of Defence/Prime Minister, Amir Sjarifuddin, introduced the institution of the political adviser into the military establishment and the result was nothing less than the threat of disintegration in the army. As the army leadership saw it, the proposal was only another attempt of the PKI to infiltrate its structure. General Nasution, whose position had been weakened, might be the hawk of the army in its

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dealings with the PKI, and General Achmad Yani, who had replaced Nasution as the Commander of the Army, might be very close to Sukarno, but on the two proposals put forward by the PKI, they belonged to the same front. Under their leadership, the army totally rejected the two proposals, despite the fact that the President had shown every sign of his growing sympathy to the PKI’s political demands.91 In this heightened political climate, two attempts were made to break the intellectual impasse. If the first was clearly an attempt to liberate the intellectuals, men of letters, and the artists from the fetters of the statedominated mode of cultural discourse, the second may be seen as an effort to halt the trend towards the sole and dominant interpretation of the state ideology. Politically, however, these two movements were opposing the growing political strength of the Communists and their radical leftist comrade-in-arms. Amidst the growing political influence of the cultural organization of the PKI, the Lembaga Kebudayaan Rakyat (LEKRA — People’s Cultural Institute), a group of writers and poets issued a Manifes Kebudayaan (Cultural Manifesto) (17 August 1963) and, with the tacit support of the army, held a congress of Indonesian writers. Basing their argument on the Pancasila as the basic principle of their cultural philosophy, the signatories of the manifesto rejected the notion of “politics” as being the most prominent cultural element. “We don’t give preference to one cultural aspect above the others”, the Manifes Kebudayaaan states. The signatories of the manifesto also sought the recognition of the freedom of artistic expressions. Rejecting the accusation of the Left that they lacked patriotism, being — the accusation went — the intellectual heirs of the Surat Kepercayaan Gelanggang of the 1950s, and adhering to the notion of “universal humanism”, they stated, “We are earnestly striving to create a national culture as a way of struggle to defend and to develop our self-dignity as a nation in the community of nations”. Finally the signatories of the Manifes Kebudayaan emphasized that for them “culture is a struggle to achieve the perfection of the condition of mankind”.92 At about the same time, in September 1964, a number of politicians, mostly those who were affiliated with the Murba93 party, and the editors and the publishers of several newspapers, established the Badan Pendukung

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Sukarnoisme (BPS — Supporters of Sukarnoism League). The term “Sukarnoism” was carefully chosen, as Jones, who had first hand knowledge about the movement, states in his book, “for a concept that was to be a unifying vehicle for non-Communists as well as to play up to Sukarno’s ego and make it more difficult for the Communists to attack the movement”.94 Since its establishment, several newspapers published a series of articles, written by Sayuti Melik, the old-guard “Sukarnoist”, on the “proper interpretation” of Sukarnoism. The proponents of the Cultural Manifesto and their supporters might use Pancasila as their basic argument and the BPS might even call the ideas they were propagating “Sukarnoism”, but the PKI and its supporters could not be deterred in their opposition to both. The PKI and its political allies launched their attacks from the time the two movements made their appearances. The party strongly urged the government to ban the recalcitrant movements. The Cultural Manifesto group was the earlier target. This was not only because the Minister of Education and Culture was known to be very sympathetic to the PKI’s ideas, being a recipient of the Lenin Peace Medal, but also because the writers, the poets, and the painters, who were associated with the Cultural Manifesto, were politically very weak. The PKI and its cultural section, the Lekra, could accuse this group of being followers of the elitist “universal humanism” — hence anti-nationalism and antipeople. The President, in his turn, could look at the manifesto as a distraction from the correct course of the ongoing revolution. It was, then, not too difficult for the President to ban their movements (8 May 1964) and to prohibit the publication of their writings, the exhibition of their paintings, and the performance of their plays. Many of the supporters of the Cultural Manifesto lost their jobs in government offices. Many writers had to use pseudonyms in order to have their writings published. In a relatively short time, the BPS managed to get support from all over the country. The number of the newspapers that published Sayuti Melik’s serials kept increasing. Several non-communist labour and student organizations gave their support to the BPS. It was perhaps the strongest opposition to the growing influence of the PKI. But then the movement emerged when the politics of konfrontasi was the dominant concern of the

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regime. That was the time when Sukarno and his government thought that Indonesia had been encircled by the threatening powers of the Oldefos. How could Sukarno resist the PKI’s cries for unity under his leadership? In December 1964, the axe fell — the BPS was dissolved and the leftist-leaning Minister of Information, at the order of the President, decreed the banning of all newspapers and organizations that had been regarded as “the BPS puppet” (17 December 1964). 95 Indeed, as Sukarno stated in his “autobiography”, the revolution could not afford to have press freedom. Already in October 1962, he put the Antara News agency under his direct supervision.96 And, Adam Malik, the Minister of Trade, who was widely suspected of being sympathetic to the BPS, was demoted to an insignificant cabinet post. A much bolder demarcation line between the “revolutionaries” and the non-revolutionaries or counter-revolutionaries (the kontrev, as the jargon puts it) had been drawn. In this highly politically charged situation, any social and political or even cultural groups that were thought to be half-hearted revolutionaries could become the target of constant ideological and political — or even physical — abuses and attacks. The year of 1962 may well the best year for the Guided Democracy, but the year can also be remembered as the time when Sukarno and his regime had definitely abandoned whatever democratic impulse they might still have. In January, the former Prime Minister during the revolutionary period, Sutan Sjahrir, was arrested on false accusation. Along with him two former deputy Prime Ministers, Mohammad Roem and Prawoto Mangkusasmito from the Masyumi, and a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anak Agung Gde Agung, were also arrested. A former Masyumi parliamentarian, Yunan Nasution, and Soebadio Sastrosatomo of the PSI were put in military custody. The leaders of the PRRI/Permesta, who had surrendered, later joined them.97 A lecturer of the Padjadjaran University (Bandung), who was an expert on maritime law, made a terrible mistake by saying in his lecture that Nehru, the Prime Minister of India, was better than Sukarno in designing foreign policy. This statement drove the loyalist Sukarnoist student organization, the GMNI (Gerakan Mahasiswa Nasionalis Indonesia — the nationalist student organization) to stage a demonstration demanding his dismissal. He was also accused of being anti-Manipol–USDEK.

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Sukarno was at that time taking a few weeks’ holiday in Tokyo. The great leader was apparently too tired to investigate the case. Sukarno simply fired the lecturer.98 In this situation who would be surprise to learn that the Islamic student organization, the Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam (HMI), which was thought to be the brainchild of the Masyumi, should also be put on the list to be banned? The leftist student organizations and the PKI urged the President to dissolve the student association. This proposal became a national major controversy after the leftist Rector of the University of Jember, East Java, took the initiative of banning the HMI. Whatever ill feeling the regime might have towards the Masyumi, which was suspected of being the ideological patron of the HMI, Sukarno could not deny the fact that there had never been any organizational link between the student organization and the already banned political party. Not less important is the fact that the HMI was then still the biggest student organization. How could the revolutionary state antagonize its own educated younger generation? In order to solve the issue, the President appointed a commission to investigate the matter thoroughly. The commission, whose members consisted of, among others, the Vice-Chairman of the DPA, Roeslan Abdoelgani, and the Minister/Commander of the Army, Lieutenant Gen. Achmad Yani, recommended that the HMI be allowed to continue its existence. But in the meantime, the ill feelings in the student communities had been intensified. Unintentionally Sukarno, who never hesitated to remind people that he belonged to the Muhammadiyah, had planted a feeling of animosity in the Islamic student community. The campaign against the formation of Malaysia had not only isolated Indonesia further from the international community, it had also heightened domestic political tensions. It strengthened the relationship between the President and the air force, the branch of the armed forces, which together with the PKI, fully supported the President’s politics of confrontation or konfrontasi, but it had somewhat strained the President’s grip on the army leadership. It had become common knowledge that the army was not too keen on the confrontation, despite their official public support. That was the time when Major General Soeharto, who had been appointed as the

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Chief-of-Staff of the military operation against Malaysia, began to send a secret emissary to Hongkong to find ways of ending the konfrontasi.99 During this period of intense political tension, suddenly, on the night of 30 September 1965, several groups of military palace guards, the Cakrabirawa battalion, kidnapped and murdered several army generals, including the Chief-of-Staff of the Army, General Achmad Yani. They, however, failed to capture the Minister of Defence/Chief-of-Staff of the Armed Forces, General Nasution. The kidnappers mistook Nasution’s aide de camp as the general and instantly killed him. In the process, Nasution’s five-year daughter was fatally wounded. Whatever the reasons, the Commander of the Reserved Command, Major General Soeharto, who by convention should serve as the acting Chief-of-Staff of the Army, in case the incumbet was absent, was not on the list of the kidnappers. The next day, the leader of the group, Lieutenant Colonel Untung, announced the formation of the Revolutionary Council, under his own chairmanship, and the safety of Sukarno. Some prominent political leaders were named as the leaders of the council, except Sukarno. As can be guessed, a number of the persons announced as members were simply not aware of it. By the end of the day, however, Soeharto, who had managed to regroup the loyal troops, had already mastered the situation. The attempted coup had failed.100 But the next day, the Harian Rakjat, the PKI’s party organ, perhaps unaware of the rapid change of the course of events, printed a supportive editorial. “The sympathy and support of the people,” it says, “is surely on the side of the September 30th Movement. We call on the people to intensify their vigilance and be prepared to confront all eventualities.”101 The illadvised editorial might have sealed the fates of the PKI and its members and supporters, but the eventful night of 30 September marked the beginning of the fall of Sukarno — the ideologically constructed revolutionary sphere had finally devoured not only its ideological children, but also its own creator. After one-and-a-half years in political turmoil and traumatic social conflict, a political settlement was reached when the Provisional People’s Consultative Council “impeached” Sukarno and elected Soeharto as the Acting President. The military-dominated Orde Baru (New Order) regime had been established. The transformation of the leftist-inclined and

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revolutionary authoritarian rule to the rightist-inclined and technocraticdevelopmentalist authoritarian rule had begun. In ideological parlance, the fall of Sukarno and the emergence of Soeharto can be said to be the transformation of “the Guided Democracy” to the “Pancasila Democracy”, though both regimes committed to both the centralization of power and authoritarian political ideology.

The Price of Ambiguities What had really happened to Sukarno and his Guided Democracy? The regime could boast about the fact that it had succeeded in unifying the country. It was Sukarno’s politics of anti-colonialism that paved the way towards the peaceful termination of the West Irian conflict. After a few months under the supervision of the UN and some years under the Indonesian tutelage the people of West Irian would make the choice of whether they want to remain part of Indonesia or preferred to have a separate political entity. The Act of Free Choice would have to be conducted in 1969. Although it was still uncertain, the foreseen future, nevertheless, was quite bright. In spite of the fact that Indonesia would have to wait several years for West Irian to be definitively part of the Republic of Indonesia, it was under the Guided Democracy that the red and white flag could be proudly hoisted in the long disputed territory. Territorial integrity should certainly be accompanied by national integration. Therefore the regime made serious efforts to make Pancasila, the state ideology, a living reality, not merely a collection of abstract and remote ideal values. Everybody should study and internalize the teaching of the ideology. Aiming for a highly ideologized state with its Manipol-USDEK, the regime provided the people with a guide on how to behave politically. With the Manipol-USDEK as the instrumental ideology, the Pancasila should never be seen as an abstract ideal value. With revolutionary determination, the nation could gallantly face the kontrev (counter-revolutionary) forces in whatever form, either internal rebellions and unconvinced conservatives and reactionaries, or foreign subversives. Indonesia was also ready to face the Oldefos since it had held a leading position in the Nefos movement. The notions of “the ongoing revolution” and “national personality” could also be expected to

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give the people something to be proud of. But, then something did not go well. The ideologically constructed world had to face the hard reality of empirical reality soon enough. The imposition of the hegemonic integrating ideology and the hurried process of national building amidst the increasingly intense Cold War sphere, however, sowed the seeds of disintegrative forces. Sukarno talked much about “the revolution of the rising demand” but he glorified the revolutionary dream amidst economic decline. President Sukarno loved to repeat what Madame Sun Yat Sen once said to him, “Brother the stomach cannot wait,” and yet he also never forgot to stress the importance of “living dangerously”. In the meantime, the process of economic deterioration continued. Sukarno went along with the PKI’s dictum that “politics is the commander”, but his government was not sensitive enough to the disintegrative potentialities of agrarian conflict. When all of these divergent forces could no longer be contained by the sheer charisma of the great leader and by the ideological persuasion of the ongoing revolution, the whole structure of the Guided Democracy collapsed and Indonesia underwent its most tragic and traumatic experiences. The period of the Guided Democracy may always be remembered as the time when Indonesia dared to face the world no matter what. While Sukarno’s “go to hell with your aid” stance certainly did not solve the country’s economic plight, it nonetheless could still make the “little people” proud of being an Indonesian. Whatever the merits or demerits of Sukarno’s foreign policies might be, one thing can hardly be denied — as a young leader in Indonesia’s foreign policy put it several years after the fall of Sukarno, “The world knows Indonesia because it knows about Sukarno”.102 The Guided Democracy had also passed the test of two serious challenges to its authority as the legitimate regime of the country. It had finally exterminated the Darul Islam that had haunted the Republic since 1950. Despite the fact that the DI was a West Java-based rebellion, it had attracted the rebels in Aceh, South Sulawesi, and South Kalimantan to join it in the so-called Islamic State of Indonesia. The Guided Democracy regime had also solved the challenges of the PRRI/Permesta, no matter what the CIA had done to help its cause.

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The Guided Democracy was established after the newly formed alliance between Sukarno and the army had judged that the parliamentary system of government had failed and could not be expected to maintain political stability. Sukarno did not simply lament that the erosion of the revolutionary spirit had caused the incessant political instability. He tried to find a solution from his understanding of the past. It was in this mythical past — the romantic construction of the past — that he finally discovered a political system that he thought was suited to facing the present predicament of the modern nation-state. It was the system that reflected the true “national personality”. Rejecting Western liberal democracy which to Sukarno meant nothing more than “50% plus one” he re-emphasized what he had been saying since the late 1920s on the importance of unity and leadership. With this political wisdom, he ignored the fact that there had never been one Indonesia until he and the other pergerakan leaders visualized and struggled to achieve it. In the process, he treated the multi-ethnic and multi-historic Indonesia as if it had from the beginning been a unified nation. It was with this reified concept of Indonesia that the idealist and romantic Head of State ventured into the new world and even tried to “make the world anew”. And it should be done in a hurry. The presentday Indonesia was also in a state of “many revolutions in one generation”. In the process, many things had to be “destroyed” and “built”, “debunked” and “restored”, “retooled”. But in the process, the nation-building stagnated. In spite of the ability of the Guided Democracy to restore the integrity of the state — the West Irian issue settled and the rebellions wiped out — it unwittingly implanted new sources of conflict. The ideological sphere it had nurtured finally produced a highly charged ideological conflict. By the middle of 1965, Indonesia was already on the verge of a volcanic political explosion. The politics of konfrontasi against the formation of Malaysia not only isolated Indonesia in the international community, it also dangerously put itself in direct confrontation with the Western powers, who had been increasingly worried about the Indonesian threat to their interests in Southeast Asia. The British and the American policy makers could not take the increasingly violent politics of konfrontasi

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lightly, particularly since it took place after the fall of the fort of Dienbiempu to the Vietminh (North Vietnam) and when the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War was about to escalate. Internally, the politics of konfrontasi intensified the political tension between the army establishment and the PKI, and at the same time, deepened the political gulf and ideological orientation among the military. Some local commanders might eagerly continue the konfrontasi to its logical end, some others, particularly those in decision-making positions, had already begun to find ways to discontinue it. Whoever the mastermind of the “30th September” night of terror might be, the killing of the generals unleashed the hitherto covered conflicts. When the multi-faceted conflict erupted, the process of nationbuilding had to begin from scratch again. In the meantime, the tradition of revenge had unwittingly been laid down. The return to the executive heavy 1945 Constitution certainly opened up many possibilities. Symbolically the constitution can be taken as the political commitment to return to the spirit of the revolution. It is the constitution that was promulgated when the “founding fathers” were still unblemished by the attraction and taste of power. The constitution, one may say, was a product of the age of innocence. Most of the drafters of the constitution belonged to the group of people — the pergerakan — whose participation in politics, as Sjahrir once remarked, was “a matter of calling”. But then, it was not only one of the shortest constitutions in the world, with so many things left unsaid or, as was usually stated in its chapters, “to be arranged by law”, some of the crucial wording of the 1945 Constitution could also be interpreted rather liberally. Written in the language that was, and still is until the present day, in the process of construction, the wording of the constitution might be interpreted in accordance with the dynamics of semantic changes. The concept of “functional group” is a good example. What professions or social groups can be included into this category? When Sukarno put the military into this category, it could, constitutionally speaking, be considered valid. But in so doing the military had entered into the realm of politics without trying to find an ideological argument or historical justification. Soeharto’s New Order could simply use this constitutional loophole.

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The Guided Democracy laid the foundations of the tradition of authoritarian rule defended by lofty ideological ideals. It left a heritage of the state’s ability to combine crude power with the seemingly noble idea of the process of nation-building. It left a heritage of looking at the imagined past to defend its political system in the modern nation-state. In his sharp criticisms on the Guided Democracy, Hatta predicted that the system could stay only as long as Sukarno, its architect, was still alive. But the Guided Democracy, as a regime, was destroyed while Sukarno was still alive. The tragedy of Sukarno lies in fact that he could never simply look at himself as the President, the chief executive of the state, who had to manage the state constitutionally and work to realize the ideals of establishing the nation-state. Deep inside, he continued to look at himself as he was in his youth. He was the admired leader of a struggling nation. He was the President, but he preferred to be remembered as the Mouthpiece of the People. “How could the Chief Executive be at the same time the chief spokesman of the people?” one may ask. On whose perspective should political decisions be made? The state was one, but how many were the people? In a highly ideologized state as what the Guided Democracy was the claim to be the genuine Mouthpiece of the People could indeed create some problems in ideological discourse and most certainly in the decision-making process. Populism may easily slip into authoritarian political behavior. Sukarno, according to the 1945 Constitution, was the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, but he preferred to be recognized as the Great Leader of the Revolution. He was the head of the legitimate state apparatus of violence, whose very existence was very much dependent on its rationality, discipline, and loyalty, but at the same time, he was also the leader of the revolution, the spontaneous and romantic sphere of patriotism. Sukarno, the great nation-builder and arguably the greatest one the Indonesian nation ever had, remained what he was when he took politics as his vocation. He never bothered to make himself into a manager of a constitutional state, despite the changes that taken place in his nation and to his own destiny. He knew very well the meaning of power and had a

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sense of what power was, but occasionally, and at critical times, he tended to simply equate the nation with the state. Sukarno never bothered himself with the probable conceptual differences between the nation — “le desir d’etre ensemble” (as he used to quote Ernest Renan’s famous definition) — and the state, as an organization of power, which, as clearly emphasized by the Preamble of the Constitution, has certain functions to fulfill. The tragedy of Sukarno is the tragedy of a nation builder who never had the time or the interest to conceptualize the meaning and the function of the state. No one can deny that Sukarno was “a great patriot”, Hatta says in his article, “Our Democracy”. However, his tendencies to ignore the details made him “the exact opposite of Mephistopheles, a figure in Goethe’s Faust — the power that always wanted to create havoc, but instead produced something good for mankind.” Until the end Hatta remained to look at Sukarno as one of his closest friends, despite the deepest gulf of political differences that had separated them. Hatta could hardly conceal his sadness when he came to visit Sukarno at the hospital. The Sukarno he used to know was no longer there. Confined to his house and cut off from the persons he used to know, the old Sukarno, his comrade as well as his opponent, was nowhere to be seen. The great lover had become a different person even to his close family. Hatta whispered, “How do you feel, No?” Sukarno opened his eyes, “It is you, Hatta.” They did not talk much — Sukarno was already too weak to speak — but they held each other’s hand.103 Two days later, at 7.10 in the morning of 20 June, 1970, Sukarno, the father of the nation, died. He was mourned by the people who never ceased to love him no matter what, and by the very people who had abandoned him and betrayed him. The new President, who had deposed and isolated him politically and socially, announced a week of national mourning. Sukarno was buried in Blitar, East Java, next to his mother’s grave, not in the fertile and beautiful region of Priangan, as he had wished.104 NOTES 1

George McT. Kahin, “Preface” to Mohammad Hatta, Past and Future, translation series (Ithaca, New York: Modern Indonesia Project, Cornell University, 1960).

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2

Hatta, it should be noted in passing, can still till today be considered the most prolific writer among the first generation of Indonesian political leaders. 3 See among others, the detailed study on the eventful period 1957–59, Daniel S. Lev, The Transition to Guided Democracy: Indonesian Politics, 1957–1959 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1966). 4 Cf. Legge’s comments on Sukarno as a thinker. “He redefined terms to suit his purpose and accused his critics of misunderstanding issues at stake. He was not, in brief, an intellectual’s intellectual”. J.D. Legge, Sukarno, A Political Biography (London: Alan Lane The Penguin Press, 1972), p. 338. 5 See for example Mohammad Hatta’s three collected writings, namely the fourvolume Kumpulan Tulisan (Djakarta: Penerbit Buku Indonesia, 1952), Verspreide Geschriften (Djakarta, Amsterdam, Surabaja: Van der Piet, 1952) and Portrait of a Patriot: Selected Writings by Mohammad Hatta (The Hague: Mouton, Publishers, 1972). 6 Hatta, Past and Future, pp. 8–9. 7 Ibid., p. 15. 8 Sukarno, “Ilmu dan Amal: Geest, Wil, Daad”, reprinted in Dari “Lahirnya Pantja Sila” sampai “Tjamkan Pantja Sila” Berdasarkan Adjaran Bung Karno, edited by H.A. Notosutardjo (Jakarta: Endang dan Pemuda, April 1965), pp. 93–95. 9 On the pre-war debates, see Bernard Dahm, Sukarno and the Indonesian Struggle for Independence (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1969). 10 “Like an Angel that Strikes from the Skies “(The March of Our Revolution), Address on the 15th Anniversary of Independence, 17 August 1960 in President Sukarno, Indonesia’s Political Manifesto, 1959–1964 (Jakarta: Prapantja, n.d., p. 83. 11 Quoted in Willard A. Hanna, “Sukarno: The Devolution of a Revolutionary” in his Eight Nation Makers: Southeast Asia’s Charismatic Statesmen (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1964), p. 26. This is one of Sukarno’s most famous statements. Many “revolutionary cadres” of the Guided Democracy regime repeated this sentence in their own speeches. 12 Legge, Sukarno, p. 320. 13 Hamid Alqadri, a parliamentarian from the Socialist faction, was a member of the Republican delegation to discuss the question of West Irian, with the government of the Netherlands (1951). Upon the return of the delegation, he and the members reported the result to the Prime Minister, who apparently agreed with the stance taken by the delegation. Since the President was very keen on the subject, the Prime Minister and the members of the delegation (under the chairmanship of Dr Leimena, a leading member of Parkindo, the Christian Party) reported to the President. “So there arose a heated dispute, especially about President’s demand to nationalize all Dutch properties in Indonesia and if necessary to abolish the RTC Agreement…. Then the Prime

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Minister, who was usually very patient, said that the dispute could not be solved by arguing. He reminded us that, according to the system of the Government at that time, in accordance with the constitution, the Prime Minister was the one who was politically responsible. President Soekarno was shocked by Natsir’s argumentations; he didn’t say a word for a while, but then admitted his mistake and agreed with Natsir’s opinion. Yet he said smilingly that he was afraid that the attitude of the Prime Minister would be rejected by the Parliament”. Hamid Algadri, Prime Minister Sjahrir as Statesman and Diplomat: How the Allies Became Friends of Indonesia and Opponents of the Dutch (1945–1949) (Jakarta: LP3ES, 1995), pp. 72–73. This incident was well known among the Indonesian political public in the early 1950s. See Herbert Feith, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1964), op. cit. After conducting a tiresome but fruitless negotiation with the Dutch government over the West Irian dispute, the Boerhanoeddin Harahap cabinet, finally made a decision, which had been seriously contemplated by the Ali Sastroamidjo cabinet and had actually been proposed by the PNI, to abrogate the Round Table Conference. This decision was endorsed by the parliament, despite — strangely enough — the opposition of the PNI. With the pretext of asking the opinion of the Supreme Court, which was not actually, according to the constitution, needed (there was as yet no legal institution in the Indonesian constitution to determine the constitutionality of the government’s decision, which has been endorsed or approved by the government. The Constitution Court was established in 2003), President Sukarno kept postponing his approval. The abrogation finally was approved after the second Ali Sastroamidjojo cabinet had been sworn in. See Ide Anak Agung Gde Agung, Twenty Years Indonesian Foreign Policy, 1945–1965 (The Hague, Paris: Mouton, 1973), pp. 109–78. The author was the Indonesian Foreign Minister in the Harahap cabinet. The Ali Sastroamidjojo cabinet appointed Colonel Bambang Utoyo as the new Chief-of-Staff of the Army (and promoted him to the rank of Major General). His appointment was rejected by the Army Headquarters, under the leadership of Colonel Zulkifli Lubis, then the Deputy Chief-of-Staff. The event shows the continuing internal army conflicts in the 1950s. The rejection was the major cause of the fall of the cabinet. Harold Forster, Flowering Lotus: A View of Java in the 1950s (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989; first printing 1958), p. 261. On the election turnout, see Herbert Feith, The Indonesian Elections of 1955, interim research series (Ithaca, New York: Modern Indonesia Project, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1957).

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Herbert Feith, The Indonesian Elections of 1955 (Ithaca: Cornell Modern Project, 1971; second printing), pp. 58–59. C.L.M. Penders, ed., Milestone of My Journey: The Memoir of Ali Sastroamidjojo: Indonesian Patriot and Political Leader (Queensland: University of Queenslands Press, 1979), pp. 323–25. See Feith, The Decline, pp. 514–19. When asked why did Sukarno choose Natsir as the cabinet formateur after the return to the unitary state, before giving his political analysis, Hatta simply said that Natsir was “Sukarno’s golden boy during the revolution”. Personal communication, 1977. Yet, again this was a commonly shared knowledge among the leaders of the revolution. Natsir also admitted his close relationship with Sukarno. Personal communication, 1980. Natsir’s article, published in Abadi, 8, 10, 11 and 12 November 1956. Excerpted in Feith and Castles, eds., Indonesian Political Thinking, 1945–1965 (Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1970), pp. 89–94. Feith, The Decline, pp. 84–112. Ibid., pp. 83–89. When Howard Jones, then the U.S. Ambassador to Jakarta, warned about the danger of including the PKI into the government, “Sukarno shook his head. ‘I would rather have the Communist represented in the Cabinet’, he insisted. ‘They have to share responsibility for governing the country. They can’t be criticizing all the time. They have to help answer the critics. Furthermore, they are in a position where I can watch them, see what they are doing, knock their heads together if I don’t like their action’.” Howard Palfrey Jones, Indonesia: The Possible Dream (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), p. 236. Sukarno was committed to this stand until the end of his Presidency. Colonel Soeharto, then the commander of the Diponegoro Division, told Sukarno that he was little bit worried about the political advancement of the PKI. “I can take care of it,” Sukarno said. Personal communication, 1995. See also Soeharto, My Thoughts, Words and Deeds: An Autobiography, as told to G. Dwipayana and Ramadhan K.H. (Jakarta: P.T. Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, 1991). Quoted in Hal Kosut , ed., Indonesia: The Sukarno Years (New York: Facts on File, 1967), p. 65. There is no denying that the 1955 national general election was — until the recent national general election, held 1999, after the fall of Soeharto — the most democratic and honest election Indonesia ever had. But, as contemporary reports suggest, some electoral cheating did take place. Some members of the bureaucracy, most of whom belonged to the PNI, occasionally used their offices to the advantage of their respective parties. See, for example, Herbert Feith, The

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Indonesian Elections of 1955 (Ithaca, New York: Modern Indonesia Project, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1957; second printing, 1971). Quoted in Legge, Sukarno, op. cit. p. 248. Mohammad Hatta, “Indonesia Between the Power Blocs”, Foreign Affairs XXXVI, no. 3 (1958): 486. See Ruslan Abdulgani, “The First Year of the National Council”, reprinted in his Pantjasila: the Prime Mover of the Indonesian Revolution (Jakarta: Prapantja, 1965), pp. 181–206. As can be expected, this article not only defends the constitutional legitimacy of the National Council, but also praises the effectiveness of the body as the forum of “musyawarah” (mutual consultation) and mufakat (consensus). Of course the article does not state the significance of the fact that the chairman of the council was the President himself. Sukarno, “Satu Tahun Ketentuan” [A Year of Decision], in Dibawah Bendera Revolusi (Jakarta: Panitya Penerbit “Dibawah Bendera Revolusi, 1965), pp. 283– 311. Italics are in the original. Sukarno, “Tahun Tantangan” [A Year of Challenge]”, ibid., pp. 315–46. "Kursus Pantjasila didepan Kader-Kader Pantjasila” in Dari “Lahirnya Pantja Sila” sampai “Tjamkan Pantja Sila!” Berdasarkan Adjaran Bung Karno, edited by H.A. Notosutardjo (Jakarta: Endang dan Pemuda, April 1965), p. 245. Quoted in Hal Kosut, ed., Indonesia, op. cit., pp. 76–77. On the ideological debates in the Constituent Assembly, see Adnan Buyung Nasution, The Aspiration for Constitutional Government in Indonesia: A Socio-legal Study of the Indonesian Konstituante 1956–1959 (Den Haag: CIP, Gegwens Koninklijkebibliotheek, 1992), passim. See also Faisal Ismail, Islam and Pancasila: Indonesian Politics, 1945–1995 (Jakarta: Badan Litbang Agama dan Diklat Keagamaan, 2001), pp. 66–106. This is the official translation of the speech, entitled, Res Publica, Once More Res Publica, as reprinted in Prof. Mr H. Muh. Yamin, Naskah Persiapan Undangundang Dasar 1945 (n.p., 1959), Vol. II, pp. 199–244. The other three are “to defend the nation and fatherland”, “to improve the welfare of the people” and “to participate in maintaining permanent world peace on the basis of justice and humanity”. Quoted in Hal Kosut, ed., Indonesia, op. cit., p. 78. This is a title of Sukarno’s Presidential Address, reprinted in his Dibawah Bendera Revolusi, vol. II. Address to the Los Angeles Council for World Affairs, 21 April 1961 in Donald E. Weatherbee, Ideology in Indonesia: Sukarno’s Indonesian Revolution (New Haven: Monograph Series, Southeast Asian Studies, Yale University, 1966), p. 45.

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“Political Manifest, Republic of Indonesia of 17 August 1959”, Department of Information, Jakarta, Special Issue 53, p. 62. Mohamad Hatta, Demokrasi Kita (Jakarta: Pandji Masjarakat, 1960). In 1967 — after the fall of Sukarno — the pamphlet was reprinted. It was estimated that in the course of 1957–58 the number of Dutch nationals fell from approximately 50,000 to about 6,000. Willard A. Hanna, Part XX, “The Dutch Cut Their Losses” in his Bung Karno’s Indonesia (New York: American Universitas Field Staff, 1961), p. 3. Address of the President of the Republic of Indonesia, 17 August 1959. The address was entitled “The Rediscovery of Our Revolution”. The Supreme Advisory Council, chaired by the President himself, used this address as the only basis of the “Political Manifesto of the Republic of Indonesia”, issued on 25 September 1959. Hal Kosut, ed., Indonesia, op. cit., pp. 79–80. On the policy of the Guided Democracy toward the press, see Abdurrahman Surjomihardjo et al. Beberapa Segi Perkembangan Sejarah Pers di Indonesia (Jakarta: Kompas, 2002). This is the second printing. The first printing (1980, Jakarta: Leknas-LIPI) was not allowed to be distributed publicly by the Minister of Information, despite the fact that the research for this book was funded by the Department of Information. The banning itself has already told a lot about the policy. See Taufik Abdullah’s preface to this book. Sukarno — ”An autobiography”, p. 279. Sukarno, “Let us transform the World”, a speech delivered at the Conference of Asia-Afican Journalists, 24 April 1963, Jakarta — reprinted in Bung Karno dan Tata Dunia Baru: Kenangan 100 tahun Bung Karno (Jakarta: Grasindo, 2001), pp. 272–89. The English version (“Exposition of Manipol Usdek) is included in his collection of writings, Pantjasila: The Prime Mover of the Indonesian Revolution (Djakarta: Prapantja, 1965), p. 214. The term “political manifest” (manifesto politik), according to Roeslan, was actually introduced by the Minister of Information when he made a statement that the President Sukarno would use his Independence Day address to announce the “political manifesto of the Republic of Indonesia”. Ibid. Sukarno, “Laksana Malaikat yang Menyerbu dari Langit: Jalannya Revolusi Kita” [Like the Angel Strikes from the Sky: The Course of Our Revolution] reprinted in Dibawah Bendera Revolusi, vol. II. Ibid. Actually Sukarno said “kecoak”, ‘cockroach’, a word used by the preindependence nationalists to refer to the Dutch police intelligence. This paragraph is based on Abdulgani, Pantjasila, pp. 209–71.

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Later Soeharto, the head of the New Order regime, preferred to call himself as the President/Mandate Holder of the MPR. Sukarno apparently had mixed feelings about this “autobiography as told by Cindy Adams”. In her book, My Friend, the Dictator” Cindy Adams relates how she got into a quarrel with Sukarno about the nature of the book — should it be “an autobiography”, as had already been agreed on — or a simple “biography”. But when Cindy Adams presented him with the newly published book, he was very proud of it. At the same time, Sukarno could still say to the newly appointed U.S. Ambassador, Marshal Green, “How can this be called my autobiography when I didn’t write it”. Marshal Green, Indonesia: Crisis and Transformation, 1965–1968 (Washington, D.C.: The Compass Press, 1990), p. 94 (footnote). Sukarno — An Autobiography, p. 279. Quoted in Abdulgani, Pantjasila, p. 218. The acronym, according to Roeslan, was introduced by the Chairman of the Provicial Legislature of West Java. The IPKI was a newly founded party, with a strong military connection. It was established by former military leaders, including Colonel Nasution, during the time of his forced absence from military service, after the fiasco of the so-called “October 17 Affair”. It participated in the general election and became one of the medium size parties. Jones, Possible Dreams, pp. 253–54. The party was established by Asmara Hadi, the husband of Sukarno’s adopted daughter. The name of the party can easily remind one of Sukarno’s pre-war party, before he was exiled to Flores. After the most tragic attempt on his life in November 1957 — an incident that practically changed the course of Indonesian political history — three more attempts were made on his life. The first took place in March 1960, by a pilot of the Indonesian Air Force, who strafed the Presidential palaces in Jakarta and Bogor from his MIG-17. The second attempt took place in Makasar (January 1962) and the third in May 1962, when some members of the Darul Islam attempted to kill him during a religious ceremony in a Jakarta square. According to the official report of the Army Headquarters (29 September 1959), the military operations had resulted in the loss to the government of 983 killed, 1,695 wounded or captured, and 154 missing, as compared with rebel casualties of 6,373 killed, 1,201 wounded or captured, and 6,057 surrendered. Quoted by Willard Hanna, Bung Karno’s Indonesia, Part VII: The Rebel Cause, 9 October 1959 (New York: American Universities Field Staff, 1961), p. 14. See Audrey R. & George McT. Kahin, Subversion as Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia (New York: The New Press, 1995).

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Unless otherwise cited, the economic discussion is based on T.K. Tan, “Sukarnian Economics”, in T.K. Tan, Sukarno’s Guided Indonesia (Sydney: The Lacaranda Press, 1967), pp. 29–45. Herbert Feith, “Politics of Economic Decline”, in Tan, ed., ibid, pp. 47–57. Actually it was a carefully orchestrated affair. The call for the appointment of ‘the President for Life’ began in Aceh and then spread to the other provinces. The MPRS, according to this scenario, only reacted to the demand of the people. See his classic short article,´Islam, Nastionalism, and Marxism”. In this article, Sukarno emphasizes the importance of a common struggle and a sole leadership structure. The speech was originally presented in English. An Indonesian version is included in Bung Karno dan Tata Dunia Baru (Jakarta: Grasindo, 2001). The book was published in conjunction with the 100th Birthday of Sukarno. See pp. 74– 90. Asian Relations, 1948. Quoted by Ide Anak Agung Gde Agung, Twenty Years Indonesian Foreign Policy, 1945–1965 (The Hague, Paris: Mouton, 1973), p. 24. This is Hatta’s rewording of his 1948 speech, as published in his article in Foreign Affairs XXX, no. 3 (April). Quoted in Anak Agung, Indonesian Foreign Policy, p. 26. On this event, see Feith, The Decline. On the preparation and the sphere of the AA Conference, see Anak Agung Gde Agung, Indonesian Foreign Policy, pp. 207–47. Asia Africa Speaks from Bandung (Jakarta: Indonesian Minsitry of Foreign Affairs, 1955). On the domestic aspects of the AA Conference, see Feith, The Decline, p. 135ff. Anak Agung Gde Agung, Indonesia’s Foregn Policy, p. 245. Subandrio, Revolutionary Diplomacy” in his collection of addresses, Indonesia on the March (Djakarta: Department of Foreign Affairs, R.I, 1963), vol. II, pp. 266–72. Subandrio was the Foreign Minister throughout the Guided Democracy period. On the diplomatic aspects of the West Irian issue, see Anak Agung, Twenty Years, pp. 283–315. From the Dutch perspective of the issue, see C.L.M. Penders, The West New Guinea Debacle: Dutch Colonization and Indonesia, 1945–1962 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002), pp. 329–75. “To Build the World Anew”. Reprinted in the Indonesian translation in Bung Karno dan Tata Dunia Baru, pp. 190–229. Like he usually did when he translated foreign words or expressions into Indonesian to suit his objectives, Sukarno also did the same thing when translating Indonesian expression into English. He changed the concept of persatuan Indonesia (Indonesian unity) into “nationalism”, and kemanusiaan yang adil dan beradab (a just and civilized

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humanity) into “internationalism”. Or, perhaps more likely, he actually referred to his The birth of Pancasila speech, rather than to the accepted version of the Pancasila, such as is formulated in the Preamble of the Constitution. On the Belgrade Non-Aligned conference, see Anak Agung Gde Agung, Twenty Years, pp. 313–35. In 1966, when the opposition against Sukarno was rising, particularly among the students, Indonesian students who were studying in the United States were surprised to find that their colleagues from the Arab World reprimanded them. “You may now hate Sukarno, but for us he remains a hero”. Personal recollection, 1966. Quoted in J.A.C. Mackie, Konfrontasi: The Indonesia-Malaysia Dispute, 1963–1965 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 96. Ibid., p. 105. See also Anak Agung Gde Agung, Twenty Years, pp. 456–57. Not too many members of the political public in Indonesia were aware of this “secret war” at that time. The social and economic impact of the “secret war” lasted long in West Kalimantan. It changed the geographical settlement of the multi-ethnic province. As such, it also altered the long entrenched pattern of inter-ethnic communication. This so-called war was one of the serious mistakes made by Indonesia. It failed to frustrate the formation of Malaysia and failed to help the Bruneian rebellion, but it left “at least six hundred killed and seven hundred captured…hundreds more died of malnutrition and starvation”. Quoted in Roland Challis, Shadow of Revolution: Indonesia and the Generals (Thrupp, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing Limited, 2001), p. 70 from General Walter Walker’s Fighting On (1997). He was the former commander of the British armed forces in Borneo. The armed conflict in this area continued after the attempted coup of 1965, but now the Indonesian military had a different enemy. See for example, Jamie S. Davidson & Douglas Kammen,” Indonesia’s Unknown War and the Lineages of Violence in West Kalimantan”, Indonesia, no. 73 (April 2002). The conflict lasted until 1975. Quoted in Mackie, Konfrontasi, p. 203. Anak Agung Gde Agung, Twenty Years, pp. 499–504. Quoted in Mackie, Konfrontasi, pp. 277–78. See Margo L. Lyon, Bases of Conflict in Rural Java (Berkeley: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California, 1970). On the debates about these two proposals, see Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1978). See also Ulf Sundhaussen, The Road to Power: Indonesian Military Politics, 1945–1967 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1982). See the collection of documents and cultural controversies that took place during the regime of the Guided Democracy. Taufiq Ismail & D.S. Moeljanto,

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Prahara Budaya: Kilas Balik Ofensif Lekra/PKI dkk (Jakarta: Mizan & Republika, 1995), p. 160. On the activities of the Lekra-PKI, see Teeuw, Modern Indonesian Literature (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979), op. cit. Murba was a small party but very influential. It was a nationalist party with Marxist leanings. The party was widely seen as the ideological heir to Tan Malaka. Jones, Indonesia: The Possible Dream, p. 352. Jones, Indonesia, pp. 354–57. Rosihan Anwar, Sebelum Prahara: Pergolakan Politik Indonesia, 1961–1965 (Jakarta: Penerbit Sinar Harapan, 1984). The news agency was established by Adam Malik. See Anwar, Sebelum Prahara, pp. 156–56, 189. This book is a collection of Anwar’s political diaries after his newspaper, Pedoman, had been confiscated. Anwar, Sebelum Prahara, pp. 276–79. The case was a cause célèbre in the university circle. The lecturer, Dr Mochtar Kusuma Atmadja, was rehabilitated after the fall of Sukarno. He became Minister of Justice and later the Minister of Foreign Affairs under President Soeharto. Crouch, The Army and Politics, and Sundhaussen, The Road to Power. The eventful incident is still a highly controversial historical issue. Although as an empirical fact, the event is clear enough — we know for certain who did what at what time in what place — the controversy is still unsettled as to how this event took place and why did it happen. Since the event has become a subject of academic investigation, several scenarios have been offered. Some would say “it was an internal army affair”, others might speculate that it was “Sukarno’s attempt to get rid of the non-revolutionary generals”, others suggest that “it was Suharto’s way to reach the top”. In these divergent scenarios, the PKI only played second fiddle. The most influential scenario, understandably enough, was offered by the New Order regime, which saw the event as a PKI-instigated attempted coup. The strength of this scenario is particularly based on the fact that the New Order pursued its policies along this scenario. As time went by, the CIA and Red China would also have their place in the divergent scenarios. The historic event needs its own set of bibliography. Quoted by Hughes, Indonesian Upheaval, p. 78. Quoted in Franklin B. Weinstein, Indonesian Foreign Policy and the Dilemma of Dependence: From Sukarno to Soeharto (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1976), p. 64. Eye witness of Meutia Hatta, who accompanied her father to visit Sukarno in the military hospital. On Sukarno’s death, see for example, Brian May, The Indonesian Tragedy (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1978), pp. 240–45.

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Reproduced from Indonesia: Towards Democracy, by Taufik Abdullah (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior permission Institute National Values in the the Pancasila Democracyof•the 341 of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg >

C H A P T E R

F I V E

National Values in the Pancasila Democracy

National Identity, “Revolution”, and Development

I

t is one of the controversial events in the contemporary history of Indonesia. It took place on 17 October 1952 at the Merdeka Palace. Thousands of demonstrators, who had on their way almost ransacked the parliament building, were rallying in front of the Merdeka Palace. President Sukarno received five representatives of the demonstrators and asked them what they were after. He strongly advised them to disperse. In the meantime, the army’s artillery troop was on a combat ready mode in front of the palace. Were the soldiers threatening the President — as Sukarno seemed to believe — or protecting him — as the former commander of the troop claimed?1 Soon after that, a group of high ranking army officers, led by the Chief-of-Staff of the Army, Colonel A.H. Nasution, and the Chief-of-Staff of the Armed Forces, Colonel T.B. Simatupang, accompanied by the Minister of Defence, Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX, came to see the President. The officers supported the demands of the demonstrators. They requested President Sukarno to dissolve the Provisional Parliament and to take complete power in his hands temporarily. They were very much annoyed and offended by the alleged interference of the civilian politicians, particularly those from the PNI (Nationalist Party) faction in the parliament, in the army’s internal affairs. They saw the interference as the stumbling block to the modernization process of the revolutionary army. In the heated debate that took place between President Sukarno, who was by that time already accompanied by Vice-President Hatta and several ministers, and the high ranking officers, their demands were rejected. 341

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Respecting Sukarno, the President/the Supreme Commander, the officers allowed him to address the cheering crowd, who were actually mobilized by certain elements in the army to stage such a demonstration. Flanked by the high officers and high officials, President Sukarno addressed the crowd. It was a great extemporaneous speech. He refused to dissolve the parliament and told the crowd to disperse. Although the speech was unrecorded, Sukarno uttered an unforgettable sentence, “I don’t want to be a dictator.” That was one of Sukarno’s brightest moments as the prominent national leader.2 The politician’s interference in the army’s internal affairs actually began after Sukarno gave his backing to a colonel, who was known to have a close personal relationship with the President. Arguing on the need to maintain the revolutionary spirit, the colonel opposed the modernization and rationalization programme of the military. The President’s tacit support had not only emboldened the opponents of the modernization programme, but also helped to sow a divisive issue within the army establishment. The programme could certainly threaten the careers of quite a number of the military personnel. The people who had made great sacrifices to the struggle of independence could very likely fail the test to be part of the modernizing armed forces. Since the modernization of the armed forces was also part of the agreement reached at the Round Table Conference (RTC), “the October 17 Affair” may well reflect the continuing ambivalent attitude towards the legitimacy of the conference. The conference had indeed resulted in the recognition of the sovereignty of Indonesia, but it also had put political, economic as well as psychological burdens on the new nation-state. The affair was the first serious attempt of the army to get directly and publicly involved in national politics. Although the most immediate consequence of the affair was an internal crisis of the military leadership,3 the long lasting impact of the affair was the continuing military distrust of civilian politicians. This affair directly inspired the military leaders to think seriously about the proper place of the military, being as they were, the “true sons of the revolution”, in the political constellation of the new nation-state. Reflecting on the affair, T.B. Simatupang, the former Chief-of-Staff of the Armed Forces, whose position was abolished soon after the affair, states that

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from the beginning the military never wanted to transform Indonesia into a “banana republic”.4 They did not want to create an Indonesian state that was characterized by a series of military coup and counter coup but how could they maintain political stability in which the military had a relative free hand to undertake their modernization program? How could they find the proper way, short of staging a coup d’état, to create a suitable political format in which the military had a role to play in determining the course of the new state? The “October 17 Affair” had undoubtedly given A.H. Nasution practical lessons in politics just as it had certainly made Sukarno more convinced than ever that he was not destined to play the role of a mere figurehead President. The idea of “the President can do no wrong”, such as implied by the Provisional Constitution of 1950, did not suit Sukarno’s ego and his sense of purpose. He saw clearly that the existing dualism between the politically and morally legitimate national leader and parliamentary system of government could easily create political uncertainty. In order to end this eventual political impasse, Sukarno had at his disposal, a potential highly charged nationalist claim. West Irian (also known then as the Dutch New Guinea) was still in the hands of the Dutch colonial power. A part of Indonesia, as he always claimed, had still not been liberated. In the meantime, the democratic young republic had to face innumerable internal and external challenges. The efforts to determine the scale of national priorities and to organize the intensification of the West Irian campaign had in effect worsened inter-party conflicts. These efforts also put a heavier economic burden on the country. The communist-affiliated trade unions began to “confiscate” the offices, warehouses, plantations, and industries belonged to the Dutch companies illegally. No matter how hard Hatta and other political leaders, particularly those who belonged to the Masyumi and the PSI, tried to warn the political public that the struggle for the inclusion of West Irian into the Republic of Indonesia should not put a heavy economic burden on Indonesia, but should instead damage the Dutch interest, they failed. Such common sense wisdom had no impact in the sphere of “heroic struggle”.5 The scattered illegal confiscation of Dutch enterprises had blemished the Indonesian reputation, but it failed to produce economic advantages.

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The Dutch shipping company, the KPM, that had practically monopolized the shipping major lines in the archipelago since the colonial period, was confiscated when most of its ships were already outside Indonesian waters. The Dutch flag air carrier, the KLM, might be hurt because of the loss of its Indonesian operations, but with its extensive international routes, it still managed to pay a 7 per cent dividend in 1958, exactly the same amount of profit it could give the stake holders in 1957. The Dutch certainly lost a lot, but the biggest loser was Indonesia. It had been calculated that in 1953 and 1954, the Dutch firms paid 1,233 million guilders to the Indonesian treasury. In these two years, the Dutch companies contributed 65 per cent of the total Indonesian taxation revenue. In the meantime, their oil exports provided 25 per cent of foreign exchange. After the forced nationalization, Indonesian exports of main commodities, including oil, fell from USD955.1 million in 1957 to USD696.4 million in 1963.6 The immediate impact of nationalization was obvious. It was exactly what the leaders of the opposition parties were afraid of. The process of economic decline could not be halted. The confiscation of Dutch enterprises forced the military to take over the former Dutch owned enterprises. In the process, it also opened up the possibility for the army officers to taste the aroma of money, without the proper training to run big companies. In this situation, the long debated necessity for the one-sided abrogation of the RTC agreement had finally come to its final conclusion. The Dutch continuing refusal to open fruitful discussion on the West Irian issue finally forced the government to abrogate the RTC agreement and to cut diplomatic relations with the Netherlands. The West Irian issue was, by that time, no longer a controversy between the two states; it had become a barometer to determine which party was closest to the national claims. Party popularity was determined by the degree of its radical posture on the increasingly emotional issue. In the meantime, the agreement between the Indonesian Government and the People’s Republic of China on the question of the citizenship of the Indonesian Chinese had created a new problem. If in the RTC the Indonesian Government agreed to acknowledge the Indonesianborn Chinese as their citizens, the new agreement explicitly divided the Chinese communities into two — those who preferred to remain Indonesian

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citizens and those who chose Chinese citizenship. Indonesian citizenship, however, should be actively applied for. Passive reaction to this agreement would simply be taken to mean rejection of the Indonesian citizenship. Those who failed to register would be treated as “foreign” citizens. That was the time when the government issued a regulation — known as the notorious P.P. 10 (Government Regulation number 10) — forbidding the “foreign” Chinese traders to live in the rural areas. The exodus of “foreign” Chinese from Indonesia had begun. A few thousand “foreign” Chinese, mostly from West Java, where the military authorities took the literary meaning of the regulation, left for China, the country they hardly knew. In the heightened nationalist agitation, political parties, except the PKI, were gradually losing their grips on their constituents. With the issuance of the emergency law, the political clout of the army grew immensely. In the meantime, while the rebellion of the Darul Islam was still unsolved, the PRRI/Permesta rebellion broke out in Central Sumatra and North Sulawesi. The central government in Jakarta, however, was never seriously threatened. By the beginning of 1959, it was clear that the danger of the total disintegration of state was all but over. The time had come for Sukarno to resolve what he believed to be several unhealthy types of dualisms, such as that between “the Government and the leadership of the Revolution” and so on.7 That was also the political sphere that enabled him, with the strong support of the army, to put his ideas of guided democracy into practice.8 In the “October 17 Affair”, the army failed dismally to persuade President Sukarno to dissolve the provisional Parliament. Nasution lost his position as the Chief-of-Staff of the Army — temporarily, apparently. The continuing internal crisis of the army, however, finally left the newly installed Masyumidominated cabinet, under Prime Minister Boerhanoeddin Harahap, with no better choice than to re-appoint Nasution (1955) and promote him to Major General, then the highest rank in the armed forces. During his absence from the centre of power, Nasution used his time wisely by collecting all the necessary materials to write his magnum opus on the Indonesian war of independence.9 He also had time to participate in the establishment of a political party to contest in the forthcoming general election. Supported by many former officers, including, the former Minister of Defence, Sultan

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Hamengkubuwono, the party, the Ikatan Pendukung Kemerdekaan Indonesia (IPKI, Association of the Defenders of the Indonesian Independence), used the call of “kembali ke UUD ’45" (the return to the 1945 Constitution) as its platform. More importantly, Nasution studied and conceptualized what he thought to be the proper role of the revolutionary army in the modern nation-state. He came up with the idea of “the middle way”, which as time went by, became the concept of dwifungsi (“dual function”) of the armed forces — one of the ideological cornerstones of Soeharto’s New Order. When President Sukarno issued his epoch making Presidential Decree on 5 July 1959, with the strong encouragement of Nasution,10 who had been propagating the idea for sometime,11 the army was already in the process of transforming itself. It could no longer simply be seen as a tool of the government, as Nasution puts it. The army was already on its way to becoming a major social and political power. It could no longer be seen as simply a legitimate apparatus of violence of the state. In his impromptu speech at the Military Academy in Magelang, 1958, he introduced the concept of “the middle way”, in which the military would neither be under the control of civilian politicians, nor a state apparatus separated from the political dynamics of the nation. The Indonesian military, as Nasution who never forgot to quote General Sudirman, the revolutionary Commander of the Armed Forces (Panglima Besar), put it, were “dari rakyat untuk rakyat” (of the people and for the people”).12 The real substance of the concept of the “middle way” he said, “is to provide [a] channel for our military, not as an organization, but as individuals …, to participate in determining state policies at the highest levels”.13 By the time the concept of “the middle way” had transformed itself into dwifungsi, which no longer makes a difference between the military as an organization and as an individual member, General Nasution was already out of power. He left behind the heritage of rejecting any notion of civilian supremacy. Claiming to be very much concerned with the “message of the suffering of the people” (amanat penderitaan rakyat, soon be known in its acronym, ampera), Sukarno solved the alleged dilemma between “democracy for the People and People for democracy” by choosing the former. Whatever form the democratic system might take, it should serve the needs of the people.

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But who would define the needs of the people if not the Great Definer of the ampera himself? Whatever political forces might have been at work within the system of the Guided Democracy, Sukarno had already made himself the sole master of political discourse. Yet, at the same time in his “autobiography”, which was recorded and written while he was still at the peak of his power, he continued to look at himself as an adherent of democracy. “I shall remain to my dying day a democrat”.14 Until the end, he was determined to make the Indonesian people proud as a nation. “After I’m gone,” he repeatedly said, “the only cement to hold the islands together will be their national pride.” How fast times had changed. In 1966, Cindy Adams, the writer of Sukarno’s “autobiography”, came again to Jakarta to present their published collaborative work. The political and social sphere of Jakarta, and indeed the whole country, was still very much clouded by the tragic event of 30 September 1965. She saw and felt the sphere of political excitement in the crucial and critical transitional time. To her chagrin, she met a different Sukarno. “A spell had been cast on the snorting, pawing Lion of Indonesia,” she writes. “He was like a lamb”. “Only once did he turn to me,” says Cindy Adams as she continues her remembrances, We were at Dewi’s dinner table and Foreign Service officer’s name came up as a candidate for some ambassadorial post. Being familiar with the man’s record and wishing to show off my knowledge of Indonesian history, I said, “Oh, he was the architect of the West Irian policy”. Sukarno turned to me with more savagery than I had ever seen him use. Slamming the flat of his hand on the table, he shouted, “No. Sukarno was the architect of the West Irian policy. Sukarno was the architect of Indonesia’s freedom. Sukarno was the architect of this republic. Sukarno is the founder and father and builder of this nation. Sukarno is the leader and the President and Prime Minister of this country. Let nobody ever forget that.”15 “I am the President and the Prime Minister” was for some time a dominant message of Sukarno’s speeches. He had to repeat the claim several

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times. He knew well enough that the night of terror of 30 September 1965 (better known as the Gestapu Affair”) had immensely eroded his power. “Sometimes,” he said,” I feel I am being farted upon, brothers.”16 Many members of the political elite and the political public in the capital city and most likely in other big cities had indeed seemed to have “forgotten” his claims to greatness. At that time, as Cindy Adams recalls, “Confusion was total. The President was praising the army. The army was praising the President in print. The students were criticizing the President openly. The army was praising the students privately.”17 The writer of Sukarno’s “autobiography” might not know that by the time she came to Jakarta on 5 May 1966, the army had issued a statement — one may even call it a stated ideological stance. The statement declared that the army was determined to correct any deviation that had been done to the 1945 Constitution. Signed by Nasution, Soeharto, and most of the army’s high brass, the statement also emphasized the need to return the power to the MPR, which is the real locus of “people’s sovereignty”. The army’s commitment to the process of democratization and to the need for introducing a new style of governance was re-emphasized by the Second Army Seminar of 1966, held in Bandung. In one of its recommendations the seminar states, “The New Order is a mental attitude. Its objectives is to create social, political and cultural lives which are based the Pancasila morality, particularly the principle of God Almighty (Ketuhanan Yang Maha Esa).”18 When Cindy Adams arrived in Jakarta, the army had already given the appearance of being the stalwart bastion of 1945 Constitution and the Pancasila. It had begun to perceive the Guided Democracy it used to support as the transgressor of the constitution. The idealism expressed in the Army Seminar of 1966 can only be compared with the result of another seminar, held at the University of Indonesia — then the centre of activities against the continuing entrenchment of the Guided Democracy. In the seminar, entitled “In Search of a New Foundation”, the participants, both military and civilian leaders, expressed a similar commitment to political democratization and economic rehabilitation and development. Later, much later, the Army Seminar of 1966 was to be seen by a great number of retired generals and civilian intellectuals as a sacred covenant that had been betrayed. The dwifungsi of the armed

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forces, as the seminar stated, was not simply an historical necessity, it was also a way to further the process of democratization, to maintain the integrity of the state, and to fulfill the promises of the Proclamation of Independence. However, as the retired generals saw it, as time went by, the concept of dwifungsi had gradually become a conservative ideology to maintain power for the sake of power. When the accusation was made, the New Order had not only already solidified its power, but had also emerged as the ruler of an authoritarian state. It took one-and-a-half years for the army to get rid of the father of the nation. In March 1967, Sukarno, whose title as the President for Life had been taken away, lost whatever remnants of power he might still hold. On the recommendation of the recently “reformed” Mutual-Help People’s representatives (DPR-GR — Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat-Gotong Royong), the MPRS rejected Sukarno’s political accountability. The council simply decided to replace him. General Soeharto was elected the Acting President. The military-dominated New Order had been established. It was not, however, as the leaders of the New Order never failed to emphasize and wanted people to believe, a “military regime”. It was a New Order that was determined to fulfil the promises of the Proclamation of Independence. In his maiden speech as the Acting President, Soeharto promised to bring the country back to the true spirit of the 1945 Constitution. Not unlike Sukarno, the Acting President also saw the constitution as “the genuine expression of the identity of the Indonesian nation”. However, Soeharto promised that he would refrain from anything that might lead to the re-emergence of the socalled “personality cult”. He was obviously referring to what he thought was the way Sukarno placed himself in the consciousness of the nation. As Soeharto saw it, the “personality cult”, which had made a certain person the personification of the nation’s ideals and noble values, was one of the unpardonable sins of the Old Order. The Acting President abandoned the idea of “returning to the rails of the revolution”, he instead made pembangunan, development, as a sine qua non (absolute essential) for the survival of the state and nation. He rightly stated that the people had suffered enough. It was high time to fulfill the promises of the Proclamation of Independence. With this maiden speech, the Acting President not only

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changed the direction of the state, but also the style of political discourse. The New Order promised to embark on a new course, which would in the first place take the state back to its legitimate and rightful course, and would also, secondly, fulfill the promises of the Proclamation of Independence, such as elegantly defined in the Preamble of the Constitution. Political instability, the inability of the political parties to find common grounds in facing the numerous challenges to the integration of the state and the nation, and the growing strength of the army had in the past given the opportunity for the emergence of the Guided Democracy. Under the leadership of a radical nationalist, such as Sukarno, the Guided Democracy saw that the only rational way to continue the process of nation-building was to adhere consistently to the notion of “national personality” and to keep “the revolutionary élan” alive. In its highly revolutionary mood, the Guided Democracy, which saw the world as consisting of several pairs of antagonistic contradictions, however, inadvertently planted the seeds of explosive social conflicts. It extolled revolutionary ideas, but at the same time, nurtured the tradition of obeying the leader, without question. It cultivated the idea of social equality, but the regime failed to take into proper consideration the cultural meaning and the economic and social functions of land property. When the regime introduced the land reform programme, it immediately incited the conflict between the followers of the PKI, the party that claimed to be the protector of the landless peasants, and the followers of the NU, the “traditionalist” Islamic party whose followers were peasants with small pieces of land. The piecemeal agrarian conflicts that took place here and there would later, after 30 September, explode into a social conflict of major proportions. The Guided Democracy regime failed to pave the path towards the creation of “the just and prosperous society”. When one of its artificial political pillars began to tumble on the others, the whole ideological house of cards of the Guided Democracy crumbled. And Indonesia experienced its most traumatic human tragedy in modern history. The Guided Democracy that had claimed to be the “beacon” of the New Emerging Forces suddenly became a history to reflect on. The fall of Sukarno did not only end the political career of the most prominent leader of the nationalist movement and the most influential

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founding father of the Republic, nor did it simply mean the termination of a regime. It also closed, perhaps, temporarily, the history of intellectuals in power. The time when intellectuals had the luxury to dream any imaginable dream — “Am I a dreamer? Yes, call me a dreamer,” Sukarno frequently challenged his cheering audience — was over. That illusive luxury had now to be replaced, as the leaders of the new regime emphasized, by a clearly designed programme of actions. With the fall of Sukarno, the era of the “spiritual longing for the romanticism of revolution”19 was terminated. It was succeeded by era of development. His fall symbolically signified that the process of state- and nation-building could never be undertaken by the production of symbols and myths, no matter creative they may be. It could also not be carried out by extolling national dignity repeatedly and continuously. A clearly designed programme and technocratic expertise should displace dreams and ideology. As such, the understanding of the meaning of intellectual should also undergo transformation. An intellectual should no longer be the one who incessantly asked critical and creative questions, but one who was willing and able to solve actual social and economic problems of the country. The phase of technocratic developmentalism had begun.20 In the process, Nasution’s concept of “the middle way” was transformed into Soeharto’s formula of the “dwifungsi” of the military — the idea that had been given a constitutional backing by Sukarno’s interpretation of the concept of “functional groups” in the 1945 Constitution.21 “As long as our nation still adhere[s] to the notion of national resilience and national stability,” Soeharto says in his “as-told-to” autobiography, “the dwifunsi ABRI would continue to exist. The dwifungsi ABRI is the stabilizer and the dynamic factor in securing stability and strengthening national resilience.”22 There was, however, another important aspect to the change of the regime. Though a very common and natural phenomenon actually, the new regime, nonetheless, gave it a symbolic significance. The change of the regime meant a definitive change of generation. Sukarno might have romanticized the revolution and preferred to be called “the Great Leader of the Revolution”, but he did not belong to the “1945 Generation” — the revolutionary generation. In the politically inspired Indonesian modern

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historiography, Sukarno, Hatta, and all the leaders of the nationalist movement were included in the category of the “1928 Generation”. This is the generation which dared to take an oath that they, despite their ethnic and religious differences, “belonged to one nation, had one fatherland, and highly respected one national language” — that is Indonesia. If the “1928 Generation”, let alone the much older “1908 generation” (one that is supposed to have “awakened the nation”) did not bother much with this historical division, the New Order highly glorified its generation. Looking at what his generation had accomplished, Soeharto, at the height of his power, had this to say: The ’45 Generation is now completing its historical duties to bring the nation to the stage when the solid foundation for taking off toward the creation of a just and prosperous society [is] on the basis of the Pancasila principles. In conjunction with this, the continuing generation of the ABRI and of the nation as a whole should have begun to carry the increasingly heavier burden.23 In order to secure the success of the change of generation, the New Order regime also formed the forum of Angkatan ’45 (Generation of 1945), whose major task was to preserve and inherit the noble values of 1945. At the peak of its activities, the forum of the former freedom fighters, with a branch in every province, not only managed to hold important seminars on the history of the revolution but also occasionally reminded the people, particularly the younger generation, of the meaning of winning national independence by blood and tears. It was also at the peak of its activities and influence that the Angkatan ‘45 played a role as the bastion of the New Order’s conservatism. It wanted to bequeath the “1945 universal values” to the younger generations or — to use its term “the continuing generations” — as if they had no right to nurture their own values in tune with the demands of time. Who would then be surprised to learn that, despite its continuing influence in the bureaucracy, the Angkatan ’45 became less and less relevant as time went by? The members of the forum continued to be respected and their sense of morality might still be sought — they were after all the people who had made sacrifices for independence — but the

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ideas they continued to propagate were increasingly out of tune with the changing times.24 Symbols and myths are some of the major concerns of any newborn regime. What is the meaning of constitutional legitimacy and political power if it is not supported by moral and historical legitimacy? The break, even a total break, with the previous regime, may have to be stressed, but some sense of continuity with history — the history that reflects the unity of a struggling nation — is still needed. But once this problem has conceptually been solved, the pressing actual issue has to be faced. The question is therefore, “How can the newly established regime fulfil its promises in the aftermath of a national crisis of such major proportions?” The traumatic experiences after the failed attempted coup could never be taken lightly. The New Order was born on the ruins of the “revolutionary” Guided Democracy and amidst the most traumatic social tragedy. The “cursed night” of 30 September 1965 was not only the time when several high-ranking officers were abducted and murdered, it was also the moment when the hitherto suppressed sources of social and political ills were unleashed. The long concealed sources of social-economic conflict suddenly broke loose. The idealized sphere of social harmony changed its face overnight — that was the time of mass killings which took place here and there.25 Suddenly several places in Indonesia, the country whose people used to boast about their harmonious social lives, became killing fields of major proportions. For many years to come, Indonesia, particularly North Sumatra, Central and East Java, and Bali, where the traumatic events took place, was to live in the shadow the frightful months of late 1965 and early 1966. In his desperation, the Great Leader of the Revolution, who had unwittingly sown the seeds of polarization by his pairs of antagonistic contradictions lamented in his speech. “I wept to God, asked God, how Allah, Rabbi, how could this happen?”26 No one ever questioned Sukarno’s sincerity. He was really shocked and deeply saddened by the tragic course of events. He might occasionally act as a despot, but certainly not a bloodthirsty one. That was what happened. Sukarno might lament the tragedies that had beset the nation but the emerging regime had a history to ponder. When the New Order was born, it had behind it a history of

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political instability, the squabbling of the political parties, and the intimate experiences of poignant social tragedies. From the early inception of the new regime, Soeharto and his military colleagues were determined to avoid the political instability of the socalled “liberal democracy” period and the national tragedy that clouded its birth. In the process, it again had to face the old question of finding the right balance between political stability and open democratic sphere. If in the early history of the Guided Democracy, Sukarno insisted on the necessity of “retooling” and herordening or “restructuring of political system”, the New Order spoke about the importance of “political restructuring”. Major changes in the political system have to be undertaken. But instead of attaching itself to the Guided Democracy’s “paradigm of conflict” that made it obligatory to identify the “enemies of the revolution”, the New Order gradually formed its own “paradigm of consensus”, which marginalized and silenced any (as Admiral Sudomo, the former Chief-of-Staff of the Navy, who made a reputation as the ever-present Soeharto loyalist, put it) “dissenting voices”. The New Order had from the beginning refused to be part of the rhythm of the ever-changing values, such as echoed in Sukarno’s notion of the continuing revolution. As time went by, the regime showed its repugnance not only to the idea of the changing values, but also to the notion that society can be conceived as a sphere where different kinds of value systems might interact and coalesce. The New Order regime tried to create a social-political sphere where unity and uniformity could easily be carried out. Plurality might be a social and cultural reality, but in New Order’s imagined world, it was regarded as an unwanted aberration. The significance of social-economic and, particularly, political and ideological plurality in national life should be minimized to its lowest possibility. If the Guided Democracy can be seen as a connoisseur of hyperbole and violent words — “crush”, “retool”, “no compromise” — then the New Order was the master of euphemism. Whenever the expression, “telah diamankan” (has been saved) was used by the members of the security forces, how could one really be sure of what it meant — “has been arrested”, “killed” or “protected”? Whatever their differences

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might be, the two regimes shared the tendencies of blurring realities with their different use of linguistic apparatus. The change of the style of language also reflects the change of attitude towards the outside world. Sukarno was still officially the President, when Soeharto began to send a secret mission to end the politics of konfrontasi.27 With the emergence of the New Order regime, Indonesia gradually “abdicated” its claim to be the leader of the Nefos. Soon after Soeharto was officially installed as the Acting President, Indonesia sought again to become a member of the UN. The international isolation had ended. In the spirit of good neighbourliness that the new regime was determined to cultivate, Adam Malik, the Foreign Minister, became a force in the formation of ASEAN — Association of Southeast Asian Nations. By abandoning the politics of konfrontasi, the New Order had in effect returned again to the orthodoxy of an “independent and active” foreign policy. Indonesia had learned a bitter lesson — what it meant to be isolated in the world community. Unlike its predecessor, the New Order ceased to perceive the world as consisting of several pairs of antagonistic contradictions, such as the “Nefos” against the “Oldefos”. Soon after its establishment, the new regime sought to end the isolation of Indonesia from the world community. Indonesia resumed its membership in the United Nations and other international bodies, particularly the World Bank and IMF. Sukarno might have gallantly told the United States “go to hell with your aids” and suffered the political and economic consequences that might come with such an attitude, but the New Order soon enough eagerly sought foreign aid and opened up the country for foreign investment. Under the chairmanship of the Netherlands and supported by major economic powers, most notably Japan, the United States, and Western countries, the IGGI (Inter-Governmental Group on Indonesia) was formed. Every year at its meeting in Paris, the IGGI would decide the amount of loan and the kinds of aids to be given to Indonesia. After three decades, Indonesia finally found itself to be the second biggest borrower in the world. The New Order offered no new theory of revolution. Even the word “revolution”28 itself, like “ideology”, was for several years treated as a dirty word, something that had to be avoided. Instead of a theory of the revolution,

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the New Order came forward with the “trilogy of development”. It stressed the vital importance of “stability, growth, and equity” — in that order. It also introduced the ideal concept of the “eight lanes of equality”. The “paradigm of consensus” was not only a way of perceiving and understanding reality, but also an invitation to the consensual world of the military dominated New Order. The New Order had a long career but a short history. In historical hindsight, one can now see that its career began when it entertained a short “Indian summer” of democratic life, before the long cold winter of authoritarian rule took over.29 That was the short period when everything of social and political importance was debated. Freedom of expression was at its most creative period. Discussion groups sprang up here and there. Seminars and workshops on various social, political, and economic topics became weekly affairs in many university towns. The songs that for many years could not be sung publicly, for their anti-revolutionary messages or style of music, could now easily be heard from the many so-called “amateur radio”. The government radio, the RRI, no longer had a monopoly of the air. New newspapers were published. The banned newspapers such as Indonesia Raya, Pedoman, and Abadi, resumed publication. These newspapers now had to compete with the rapidly very popular students’ newspaper, the firebrand Harian KAMI (an abbreviation of Kesatuan Aksi Mahasiswa Indonesia) and “peaceful” and liberal Kompas and the afternoon daily, Sinar Harapan. These newspapers not only reported news but also “created” news by interviewing intellectuals, students, officials or others on current topics of the day.30 But how long would this open intellectual and political sphere stay? Could the open intellectual sphere be maintained in a political system that had every possibility of being easily manipulated by authoritarian impulses?

Stability and Development On 24 February 1966, Sukarno, who had unwittingly stated that the killing of the generals was, as he put it in Dutch, “een rimpletje in de oceaan” (a rumple in the ocean) and consistently refused to condemn the PKI, reshuffled his cabinet. It took place when the students, who had already organized themselves into the Kesatuan Aksi Mahasiswa Indonesia (KAMI —

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Indonesian Students Action Front), were intensifying their demonstrations against the deteriorating economic situation. They ignored Sukarno’s order to dissolve their newly formed action front. They instead issued their “three people’s demands” (Tiga Tuntutan Rakyat or better known as Tritura — hence twisted Sukarno’s slogan of West Irian campaign, trikora), which urged the government to dissolve the PKI, to purge the cabinet from the leftist elements, and to lower prices. The formation of the new cabinet was one of Sukarno’s most daring acts in his political life. Not only did he exclude the popular General Nasution, whose daughter had been fatally wounded the night the rebellious Presidential guards stormed his house, from the cabinet, the President also appointed a host of politically unwanted figures to the cabinet. If nothing else, the newly formed cabinet would always be remembered as the largest ever cabinet. It was officially called the Perfected Dwikora (Two People’s Commands) Cabinet, but the cabinet was better remembered as the “Cabinet of 100 Ministers”. On the day the cabinet was supposed to have its first meeting, a huge student demonstration took place. The students surrounded the palace and blocked the entrance to the palace compound. Many ministers had to be flown in by a special helicopter. An ugly confrontation with the guarding troops could not be avoided. Several students were wounded and Arief Rahman Hakim, a medical student of the University of Indonesia, became a “martyr” of the student-revolution. His name was later immortalized by the formation of a “student army”,31 the Lasykar AMPERA “Arief Rahman Hakim”. Strongly pressed by the rapidly changing course of events, on 11 March 1966, the day Sukarno had to abruptly cancel the meeting, he had to issue the much debated “March 11 Letter of Order” (Surat Perintah 11 Maret or with the Indonesian penchant for symbolic acronym, Supersemar (Semar, it should be noted, was a wayang figure, who was supposed to be a half-god), in which he gave full authority to General Soeharto, then the Chief-of-Staff of the Army, to solve security problems and to restore public order. True to his word since taking over the top command of the Army, Soeharto’s made his first priority the dissolution of the Communist Party, the PKI — the party that been accused of being the real mastermind behind the putsch on the night of 30 September 1965. “They had no right to criticize me,” Soeharto

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later said, referring to the criticisms of his policy launched by Sukarno and his loyal assistants, “they knew I wanted to disband the PKI if I had the power and the right to do it.”32 His next move was to arrest fifteen newly appointed cabinet ministers, who were suspected of being either communist sympathizers or embezzlers of state treasuries. The political consequences of the Supersemar had apparently gone much beyond Sukarno ever imagined.33 “I have never thought of Supersemar as a means to gain power,” Soeharto relates in his “as-told-to-autobiography.” “Neither was the written Order of March 11 an instrument to stage a disguised coup. Supersemar was the beginning of the struggle of the New Order”.34 He may honestly tell his opinion of the controversial order. It was, however, also clearly stipulated in the Presidential order that Soeharto should maintain the sanctity of the teachings of the Great Leader of the Revolution. He should be responsible for the personal safety of the President. Finally he was instructed to report anything of importance to the President. By arresting the ministers, he had actually used the order to isolate Sukarno from his political supporters. More importantly, by banning the communist party, General Soeharto had practically dismantled the Guided Democracy, which had made the NASAKOM (nationalist/NAS, religious/A, and the communist/KOM — groups) its ideological and political pillars. Call it a covered or silent coup d’état or whatever, the ambiguous Supersemar had given Soeharto the legal weapon he had been trying to get. If he had to restore security, as Soeharto saw it, the only way to do it was to ban the PKI. However it meant nothing less than the abandonment of the teaching of the Great Leader of the Revolution. Soeharto could easily argue that he should be obliged to give top priority to the most urgent need of the county. Survival of the nation and the state should come first. In spite of all these arguments that became public controversies, a simple fact cannot be denied. In the struggle to gain political predominance Soeharto and his military colleagues had already gained the upper hand. In its Decision 25/1966, the MPRS gave its sanction to Soeharto’s policy. The communist party should be banned. The decision also forbade the spread of the teaching of Marxism-Leninism. The course of events had actually abandoned Sukarno. The March 11 Order is indeed a very important document. By issuing it, President Sukarno had not only inadvertently shovelled his own political

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grave,35 but had also accidentally introduced a new chapter in the history of political thought in Indonesia. In the New Order’s historical tradition, Marxism-Leninism came to be treated as a deviation from the “national identity”. It became a target of ideological and political hatred. It had become an unwanted element in the course of history. During the time Sukarno was facing the crisis of his presidency under the threat of the usedto-be politically underrated and “stubborn” (what Sukarno said) Soeharto, the proud leader suffered another political blow. On 9 April 1966, the former revolutionary Prime Minister, Sutan Sjahrir, died in Zürich. Sukarno immediately reacted to the sad news by officially recognizing Sjahrir as a”national hero”.36 It was Sukarno who sent Sjahrir to Zurich after he learned that Sjahrir in his detention had been suffering from acute high blood pressure. But the moment Sjahrir was brought back to Jakarta people could only remember the fact that it was Sukarno’s regime that had put him in jail on false accusations. For the first time, Hatta in his speech used very strong words against Sukarno, his friend. In his sadness Hatta stated that Sjahrir died as a victim of tyranny. To be separated from public life for a political leader and freedom fighter was hard enough, but to be separated from his children for Sjahrir was an intolerable suffering. Hatta’s oration at Sjahrir’s funeral not only indirectly reminded people of the tragedy that had beset the three most prominent revolutionary leaders, but also deepened their suspicion of how power had corrupted Sukarno, the great leader. Suddenly Sukarno appeared to many people, most notably to students and the urban politically conscious public, as the representative of political evils.37 From 20 June to 5 July 1966 the Provisional People’s Consultative Assembly (MPRS) held its session. On the second day of its session, the MPRS elected General Nasution38 as the Speaker. One of the earliest decisions of the MPRS was to take away Sukarno’s title of the “President for Life”. Since the members of MPRS were of the opinion that Sukarno had been negligent in his duties as the Head of State and Chief Executive, the MPRS demanded him to give a thorough report on the multidimensional crisis that had beset the country. The Assembly also demanded that he must allow Soeharto to form a new cabinet to be led by a Presidium consisting of Soeharto, who would be the chairman, Adam Malik, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX, the Coordinating Minister for

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Economic Affairs. While Sukarno continued to occupy the position of the President, a dualism in the government could not be avoided. General Soeharto had to sail between the staunch supporters of President Sukarno and the increasingly impatient students, intellectuals, political reformers, and Islamic political groups. General Soeharto did not have to wait long. He did not even have to show his disloyalty to the President openly.39 Sukarno, who could not swallow the humiliation dealt him by the students and intellectuals, gave his political opponents a golden opportunity with his annual Independence Day address. In the speech entitled “Never leave history even once” (“Jangan sekali-kali meninggalkan sejarah “and abbreviated to Jas merah which means “red jacket”) he lambasted the present political trend as being a betrayal of the revolutionary ideas. He refused to condemn the PKI — as demanded by the students and the military — but praised the party as being consistently in the forefront of the revolutionary struggle. He defended the Nasakom concept. And he proudly called himself a Marxist.40 The members of the provisional parliament, still called the Mutual Help People’s House of Representatives (DPR-GR), despite the expulsion of the communists and their fellow travellers and the appointment of the new members, including the representatives of the student communities, reacted strongly to the speech. For the first time in the history of post-independent Indonesia, the members of the parliament demanded that the President show official accountability for the economic, political, and social crises and moral decays that had beset Indonesia. In compliance with the demand, Sukarno presented a speech, which is entitled (in abbreviated Sanskrit words) Nawaksara or Nine Points. Despite its rhetoric, the speech failed to answer the questions. He was asked again by the DPR-GR to give full answers to the questions asked. But instead of complying with the request, the President challenged the constitutionality of the DPR-GR in requiring him to give a full account of his policies. Although he was the President, he said, he could not be held as the only person responsible for the present crisis. Other persons should also share the burden of responsibility. Who should be blamed on the seven attempts on his life? Was he alone responsible for the alleged moral degradation? His Nawaksara speech, he said, should

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be taken as nothing more than just a “progress report”. It was not a report on his accountability as the President. Sure enough this addendum outraged the radical members of the DPR-GR. On 9 January 1967, they managed to gear the DPR-GR to issuing a resolution that rejected the President’s Nawaksara and its addendum. The resolution also stated that Sukarno’s policies had not only deviated from the 1945 Constitution, it had also endangered the security and the integrity of the nation, the state, and the Pancasila. There were some signs, according to the resolution, that Sukarno himself might also be involved in the G-30-S affair. On the basis of these allegations, the DPR-GR proposed that the MPRS hold a special session to remove Sukarno from office and to instruct the security and legal agencies to enquire whether the President had transgressed the law. At its meeting on 21 January 1967, the leadership and the working group of the MPRS supported the DPR-GR’s resolution.41 In the meantime, the students, the protagonists of the “parliament on the streets”, intensified their demand for the removal of Sukarno by holding huge demonstrations. Junior and senior high school students had even almost ransacked the buildings of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They cursed Soebandrio, the Minister of Foreign of Affairs, as “Durno”, the wayang figure who gave bad advice to his king. Subandrio, once labelled as the number one contender to the Presidency in the event that Sukarno could no longer function as the President because of his health, had become the most hated man in the Sukarno’s entourage. The demonstrators ransacked the building of the Chinese embassy. It took many years before diplomatic relations between Indonesia and China which had been accused of helping the PKI to stage the abortive coup, was restored. All incidents sent only one important message — the Great Leader of the Revolution, who claimed to represent the message of the suffering of the People, had to go. The people he loved so much had rejected him. During this time of uncertainty, Soeharto sent a mission to the palace to persuade Sukarno to step down voluntarily. It was a very moving meeting. Sukarno, “the father of the nation”, finally consented to the polite but determined demand. He looked deeply into the eyes of the high officers, and said softly, “How can you do this to me?” in Javanese. The officers

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could barely hold back their tears. An important chapter in the history of post-independent Indonesia was about to be closed. On 22 February 1967 at the Merdeka Palace, Sukarno transferred his power to General Soeharto, because the MPRS’s decision number XV/ 1965 stipulated that, “If the President is incapacitated the holder of the Order of March 11 would occupy the office of the Presidency”. On 24 February, the commanders of the Armed Forces issued a statement supporting the transfer of power. On 12 March at its special session, the MPRS installed General Soeharto as the Acting President. The dualism in the government had been solved. Although the fate of Sukarno still had to be decided and the new political format of the state to be formulated, the MPRS and the new government were determined to correct constitutional deviations that had been allegedly conducted by the previous regime. On these constitutional arguments the new regime laid down its claim to constitutional legitimacy. Sukarno stepped down as the President with a blemished image. Many members of the MPRS and students wanted to take him to court, like what the emerging communist regimes had done to the fallen leaders. Many thought he was directly or indirectly involved in the tragic event of 30 September. Soeharto simply ignored the demand. Later, much later, in his “autobiography” he said, Some people thought that as a leader Bung Karno had committed offenses [sic] and should therefore be tried by a special military tribunal and convicted. I was certain that Bung Karno had made mistakes like any other human being, but I was convinced that he was not of the PKI. It was true that his policies enabled PKI to gain power. But it was not his idea to give the PKI the opportunity to mobilize to achieve its goals. The PKI only took advantage of the situation.42 So what was the verdict? Was Sukarno involved in the tragic affair or not? Soeharto’s concern was simply to avoid the humiliation of Sukarno. Mikul duwur mendem jero, he said in Javanese — unreserved respect to the old. In retrospect, one may see it as a wise decision. Why should the nation

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humiliate its own founding father? History could remain a mystery for a while. When the time was ripe, the truth would gradually make its appearance. In real life, however, when the great leader had to leave the Presidency, he immediately lost his freedom as a person. He was confined to the Bogor palace and forbidden to communicate with other people, except with his close relatives. There was a time — during the colonial period — when Sukarno was exiled to a lonely small town, Endeh, on the island of Flores. Here, in his first place of exile, Sukarno still had the freedom to write newspaper columns and to pretend to be the stage director among the youngsters who adored his charm. In Bengkulu, on the west coast of Sumatra, his next place of exile, he could join the Muhammadiyah, engage in a high quality debate on Islam and the state, design a mosque, and fall in love with his future wife, Fatmawati. Under the New Order’s house arrest, the former President could only contemplate the tragic end of his many decades of struggle to build a nation and to establish an independent nation-state. In the meantime his health rapidly deteriorated. “The establishment of New Order is,” the Acting President stated in his first Independence Day speech on 16 August in the special session of the DPR-GR, for no other reason but to reconstruct the structure of people’s life situation, of the nation and the state — all should again be based on the genuine application of Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution. The birth and growth of the New Order was a reaction. [It is] aimed at making a total correction to the abuses of the former ruling order, which should now be called the Old Order… The serious deviation from the 1945 Constitution took place after power was totally centralized in the hands of the Head of State. Gradually the principles of constitutional state were abandoned until finally we had the state that was entirely based on power. The principles and the foundations of the constitutional system had in practice been transformed into absolutism. The highest power in the state did not any longer reside in the hands of the MPRS but in the hands of the Great Leader of the Revolution. The President was no longer subservient to the MPRS; on the contrary the MPRS was put under

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the supervision of the President. It was really a tragedy for the people and for the Indonesian nation.43 In this historic speech, the Acting President attacked the Old Order for making a joke of every principle of the Pancasila. He accused the former regime of having insulted the idea of “a just and civilized humanity”. It utterly ignored the principles of human rights. The regime made the principle of people’s sovereignty irrelevant. Since the Old Order showed more preference for the construction of “the beacon projects”, which had destroyed the people’s economy, the process towards the attainment of social justice became further and further. The Acting President closed his speech by stating that, “the New Order would finally be established after the formation of the elected MPR, which would elect the new President and he would in turn form a new government”.44 The speech was well received. Acting President Soeharto was to repeat the same idea in his second state address in 1968. The speech was also a never forgotten promise. Soeharto had, in fact, rightly captured the mood of the political public — the dormant process of democratization could be revived again. No more the so-called “multi-complex revolution” to block the way towards the attainment of the nation’s ideals of having a “just and prosperous society”. Neo-colonialists and imperialist powers might still be there but their existence should no longer consistently cloud the vision of the future. There were, however, three pressing problems that had to be tackled, namely the restoration of public order, the rehabilitation of the nation’s economy, and the formulation of a suitable political format. Soon after he was elected as the Acting President, General Soeharto announced that his government had “twin duties” — economic stabilization and political stabilization. The government, furthermore, was to gear itself towards the achievement of “five forms of orders” — they were namely, “political order”, “social order”, “economic order”, “legal order”, and “security order”. But how could these five orders be undertaken and the “twin duties” carried out if the proper balance of power between the executive and legislative branches of the government was also to be achieved? The “twin duties” and the “five orders” might be the demands of the time, but the proper balance of power was a constitutional imperative. It was also a

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guarantee for the healthy development of democracy. Any emphasis on the demands of the time, as it was largely argued, would undoubtedly strengthen the army’s political clout. It might even pave the way towards another round of authoritarian rule. Already in its fourth session (or the first since the outbreak of the attempted coup) in 1966, the MPRS had seen the need for having “a transitional/‘emergency’ period” as a necessary step towards the total application of constitutional demands. The members of the MPRS strongly recommended that the establishment of any state institutions be conducted through general election. But, again, how should the emergency nature of the state be interpreted in the ensuing political calamity? As long as the remnants of the PKI remained a threat to the state and the dualism of power was still very much in the air, it was then argued that the strategy for a better future should be set aside for a while. With the removal of Sukarno from the centre of power and the election of Soeharto as the Chief Executive, these questions had to be settled, both in the arrangement of the power structure and the proper distribution of power. From the time of the election of Soeharto as the Acting President, politics was more than ever “a matter of the army and the civilians”.45 Political events also took place much faster than ever before. In the official report of the MPRS, the outgoing leadership of the MPRS (1966–72) regretted the fact that the concept of “emergency” had been translated by the leadership of the DPR-GR to the disadvantage of the legislative bodies. The leadership of the DPR-GR asked the President to appoint its new members, replacing the representatives of the PKI and the other leftists. With this political abdication, the report claims, “the legal position of the membership of the DPR-GR/MPRS could no longer be defended”.46 In other words, the leadership of the DPR-GR simply followed the tradition that had been laid down by Sukarno in his decision of 25 June 1960. The President appointed the members of the DPR-GR, the house of people’s representatives. Whatever the constitution might have said, and however dominant was the discourse on the continuing process of democratization, with this decision, a tradition of a powerful executive branch had been reconfirmed. Now that the era of the authoritarian Guided Democracy had practically ended, the new regime had to face the growing demands for political freedom and transparency. The students, the once glorified partners of the

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army in their opposition to the “Old Order” and the PKI, shifted their attention — from the destruction of the Old Order to the establishment of a clean government and a healthy democratic political system. Conscious of their place in history as the members of the “ ’66 Generation” — that is, the fourth generation in the history of nation formation — the students were determined to remind the New Order consistently of its historical mission. They again staged demonstrations demanding the total eradication of corruption and graft.47 At the same time, civilian political leaders demanded the freedom to reconsolidate their parties and — as in the case of the leaders of the already banned Masyumi, the big “modernist” Islamic party — to reestablish their parties. The leaders of the still banned Masyumi argued that the Old Order illegally disbanded their party.48 In spite of the short honeymoon of the so-called “green forces” (the Islamic “green” flag and the military “green” uniforms), the military-dominated New Order refused to grant permission to re-establish the party. The regime also frustrated Hatta’s attempt to form a new party, to be named Islamic Democratic Party.49 Reluctantly, the government finally gave its approval to the formation of the Partai Muslimin Indonesia (Parmusi — Indonesian Muslim Party), which was supported by several “modernist” Islamic organizations, such as the Muhammadiyah, Al Irsyad, and others. It was supposed to be the official substitute of the forbidden Masyumi, but without the political and ideological independence of the old party. The formation of the Parmusi clearly shows the political orientation of the New Order. If the PKI and its affiliates should be annihilated and Sukarno’s followers weakened, then the Islamic political groups should apparently be always suspected. The newly established military-dominated regime genuinely wanted to avoid a return to the history of unstable government of the 1950s, when the fate of the government was very much dependent on — as the New Order’s official historians never forget to emphasize50 — the irresponsible qualms of competing political parties. It was certainly determined to avoid the repetition of the tragic bloodshed on such a massive scale that took place in the mid-60s. The “five orders” and “twin duties”, however, could lead on the one hand, to paving the way towards a healthy process of democratization, and on the other hand, to the re-establishment of an

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authoritarian state. Whatever the case, Soeharto was at the moment facing several immediate and most pressing problems. Firstly, he had to secure the total destruction of the PKI and the isolation of its followers. Secondly, he had to further the continuing weakening of Sukarno’s supporters and followers, either in the military establishment51 or in the political parties, most notably, the PNI and its affiliates. Thirdly, Soeharto seemed determined to frustrate the possibility of the re-emergence of Islamic political groups, which might emerge as strong contenders for power. And, naturally, lastly, he sought to consolidate the military position in the regime. In order to solve these problems, Soeharto and his close associates thought that they could not rely solely on the legitimate authority accorded to him by the MPRS, whose members were not even elected by the people, or on the loyalty of the army. Soeharto needed the support of other kinds of instruments. That was the time when he relied heavily on his special “personal assistants” or asisten pribadi (ASPRI), and the clandestine operasi khusus (OPSUS), or “special operation”. This clandestine apparatus was assigned to do whatever necessary for the consolidation of the power of the new regime — to infiltrate political parties, to conduct the policy of “divide and rule”, or to carry out other kinds of Machiavellian method.52 These two highly secretive mechanisms were to continue well to the end of the 1980s, when Soeharto’s power was already well entrenched. On top of that, on the basis of the “March 11 Order”, the President also had at his disposal the frightening Kopkamtib (Command for the Restoration of Security and Order) he inherited from Sukarno, the President he had pushed aside. From the beginning to the end, this extra-constitutional apparatus of power remained under Suharto’s direct control or supervision. The major task of the Kopkamtib was to deal directly and immediately with anything construed to be dangerous to the stability of the state — ranging from suspected communists, alleged followers of the DaruI Islam, foreign subversives to just student demonstrators. With this kind of power arrangement in which the government had an extra-constitutional apparatus at its disposal, one may ask how could the desire to further the process of democratization be properly pursued? The logical discrepancy between official ideological tenet and the real structural

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arrangement of power would until the end remain an attribute of the New Order. One may finally argue that the real demands of the structure had practically pushed aside the idealism of the ideology. The New Order was then no different from the other aspiring regimes in history. It began with lofty ideas but easily transformed itself into a mammoth political machine. But then, as Soeharto and his assistants never forgot to emphasize, the country was still threatened by the “extreme left” on the one hand, and the “extreme right”, on the other. Security and stability were simply too expensive to be strayed by these largely unseen forces. It was, of course, not too difficult to identify the group that could be classified as belonging to the “extreme left”. It was not easy, however, to simply judge someone as belonging to the “extreme right”, although it was not too difficult to determine from which community that person or group very likely belonged to. One can easily perceive that a suspicious or, sometimes a rather hostile, attitude towards “political Islam” was one of the most discernable political features of the New Order. At least that was the case until the beginning of 1990s. There was a time when Indonesian intellectuals enthusiastically discussed the writings of political philosophers. The nationalist leaders were more interested in these kinds of philosophical and political tracks. Their writings might have convinced them that the establishment of an independent state was only a logical extension of the formation of a nation. As such, the state remained a world of ideas rather than an organization of power. Now in “the era of development” when people were in dire need of more suitable political formats, the writings of internationally recognized political scientists and sociologists were carefully studied. Seminars on various political and sociological matters were held here and there and discussion groups sprang up in almost every university city. What should be the format of the democratic system? The 1945 Constitution is, as everybody agreed, a very simple constitution. Drafted by the nationalist leaders, whose participation in the politics of independence was, as Sjahrir once remarked, “a matter of calling”,53 the constitution can also be said to be the genuine product of the age of innocence. A close reading of the constitution can easily give one the impression that its drafters had a

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strong belief in the basically noble character of the political creature, as what man is, according to Aristotle. Recent history, however, has given proof to the new breed of political elite of the validity of the much-quoted Lord Acton’s dictum “Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Indeed when the debates took place, military personnel had occupied a large number of important civilian posts. All governors in Java (except in the Special Region of Yogyakarta, where the highly respected Sultan of Yogyakarta remained in his position as the governor, although he had also been appointed a minister54), Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and some provinces of Sumatra were military officers. All ambassadors to Southeast Asian countries and to important and strategic countries, such as the United States and some major European countries were military generals. At one time in the 1970s, around 40,000 military personnel occupied civilian posts at all levels. But then, was that not the time when Indonesia was still in its transitional period? The state of emergency needed, of course, an emergency arrangement of power. So the debates would continue. In the meantime despite the fact that in many instances, the military had to share authority with civilians, the latter had to fit into the system engineered by the actual holders of power. In spite of the continuing controversies, no one countered the argument that in a democratic state, only a properly conducted general election could legitimize power. General election was after all a constitutional imperative. But then, how should it be conducted? The 1945 Constitution only states that the general election would be managed in accordance with the law. But the law still had to be drafted and agreed on by the government and the provisional DPR-GR, whose members consisted of the representatives of the recognized political parties, the newly appointed members of the functional groups, and those who were officially acknowledged as representing the New Order (among others, the representatives of the student communities). The army proposed a law that was based on the principles of the district system — each electoral district would send one representative. Fearing that this would mean nothing less than the end of their parties’ influence, the representatives of the NU, the PNI and other political parties rejected the proposal. They preferred a “proportional system”, which would

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not only guarantee the continuing influence of the parties’ central boards in local affairs, but also increase the possibilities for the parties to have their candidates in the parliament. Under this system, the electors only elect the party of his or her choice. Each province would send a number of representatives in accordance with the size of its population. Exceptions, however, had to be made. In the sparsely populated regions the number of votes needed to get one parliament seat was much fewer than in heavily populated Java. This system would not only secure the authority of the central board with its branches, but also offered the possibility to the central board to nominate candidates with a national reputation. It is therefore understandable if the political parties wanted to hold the national general election as soon as possible. The sooner the general election could be held, the greater the possibility for the political parties to gain a majority of votes. But, of course, precisely for this reason, the military-dominated regime preferred to postpone the election. The new regime was then in the early process of transforming the Sekber Golkar (Sekretaris Bersama Golongan Karya — Functional Groups Joint Secretariat), assembled by the military to confront the growing influence of the PKI in the later years of the Guided Democracy period, into an “electoral machine”, which was to be simply called GOLKAR (Golongan Karya, Functional Group). In the process of drafting the law and determining an agreeable date, the so-called “national consensus”, which determined the percentage of the appointed members (military and civilian) in both the DPR and the MPR, was finally reached. With this “national consensus” one can easily see that whatever the outcome of the general election might be, the MPR would certain be in favour of the newly established ruling elite. Looking back at the critical period of power transition, General Nasution55 remarked that in the “emergency” political constellation, “whereby the Commander of the Army had become the President, the holder of the Supersemar, Kopkamtib,56 the Commanders of the Armed Forces, the DPR, could not do otherwise but to pass the law on the composition of the DPR and MPR. 78 per cent of the members of DPR and 39 per cent of MPR are to be elected by the people (the rest to be appointed by the

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President)”. This decision had certainly stabilized the system of power, “but furthered the distance to the political and economic democracy and social justice”.57 In other words, since one of the constitutional functions of the MPR was to elect the President and the Vice-President, one can say that the electors were actually appointed by the candidate to be elected. In March 1968, the MPRS elected Soeharto as the definitive President. He was to occupy this position until the elected MPR choose a new President. In accordance with the agreement between the government and the provisional parliament, which was still called the DPR-GR, national and local elections were to be held in June 1971. Nine political parties and GOLKAR were to compete to get as many votes as possible, except for the fact that GOLKAR not only received the full support and backing of the military and civilian bureaucracy — after all they also belonged to GOLKAR — it also did not have to experience any carefully engineered internal dissension. Sure enough, as had already been predicted, GOLKAR came out as the big winner.58 Since then, winning the election and becoming the “single majority” in parliament and the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) had become a “well established and entrenched” tradition of GOLKAR. The 1971 election was the last opportunity for the political parties to have any branches in the rural areas. Villages should since then be freed from politics — the concept of “floating mass” had already set in motion. The meaning of this concept is clear enough. Let the villagers remain outside the domain of competitive political orientations and parties. The idealized idyllic village harmony should never again be disturbed, like what happened in the 1950s. “The political consciousness of the village people,” according to the Minister of Justice in defending this policy in the parliament/DPR, “is still low. If we do not take care, the bitter experiences of the past will recur.”59 The Minister’s explanation may reflect a noble idea and a thoughtful social strategy, but then, not unlike the civil servants and their spouses, who were practically obliged to vote for GOLKAR, the village heads and their assistants were also strongly advised to persuade their people to vote for the success of the New Order. The first general election in the New Order began to lay down a new tradition. It was to be tightly controlled by the

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authorities so that the democratic procedure could run as orderly as possible and the victory of the New Order could also be guaranteed at the same time. Never since the general election of 1971 did GOLKAR ever receive less than 60 per cent of the votes.60 Let the abundant anecdotes and sad stories told by the observers, as well as the countless complaints filed by the other election contestants provide the assessment on whether these elections were rigged or not. After observing the first general election, a prominent poet and journalist, Gunawan Mohamad, could only pose a question in one of his most moving poems, “The Great Map Maker, where is my tanah air, fatherland?//Then two days later they read in the town newspaper, on the front page.//Some one was crying, no body knew why//Some one was not crying, no body knew why.”61 The way the military-dominated New Order government conducted the election disguised the fact that the election itself was actually supported by a great number of critical intellectuals. By opting to participate in the new political process, they had actually rejected the argument of the people who had called themselves the Golongan Putih (Golput — the White Group), who repudiated the election as nothing but a dishonest political ploy of the new ruling class. They hoped that the general election might eventually lead to the proper way towards a healthy process of democratization. The government spokesmen preferred to call the general election pesta demokrasi, the fiesta of democracy. In a way, it was a “fiesta” because that was the only time the people had relative freedom to express their political views. Looked at from another angle, it could also be considered a “fiesta” because there was actually nothing at stake politically. If the first general election could still be seen as if there was really something at stake, the second and successive elections had practically become a political ritual. The fact that GOLKAR would emerge a victor was not only a foregone conclusion but also a routine fact to be accepted. The supporters of the first general election finally had no other choice but to dance in accordance with the tune played by the New Order rulers. The process towards the centralization of power began after the newly installed People’s Consultative Assembly, the MPR, with more than 60 per cent of members appointed by the President, had officially elected Soeharto.

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For the sake of “national unity” and “political stability” to ensure the success of national development programmes, President Soeharto stated that the number of political parties should be reduced. There should only be GOLKAR, being the organization of the functional groups and two political parties, representing the two aspects of national development programmes, namely the material and spiritual aspects. The first party may put more emphasis on the “material aspect”, hence it is the “materialspiritual” party. The other one can be said to represent the “spiritualmaterial” orientation. On 5 January 1973, the latter, namely the Islamic parties announced the establishment of the Partai Persatuan Pembangunan (PPP, United Development Party). Five days later, on 10 January, the “secular” nationalist, the Christian, and Catholic parties officially agreed to form the Partai Demokrasi Indonesia (PDI, Indonesian Democratic Party) as their political vehicle. “So we found the way,” Soeharto explains in his autobiography, “in our search for harmony and balance in our material and spiritual life.”62 Since then, the DPR consisted of four “factions”, namely the GOLKAR, PDI, PPP, and the Armed Forces factions. But in the MPR, another faction was added, that of the “local representatives” (that consisted of among others, local high civilian and military officials). In spite of the fact that the MPR was the highest state institution, it had to share the leadership with that of the DPR. Its tasks were also limited to the election of the President and Vice-President, to agree on the Garis-Garis Besar Haluan Negara (GBHN — Main Outline of the State Policies) and to issue important decisions, which, like the GBHN, had already been drafted by the State Secretariat. The MPR met only once in five years. That was the time when the members of the MPR, who had just been elected by the people or appointed by the President, gave their approval to the accountability speech of the President they did not elect, and to elect the President, who had appointed more than half of them. Although new laws and regulations and basic policies were, as a matter of convention, drafted by the government, theoretically, the members of the DPR and MPR could introduce new legislations. However, the rule of the two bodies stated that any initiative to be taken by the members should be supported by the representatives of all factions. A member or some

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members of the PDI faction, for example, could take an initiative after he secured the support not only from some members of the PPP faction, but also from members of GOLKAR and the military factions. Was musyawarah not the core of the Pancasila democracy? Another high institution mentioned in the Constitution is the Dewan Pertimbangan Agung (DPA — Supreme Advisory Council), which is expected to give advice, “requested or not”, to the President. The members are appointed by the President, who, as a matter of political wisdom, would see to it that they could, to some extent, be regarded as the moral representatives of the different social groupings in the national community. Under the chairmanship of Wilopo (a former Prime Minister), Soeharto still treated the DPA (1973–78) as a highly prestigious body. On several occasions, he publicly showed his respect to its chairman. However, only once did the President ask for advice from the DPA. It was not even a political or economic question but one on social morality — “What is the meaning of luxurious life?” In spite of this treatment, the integrity of the DPA remained unblemished. The DPA continued to provide the President with ideas and advice. Like any other high sounding democratic institutions, as time went by, the prestige of the DPA slowly diminished. Its successive chairmen were former lieutenants of Suharto. How then can one blame cynical observers who finally called the DPA nothing but “the parking lot of the former ministers”? The former ministers who had shown their loyalty to Soeharto were “parked” at the DPA in case their services would be needed again. Whatever the case might be, procedurally speaking, the New Order can certainly be said to be consistent with its commitment to the 1945 Constitution. It had the President, who was both the symbol of the state and the chief executive. It had a cabinet, with its state ministers, to carry out whatever basic policies and the GBHN that had been designed by the MPR. In order to simplify the GBHN and make it operational, a planning agency, the Badan Perencanaan Nasional (BAPPENAS — National Planning Agency) was formed, headed by a minister, who would later also serve as the Coordinating Minister for Economy and Finance. Under the chairmanship of Widjojo Nitisastro (1927–), the Berkeley-trained professor of economics

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of the University of Indonesia, the BAPPENAS was tasked to draft the fiveyear plan of development, and its annual programme of implementation. Next to the Ministry of Defence for several years, the BAPPENAS, which housed some of the best technocrats and their foreign advisers, was widely regarded by the political public as the most strategic institution. Its early pro-growth development strategy made the BAPPENAS the direct target of the critics, however. Be that as it may, one thing is clear enough — a new political format had finally been formed. And a new way to block any political innovation that might come from outside the ruling establishment had also been built. The first test of this new political format came when the Islamic faction rejected the government sponsored marriage law draft (1974). The threat of the chairman of the GOLKAR faction in the DPR, who happened to be a Catholic, to leave the decision on the draft to voting only made the situation worse. Rampant public demonstrations and protests finally caused the government to withdraw the draft that had commonly been seen as an insult to Islamic law. The case of the draft of the marriage law was finally settled outside parliament. General Soemitro, the commander of the Kopkamtib took over the case. A marriage law, which was not only in accordance with the Islamic law, but may also serve as a kind of “social engineering” device, was finally promulgated.63 Another challenge to the new political format took place on 15 January 1974, when the peaceful student demonstration against what they conceived to be the “evil triangle” (namely, the corrupt generals, Chinese big “capitalists”, and Japanese investors) that had “sold out the country”, suddenly became a mass riot of major proportions. The demonstration-turned-riot was later known as the Malari (Malapetaka Januari or Disaster of January). It took place during the visit of the Japanese Prime Minister, Kakuei Tanaka. Almost everything that was thought to be connected with Japan — car, show rooms, offices — found on the major streets of Jakarta, were attacked and burned. In the mass riot, several rioters and bystanders lost their lives. Several alleged leaders of the demonstrations were arrested. The immediate political casualty of the event was General Soemitro, then known as the “number two strong man”. He lost his position as the Vice-Commander of the

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Armed Forces/Commander of the Kopkamtib. After the Malari Affair, open political discussions were discouraged, or simply, forbidden. The licences of several national and local newspapers were revoked. Pedoman, Indonesia Raya, KAMI, and even the “peaceful” Kompas and others were banned. Only a few, among others, Kompas, could resume publication. The illusive “democratic honeymoon” began to disintegrate. A hard lesson might have been learned. The moment the students came out of their sanctuary, their university campus, they could easily be manipulated by the crude powers that had already been waiting on the fence.64 They ceased to be treated as a moral force, they were just a political force that required political treatment. The immediate victim of the Malari, however, was the relatively open political sphere. Public discussions on various matters of political significance were strongly discouraged and sometimes simply forbidden. Since then, public discussions on political matters, held by the students, could occasionally be stopped in the process. Freedom of the press had become a matter of the recent past.65 Only academic seminars could still be allowed. More than ever, the New Order regime began to alienate its earlier supporters, the students, and the Islamic groups, even the intellectuals, who had been trying to adapt themselves to the new political format. The “romantic sphere” of the New Order was about to become history. In 1978, university students again held major protest demonstrations in Jakarta and Bandung. The authorities arrested a number of student leaders, the military occupied several university campuses, and banned several newspapers — the fate of the sphere of freedom of expression was sealed. Article 28 of the Constitution may guarantee the freedom of expression, but its application was very much dependent on the interpretation by the authorities. The mid-1970s can be seen as the lowest point in the history of Soeharto’s political legitimacy. The optimistic prospect of the economy was suddenly shattered. The government had to take over the Pertamina fiasco. The uncontrollable expansion and diversification of the national oil company to all kinds of activities — natural gas, property, steel, shipping, tourism, and others, not to mention its social activities, and naturally the role it had been

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playing as milk cow of the military establishment — had put itself in very serious financial difficulties. Suddenly, the Pertamina found itself in debt of around USD10 billion. Since the Bank Indonesia had to deal directly with this debt, it put a high burden on the early beginning of economic recovery.66 In the meantime, the scarcity of rice became the subject of discussion everywhere. Some retired generals became restless because, in their opinion, Soeharto had apparently abandoned the idea of taking Indonesia onto the right path of democratization. The First Lady’s project of making a “Indonesia in Miniature” park on the outskirts of Jakarta came under the attack of the students. Several mass demonstrations took place. Several student leaders were arrested. Soeharto even went so far as to threaten the students who dared to insult his wife. “It is a gray February,” a student leader lamented. Actually they were not really opposed to the idea of constructing the park, where every region in Indonesia would have its separate pavilion with its respective ethnic style, and so on. The students protested because the park was to be constructed when economic reconstruction efforts were still in their critical beginning. Why should not the needs of the poor people be taken as the top priority? At about the same time, the economic dealings of Soeharto’s half brother and oldest son had also become public knowledge. The Minister of Trade had to defend his decision to give the President’s brother the monopoly to import clove, the most important ingredient of the kretek, clove cigarette. That was the time when Soeharto’s reputation was very low in public esteem. It was also during this period that his political future became a topic of political rumours. Apparently after learning about the numerous off-campus political activities of the students, such as their opposition to corruption and the “Taman Mini Indonesia” project of the First Lady and naturally about other students’ demonstration, which culminated in the Malari affair, the government decided to control the university campuses. The government introduced a programme that could poltically domesticate students’ lives. In 1978, the newly appointed Minister of Education and Culture issued the Campus Normalization Programme. This regulation practically squelched any sign of student political activities on campus. In the same year, as requested by the President, who had been toying with this idea for some time, the MPR issued

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its decision number II/MPR/1978, which ordered the government to “socialize” Pancasila, the 1945 Constitution, and the broad outline of the state policy or GBHN. This decision required all civil servants, school children and students, and the general public to take courses (better known as P-4 programme) on the state ideology, Constitution, and other related matters. The government could always argue that the obligation of the school children to learn the state ideology was actually in line with the decision made by the MPRS (number XXVII/MPRS/1966) on the objectives of national education. As stated in Chapter I, Article 3, the objectives of national education was to produce the genuine “Pancasila personality” on the basis of the Preamble of the Constitution. The contents of the education, as stated in Article 3, should consist of the subjects that would elevate the quality of morality and decency and religious belief; raise the quality of knowledge and skill; and develop a healthy and strong body.67 On 23 June 1984, the Minister of Internal Affairs presented five draft laws on politics to the DPR. They were namely, draft laws on Amendment on General Election, DPR/MPR, Political Parties and Golkar, Mass Organization, and Referendum. In his explanation, the Minister stated that the major aims of these five drafts were (1) to implement Pancasila in social and political lives, (2) to promote political education. (3) to carry out general election on the basis of the principles of it being direct, general, free and secret, and to be undertaken by the President as the “mandatory holder” of the MPR; (4) to declare Pancasila the sole foundation of political and mass organizations; (5) to state that a referendum is the only way to make any amendment to the constitution.68 In short, the main objectives of the five laws were to secure the continuity of the present political format, in which the President occupied the central and dominating position, to prevent the possibility of making any amendments to the constitution, and to eradicate ideological differences. Since it was practically the government, most obviously, the President himself, who was the final arbiter of the ideology, the policy of Pancasila being “the sole basic foundation” of all social organizations, political or otherwise, meant nothing less than the forced co-optation of the already weakened political parties and social organizations by the state. Therefore how can one blame Soeharto if, in his

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“as-told-to-autobiography”, he expressed his gratitude for the acceptance of these laws, for, as he said, they “accorded me a more effective basis for political development?”69 As a consequence of this new regulation, the government would only recognize one organization for one professional group. Only the Persatuan Wartawan Indonesia (PWI, Indonesian Journalist Association) was recognized as the legitimate association for journalists. IDI (Ikatan Dokter Indonesia) was, and still is, the only association of medical doctors. SOKSI was for labour, which should no longer be called buruh, but karyawan (people of profession). The word buruh might not only be thought of as less prestigious than karyawan, it could easily remind people of the communist party, which always tried to dominate the buruh. Judges, attorneys, and other professions should also have only one association. Any split in the association could immediately be seen as a sign of opposition, not only to the central board of the association concerned, but also to the government. Naturally all civil servants should automatically be the members of the KORPRI (Korps Pegawai Republik Indonesia — Corp of the Civil Servants of the Republic of Indonesia) and the wives should — again also automatically — be members of the Dharma Wanita. The chairperson of the Dharma Wanita should be the wife of the head of the work unit. The First Lady should naturally occupy the highest position in this governmentsponsored woman organization. In addition to that, she was also the chairperson of the highly privileged Ria Pembangunan, the organization of the wives of the ministers and director-generals. It should, however, be mentioned that whatever its pretence might be, this highly privileged organization did undertake a number of charitable works for underprivileged people. The centralization of power and the unification of ideology apparently were not enough to secure the unity of Indonesia. The New Order government introduced more authoritarian innovations that neither the colonial power nor the Sukarno’s Guided Democracy ever tried to do. In 1974, the government issued the “basic local administration law “(Law Number 5/1974), which practically made the regions dependent on the centre. The local body of representatives had officially the right to nominate three candidates to be

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appointed as the governor — or at the lower level, as the bupati (district head) — but it was up to the President to choose whomever he wanted to be the governor or the bupati. The President was by law not bound by the number of votes the candidates could garner from the members of the local legislatures. (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, Daerah — DPRD). In practice, however, before the DPRD could give its vote to the three candidates, the local legislature was required to send fives names to the Minister of Internal Affairs, who would select the three candidates. Quite often, the ministry had already prepared the five names. As usual, the members of the DPRD were “secretly” (but to everybody’s knowledge) required to know to whom they should give their votes. It is therefore understandable if the political public could easily make out two categories of candidates, the real and the “sidekick” candidates. In the end, the President could select the “real” candidate who, as had already been decided, was to receive the highest number of votes.70 The DPRD itself, according to the law, was part of the local administration. It simply had no legal right to control the governor or the bupati, although it might advise or give recommendations or suggestions. The introduction and the implementation of the “village administration law” (Number 5/1979) had a much deeper impact on the social and political lives of the ordinary people. With this law, Indonesia that was once said to be “a paradise for the anthropologists and a nightmare for the administrators” was to be transformed into “a paradise for the administrators and a boring field for the anthropologists”. With this law, all villages should have a similar system of administration, as if all villages in Indonesia could be easily changed into pale copies of Javanese villages, which were also negatively affected by this law. A village should have its own head, elected by the people, but he was to be supervised by the camat, the head of the subdistrict. Each village should have its own elected body of representatives and its social-defence body. A village was defined as a political and administrative unit, not as was the case since time immemorial, an adat community. There was simply no place anymore for divergent types of institutions of village elders. The fact that the law was actually a transgression of the 1945 Constitution, which in its official elucidation, emphasizes the right of the traditional village adat community, could certainly be ignored. Was the law not passed by the parliament through democratic processes? It

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was passed by “unanimous” votes, although the used-to-be-called Islamic party, PPP, to its credit, wrote a “minority note” (minderheid nota), listing its objection to the new law. The social and political consequence of this law was obvious. With the deeper penetration of the state into the life of the village communities, the law immediately began the process of weakening the village organic communities. Not only were the village heads gradually transformed into the apparatus of the state, they also ceased to be the representatives of their respective communities. Traditional village organizations were also made inoperative. The regions were forced to accept this law not only because they were obliged to do so, but also due to the fact that by applying this law, the regions could expect that each new-style village would get an annual subsidy from the central government. Some regions might, to some extent, manage to minimize the impact of this law by introducing local adjustments to the national law, but in many other regions, the law caused tremendous social damages. The test came when social conflict hit the regions. The village community had apparently lost whatever self-defence mechanism it used to have. When the crisis of authority had already hit the state bureaucracy, one had to face the fact that organic village organizations could no longer function properly. The deeper penetration of the state into the life of the village community had simply caused immense structural damage.

Harmony and the Hegemony of Meaning On 5 May 1980, fifty persons, including several prominent former politicians (among others two former prime ministers and several former ministers) and retired generals from all branches of the Armed Forces (among others General Nasution, Lieutenant General/Navy, Ali Sadikin, the popular former Governor of Jakarta), in their personal capacities, issued what they called Pernyataan Keprihatinan (A Statement of Concern). Addressing themselves to the DPR, the signatories expressed their deepest concern about the two extemporaneous speeches made by President Soeharto at the opening of the General Meeting of the Commanders of the Armed Forces and at the Anniversary of the army’s Special Force. In these speeches, Soeharto not only used the opportunity to attack and denounce his critics, but also to urge the Armed Forces to take sides in the discourse of national importance.

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More importantly, according to the statement, the signatories got the impression that Soeharto had made himself the personification of the state ideology, the Pancasila, “therefore any rumor about him should be construed as [the reflection] of anti-Pancasila-attitude”. Finally the signatories urged the DPR to take heed of the speeches, since “the ideas expressed in President Soeharto’s speeches cannot be separated from the management of power of the state and the general election”.71 Although the meeting of the representatives of the signatories with the leadership of the DPR was widely reported in the newspapers, the content of the discussion was only a public rumour. Self-censorship was the name of the game of the Pancasila press, with its “freedom and responsibility” code of ethics. Except for the issuing of the statement and, perhaps the continuation of their discussion groups (some of them also belonged to the study group of “constitutional consciousness”, formed in 197872), the signatories, who have since then been known as the Petisi 50 (the group of Petition 50) did nothing politically substantial. The regime’s reaction to this petition, however, was fast and devastating. The signatories were politically and legally blacklisted. They were condemned to the “civil death” penalty, without trial. They were even — not too successfully, for obvious reasons — socially ostracized.73 Some of them were subjected to various kinds of political slanders. The moment these slanders could be officially proven in court, they were imprisoned for several years.74 Reflecting on the criticism of the “Petition 50” group, Soeharto says in his autobiography that he is pleased “if there is opposition, provided it is a loyal opposition. But I didn’t like what the people of the so-called Petition 50 did. I didn’t like their methods, even more so because they called themselves patriots”. While trying to conceal his anger against this group, not too successfully apparently, Soeharto repeats again the importance of musyawarah and mufakat. He emphasizes again that “opposition in the Western sense is not known here” and that “national stability must not be put in jeopardy”. Finally he attacks the signatories of the petition as the persons without any sense of responsibility. “About the Petition 50, a Javanese proverb says, …which means, ‘They think they can do everything, but they don’t know themselves’ These people thought that because they were right,

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others must be wrong. In this case it went so far to presume that everything we had proposed through the New Order by way of socio-political force, through the power of the people, had been in violation of the 1945 Constitution and Pancasila… They thought they understood the situation, but, in fact, they did not even understand the 1945 Constitution and Pancasila… If they had really been right they would have their followers. But no one cares to join them. It’s been the same people all along.”75 This outburst may confirm the Petition 50 group’s suspicion that Soeharto did indeed tend to look at himself as the personification of the Constitution and the state ideology. The signatories of the Petition expressed their concern through the proper channel — the statement was delivered to the DPR at a time when Soeharto had already managed to gear the MPR into issuing its Decision II/MPR/1978, on the P-4 Courses (Programme for Pancasila Comprehension and Practice).76 However in delivering the statement to the DPR, the signatories, who consisted of some of the still highly respected persons in the country, did not simply question, albeit indirectly, Soeharto’s legitimacy as the sole interpreter of Pancasila, but they also attacked Soeharto publicly on his weakest point.77 Soeharto, who began his tenure as the President by attacking the personalized power of Sukarno, was practically accused of emulating the leader he had disavowed. At the same time, they disputed the world of harmony he had been cultivating — this was the world where Soeharto himself was the dominating centre. Reading closely Soeharto’s widely acclaimed state-address as the Acting President, one can detect the kind of world he was planning to construct through the mechanism of the New Order’s institutions. This constructed world was made clearer by his later speeches. The New Order was, as he declared repeatedly in the state addresses and in his many other speeches, a total correction of the “Old Order”, whose course of actions had largely deviated from the 1945 Constitution and Pancasila. The revolutionary world that it nurtured had not only caused economic stagnation, but had also created a sphere where the attitude of “the end justifies the means” could easily be cultivated. When the teaching of Pancasila was replaced by the idea of Nasakom, the Guided Democracy became nothing less than “a system of dictatorship”. Indeed,

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the Manipol-USDEK ideology of the Guided Democracy regime was based on the conviction that Indonesia could only maintain its integrity as long as it did not abandon its own “national personality”. But, as Soeharto saw it, by deviating from the true teaching of Pancasila and ignoring the real messages of the 1945 Constitution, the regime had in effect taken the nation further away from the promises of the Proclamation of Independence. The “Old Order” had betrayed the nation. At the peak of his power, Sukarno rarely, if ever, referred to the Preamble, although he was an influential member of the drafting committee of the document. Soeharto’s earlier speeches, however, frequently referred to this Preamble. He correctly stated that the Preamble summarizes the promises of an independent nation-state. He also saw it as the gist of the Indonesian statement of belief as a nation, its sense of historical destiny, and its objectives as a nation-state, and its basic ideological foundation. The basic ideological foundation was none other than the Pancasila. Soeharto’s later speeches may no longer talk about the Preamble, but Pancasila remained, until his last speech as the President, the key word. By the time Soeharto and the New Order consolidated their power, the controversy over the Preamble of the Constitution was all but over. The debate over the inclusion of “the seven magic words” (in the Indonesian language) in the “Jakarta Charter” — that is the “obligation of the Muslims to follow their religious law” — that haunted the early period of the Guided Democracy had practically been silenced.78 But how should Pancasila be understood? Sukarno, who, more than anyone else, was responsible for the formulation of the Pancasila, might see it as the genuine reflection of the history of the Indonesian struggle for independence and the summary of the commonality of the Indonesian diverse ethnicities and cultures. The nation’s other founding fathers might perceive Pancasila as simply the ideological foundation of the state as well as the unifying ideology of the multi-ethnic and multireligious nation. Soeharto in his turn elevated it to the authentic worldview of the nation. Indeed “Pancasila is the only worldview that can unite us all.” But more than that, it is also “a totality and integrity of the personality of the nation”. Pancasila, which consists of the basic values of the whole Indonesian nation,

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is not only deeply rooted in the Indonesian soul, but also, as Soeharto says in his autobiography, “defines human being”. In Soeharto’s hands, the state ideology had become a philosophy of life. As he continues to explain the meaning of Pancasila in his “as-told-toautobiography”, Pancasila conceives human beings as having “two sides to their nature, as a person and as a member of the society. The two exist sideby-side and are inseparable. There is always a balance. There is always a harmony between the individual and the common good, between the socialistic aspect and religious aspects of life”.79 As if to emphasize Soeharto’s point, Sudharmono, the State Secretary and former Vice-President, who, many believe, best understood Soeharto, tells in his autobiography that according to Soeharto the human being has a “monodualistic” nature — as him/herself and as a member of the society. As Sudharmono puts it, “According [to] this hypothesis — which is impossible to reject — every body as God’s creature should always have the capacity and disposition to control one’s self and one’s interest, whenever one is called to serve one’s duty as a member of the society. It is with this kind of attitude [that] every Indonesian citizen can practice [sic] Pancasila in the daily life”.80 Pancasila, however, does not only define human nature. It is also a blueprint of an ideal society. On one occasion, Soeharto says, he asked Sukarno what kind of society was visualized by Pancasila. Sukarno told him, “Pancasila society is a socialistic-religious society.” Soeharto fully agrees with this explanation and he continues that, “Being socialistic alone does not necessarily indicate that one has faith in God. Communists do not believe in God. On the other hand, religious people may be capitalist and do not find socialism significant.” Soeharto’s further elaboration on this subject, however, seems to have betrayed his consistency, as he also says on the same page of his “autobiography”, that Pancasila society is not a “religious-socialistic”, but a “socialistic-religious society”. “Because”, as he explains it, “religious implies ‘socialism’. Religious teaching is communal in character, whereas socialism does not necessarily imply belief in God”. Finally he says, as if to give a final admonition, “This view should be prevalent everywhere, in all walks of life in Indonesia if we are to be consistent in our belief that God is the Creator of mankind”.81

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“In brief,” he declared in his state-address of 16 August 1975, “it can be stressed that the fundamental features of the Pancasila “socialist–religious” society are [to be] against poverty, backwardness, disintegration, exploitation, capitalism, feudalism, dictatorship, colonialism and imperialism. Therefore we should together abolish them. On the other hand,” — suddenly shifting from society to individual — “the attitude and the characters of the manusia Pancasila [Pancasila-ist human being] reflect in their true devotion to God Almighty, their willingness to work together, their readiness to sacrifice for the common goodness.”82 If the Pancasila society is indeed a “socialistic-religious” society, does it mean that it is higher than just a “religious society”, as the Islamic ideologues might have asked, when Soeharto insisted on Pancasila being “the sole foundation” of all social and political organizations? And if, on the other hand, being “religious” also implies being “socialist”, why bother about Pancasila? Or does it mean that religion itself is not perfect and complete? But since Pancasila also defines “human nature”, does it mean that the state ideology has to take care also of the consciousness of the “manusia Indonesia”, the Indonesian as a human being?83 Is another kind of system of belief, besides religion, needed? What about the purity of one’s religious teachings? The opposition of the Islamic faction in the parliament to the proposed P-4 programme was so strong that some of them, mostly those who came from the Nahdlatul Ulama, simply “walked out” during the deliberation. Although Soeharto could neither forget and nor forgive this event — as his political attitudes towards the Islamic political factions show over the years show — he had to defend his position on a number of occasions. “Pancasila is not a religion,” he said in the state-address of 1983, as if to convince people that his primary ideological concern was national unity. Pancasila is not and can never replace religion. Pancasila is not to be transformed into a religion. Nor any religion would undergo the process of the ‘pancasila-ization’… Although Pancasila and religion have different functions and roles, in the Pancasila state we could become devout religious devotees and at the same exemplary followers of Pancasila…. Therefore there should be no one ever [to]

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put Pancasila and religion in opposing camps, because one does not contradict another.84 It is good political rhetoric, but it is not an answer to the question of how one could be at the same time a good religious devotee and a follower of Pancasila, if the state ideology also addresses itself to the so-called “monodualistic” nature of human beings. Perhaps the problem would be better understood if it were seen from the perspective of the family life. Is not the family the most intimate social life? “I have always looked after my family — my wife and my children,” Soeharto says in his “autobiography”. As someone who believes in God, it is my conviction that parents have God’s duty to be His intermediaries in the birth of human beings, who are created by God. It is the parents’ responsibility to raise their children, to instill in them devotion to and faith in God. My understanding of devotion and faith is always to do something good, for oneself, the family as well as for fellow human beings. This statement may not only summarize Soeharto’s opinion on the ideal family life but also his philosophical outlook. One, however, may question his honesty when he also says that he taught his family “moral values and provided them with the opportunity to acquire skills and knowledge. I think these are more important than material riches. None of my children has been pampered. Not one”.85 Whatever the case may be, one thing is clear when he made this statement Soeharto was very much aware of the fact that he was not in the process of “opening his heart” and “making confession”, as Sukarno claimed in his “as told to Cindy Adams” autobiography. Soeharto was certainly conscious enough of the fact that he was addressing himself to the nation. He must have realized very well that he was telling stories to be read by his compatriots. The portrait of the life of “the first family” of the state that he was drawing must have been in his mind a model to be emulated. After all, as Sudharmono tells it, Soeharto himself laid the foundation of the teachings of Pancasila. Would he therefore not want everybody to behave the way he treated his family?

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Even granting that Pancasila defines “human nature” and visualizes a “socialistic-religious” society, one may still wonder how it should be understood as the ideology or basic foundation of the state. In what way can the principle be applied as the foundation of the state? The notion of cosmic harmony is perhaps the key to understanding Soeharto. In his personal and social life, Soeharto might point to his mystical belief in “the perfection of life” or to the realization of “the origin of life” or even to the ethics of restraint and so on — all the ethical teachings he derived from his own Javanese upbringing — as a guide in personal life.86 The problem is, of course, to what extent the same principles can be applied to the state, as the organization of power? How should these principles be manifested in the modern nation-state? As a state system, according to Soeharto, the Pancasila worldview should manifest itself in the “sistem kekeluargaan,” the family system. Not unlike the economic system, which, as stated in the 1945 Constitution, should adhere to the principles of the “sistem kekeluargaan” — hence rejecting the capitalist mode of production while promoting the cooperative system — political system should also be based on the same principle. The New Order was determined to promote and to practise Pancasila Democracy because it saw the nation as a large family. It was in this national family that the “monodualistic” nature of human being as God’s creature could be best developed. Unlike the Guided Democracy, which despite its name, tended to be authoritarian, the Pancasila Democracy was based on the notion of the nation being a large family. This was the family that should sustain itself by adhering to the principles of “gotong royong (mutual help)”.87 “It is true that democratic ideas are basically universal in nature,” President Soeharto asserted in his state-address of 1978, but learning from the experiences of other nations, and even from our own experiences, the realization of democracy cannot be undertaken by simply copying that of other nations. We can never actualize democratic ideas in a society without culture. Our living values and norms are not the same with those of other nations. Furthermore, he said, the process of democratization takes many years to accomplish. It should be undertaken gradually. One should never

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forget, as he emphatically stated on several occasions, that “the gist of democracy” is not only “freedom”, but also more importantly, keselarasan, harmony. “Because the Pancasila democracy we are promoting is clearly not based on individualism but on familial and mutual help system”.88 Soeharto and the interpreters of his ideological thinking had practically announced themselves to be the followers of Supomo, the chief drafter of the 1945 Constitution, who with his Hegelian political philosophy had pictured the future of the nation-state as “an integrated totality”.89 In this view, the state was conceived to be a structure where every member was a part of the big family. This was the kind of state, however, that was strongly rejected by Hatta. As he saw it, this state failed to take heed of the rights of the citizens. Some of Hatta’s most serious objections had indeed been accommodated in the Constitution, most notably Article 28, on the right to express an opinion and to organize, and a few others. This so-called “integralistic” interpretation of the Constitution, however, created some unsolvable dilemma. Sukarno and Soeharto shared the view that the 1945 Constitution basically did not recognize the idea of the separation of power between the executive, legislative, judicature branches, in which one branch may control the execution of power of the other. As they saw it, the Constitution only recognized the division of power, each works in accordance with its prescriptive duties. In political reality, this interpretation can easily be seen and understood as the predominant position of the executive branch. Under the Old and New Order regimes the “integralistic” (in Supomo’s term) interpretation of the Constitution went much further, for it practically blurred the conceptual boundaries between society and state. Both were seen as parts of a harmonious totality. This view makes the borderline between moral and personal considerations, with legal and constitutional judgements being irrelevant. From this perspective, it is not surprising to learn, as most New Order’s political ideologues insisted, that there was no place for “the opposition in the Western sense” in the Pancasila Democracy of the New Order. Opposition is against the very foundation of the state. It is also against national worldview and — as Soeharto later preferred to say — “jati diri bangsa” or “the identity of the nation”. This is the identity and the noble values that “we, as a nation” have inherited from “our ancestors”. In the Pancasila

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democratic system, Soeharto explained, “the people entrust their representatives with the right to deliberate. Then a consensus is achieved on the steps to be taken in the course of the next five years”.90 Differences of opinion — if there are any — and opposition — if there should be — can only express themselves through the people’s representatives once every five years. The Pancasila Democracy as the genuine reflection of the identity of the nation is then not only the basic foundation of the harmonious and consensual world but also an orderly world of familial piety where the “father” always has the last word. The “father” being as what he was, the head of the family, should also take care of both the material and spiritual welfare of the family. He has to offer his helping hand to his family in time of distress and destitution. But as the President of a constitutional state, can the “father” just come down to give his helping hand? One can certainly argue that, as the President, he has to follow existing regulations and he has to see to the ability as well as the programme of the state. The establishment of several charitable foundations may be taken as examples of this rather ambiguous situation. The foundations were formed as a way to mobilize government and public resources for the sake of the society at large. “I placed myself in the position of an ordinary citizen who is expected to help the President and the MPR’s Mandate Holder,” Soeharto boasted. But where is the boundary? After all, as he also confirmed, “I have urged my children to join the foundations. They are not paid, but they have learned about social activities.”91 Where is the separating line between society, as the realm of values, and the state, as the institutionalization of power on a legal and constitutional basis? Soeharto used to reject all legalistic objections to these foundations. Why didn’t people look properly at all the good things the foundations have been doing — giving scholarships to the poor but bright students, helping orphanages and people’s clinics, participating in solving the suffering of the people in disaster areas, etc., he used to retort. Which then should be given preference — the constitutionality of the noble endeavours or the noble intention of the endeavours? At a time when the politics of domestication was very real, the ways and the ranking of priorities of these foundations in dispensing their funds could, as can be expected, occasionally raise objections.92 It was the method

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of collecting the funds, however, that had caused people to question the proprieties of the President, who acted as “as an ordinary citizen”, to form the divergent types of foundations. On a more theoretical level, the absence of a clear boundary between the realms of social sphere, which is sustained by shared values and a system of meanings, and the sphere of a political construct, such as the state, can be seen as a way to nurture a patrimonial state. In this state, the ruler should be seen as the source of power and indeed the source of everything that would bless the nation and the state. If the nation is conceived to be a family and the state is treated as being the institutionalization of family values, it is understandable if the “father” has the final say on anything of importance. The constructed world of harmony might well be based on an unhistorical disposition — as if Indonesia was inherited from “our ancestors”. The very reason for its creation, however, seems to be very much based on the regime’s understanding of Indonesia’s contemporary history. In his “autobiography”, Soeharto also asks himself why so many crises had confronted Indonesia since the Proclamation of Independence. Communist revolts, regional unrests, political crises, and the continuing low standard of people’s lives. After reflecting on all these events, he says, I then reached a basic conclusion. First, the chain of events which occurred prior to 1965, were linked to a common cause, which was a deviation from Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution, both in spirit and practice. Second, the decline of economic life of the community that we experienced all along was due to the absence of economic development. The conclusion was clear enough that he had to guide the New Order along the two lanes — the commitment to Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution, and the implementation of economic development. After all, as he says, “with economic progress, nation-building in a broad sense could be enhanced”.93 Sukarno might idolize and romanticize revolution and see Indonesia as being constantly in the turmoil of the unending revolution; in his turn Soeharto simply “dammed up” (if Hatta’s words can be used) the

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revolution.94 As he frequently stated, since “the people have suffered enough” and the “promises of the Proclamation” had still not been fulfilled, the time to concentrate “our efforts on development” had arrived. Political squabbles and ideological conflicts that characterized the period of “liberal democracy” of the 1950s should never be allowed to return. The obsession with revolution that had given the Communists the opportunity to influence the course of events of the Guided Democracy should never be allowed to return. The past experiences should definitely be replaced by a much more sober period of “pembangunan” (development). As Soeharto says in the early days of his “era of development”, “the course of democracy should also be programme oriented, it should even be achievement oriented”.95 Economic rehabilitation and political stability were certainly the most urgent problems to be tackled but “in the long run”, as Soeharto said on several occasions, “we have to look at the development from a wider perspective, that is, nation-building. What is the essence of development in this context? Looking from this wider perspective, national development means that we have to cherish all vital values, to cultivate [a] harmonious social system, to develop the talent and dignity of mankind, to maintain and nurture the institutions and the ways that we have chosen for nation and state…. In short, the core problem of national development is how can we advance political democracy and economic democracy on the basis of Pancasila”.96 Hence both the Constitution and the development programmes have the same ideological roots. Therefore, they should be geared towards the creation of the visualized state, that is, the harmonious Pancasila society. In this ideal social construction, the persons in power always had the mastery of meaning, and plurality should be gradually replaced by “unity and oneness”. A cluster of ideas that could hardly be rejected was also there to support this construction. Who could argue against the importance of “stability, growth, and equity” in solving the country’s political and economic predicament? A major topic of public discussion in the 1970s was the ordering of the “development trilogy”, as it was then known, not the idea of the trilogy itself. Should “equity” and “growth” be put in tandem or should the first

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priority be given to “growth”? Later, after many years, many public figures would voice their criticisms on why the ranking of priorities of the trilogy never changed. Why should “stability and growth” always be the dominant themes? When could the idea of equity get its proper place in the ranking of priorities? Next in line was the concept of the “eight lanes of equality”. How could one reject the “eight lanes of equality”, as defined by the third FiveYear Plan? It states the equality “to get access to the basic necessities”, “education and health services”, “income distribution”, “working opportunities”, “to conduct business”, “to participate in the development program, particularly for women and younger generation”, “to distribute the development programs throughout the country”, and “to get access to justice”.97 On paper, at least, these eight lanes of equality should be translated into the Five-Year Plan. The fact that these eight lanes were never properly worked out could usually be explained by the need to have an orderly ranking of priorities. It is, as was also the case in the past, not difficult to find the discrepancies between these noble promises with empirical reality. Political and economic centralization was everywhere to be seen. But then, das Sollen (what should be) and das Sein (what is) were perhaps the two most popular German words in the political language of Indonesia’s New Order. Both the government and its critics could easily talk about the big gap between “what should be” and “what is”. Government officials might talk about all the constraints they had to face, the critics might point out the unrealistic plan or the inefficiency in the execution of the plan and so on. However, if the new MPR, whose members consisted of elected and appointed ones, had accepted and approved the accountability speech the President gave every five years, the criticisms lost their credibility, at least politically. In the process, political stability could relatively be maintained. The world of consensus could be sustained. If in Sukarno’s world of conflict, anything that had been construed as being anti-revolutionary and the like should be “crushed” and “annihilated”, in Soeharto’s world of consensus, anything that had been conceived as a disturbing element in the peaceful and harmonious state, should be silenced and isolated. It is, therefore, quite

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easy to understand why it was so difficult to get a licence for the publication of newspapers or any other news media. The authorities, understandably enough, could easily give strong warning or to simply revoke the publications licences. In the process, the so-called “telephone culture” (budaya telepon) bloomed. It was the pre-censorship tradition developed by the authorities. By making telephone calls to the editorial boards of the news media, the authorities would warn them about the kind of news not fit for the general public. The harmonious world was too important to be disturbed by any “irresponsible” news and information. The Pancasila press was one that had both “the freedom and responsibility”. It had “the freedom” to inform the public but it also had “the responsibility” to choose what kind of news should be reported to the public.98 Without this sense of “responsibility”, freedom of the press was tantamount to anarchy. It could easily create dissonance in the harmonious Pancasila society. Within this context it is also understandable if the kramanization — that is, the process of dividing the language into several speech levels — of the democratic Indonesian language began. Language is after all a system in symbolic communication. In the process of communication, the use of language should never disturb social harmony. Therefore, not only should less-than-pleasant situations be expressed in euphemism, the kind of words to be used should also very much depend on the status of the person being addressed. “For the sake of cultural continuity,” it was then argued, Sanskrit terms were also lavishly used for anything which was symbolically deemed to be important. The most successful province in completing its five-year plan would get a Presidential award with a long Sanskrit title. The cleanest cities in each province would also receive Presidential awards with different Sanskrit titles. And examples can easily be multiplied. If that was not enough, even the style of writing used to follow certain patterns. It had become very easy to differentiate between the bureaucratic and nonbureaucratic style of writing. More than ever in the history of postindependent Indonesia, the use of language became a symbol of power.99 Gradually certain linguistic codes emerged in the process of communication. One could easily guess the political or bureaucratic position of the person the moment one learned the style of language the speaker used. Then one

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could not fail to notice that many high officials and national, or even local, politicians, unconsciously perhaps, imitated the linguistic idiosyncrasies of the President. In describing the nature of the state, the New Order regime rarely touched upon the question of citizenship. Even in extolling the general election as being the core element of the democratic order, the government spokesmen mostly talked about the “the state”, “the nation” and “the people”. In ideological discourse, the state was rarely seen from the political and constitutional perspective, despite the fact that the commitment to the 1945 Constitution was one of the ideological cores of the regime. The New Order tended to see the state not simply as being the institutionalization of social values and norms with its legitimate apparatus of violence, but also — and more importantly — as the manifestation of the inherited “identity of the nation”. From this cultural perspective, the state should be conceived as the political institutionalization of inherited cultural values. The irony of this basic assumption is that Soeharto and the regime were aware of the fact that the nation itself was still very much in the making. The slogan of “diversity in unity”, which pays high respect to plurality, might still be used, but in practice, it had gradually made way to the pressing need for nation making, which had more and more moved towards the achievement of persatuan dan kesatuan or “unity and oneness”. Either by design or not, the importance and, indeed, the recognition of plurality had in effect gradually been denigrated. The “autonomy law of 1974” and “village administration law of 1979” had practically erased any differences in the administrative system and the “five laws on politics” could eventually eliminate any ideological differences. In the process, the persatuan, unity, would gradually transform itself into kesatuan, oneness. Under the leader as the “father” figure, Indonesia would become a big family, which was ruled by the sistem kekeluargaan, familial system. Soeharto might have shown his satisfaction in his “autobiography” that in 1984, the MPR had accorded him “a more effective basis for political development, which was the acceptance of Pancasila as the sole guiding principle for socio-political forces and social organizations”. In historical hindsight, however, the year can also be seen as the time when Soeharto

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and his regime had exhausted themselves ideologically and intellectually. No more ideological offensive could be launched. No new ideas of any significance could be offered. Since everything had been laid down — “identity of the nation”, “political democracy”, “and economic democracy” — the only problems remaining were the methods of application and the way to enhance the quality of its outcome. Everything since then was reduced to a question of mere technicalities. By ideologically making the state the legitimate manifestation of “the identity of the nation”, the government had practically acquired total command of almost anything — from the monopolization of the apparatus of violence, as it should, to the mastery of cultural discourse. In this situation, the state had the final say on the true meaning of political concepts and terms. “Democracy”, “participation”, “opposition”, “election”, “religion” and a host of other politically significant concepts had already had their definite meanings determined by state ideology. In this situation, let the intellectuals and scholars wrack their brains to find concepts and terms that might still be beyond the sphere of the state’s hegemony.100 In spite of the official recognition that differences were an essential part of any human society or any national community, for that matter, by using the cultural approach to comprehend politics and to conceive the functions of the state, the New Order practically provided no room for any dissenting voices. “Openness” “transparency” or “accountability” could have legitimacy if it was conducted within the already authenticated sphere of political decorum. By ideologically constructing the harmonious and consensual world, the regime not only managed to command political discourse but also made itself the sole holder of the hegemony of meaning. Any dissenting voice could easily be set aside as being either “not in tune with our cultural identity” or having failed “to properly comprehend the Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution”. In the case of the dissenting voice addressing itself to empirical fact, it could be simply rejected — as Soedomo, who once served as the Chief-of-Staff of the Kopkamtib, put it — as nothing but an asbun (asal bunyi — meaningless sound). Gradually the Pancasila democracy, which aimed at creating a “just and prosperous society” and a “socialistic religious” state, gave birth to a greedy

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state. The New Order’s Indonesia had transformed itself into a state that could not satisfy itself by having only loyal citizens and a progressive nation. It also wanted to control the consciousness of the people and to master the collective memory of the nation. Its heavy emphasis on “the identity of the nation” and “the noble heritage of our ancestors” had inadvertently slipped into the traps of cultural relativism, as if everything was determined by cultural norms and values. In this sphere of cultural relativism, legal and constitutional certainty could simply be set aside by the developed sense of cultural and ethical propriety. At a time when economic development and growth was high on the agenda and when the market economy system created numerous ways to the outside world, the tendency of cultural relativism unfailingly created a cultural dilemma. In this highly ideologized political sphere, it is understandable if the degree of political openness and the intensity of political controversies, which, it should also be stressed, occasionally occurred, was very much determined by the mood of the persons in power. There was clearly no defined yardstick to determine the amount of “the freedom of speech” and “the freedom to inform”. In the sphere of relative freedom, suddenly, for whatever reason, freedom was taken away and the news media could lose its licence and the politician or would be ideologue, whose opinions made headlines, could find himself thrown into the political gutter, or worse, be subjected to sedition law. It cannot be denied, however, that the longer Soeharto was in power the greater the freedom of the press. But at the same time, the uncertainty of the meaning of freedom became higher.

The Emergence of a New Political Alignment? The period from 1963 to 1970 was very critical to the integration of the Muslim community in the non-Sundanese areas of Java. Soon after the introduction of the agrarian law, East Java, and to a lesser extent, Central Java, became the arena of agrarian conflict between the landless peasants, who had been influenced by the communist affiliated peasant organization, and the landed peasantry, who were mostly the members of the NU. The skirmishes that took place among the competing peasant groups finally exploded into a major conflict after the military came to the region with the

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mission to uproot communist influences (1965–66). Immediately, rural Java was transformed into killing fields that, until today, still haunt the memory of the nation. That was the time when some sections among the nominal Muslim (abangan) peasantry, who were not certain about their religious attachment, had to take refuge in whatever shelter that could give them protection. Either attracted by rice or other daily necessities offered by church organizations, at a time of economic crisis — as what a great many Muslim activists accused — or simply because they were not sure about their Islamic tradition or even disappointed by the less than tolerant attitude of their Muslim brothers during the conflict, thousands of Muslims in rural Java converted to Christianity. A few rural communities even “returned” to the pre-Islamic religion of their ancestors. They admitted that they were followers of Hinduism. Since none of them really knew what Hinduism as a religious teaching was, instructors of the religion had to be brought from Bali. Rural Java in the late 1960s did give a picture of a society in turmoil economically, politically, and culturally. For better or worse, the political belief entertained and cultivated by the New Order was that the main reason for the outbreak of the so-called communist-inspired attempted coup and the resultant social crisis and conflict originated from the fact that communism was basically anti-religion. The moment people denied the existence of God or forgot about God, that was also the time when God forsook them. Therefore anybody without a clearly defined religion, could easily be suspected of being a communist fellow traveller. Since the New Order government gave its official recognition only to five major world religions, namely Islam, Catholicism, Christian/Protestantism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, the others, mostly, the natural religions and “sacred” philosophies of life, should either join one of the recognized religions, or would simply be treated as part of cultural tradition. Yet as time went by, and security returned and normal life could be enjoyed again, the crisis in the system of beliefs also gradually subsided. That was the time when rural Java experienced again the process of “reIslamization” or perhaps, more likely, the santrinization,101 the deepening of Islamic influences in both the scope and force in social and cultural lives.102 A number of the rural communities which had abandoned Islam began to return to Islam, the religion of their ancestors, only now they had

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become more conscious about the religion than their ancestors. The erection of new small mosques began to change the landscape of rural Central Java. A major social impact of the new political belief that having a religion was a prerequisite for peaceful social relations could be clearly seen in the urban Islamic community. Approaching the new century in the Islamic calendar, the 15th century, a strong intellectual and social movement to reexamine Islam in social and private lives took place. There was a feeling that the new century might at last bring Islam to its former glory. It was an almost universal phenomenon in the Islamic world, but in Indonesia, the sphere of Islamic resurgence or revival, or whatever term was used, was most deeply felt in the aftermath of the traumatic experiences of 1965–66. The spirit of Islamic rejuvenation was very much in the air from the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s and has become routine matter since then. Many issues that had for many years been considered taboo among the Muslim leaders were now openly discussed and debated. Was it obligatory for the Muslims to form an Islamic state? Suddenly the used-to-be-takenfor-granted stance of the obligation to have a state on the basis of Islamic teaching of the Islamic parties in 1950s became a subject of deep reflection among the young Islamic thinkers. How should the teachings of the Qur ’an and Hadith be properly understood in the changing time? Secularism and the secularization of consciousness should certainly be rejected, but should everything then be considered important and useful and be treated as if they were sacred?103 Where are the boundaries between the profane and the sacred? In what way should the so-called contextualization of the Qur’an be properly and legally be carried out? A host of other, and perhaps more fundamental, questions might have been raised, but the central issue was how should the sacred doctrine be put in the proper context? The 1970s may also be said to be the beginning of the booming period of the publication of religious books. In addition to original writings on various religious topics, a number of Islamic classical texts and the writings of modern Islamic scholars were translated, along with the works of the so-called “Orientalists”.104 As a number of Islamic intellectuals never fail to mention, Islam could no longer be treated as the religion of the rural people and the urban underprivileged class. Religious gatherings among the used-to-be-seen as

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the secular-oriented middle and upper middle class became a kind of fashion. Going on the pilgrimage was treated as what it was in the doctrine — “a religious obligation to those who could afford to do it physically and financially at least once in the lifetime”. In conjunction with the MPRS’s decision, religious education and instruction were made obligatory to all levels of education. Morning religious sermon or propagation had since the birth of the New Order become the daily programme of most of the radio stations. In the former colonial big cities, such as Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, and others, mosques are no longer the houses of God that can be found only in the kampung sections, the location of the mosque can now be found right in the city centres. Yogyakarta’s Shuhada Mosque might be the pioneer (built in 1950, soon after the “transfer of sovereignty”) but it was Jakarta’s Istiqlal Mosque that symbolized the growing social and cultural significance of Islam in the nation-state. Big hotels and offices as well as university campuses, have since the emergence of the New Order their own places of worships where people can conduct Friday prayers and other types of religious gatherings. In many ways, the New Order directly or indirectly created a social and political sphere in which the role of religion in personal and social lives became greater. To be conscious of being a part of the Islamic religious community might well be one of the most direct impacts of the political lessons that could be learned from the traumatic tragedy of 1965–1966. The problem began to emerge when the deepening religious feelings could also mean the greater awareness of the social and political significance of religious differences. That was the time when differences could be felt as the presence of “others” in the most immediate surroundings. Suddenly the used-to-be-familiar surroundings began to be felt as the strange “out there”. Knowing perhaps that his consistent policy of the depolitization of Islam had not only weakened Islamic political parties and even forced their leaders to abandon Islam as a political ideology, but had also caused the used-to-be politically inclined ulama to return to their ummah, the community of believers, by emphasizing the creation of a “well guided society”,105 Suharto also began to re-examine his political orientation. He could deal easily with the radical elements that openly showed their

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opposition to the far from even-handed New Order’s policies. How many times had Suharto and his military apparatus silenced with force, if necessary, the opposition posed by the so-called ekstrim kanan, extreme right, to his regime and to the principle of azas tunggal? The tragic events in Tanjung Priok (1986), in the province of Lampung (1989), and other incidents in some other places proved the determination of the regime to crush whoever opposed the imposition of Pancasila as the only ideology. Soeharto and his regime could marginalize the radical recalcitrant elements by frustrating all their political activities. Whatever one’s understanding of the message of the nation-state ideology might be, the legitimacy of Pancasila, as the sole basic foundation of the nation and the state (kehidupan berbangsa dan bernegara) should never be doubted. In spite of the fact that Soeharto on several occasions asserted that Pancasila was an “open ideology”, the meaning of which only depended on the understanding in an existing structural context, the government saw to it that there could only one definitive meaning of the “national worldview”. It was exactly for this purpose that civil servants and students of all levels were required to attend the so-called P-4 courses. It was also with this intention in mind that the office of the BP7, which had to organize this kind of programme, was established in every kabupaten and provincial capital. The strategy of “returning to the ummah” was, however, another matter. The New Order’s policy of excluding Islam from the sphere of politics and its efforts to eliminate any attempt to reject Pancasila as the sole basic foundation might well be the most immediate factor that forced the Islamic political leaders to shift their attention from the state to the society. The determination of the New Order might force them to shift their attention from the concern of power distribution to that of the betterment of society. The events that took place during and after the attempted coup had taught them that the obsession with politics had not only failed to create the absolute necessity for creating a “well guided community” (masyarakat yang diredhai) but had also made the ummah more vulnerable to unwanted ideological or even un-Islamic religious penetrations. The process of Christianization that took place in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt of 1965 was taken as undeniable proof of the vulnerability of the Islamic community.

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While some former Masyumi leaders tried to revive, but failed, the old party, several other former leaders of the party, under the leadership of the newly released (from Sukarno’s detention) Muhammad Natsir, established the Dewan Dakwah Indonesia — the council of religious propagation. This was their way of finding a solution to the New Order’s policy of the depolitization of Islam. The decision to return to the community became stronger after the conflict between Islamic and Christian followers took place in several places. As the Muslim leaders saw it, the conflict began after the local Islamic leaders could no longer tolerate the “aggressive Christianization” efforts conducted by several Christian groups in some areas. The Islam-Christian dialogue (1967) under the New Order’s auspices failed to achieve its objectives. The Christian (Catholic and Protestants) representatives refused to agree on having some kind of “code of ethics” in religious proselytizing efforts. The failure only made the determination to “return to the ummah” stronger. Soon after the government-sponsored “modernist” Islamic party, Parmusi, which was supposed to be the successor of the Masyumi, became the object of the Opsus-operation — the way the special intelligence operation did to the PNI106 — the Muhammadiyah, the biggest element in the Parmusi, began to lose interest in the political party. When the Parmusi, with other Islamic parties, had to merge into the PPP in 1972, the Muhammadiyah decided to abstain from practical politics. In 1984, after being treated as a minority faction by the leadership of the PPP, the NU, the biggest Islamic organization, also decided to withdraw from politics. With the slogan of “returning to the khittah of 1926” — the commitment made in 1926, when the NU was formed — the NU not only supported the policy of making Pancasila the sole foundation of all social and political organizations, but also came up with the idea that from the Islamic perspective, the present Pancasila state could actually be considered “the final form of an Islamic state”. Since the two biggest organizations had officially abandoned politics their members, in their respective personal capacities, had the freedom to join whatever political parties they liked or even joined the leadership of the party, including the GOLKAR. With the withdrawal of the

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Muhammadiyah and the NU from practical politics, the New Order’s policy of the depolitization of Islam was officially completed. The withdrawal also strengthened the movement of “returning to the ummah”. From the beginning, however, it could be predicted that even though these organizations and several other small Islamic organizations had stayed away from politics, their leaders might still pose a serious challenge to the legitimacy of the regime, without ever questioning its existence. The case of the draft of the marriage law, as has been discussed earlier, can be taken as an example of what can be expected if sensitive issues among the Muslims were improperly touched on. The government could indeed get away with the highly controversial instruction of the Minister of Education and Culture which required all schools, religious and “secular”, state and private, to remain open during the fasting month, despite the protests of all Islamic organizations. Since many of the private religious schools actually remained open, except a few days at the beginning and a few days at the end of the Ramadan, during the fasting months, the threat of the Minister to terminate the government’s token subsidy to the Islamic schools was felt to be very offensive. The instruction was seen as a blatant interference in the relative freedom of the private schools. While the controversy on this matter was still on, Soeharto kept his policy of aloofness. He simply put himself above such a petty matter. When the Indonesian Council of the Ulama (MUI, Majelis Ulama Indonesia) came to see him, he promised to look into this matter thoroughly. He urged the council to advise the Muslims and to see the positive aspects of the policy. Soeharto had certainly also learned another lesson on how to deal with something that was symbolically significant to the ulama. The minister lost his position in the next cabinet. To be a defender of his minister was too much for Soeharto. The so-called Monitor case can be taken as another example of the growing sensitivities of the Muslims. The rapidly popular TV tabloid, the Monitor, published by the used-to-be Catholic-affiliated Kompas and edited by a non-Muslim, held a public opinion poll on “the most admired people” (1990). The result of the poll put Soeharto as the most admired person, with the Prophet Muhammad at number 11, which was even below the ranking of the editor. Strong reactions came immediately from several Islamic

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quarters, even from those who had established a reputation as being liberal and open-minded Islamic intellectuals. Some of them might be offended by the fact that the name of the Prophet was put into the popularity contest with ordinary human beings, while others were outraged because the sphere of religious harmony that been painstakingly cultivated was disturbed by such an irresponsible commercial gimmick. The Minister of Information, himself a former Chairman of the PWI and the boss of the best selling newspaper, the Pos Kota, had no other choice but to ban the tabloid.107 The editor was found guilty of sedition.108 It is not really an irony, if during the period of the “Faith as an Outsider”,109 the Islamic communities could get several things that the long years of the activities of Islamic political parties failed to achieve. The compromised promulgation of the new marriage law, which was not only in accordance with the Islamic law, can be taken as an example. The new law has every possibility to become a strategy in social planning because it discourages underage marriage and makes it more difficult for men to have polygamous marriages. The husband needs a written permission from his first wife before he can take another wife. The law makes it almost legally impossible to dissolve a marriage without the approval of the Islamic court. With this law, the husband cannot simply divorce his wife as was allowed in religious law. Divorce can only be carried out after the court learned of the problems and gives its approval. Islamic leaders could easily accept this new requirement because it is stated in the doctrine, “divorce is the allowed practice hated most by God”. In addition to the once controversial marriage law the government issued several other laws the Islamic political parties had been trying to get for so many years. The Minister of Religious Affairs (1983–93), Munawir Syadzali (1925–2003), a former diplomat, might have exaggerated the case when he stated on several occasions, that without Islamic political parties, the Muslim communities had gained more, but there were several indications to support this contention. After several years of campaigning — even to the extent of holding street demonstrations — against gambling and lotteries, the Islamic organizations and the MUI finally succeeded in persuading the government to make gambling of any type illegal. The MUI and other religious Islamic leaders applauded this

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decision because it would, as they saw it, reduce the possibility of the people being trapped in deeper social misery. In the meantime, the President formed a foundation, under his own chairmanship, to foster Islamic propagation. Every Muslim civil servant was obliged to contribute a small amount of his salary (ranging from 1,000 rupiah to 250 rupiah) to the the government-sponsored foundation (Yayasan Amal Bakti Muslim Pancasila). The foundation helped to establish mosques all over the country. It gave scholarships to religious students, financial allowances to religious preachers in the transmigration locations, and other related activities. In order to settle one of the most sensitive issues in the Islamic communities, particularly in some regions, the government issued the waqaf regulation. With this regulation, the heirs of the giver could never reclaim the religious gift in the form of immovable property. It should also never fall into the hands of the officers of the foundation or association to which the property had been bestowed. The government and the DPR agreed on the need for having a special Islamic court, in spite of the protests of several groups, most notably from the non-Islamic organizations, which argued that the introduction of an Islamic court might create plurality in the legal system. The major task of the Islamic court was to settle family affairs, such as inheritance, marriage, and divorce. Only after the court has failed to settle a case it could be brought to the state court. The New Order government succeeded in its efforts to introduce the codification of Islamic law (including matters pertaining to the most sensitive and difficult issues such as inheritance law). Finally, despite the reservations of the central bank, the Bank Indonesia, Soeharto officially opened a privately owned Islamic Bank. He was one of shareholders of the bank. The years of campaigning for having such a bank had finally paid off. As it turned out, the bank is widely considered to be one of the most successful private ventures.110 The bank and its branches were largely untouched by the monetary crisis of 1997 that had caused the bankruptcy of a number of big banks. In the meantime, some important changes had also taken place in the educational field. The division between the Islamic pesantren and the secular schools remained intact, but the New Order created a sphere in which

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many “doors and windows” could be built that enabled the occupants in the two separate worlds to move around. In the first place, the students in the secular schools were obliged to learn their respective religions. Pupils of the elementary school could learn simple doa, the five-times-a-day obligatory prayer (shalat), Islamic ethics, elementary religious teachings. Secondly, as a reaction to the Minister of Education and Culture’s instruction, which ordered the schools to remain open during the fasting month, many Islamic organizations — mostly the associations of “the mosque youths” (remaja masjid) — in the big towns found new ways to pursue their programmes. They opened the two-to-six-day programme of what they called pesantren kilat, “quick religious instruction programme” for elementary to senior high school students. The youngsters might not learn much about the various disciplines in Islamic study, but in these few day-programmes, they received an introduction and knowledge on how to live as members of the Islamic ummah. Thirdly, the religious gatherings and discussions among students, under the supervisions of their seniors who were more knowledgeable about Islam, became a common phenomenon among students of state universities. The Bandung Institute of Technology, for example, was not only famous for its claim to be one of the “centres of excellence” in the academic world, its mosque, the Salman mosque, had the reputation of being the most active centre of students’ religious activities. It regularly held religious discussions and seminars. Other campus mosques later followed in its footsteps. Fourthly, perhaps more significant sociologically, the “Agreement of the Three Ministers” (Education and Culture, Religious Affairs, and Internal Affairs) had made it possible for the students of religious schools to enter into the state system of education after taking the proper examination. With this agreement, graduates of private Islamic schools (madrasah) might be able enter the state university. It is therefore not a strange phenomenon if a certain percentage of the university graduates actually originated from the madrasah. Some big pesantren had even established their respective “secular” faculties or even universities. A consequence of this trend is the changing composition of the members of the bureaucracy. The institution that used to be the exclusive territory of the graduates of the secular schools (except, naturally, the religious bureaucracy,

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under the Ministry of Religious Affairs) now had to open its doors to those who had two different kinds of diploma. Fifth, one of the programmes of Prof. Mukti Ali (1924–2004), a professor in Comparative Religion at the IAIN (State Islamic Institute), Yogyakarta, after he was appointed as the Minister of Religious Affairs (1972),111 was to modernize the IAIN by, among other things, holding special programmes in research methodology, and inviting experts on social sciences and humanities to teach, and, not less importantly, by opening up the possibility for the best graduates of the institute to continue their studies abroad, most notably in the West. The successive ministers continued with this programme. After ten or more years, there were already several lecturers of the IAIN with Ph.D. degrees from universities in the United States and Canada. Some others who might have received their degrees in Indonesia, already had the opportunity to study or to conduct research in the Netherlands, under the supervision of Dutch experts on Islam and Arabic for a few months or a year. A question can then be asked on how long can the overt anti-political Islam be maintained? Since the once divided world of the “secularized” Muslims and the “Islamic” Muslim had been largely broken intellectually and even to some extent, socially, by the creation of the many doors and windows, should the abangan nationalist political posture be maintained at whatever cost? There was a time, during Soeharto’s fourth cabinet, when all ministers in charge of finance and industry were non-Muslims and even the Commander-in-Chief of the Army was a Catholic. No protest was ever voiced, after all, the appointment of the ministers and the commanders were the prerogatives of the President. People, however, talked about how the state was not only anti-political Islam but also tended to marginalize the Muslims in the sensitive positions. Yet, shortly before he was re-elected for the fifth time, President Soeharto not only agreed to, but also endorsed, the establishment of the highly controversial Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslim di Indonesia (ICMI — Association of Muslim Intellectuals in Indonesia). The formation of the association was announced at the closing session of a national seminar on “Indonesian Development entering the 21st century”, held at the campus of the Brawijaya University, Malang (East

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Java), on 9 December 1990. Attended by scholars from all over the country, the seminar was officially opened by the President, who came with several cabinet ministers. Soon after the announcement, the initiators began to work out the association’s constitution and selected the members of the boards etc. From the beginning, it had already been decided that the Chairman of the association should be somebody close to the centre of power and had the reputation of being a scholar or scientist. Given the existing political situation, the election of Prof. B.J. Habibie (born 1936), the Minister of Research and Technology, can be considered a stroke of genius. He fulfilled the two criteria. As predicted, the formation of the ICMI immediately became a public controversy. Many military high officers were opposed to such an association. They suspected the ICMI would rekindle Islamic political aspiration. Some Muslim leaders, most notably Abdurrahman Wahid (born 1940), then the Chairman of the NU, also opposed the formation of the ICMI. Wahid argued that ICMI was basically a “sectarian” association. It should have no place in the Pancasila state. He suspected that the ICMI would eventually “re-confessionalize” politics. Among the people who were actually quite sympathetic to the birth of this association questioned Habibie’s Islamic credentials. What kind of Islamic credentials did the German-trained engineer ever have? Later, some foreign observers looked at the association as a fundamentalist organization that might later pose a threat to Western interests. Some others thought of it as a kind of democratic movement that could be exploited. Others simply saw it as nothing but a new Soeharto political machinery that could be used to strengthen his position at a time when the military support was eroding.112 These rather negative opinions became louder after the ICMI in a short time managed to establish its branches all over the country and in a few university towns abroad. Many university lecturers, bureaucrats, NGOs’ social activists, religious teachers, and politicians joined the ICMI. At long last, there was an Islamic organization without the tarnish of being anti-Pancasila. Whatever the accusations and negative opinions there might have been, the birth of the ICMI can only appreciated by looking at the later stage of the New Order. The ICMI was born after Pancasila had been widely accepted as the sole foundation of the “nation and the state” (kehidupan bernegara dan

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berbangsa)¸ the ulama had returned to the ummah by abandoning the state, and the santrinization process had taken place among the urban and rural population of Java. Its birth took place when the worldwide phenomenon of Islamic resurgence had appeared in different faces — from the very liberal and inclusive posture to the radical and “fundamentalist” way of thinking. The New Order and its political elite had to deal with the question of containing the emergence of these divergent Islamic orientations. As Soeharto seemed to have noticed, the politics of the depolitization of Islam had not only politically, and even socially, marginalized the persons with deep Islamic credentials, the politics had also sown the seeds of a “minority complex” among the Islamic majority. On a personal basis, as he grew older, Soeharto apparently could easily remember a simple fact from his biography — he was a student of the Muhammadiyah junior high school. Furthermore, the not-too-silent opposition of the army establishment to the election of Soedharmono, the State Secretary, who received strong Soeharto’s support as the Vice-President, had certainly made Soeharto more aware of the need of having another source of political support. Therefore, when Habibie asked his opinion about the request of a number of Islamic scholars and intellectuals for him to become the chairman of the soon-to-beestablished ICMI, he not only urged Habibie to accept it, but also offered his endorsement of the association.113 Whatever the factors for the emergence of the association may be, soon enough, the ICMI had given the impression of being a rather loose association sociologically, politically, and ideologically. Officially it was a non-political organization that aimed at the improvement of the qualities of the ummah in every aspect, but its own leaders and founders perceived the association differently. They even saw the raison d’être of the association differently. Some might see it as a broker between the government and the Islamic community. Others perceived the ICMI as a sign of the change of the regime’s attitude. Some others saw it as an opportunity for the Muslims to show their worth in national development. Yet others hoped that the association would emerge as the vanguard of “the awakening of the ummah. And naturally some others could hope that the ICMI might serve as a channel through which Islamic political objectives could be promoted.114

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The ICMI was an organization, but it can also be seen as a spectrum of the Islamic communities — its members ranged from the most devout and pious Muslims to the highly secularized ones, from the staunch supporters of Soeharto to the persons who were highly critical of the regime, from the non-political intellectuals and scientists to the highly political social activists. At the level of discourse, however, most of them agreed that they joined the ICMI because they saw the association as a vehicle by which the efforts for the sake of improving the lot of the Islamic communities might be undertaken. They saw the ICMI as a venue for the advancement of democracy, for the deepening awareness of the Muslim majority of the importance of science and technology, and for the termination of the relative political marginalization of Muslims. But how could these noble ideas be carried out? With this simple question, the old dilemma of Islamic organization came again to the surface — what should be given more weight if there was a friction between idealism and political expediency? The moment the ICMI tried to choose the first alternative, an internal collision could not be avoided. The choice of idealism could easily lead to a confrontation with the authoritarian regime, which had not only approved the establishment of the ICMI, but also protected the existence of the association. How could ICMI leaders forget the fact it was the regime that had recently granted several advantages to the Islamic cause, such as the Islamic marriage law, etc. This was the kind of conflict of interests that took place when a young poet and social activist opted to withdraw from the board of the association. His involvement on behalf of ICMI in helping the peasants of Kedungombo (Central Java) whose lands had been taken away for the giant dam project immediately forced him to come face to face with the authorities. The ICMI could not do anything to defend the displaced people. A similar kind of friction also took place when M. Amien Rais (born 1944), a lecturer of political science at the Gadjah Mada University, one of the founders of the ICMI and the chairman of the association’s board of experts, accused the foreign mining companies of neglecting the environment and the people in the vicinity. By doing this, he immediately found out that he was actually directly confronting the highest authority in the country. He was advised to tender his resignation as the chairman of the Board of

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Experts of the ICMI.115 Before he knew it, Amien Rais had emerged as a politician, who later became Suharto’s nemesis. The ICMI faced another dilemma when three newsweeklies, Tempo, Detik, and Editor, were banned. The members and leaders of the organization might criticize the banning, but ICMI as an association could not do anything. It was its patron, President Soeharto, who ordered the ban, and it was its chairman who was the target of the reports of the banned weekly (Tempo). The desire to promote democracy and social advancement under the protection of an authoritarian state is certainly fertile soil for all kinds of political and ethical dilemma. But then without the courage to face the dilemma, nothing substantial could be achieved. In the meantime, the ICMI had managed to publish a moderate sounding Islamic newspaper, the Republika, established a political think-tank, the CIDES, which rather regularly issued newsletters and special publications. Its ORBIT had wideranging programmes to help the education of the underprivileged children. The association was also instrumental in the decision of the government to establish the Islamic bank. One of the ICMI’s activities that Habibie wanted to foster was the holding of the national seminars officially cosponsored by the ICMI and other religiously based intellectual associations. By having such multi-religious intellectual meetings he could hope, on the one hand, to refute the accusation that ICMI was a”sectarian” organization, which wanted to make a clear boundary between itself and the others; and on the other hand, he would like to emphasize that national unity was high on the ICMI’s agenda. On this account, the ICMI actually followed the pattern that had particularly been popular under the New Order — that of holding national seminars, symposiums, or whatever name was given to scholarly gatherings as a way of fostering national integration. The close relationship between the ICMI and the government was an enormous asset to the association. In such a short period, it could develop into an influential political force without ever directly engaging itself in politics. At the same time, this close relationship made its position untenable. The crisis of the regime directly affected its position as an association that is a force of democracy inside the authoritarian state. The political crisis immediately caused a problem to the continuing existence of the ICMI itself.

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Inchoate Harmony and Disjointed Unity The New Order and, indeed, most probably also the nation, had many reasons to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Proclamation of Independence lavishly. How many crises the nation had lived through? How many tragic events had it to endure? At one time during the revolutionary struggle, the only region that was still left under the political jurisdiction of the Republic of Indonesia was Aceh, at the northern tip of Sumatra. In the same period, only in a few regions, among others Aceh, West Sumatra, and Yogyakarta, where the Dutch failed to establish either the “special regions” or the so-called “federal states”. In the 1950s, soon after Indonesia gained its sovereignty, the new state also had to face the threat of colonial time bombs that kept exploding here and there. In the mid-1960s, Indonesia underwent its most traumatic experience as a nation. Despite the challenges, Indonesia survived, and by any account, had made itself a respectable nation. The human and political price might be high but then in 1995, Indonesia was no longer counted as a poor nation. Its GNP had increased from two or three hundred dollars per capita to almost 2000 dollars. Its economy was blooming. Not only was the number of the successful conglomerates on the increase, the number of people below the poverty line continued to decrease. Jakarta that was once mocked as the “biggest village” in the world had gradually become a sprawling metropolitan with a work force of several millions. Its international standing was improving, even though its record on human rights still left much to be desired. Its performance as the chairman of the Non-Bloc countries was praiseworthy. A number of success stories can certainly be repeated. The New Order succeeded in completing the process of the inclusion of West Irian into the fold of the Republic Indonesia. In 1969 under the supervision of the United Nations; the “Act of Free Choice” was conducted. The representatives of the people of West Irian with an overwhelming majority opted to join the Republic. Since then it is known as the Province of Irian Jaya. All former territories of the then Netherlands Indies have become a part of the Republic of Indonesia. In 1974, the Portuguese suddenly abandoned East Timor and in 1975 civil war broke out. Some political parties in the country in turmoil appealed to Indonesia. In July 1976, East

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Timor became the 27th province that never, to the end, (1999) was fully integrated with the rest of the country. Indonesia had to pay a high political and economic price for the inclusion of East Timor. But on the other hand, the termination of the politics of konfrontasi (“confrontation’) against the formation of Malaysia, the establishment of ASEAN, and the cessation of Indonesia’s international isolation should be counted as the success stories of the New Order in foreign policy. With these successes Indonesia could — despite the longstrained relations with China — in the first place, concentrate its attention to domestic affairs, without, as it was in past, worrying about possible foreign subversions or being surrounded by the neo-colonial powers, and secondly, expect foreign aid and investment. The formation of IGGI (InterGovernmental Group on Indonesia), which consisted of several donor countries, affirmed strongly Indonesia’s position. With these foreign backing, Indonesia embarked on its rehabilitation, reconstruction and development programmes. Soeharto might not have accumulated as many honours and symbols the way his predecessor did; he managed, however, to centralize power in his hands. And the economic successes were there to support his ideological and political claims.116 In the early 1990s, Indonesia was already counted — along with Malaysia and Thailand — as one of the coming “Asian tigers”. In a quarter of a century (1960–90) the real per capita growth of its gross national product was 4.5 per cent. Only six countries, according to the World Bank, which had investigated 78 developing countries, recorded higher figures than Indonesia’s. “Had we not adopted our current policies but instead directly implemented ‘equitable distribution’, who would be interested in investing capital and working capital and working as hard as possible without enjoying profits?” asked Soeharto defending his policy. “If we had followed the road of ‘equitable distribution’ right from the start”, he continues, “a great deal of capital would have moved abroad”.117 And indeed, as an Australian economist put it.” By mid-1990s, the Indonesian population was better fed, clothed, educated, and housed than ever before”.118 Something, however, was beginning to creep into this successful picture. The banning of Tempo news magazine, which was once praised or ridiculed

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as a mouthpiece of the relatively critical middle class, and the politically hot tabloids, Detik, and the Editor, in 1994, showed that the government had made itself the only source of appropriateness. For the first time in memory, several demonstrations were held protesting against the ban. Again for the first time, the publishers contested the decision in court. The publishers of Tempo accused the Minister of Information of transgressing the law by banning the magazine. The trial became a political cause célèbre. It had been public knowledge that it was the President who was behind the banning of Tempo. The reporters resigned from the only recognized journalist association and established their own — ignoring the fact that only those who were members of the recognized association, the PWI, could work in the mass media. This series of events might not even be so significant in themselves, but they signified the social and political undercurrent of the New Order. After all, the situation in East Timor was getting worse day by day. The situation in Aceh, although at that time still largely unknown to the general public, was also far from satisfactory. In 1996 a series of small, but ugly incidents, took place in several towns in East and West Java. In 1997, when GOLKAR was targeting getting over 70 per cent of the votes and becoming “the single majority”, Indonesia experienced its worst general election. Open conflicts took place in Central Java, most notably in the Pekalongan region, and in other places, and most unexpectedly, in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan. When Soeharto made himself available again for the Presidency for the seventh time, Indonesia was already on the brink of its deepest crisis. In his last months as the President — after 32 years in office — Soeharto still had every right to claim that only 11 per cent of the population still remained below the poverty line. Indeed Indonesia’s poverty alleviation programme had been widely regarded as a success story. The contagion effects of the Asian financial crisis that finally hit Indonesia in July 1997 did not diminish his optimism. In his maiden speech as the newly elected President — for the seventh time, since the first general election of 1971 — he could still emphatically state in poetic language (he was actually reciting the title of a popular song in the early 1980s), “Thunderstorm is certain to fade away”. But apparently it did not — the storm had become even bigger and more dangerous. Everything crumbled very rapidly.

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The monetary crisis soon triggered economic and political crises. The deregulation of banks in 1983 gave banks the right to offer whatever interest they were willing to give to would-be clients. The differences in the interest to be paid provided the incentive to the private sector to borrow from abroad at relatively lower interest rates. In 1988, the government issued another regulation, which practically liberalized the banks. Sure enough, the number of banks multiplied immensely. A number of state and private banks could now serve any small town. When suddenly the contagion effects hit Indonesia (1997), the state was already 52 years old, and USD53,865 million in debt. Also, to everyone’s surprise, the private sector had borrowed no less than USD82,223 million from abroad. With the system of free exchange rates at a time when installments had to be paid, bankruptcy seemed to be the only alternative. Yet, how to deal with the fates of the millions of small domestic clients? Some banks could not be saved, but the biggest and “richest” banks had to be saved. The alternative was social unrest. The risk of the “rush” might to some extent be limited but the “sudden lost confidence” in rupiah could not be avoided. In July 1997, the exchange rate of one US dollar was still Rp. 2,300; on 26 January 1998 it had reached Rp. 16,000 per one US dollar. As if by sheer bad luck, Indonesia was forced to return to the situation it experienced at the beginning of the New Order — the sphere of social disintegration. After the shock of the crisis was over suddenly, like the opening of Pandora’s box in Greek mythology, all sources of social conflicts came to the surface. This situation may indicate the basic flaws in the strategy of Indonesian economic development. It may also reflect the discrepancies between improving economic well-being, with all its related social consequences, and the revolution of information that had also impinged on the social fabric, with the continuing authoritarian political system. The fall of Soeharto may attest to the fact that obscuring the boundary between state and society is not only fertile soil for the centralization of power in one hand, but also for the growth of the tradition of “corruption, collusion, and nepotism”, on the other. Or, it is simply because the regime had exhausted itself.119 Whatever the causes of the fall may be, Indonesia has again to experience the slow and hard processes of economic recovery, political reconstruction, and social rehabilitation. Only time will tell how

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the sociological and psychological impacts of these traumatic experiences will last. The dominance of the cultural interpretation of politics and the tenacity of the imagined world of “symmetry, harmony, balance” (as the textbook of P-4 courses puts it) to sustain itself is very much dependent on the ability of the regime to perform the tasks it has assigned to itself.120 Political and social stability can also be properly maintained if the prestige and the authority of the military and civilian bureaucracy remain relatively intact. Procedural democracy, without its essential substance of open political system, can be sustained as long as symbolic success in governance continues to express itself in the sphere of credibility. The moment these prerequisites are in crisis, the foundation of this illusory harmonious world is threatened by disintegration. This what happened when the monetary crisis of 1997 hit Indonesia — the whole system suddenly crumbled. NOTES 1

2

See Kemal Idris’ memoir, Bertarung dalam Revolusi (Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1996), pp. 136–42. Lt. Gen. (Retired) Kemal Idris, then still a major, was the commander of the troop. He claims that he was instructed by Colonel Nasution to bring the troop to the palace. “The October 17 Affair” (Peristiwa 17 Oktober), as it has since then been known in history, was a very complex event. It actually began when the “defense establishment” (the ministry of defence and the army headquarters) were preparing the rationalization programme of the armed forces. Some political parties, most notably the PNI, and many local commanders, strongly objected to the plan. Sukarno was widely believed to have sided with the opposition. The climax of the opposition came when a PNI parliamentarian presented a resolution demanding that the Minister of Defence reveal the overall plan in detail. A series of political debates in and outside parliament soon took place. See Herbert Feith, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, Press, 1964). See also a personal account by Manai Sophiaan, who was deeply involved in the controversy. He was then a member of the parliament representing the PNI. He presented the resolution that was finally accepted by the majority members of the parliament. Manai Sophiaan, Apa yang Masih Teringat (Jakarta: Yayasan Mencerdaskan Kehidupan Bangsa, 1991), pp. 313–55. For the most comprehensive documentary account of the affair, see Bisri Effendy, ed., 17 Oktober 1952: Kronik Hubungan antara

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Parlemen, Militer dan Istana (Jakarta: Riset Informasi dan Analisa Kecenderungan, 2001). 3 Since most of the supporters of the movement to dissolve the parliament were regional commanders, while many of the opponents were their deputies, Indonesia became the scene of an internal military coup. Several deputy commanders took over the control from their regional commanders. See for example Nugroho Notosusanto, ed., Pejuang dan Perajuit: Konsepsi dan Implementasi Dwifungsi ABRI (Jakarta: Sinar Harapan, 1991). 4 T.B. Simatupang, Membuktikan Ketidakbenaran Suatu Mitos (Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1991). See especially its appendix, the author’s reflection on the “October 17 Affair” (Dua Puluh Tahun Setelah Peristiwa 17 Oktober 1952). “If the officers who were supposed to have been involved in the October 17 Affair really wanted to stage a coup d’état”, Simatupang told the Attorney General on 29 April 1953,” there was no reason why they should have failed.” On the birth of the Indonesian army, see for example Salim Said, Genesis of Power: General Sudirman and the Indonesian Military in Politics, 1945–1949 (Jakarta: Sinar Harapan/Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1992). The author sees the army as a “self created institution”. 5 This, as Feith describes in his book, reflects the controversies between the “administrators/problems solvers” and the “solidarity makers”. See his The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia, op. cit. 6 Penders, The West New Guinea Debacle: Dutch Colonization and Indonesia, 1945– 1962 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002), pp. 265–71. 7 Address of the President of the Republic of Indonesia, 17 August 1959. The address was entitled “The Rediscovery of Our Revolution”. The Supreme Advisory Council, chaired by the President himself, used this address as the basis of the “Political Manifesto of the Republic of Indonesia”, issued on 25 September 1959. 8 On this rapid course of events, see Feith, The Decline, op. cit. 9 A.H. Nasution, Sejarah Perang Kemerdekaan Indonesia, Jakarta. Soon after the event, he was forced to relinquish his post as the Chief-of-Staff of the Army. Nasution wrote letters to all regional and district commanders, who were his former subordinates, to compile historical data on the revolutionary struggles in their respective regions and localities. It took several years for Nasution and his assistants to sort out the raw historical data. Whatever its academic merits, the eleven-volume book is a gold mine of information on the most crucial episode in Indonesian modern history. 10 Some scholars tend to believe that General Nasution even gave the President no other alternative. The decree was a fait accompli to Sukarno. The proud President never forgave Nasution for this. Sukarno was not against the imposition of the

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decree, but the fact that the idea came from Nasution he felt was a humiliation to his position as the great leader. Daniel Lev subscribes to this idea. See his The Transition to Guided Democracy: Indonesian Politics, 1957–1959 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1966). Three ways to solve the continuing crisis were offered in the late 1950s, Nasution explains. The first is “the four legged cabinet” — meaning a cabinet that was supported by the four biggest parties, namely the PNI, Masyumi, NU, and the PKI. This was the basic ingredient of Sukarno’s konsepsi. Second, the formation of a federal state, such as demanded by the regional councils. “Third, a written proposal from the TNI: return to the 1945 Constitution and conduct a general election by using district system.” A.H. Nasution, Bisikan Nurani Seorang Jenderal (Kumpulan Wawancara dengan Media Masa), edited by Dr Bakri A.G. Tianlean (Bandung: Mizan, 1997), p. 100. See also his interviews from 1993 to early 1997, collected in A.H. Nasution, Bisikan Nurani, ibid. On the origin and the transformation of the concept, see Salim Said, Tumbuh dan Tumbangnya Dwifungsi: Perkembangan Pemikiran Politik Militer Indonesia, 1958– 2000 (Jakarta: Aksara Karunia, 2000), pp. 9–65. Quotation is taken from p. 21. Sukarno: An Autobiography as Told to Cindy Adams (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril, 1965), p. 289. Cindy Adams, My Friend, the Dictator (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril, 1967), pp. 305–06. Dewi was Mrs Ratna Sari Dewi, Sukarno’s third wife, a Japanese woman he met in Japan. Quoted in Crouch, Army and Politics, p. 163. Ibid., p. 296. In spite of her popular style, Cindy Adams accurately captured the political climate of the time. Kemal Idris, then the Commander of the Kostrad (Reserved Strategic Unit of the Army) replacing Suharto, who was appointed as the Minister/Chief-of-Staff of the Army, confirms this impressions in his memoir (Bertarung, op. cit.) The Kostrad, RPKAD, and the Siliwangi Division were then widely known as the “protectors” of the students. Their commanders, Kemal Idris, Sarwo Edhie, and H.R. Dharsono, were then jokingly called by the political elite in the transitional period as the “king makers” of the New Order. Nasution, Bisikan Nurani Seorang Jenderal, p. 79. In his interviews Nasution referred to these two events several times. See Bisikan Nurani Seorang Jenderal, op. cit. From the speech,” The Rediscovery of Our Revolution” (17 August 1959). See also Taufik Abdullah, “The Emergence of New Paradigm?: A Sketch on Contemporary Islamic Discourse” in Toward a New Paradigm: Recent Developments in Indonesian Islamic Thought, edited by Mark R. Woodward (Tempe, Arizona: Arizona State University, Program for Southeast Asian Studies, 1996), pp. 47–88.

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In his explanation of the dwifungsi, Soeharto says in his autobiography, “The concept of dwifungsi ABRI is clearly stated in the definition of functional group in Article 2 of the Constitution which is later emphasized by the TAP MPRS (Decision of the Provisional People’s Consultative Assembly)”, Soeharto: Pikiran, Ucapan, dan Tindakan Saya — Otobiografi Seperti dipaparkan Kepada G. Dwipayana dan Ramadhan K.H. (Jakarta: PT Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, 1989), p. 426. Ibid., p. 462. Ibid., p. 462. Taufik Abdullah, “The 1945 Generation: The Institutionalization of a Generation and the Ideologization of Revolutionary Values”. Paper presented at the “Utrecht Conference on the Indonesian Revolution”, Utrecht, 1986, 28pp. See for example, Robert Cribb, ed., The Indonesian Killings of 1965–1966: Studies from Java and Bali, Monash Paper on Southeast Asia No. 1 (Clayton: Monash University, 1990). Since the fall of Soeharto, several books have been published on these tragic events. The speech was given on 20 November 1965. Quoted in Crouch, Army and Politics, p. 156. See for example Alfian, Taufik Abdullah et al., eds., Masa Awal Pembentukan ASEAN (Jakarta: LRKN-LIPI, 1986). Not without reason the new regime preferred to use “the war of independence”, instead of the “national revolution” or, as Sukarno preferred, “physical revolution” in describing the eventful years of 1945–1950. After all “war” has always referred to the situation in which the military plays the prominent role. The “war of independence” has from the beginning been an ideological cornerstone of the military claim to political legitimacy. See Taufik Abdullah’s introduction to the collection of political editorials, written by Mochtar Lubis for his eventually banned newspaper, Indonesia Raya. Atmakusumah, ed., Tajuk-Tajuk Politik Mochtar Lubis (Jakarta: Yayayan Obor, 1997). See for example, Roger K. Paget, “Indonesian Newspapers, 1965–1967: Preliminary Comments”, Indonesia, no. 4 (October 1967): 170–220. On the political events before and after the cabinet reshuffle, see among others Ulf Sundhaussen, The Road to Power: Indonesian Military Politics, 1945–1967 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 227–36. Personal communication, Soeharto, Jakarta, 1997. On the events surrounding the issuing of the March 11 Letter of Order, see for example, Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1978), pp. 158–79. Soeharto, My Thoughts, Words and Deeds: An Autobiography as Told to

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G. Dwipayana and Ramadhan K.H., edited by Mut’iah Lestiono and translated by Sumadi (Jakarta: P.T. Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, 1991), p. 148. Shortly before and soon after the fall of Soeharto (21 May 1998), the event that led to the issuing the Supersemar, the authenticity of its content, and particularly the way Soeharto used it, became heated public controversies. The controversies became ugly since the original copy of the Supersemar is still missing. The Head of National Archives found out that he had at his disposal no less than three slightly different alleged “original copies” of the document. Many people also believed that Soeharto had knowingly used the document to undermine Sukarno’s power and to increase his power. In other words, the Supersemar was used by Soeharto to stage a “silent coup d’état”. Brian May in his The Indonesian Tragedy (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1978), pp. 137–45, tends to believe that the March 11 Order was the beginning of the “junta coup”. Sukarno had introduced the system of state-recognition of a hero. The New Order later perfected the system. Every region would nominate its hero to be included in the national pantheon. See for example, Taufik Abdullah, “The Hero in Historical Perspective”, Prisma (November 1976), pp. 27–32. On the political significance of Sjahrir’s funeral to the fall of Sukarno, see also Sundhaussen, The Road to Power, p. 238. According to Nasution, he was asked by General Soeharto to become the Speaker of the MPRS. He accepted it because he was the first to sign the Statement of the Armed Forces of 5 May 1966, that states that the MPRS was the highest authority and that the President should be subservient to the highest council. “At that time it did not occur to my mind that the penguasa (lit. ruler) was aiming at undermining the MPRS, as was later shown by the agenda of the Acting President”. Nasution, Bisikan Nurani, p. 210. This is, of course, a matter of conjecture. Many people believe Soeharto had from the beginning worked for the removal of Sukarno gracefully and discreetly. Marhaenism, the nationalist ideology he designed, had been used by the PNI as the ideological foundation. Marhaenism was later defined by the PNI, under the leadership of Ali Sastroamidjo, as “Marxism that has been adapted to the Indonesian soil”. Sukarno never failed to call himself a “Marxist”. But he always made a clear difference between Marxism as a philosophy, “philosophical materialism” and a theory, a methodology, “historical materialism”. He adhered to the latter — that is the way, as he said many times, “to understand the dynamic[s] of history”, “the wisdom of history”, “the flame of history”. Being himself a devout Islamic believer, he said, he could not adhere to Marxist “philosophical materialism”. See Sukarno, Ilmu dan Perjuangan: Kumpulan Pidato Ketika Menerima Gelar Doctor Honoris Causa dari Universitas dalam Negeri (Jakarta: Inti Idayu Press/Yayasan Pendidikan Soekarno, 1984).

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On the process of the impeachment of Sukarno, see for example the testimony of the Speaker of the MPRS, A.H. Nasution, in his Menegakkan Keadilan dan Kebenaran (Djakarta: Seruling Masa, 1967, 2 vols.). He explicitly shows his suspicion of Sukarno’s indirect involvement in the 30 September event. In his “as-told-to autobiography” Soeharto insisted that he did not want to humiliate Sukarno. Suharto, p. 15. President Soeharto, Amanat Kenegaraan I, 1967–1971 (Jakarta: Inti Idayu Press, 1985), pp. 1–62. This is perhaps the most quoted speech by Soeharto. See among others, Ali Sadikin, Tantangan Demokrasi (Jakarta: Sinar Harapan 1995). Nasution, Bisikan Nurani, p. 203. President Soeharto, ibid. Herbert Feith, “Suharto’s Search for a Political Format”, Indonesia, no. 6 (October 1968): 88–105. Laporan Pimpinan MPRS: Tahun 1966–1972 (Jakarta: Penerbitan MPRS). This official report of the MPRS was banned soon after its publication. See particularly François Raillon, Politik dan Ideologi Mahasiswa Indonesia: Pembentukan dan Konsolidasi Orde Baru, 1966–1974, translated by Nasir Tamara (Jakarta: LP3ES, 1985). For a short description of the growing tension between Soeharto and the students on this matter, see for example, Peter Polomka, Indonesia since Sukarno (Harmonsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1971), pp. 116–17. For the legal and political arguments for the rehabilitation of the Masyumi, see S.U. Bajasut, ed., Alam Pikiran dan Djedjak Perjuangan Prawoto Mangkusasmito (Surabaya: Documenta, 1972). Prawoto Mangkusasmito was the last chairman of the Masyumi. On the efforts to re-establish the party, see Lukman Hakiem, Perjalanan Mencari Keadilan & Perstuan: Biografi Dr. Anwar Harjono, S.H. (Jakarta: Penerbit Media Da’wah, 1993), pp. 214–22. Anwar Harjono was the former Secretary-General of the Party. Deliar Noer, Partai Islam di Pentas Nasional, 1945–1965 (Jakarta: P.T. Pustaka Utama Grafitti, 1987). “As far as I know”, Wangsa Widjaja says in his book, “the reason why Bung Hatta would like to establish the Islamic Democratic Party [was] because there were many competing Islamic parties, they were not united, and they also did not have a strong leadership… Bung Hatta wanted to educate the Islamic younger generation through this party…hopefully (they) would not bring with them the political trauma…” I Wangsa Widjaja, Mengenang Bung Hatta (Jakarta: Haji Mas Agung, 1988), p. 51. The author was Hatta’s lifelong private secretary. See for example volume VI of the six-volume “standard book of Indonesian history”, Marwati Djoened Poesponegoro & Nugroho Notosusanto, eds., Sejarah

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Nasional Indonesia (Jakarta: Balai Pustaka, printed several times). See also David Bourchier, ”The 1950s in New Order Ideology and Politics”, in David Bourchier and John Legge, eds., Democracy in Indonesia 1950s and 1990s (Clayton, Victoria: Centre Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1994), pp. 50–62. It was general knowledge that the marine and the police were strongly behind Sukarno. Some of the army commanders, most notably the commander of the Siliwangi Division, Mayor Gen. Ibrahim Adjie, were also Sukarno’s supporters. On the power struggle behind the scene between the two fronts, see Polomka, Indonesia, pp. 90–92 and particularly Crouch, The Army and Politics, pp. 221–44. The PNI and the newly formed Parmusi were the victims of the OPSUS’s political creativity and intelligence operations. On the PNI, see J. Eliseo Rocamora, Nationalism in Search of Ideology: The Indonesian Nationalist Party, 1946–1965 (Quezon City: Philippine Center for Advanced Studies, University of Philippines, 1975) and on the Parmusi, see K.E. Ward, The Foundation of the Partai Muslimin Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1970). The OPSUS engineered the election of Hadisubeno as the Chairman of the party, despite the fact that the majority of the participants of the party’s congress wanted Hardi, the former Deputy Prime Minister, to be their new chairman. In the Parmusi case, the OPSUS simply engineered an internal coup, and the President came to help, sealing the internal conflict by appointing one of his ministers as the temporary chairman. The fallen leaders were simply put in political limbo. S. Sjahrir, Out of Exile, translated by Charles Wolf, Jr. (New York: John Day, 1949). Sri Paku Alam VIII, the ruler of Pakualaman, a “spin-off” principality of Yogyakarta, the Vice-Governor of the Special Territory (Daerah Istimewa) Yogjakarta conducted the daily affairs of administrating the special region. Since the election of Soeharto as the President, General Nasution had been widely regarded as a “renegade to the army’s cause” — he preferred to put his weight on the civilian’s demands for democratization. Before the newly elected MPR was formed, the leadership of the MPRS was unceremoniously dismissed. Nasution has since then been politically ostracized. See Nasution, Bisikan Nurani, op. cit. This isolation lasted until 1993. As interpreted by Soeharto, the March 11 Order had practically given him extra-constitutional powers. These powers were institutionalized by the Kopkamptib (Komando Operasi Keamanan dan Ketertiban — Command of Peace and Security Operation). Nasution, Bisikan Nurani, p. 212. For a short description on the debates on the election law and a narrative account of the election itself, see Ken Ward, The 1971 Election in Indonesia: An

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East Java Case Study, Monash Papers on Southeast Asia, No. 2 (Clayton: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1974). Center for Strategic and International Studies, 16–28 February, 1975. Quoted in Balada Ghoshal, “Indonesia’s New Order under Suharto”, in Verinder Grover, ed., Indonesia: Government and Politics (New Delhi: Deep & Deep Publications PVT Ltd, 2000), p. 107 (note 18). In 1971 GOLKAR managed to win 62.8 per cent of the votes. In 1977 — it received 62.1 per cent; 1982 — 64.2 per cent; 1987 — 73.2 per cent; 1992 — 68.1 per cent; 1997 — more than 74, which was well beyond the target. Gunawan Mohamad, Sajak Lengkap, 1961–2001 (Jakarta: Metafor, 2001), p. 51. Soeharto, p. 226. On the marriage law case and its solution, see for example Azyumardi Azra, “The Indonesian Marriage Law of 1974”, in Arskal Salim and Azyumardi Azra, eds., Shari’a and Politics in Modern Indonesia (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2003), pp. 76–95. Not unlike the Guided Democracy, the regime that was always quick to blame anything to the alleged conspiracy of the Masyumi and the PSI, the New Order regime, most likely its Opsus operators, soon accused the former Masyumi/PSI leaders as being the instigators of the riots. See for example Marzuki Arifin, Peristiwa 15 Januari 1974 (Jakarta: Publishing House Indonesia, 1974). In less than a month, however, it had become almost public knowledge in Jakarta that the Opsus was the agent provocateur behind these riots. See the frank and rather extraordinary reminiscence of General (Ret.) Soemitro on the Malari Affairs in his last book (published a few months before he died), Pangkopkamptib Jenderal Soemitro dan Peristiwa 15 Januari 1974 (Sebagaimana dituturkan kepada Heru Cahyono) (Jakarta: Penerbit Sinar Harapan, 1998). In the book, he also tells some of the adventures of the Opsus that he knew only after he retired from service. After losing his position as the Commander of the Kopkamtib, Soemitro turned down Soeharto’s offer of a non-military post. He chose early retirement from the army. See Rosihan Anwar, Menulis dalam Air: Sebuah Otobiografi (Jakarta; Penerbit Sinar Harapan, 1983). For a short discussion on the Pertamina scandal, see R.E. Elson, Suharto: A Political Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). See also Leo Suryadinata, Interpreting Indonesian Politics (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1998), pp. 122–24. See the official publication of the Department of Education, 50 Tahun Pendidikan Nasional (Jakarta: Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan), p. 130. Chapter 37 of the 1945 Constitution states that the constitution could be amended if it was approved by 2/3 of the members of the MPR. Soeharto reasoned with

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this stipulation the amendment could be undertaken by shrewd political manoeuvring. Soeharto, p. 353. A “sidekick” candidate, Ismail Suko, who was then a member of the DPRD of Riau, made news in the late 1980s. He defeated the incumbent governor, a brigadier general and a Javanese, who had been slated to serve his second term. Swift and angry reactions came from the Chief-of-Staff of Army and the Chairman of GOLKAR. They refused to acknowledge the decision. The winning candidate was forced to withdraw and, as a token of gratitude for his loyalty, was appointed a member of the DPR. As luck would have it, in 2003, his sonin-law was elected as the governor of Riau and became the youngest governor in Indonesia. Appendix V in Hakiem, Perjalanan Mencari, pp. 545–47. From a close reading of the two Soeharto speeches, one can get the impression that the signatories had indeed caught Soeharto on his weakest ideological spots. Transcripts of the speeches were distributed among the critics of the regime. On the genesis of the statement, see Soeharto, pp. 388–401. By that time, the study group had formalized itself into a foundation — the Yayasan Lembaga Kesadaran Berkonstitusi. M. Hatta, General Nasution, Prof. Subekti (former Chief Justice) were among its founders. See Hakiem, Perjalanan Mencari, pp. 374–83. On Nasution’s experiences, see Nasution, Bisikan Nurani, op. cit. He was not even allowed to attend wedding receptions of the children of his former comradein-arms. The plan of the Malaysian University Kebangsaan to confer a doctoral honorary degree to M. Natsir, the former Prime Minister, and the Vice-President of the World Islamic Association, had to be cancelled because of the opposition of the Indonesian Embassy. There was a plan to arrest all signatories, but General M. Jusuf, then the Minister of Defence/Commander of the Armed Forces objected to the plan. (Forum Keadilan II, 5, 14 Juni 1993 — as quoted in Hakiem, Perjalanan Mencari, p. 401. Lieutenant General (Ret.) H.R. Dharsono, the former Commander of the Siliwangi Division, who was widely regarded as one “three military backbones” of the New Order (along with Kemal Idris and Sarwo Edhie), Sanusi, a former Soeharto Minister of Industry, and A.M. Fatwa, were wrongly accused of masterminding the “Tanjung Priok” incident. They had, however, to spend several years of their lives in prison. Soeharto, pp. 298–99. On the genesis of this “indoctrination” programme, see Sudharmono S.H., Pengalaman Dalam Masa Pengabdian: Sebuah Otobiografi (Jakarta: P.T. Gramedia Widiasarana Indonesia, 1997), pp. 269–73. Sudharmono, who was then the

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State Secretary, was instructed by Soeharto to draft the programme. Before the task could be undertaken Soeharto was kind enough to tell Sudharmono and his assistant (Moerdiono) his understanding and interpretation of Pancasila. General M. Jusuf refused to endorse Soeharto’s urge to the military to take sides. After all, it was not in line with the President’s address at the Armed Forces Day on 5 October 1979, which stated that the Armed Forces should be above all factions in society. On the controversies, see for example Endang Saifuddin Anshari, Piagam Jakarta, 22 Juni 1945 dan Sejarah Konsensus antara Islamis dan Nasionalis “Sekuler” tentang Dasar Negara Republik Indonesia, 1945–1959 (Jakarta: Rajawali, 1986). Soeharto, p. 331. Sudharmono, Pengalaman, pp. 270–71. Soeharto, pp. 330–31. President Soeharto, Amanat Kenegaraan II: 1972–1976, p. 150. The term manusia Indonesia can be very confusing. This political term sometimes refers to ordinary “citizen” or “nation”, or just simply “person”. Manusia — human being, mankind — is usually used as either a biological or philosophical/ religious concept. President Soeharto, Amanat Kenegaraan IV, 1982–1985 (Jakarta: Inti Idayu Press, 1985), p. 61. Soeharto, p. 195. Since the late 1970s, the economic ventures of Soeharto’s eldest son, Sigit, had become a topic of public rumour. In the 1980s, it had become public knowledge that Soeharto’s oldest daughter and her younger siblings actively participated in various profitable ventures. In the 1990s, his grandson joined in. In his article to Soeharto’s festschrift, Umar Wirahadikusumah, the former Vice-President (1983–88) says, ”When I aired my opinions on the activities of his children, he never took offence, but on the contrary he replied, ‘As a parent it is my duty to nurture my children; constantly guiding them and teaching what is right, what they can do and what is wrong, the things they should not do. Still as citizen, they are also entitled to lead their own lives just like anyone else’ ”. Umar Wirahadikusumah, “Calm, Patient and Persevering”, in G. Dwipayana and Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin, eds., Among Friends: Pak Harto at 70; a Penetrating Look at a Unique Leader by his Closest Associates, translated by Muti’ah Lestiono (Jakarta: PT Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, 1993). See the appendix of the book and a book, compiled and edited by his daughter, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, Butir-Butir Budaya Jawa (published in three versions, Indonesian, English, and Javanese). President Soeharto, Amanat Kenegaraan I, 1967–1971, op. cit. Ibid., III, 1977–1981, p. 36.

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See Supomo’s explanation on the draft of the constitution in Badan Persiapan Usaha Kemerdekaan Indonesia, pp. 263–80, 300–307. Soeharto, p. 298. On the foundations, see Soeharto, pp. 243–51. In order to prove his point that Soeharto, as a leader and commander, always puts complete trust in his subordinates — until proven otherwise — General (Ret.) Rudini tells the story of how President Soeharto simply gave him, then the Commander of the Kostrad, 100 million rupiah “without having to sign any receipt” and without any instructions on what to do with that amount of money. “Feeling extremely uneasy, I was compelled to see pak Harto, ‘What about this, Pak’. He answered, ‘Never mind, it’s all right! You have been chosen as the Commander of the Army Strategic Command and given the trust to do the job.” So it was only God as a witness to how I dispense the funds”. Rudini, “Courageous Soldier”, Among Friends, p. 39. Soeharto, p. 198. Prof. B.J. Habibie used to tell the story of how he was recruited by Soeharto. According to Habibie, Soeharto could allow him to do anything for the country, “except revolution, because the people have suffered enough”. President Soeharto, Amanat Kenegaraan I, 1967–1971, p. 204. Italics are written in English in the original. Ibid., I, 1970, p. 203; 1971, p. 248. Ibid., III, 1997, p. 55. On the legal aspects of press development under the New Order, see for example, Sukri Abdurrahman, “Pers di masa Orde Baru”, in Muhammad Hisyam, ed., Krisis Masa Kini dan Orde Baru (Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia, 2003), pp. 388–425. No one was surprised to learn that the earliest decision — albeit an informal one — made by the newly elected MPR in 1999 was to change the Sanskrit names of the building halls of the Parliament. See Taufik Abdullah, “Situasi Kebahasaan Masa Kini: Kepungan Eksternal dalam Perkembangan Bahasa dan Wacana, in Bahasa dan Kekuasaan, edited by Yudi Latif & Idi Subandy Ibrahim (Jakarta: Mizan, 1996), pp. 345–62. See for example M. Bambang Pranowo, “Creating Islamic Tradition in Rural Java”, unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Monash University, Clayton, 1991. See also his collected writings, Islam Faktual: Antara Tradisi dan Relasi Kuasa (Jakarta: Adicita Karya Nusa, 1998), especially pp. 37–75. The concepts of “force” and “scope” are from C. Geertz, Islam Observed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968). See for example Kamal Hassan, Muslim Intellectual Response to ‘New Order’ Modernization, Indonesia (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pusataka, 1980).

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104 The popularity of Islamic books continues until the present. 105 See for example Taufik Abdullah, “Pandangan Hidup Ulama Indonesia: Ikhtisar Laporan Umum Sebuah Penelitian”, Masyarakat Indonesia XIV, no. 3 (1987): 181–221. 106 First the government refused to recognize Mohammad Roem, a former leader of the late Masyumi, as the chairman of the party, although the widely recognized “moderate” leader had been elected at the first congress of the party. Then some elements of the party staged a “coup” to the still recognized leadership. The President intervened. In order to save the party, the President appointed someone else, who happened to be a minister, as the new chairman of the party. But since then the party had lost its credential. When the general election was held, it claimed itself the successor to the old Masyumi, but only a few voters could be persuaded. It was the NU that emerged as the second biggest party — behind GOLKAR — in the election. 107 It was already public knowledge in Jakarta that the minister was an important shareholder of the tabloid. 108 On the case of Monitor tabloid, see Douglas E. Ramage, Politics in Indonesia: Democracy, Islam and the Ideology of Tolerance (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), 87–89. 109 The title of Ruth McVey’s article about the place of Islam in the New Order’s political constellation, Ruth McVey, “Faith as an Outsider: Islam in Indonesian Politics”, in Islam in the Political Process, edited by J. Piscatori (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 110 See Salim & Azra, eds., Shari’a and Politics, op. cit. 111 Prof. A. Mukti Ali (1924–2004) was the first Minister of Religious Affairs who did not represent any Islamic party or organization. His appointment was purely based on his personal capacity. 112 On the divergent opinions, see Nasir Tamara, “ICMI dalam Pentas Politik Nasional” in Reformasi Politik: Dinamika Politik Nasional dalam Arus Politik Global, edited by M. Dawam Rahardjo (Jakarta: Internasa, 1997), pp. 49–63. 113 Habibie told about his concern for the fundamentalist tendencies among the educated Islamic youth and the “minority complex” of the Islamic majority in a closed meeting of the ICMI central board. 114 On the varieties of opinions among the ICMI leaders, see also Ramage, Politics in Indonesia. 115 The ICMI board did not immediately answer this letter. They refused Amin Rais’s request after the fall of Suharto. Amin Rais, who had by that time emerged as the leader of “Reformasi” movement, resumed his position. 116 For a short political history of the New Order see Jamie Mackie and Andrew MacIntyre, “Politics” in Hal Hill, ed., Indonesia’s New Order: The Dynamics of

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117 118

119

120

Socio-Economic Transformation (St. Leonards, N.S.W., Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1994), pp. 1–53. See also, Michael Vatikiotis, Indonesian Politics under Suharto (London: Routledge, 1993). On the later part of the New Order, see Adam Schwarz, A Nation in Waiting: Indonesia’s Search for Stability, updated and expanded (St. Leonards, N.S.W., Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1999). Soeharto, p. 316. Hal Hill, “Indonesia: From ‘Chronic Drop-out’ to ‘Miracle’ to ‘Catastrophe’?”, in New Zealand Institute, Indonesia after Soeharto (Auckland: The University of Auckland, 1999), p. 72. See the last three chapters of Schwarz’s Nation in Waiting. Jonathan Paris and Adam Schwarz, eds., The Politics of Post-Suharto Indonesia (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1999). Liddle calls it “performance legitimation”. R. Wlliam Liddle, Leadership and Culture in Indonesian Politics (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1996), p. 23ff.

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Reproduced from Indonesia: Towards Democracy, by Taufik Abdullah (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute The Greedy State and Its Nemeses • 429> of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg

C H A P T E R

S I X

The Greedy State and Its Nemeses

The Dynamics of Nation-Building

“

You can imagine this moment for a man who more than sixty years ago was only a small boy, playing in the fields among the farmers of the village of Kemusuk, when he walked up the dais and spoke to a hall filled of experts and world dignitaries, as the leader of a nation that had just solved this enormous problem that concerned the fate of more 160 million souls’. This is how President Soeharto expressed his feelings at the time he gave his speech to the general assembly of the Food and Agriculture Organization, UN, on 14 November 1985, in Rome. It was a proud moment, indeed. The FAO ceremoniously recognized the success of Indonesia in solving its almost endless problems of feeding millions of its population. In July 1986 the Director General of FAO, Eduardo Saona, officially presented President Soeharto with a gold FAO medal. “On the one side of the medal,” as Soeharto describes it, there is “my picture and a written texts, ‘President Soeharto-Indonesia’. And on the other side there is picture of a farmer planting rice and inscription ‘From Rice Importer to self-sufficiency’.” The medal was to be printed in gold, silver, and bronze and to be sold all over world.1 He could not boast the way Sukarno did when the first president was at his prime. Soeharto, however, could be proud of his real accomplishment as the Head of State. “The Director General of FAO, Eduardo Saona called me ‘a symbol of international agricultural development’.” President Soeharto had every reason to be proud of this international recognition. Who would have dared to think in the 1960s that the once politically underrated general, despite his seniority,2 was to emerge a more successful Chief Executive than the “father of the nation”? By the beginning

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of the 1990s, President Soeharto had already had several successes in social development he could be proud of. Since the success in economic growth was also accompanied with the decrease in population growth, Soeharto’s New Order government could also be proud of the success of his government in improving the people’s living standards. Unlike President Sukarno who had the tendency to make fun of the importance of family planning,3 he, after some hesitation, took the programme seriously. The longer he was in power, the more seriously he took this matter. If in the beginning he only supported the already existent non-government agency, such as the PKBI (Indonesian Planned Parenthood Association), and signed the World Leaders’ Declaration on Population (1967), he later established the BKKBN (Badan Koordinasi Keluarga Berencana Nasional), the national coordinating body of family planning, with its branches in all provinces. In his fourth term as the President, Soeharto appointed a state minister to deal with population problems. If in the early period of this new enthusiasm, the local family planning agencies, as was reported by the newspapers, sometimes used less than persuasive ways in urging fertile couples to join the programme, by the beginning of 1980s, in addition to the availability of various methods of family planning, the programme had received the support of the rural religious leaders. Given this massive effort, it is understandable that the rate of growth of the population of Java which was still 2.00 per cent between 1971 and 1980, decreased to 1.64 per cent between 1980 and 1990. The overall rate of population growth could significantly be lowered from 2.33 per cent between 1971 and 1980 to 1.96 per cent between 1980 and 1990. In the meantime, the total fertility rate had decreased from 5.61 from 1967– 70 to 3.33 from 1986–89. It was also estimated that the infant mortality rate had significantly been reduced from 132 in the late 1960s to 69 in the late 1980s.4 Again on the success of these efforts, the Soeharto Government received international recognition. Several delegations from African countries came to visit Indonesia to learn the ways the Indonesian Government promoted family planning. There was, however, a blemish to this success story. The mortality rate of mothers in childbirth had for many years remained unchanged. On this aspect, the achievement of the New Order government can hardly be

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complimented. One may therefore assume that politics instead of overall general welfare might have played a role in the family planning programme. Death at childbirth was perhaps seen only as a matter of family tragedy, but the decrease in the birth rate was an achievement that could politically be brandished to political advantage. The decrease in fertility and infant mortality rates to some extent depended on the availability of health services and the level of education of the general populace. On these particular points, the New Order government again had scored a major achievement. The number of primary health care centres (puskesmas — public health centres) rapidly multiplied. If in the beginning the centres were only established in strategically located villages and sections in the big towns, as the years went by, serious efforts were made to enable every traditional village5 to have its own health centre. However, until the end of the New Order this noble effort could not be fully accomplished. The expansion of primary health care might not have been as impressive as that achieved by the more prosperous neighbouring states, but considering its vast territory with its very uneven distribution of population, the New Order government could still console itself with the degree of progress it did achieve. The gradual improvement of the ruralurban transportation system had, to some extent, lessened the urgency to expand such a programme. In order to manage the rural public health centres the government required all graduates of medical schools to become civil servants for at least three years before they could have careers of their own choice, or to continue their studies to become specialists. These new graduates were stationed in public health centres that had by the 1980s been scattered all over the archipelago. They were mostly stationed outside their own respective provinces of birth. Since practically all medical schools, state or private, except one in Bali and three in Sumatra (Medan and Padang, and by far the youngest, Banda Aceh) were located in the big university towns in Java, this policy can also be seen as a way to strengthen national integration. As the number of the graduates from the medical schools, who had fulfilled their required obligations kept increasing every year, and the overall social-economic welfare of the people was improving, along with the

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unintended formation of economic classes in the general populace, it is not hard to understand that the opening of expensive private hospitals became a familiar phenomenon in the big cities. The small and inexpensive private clinics, such as those run by the Muhammadiyah, could certainly continue their services to the communities in the urban poorer sections. It was to the better-equipped, better run and more expensive private hospitals that the old and new rich preferred to go to get medical treatment, if they decided not to go abroad for the purpose. The choice of medical treatment has since the beginning of 1990s become one of the signs of the growing gap between the economic classes in the New Order’s Indonesia. In spite of the small percentage of the national budget allocated for education — ranged from 6.5 to 13 per cent per “Five Years Plan” — the expansion of school networks was one of the major successes of the New Order. In 1985 the proportion of the population in the age group 7–15 years who were in school had reached 87.6 per cent from 55.6 per cent in 1971. In 1990, statistically one could even say, “For the first time in Indonesian history the secondary educated youngsters outnumbered those without education.”6 From 1961 to 1990 the proportion of people without any education were 16 per cent while at the same period those who managed to complete secondary education about 22 per cent. The importance of this accomplishment lies in the fact that only in the Fifth Five-Year Plan (Repelita) (1988–93) did the government shift its priority from the emphasis on universal primary education to secondary education. By that time, almost every kecamatan (sub-district, above the village level) had its own state junior and, most likely, also senior high schools. By the 1980s, every province had already got its own state universities. Some provinces also had their state Teacher’s Training Institute (IKIP) and State Islamic Institute (IAIN). By that time, for every one seat in the state universities, there were no fewer than five prospective students eager to matriculate. Since the number of the senior high school graduates kept increasing every year, some major universities, such as UI, UGM, ITB, IPB, and others, had to organize some kind of national selection procedure. Only those who passed the national selection test had the right to enroll in the universities of their first or second choice. In this highly competitive sphere, it is understandable if the number of private universities and other kinds of

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higher learning institutes continued to grow. By the end of the New Order period, there were already more than 1,500 different kinds of private institutions of higher learning officially registered. Since the quality and reputation of both the state and private universities were rather uneven, quite often the prospective students had to leave their parents’ homes to matriculate at the universities of their choice or to which they had passed the entrance tests. Since the state universities remained in high demand — due largely to its lower fees and to the preference of the labour market — it is very common to find students from the big cities in Java having to go to smaller university towns on the other islands. At one extreme, one may find that the majority of the student population of the Medical School in a certain local university comes from other regions, which had relatively better quality high schools. The present-day Indonesian youngsters are indeed much more mobile than their parents in their youth. Like in the old days when the schools in the colonial towns helped to pave the way towards the formation of a new community that is politically called the nation, the present tendency to some extent also fosters the reinforcement of national integration. The formation and the activities of national student organizations, the so-called extra-university student organizations, have every potentiality to strengthen the process. Inter-ethnic marriages had long ceased to be newsworthy even in close family circles. One of the most immediate impact of the expansion of elementary school networks was the eradication of illiteracy. In 1990, almost 100 per cent of the people in the age group, 10–14 years, were literate, although in the age bracket of 50 years or above, the literacy rate was only slightly more than 80 per cent. The expansion of school networks to the rural areas has also made the male-female gap in education on the whole, with a few exceptions, less and less pronounced. But on the other hand, the number of female students in religious schools outnumbered that of male students. Since the language of instruction has from the beginning been Bahasa Indonesia and the textbooks for the elementary and secondary schools are also written in the same language, one can imagine that the national language had increasingly become a widely used language. Bilingualism has definitely become a national phenomenon. In 1971, it was estimated only about 40.5 per cent of the Indonesian population could speak the national language.

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Nine years later, in 1980, the number had increased to 60.9 per cent. President Soeharto perhaps best summarizes the government’s language policy by commenting on the fact that there was still a large number of the population who could not understand the national language. “Our national development tends to emphasize the use of the language of development,” he says in his as-told-to-autobiography, “and the official medium of communication on the national level is the Indonesian language. How could these 58 million people, who still according to statistic did not know the national language, understand about development if they did not know the language of development?” True to his technocratic developmentalist stance, to President Soeharto, the development of the national language was not only a matter of national integration, but also a question of the availability of a commonly shared medium through which the message of “development” could be channeled. It is therefore understandable if, despite the fact the state has a constitutional duty to take care of local languages — to the chagrin of the local literati, the defenders of ethnic cultures — the government left this effort largely to the ingenuity of private foundations and local-based cultural associations. Anthropologically speaking, Indonesia is, as it was in the past, comprised of many ethnic-cultural traditions, but sociologically, it can never again be simply called “nothing but a geographical expression”. A national community, which shares a number of crucial and important cultural traits, has become more and more a living reality. A large part of the nation has been increasingly attached to a similar symbolic communication system. This trend continues despite the threat of political dissension in some local communities that may pose a serious challenge to national integration. In 1980 bahasa Indonesia, the national language ranked only — as is most likely still the case today — as the number three spoken language at home (11.9 per cent), below the Javanese (40.5 per cent) and the Sundanese (15.1),7 but there has been a strong trend of this language becoming the first language in several non-Javanese urban areas. Monolingual trend has begun to take place, particularly among the younger generation, in the big and industrialized cities with a highly multicultural population, such as Jakarta and Medan, in the newly founded industrial towns, such as Batam (Riau)

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and Bontang (East Kalimantan), and in the rapidly developed old towns, such as Pekan Baru, Bandar Lampung, Samarinda, and Balikpapan. Some sort of gradual “Indonesianization” of local Malay dialects in several coastal towns in the Eastern parts of Indonesia, such as Kupang, Manado, and Ambon, has also taken place. The second generation of newcomers, who came from different regions with their divergent ethnic languages, is likely to use the national language at home. The growing number and importance of TV and radio stations, along with national and local newspapers, in family households have certainly strengthened this trend. The side effect of this trend is the gradual disappearance of the small languages. In a few places, such as on the island of Enggano, off the coast of Western Sumatra, grandchildren can barely understand their grandparents if the latter use the words of local origin exclusively.8 To the chagrin of linguists and the local literati, the pauperization of the vocabularies of local languages has begun to take place among some small ethnic communities. A number of the ethnic-based languages, particularly those in the eastern parts of Indonesia, with their many small-sized ethnic communities, are already in the process of extinction. Extensive geographical mobility has practically hastened the process. In 1962, television was only available in Jakarta. That was the year when the government set up the first television station. Jakarta was then preparing itself to become the host of the Asian Games. For more than a quarter of a century, the state-owned TVRI was the only TV station in the country. In 1987, a private TV station — to no one’s surprise the majority share belonged to the company headed by the second son of the First Family — began its operations with a decoder. Two years later, it was allowed to broadcast without a decoder. Two other private TV stations — again partly owned by the children and a cousin of the First Family — soon followed. By the end of the New Order, there were already five private national TV stations. The RRI (Radio Republik Indonesia) had from the beginning a total monopoly of the air. With the slogan, “the never dying flame”, the RRI could rightly pride itself as being a true heir of the revolution although it could also be criticized as the mouthpiece of the regime in power. During the period of rampant student demonstrations against

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President Sukarno in 1965–67, out of the blue, the so-called radio amatir, amateur radio, made its illegal broadcasting in a number of major university towns. Radio amatir became a weapon of the opposition in its effort to topple the great leader of the Guided Democracy. When the military-dominated New Order finally managed to consolidate its power, the new government simply acknowledged the legal existence of the mushrooming radio stations, but the radio amatir had to transform itself into the radio swasta, a private commercial radio. In order to operate, a commercial radio station needed a licence. The decision was actually in line with the new government’s economic policy, which had abandoned the state-dominated economy of the Guided Democracy. Now every major town has several commercial radio stations that can pose as competitors to the local RRI. However, in spite of the fact the RRI has lost its monopoly, it remains the radio station with the widest national network. The major breakthrough in the system of communication took place in 1976 when Indonesia joined the few selected countries which have their own satellite communications. President Soeharto called the satellite communication Palapa, “I pondered the history of Majapahit,” he says in his as-told-to-autobiography, “when Prime Minister Gajah Mada vowed that he would not taste the fruits of his efforts (palapa) before the unity and integrity of the kingdom had become a reality. Today, this unity and integrity are living realities.”9 While President Soeharto may have somewhat romanticized the immediate impact of the Palapa, it is not an exaggeration, however, to state that the satellite communication has brought significant changes to the sprawling islands of Indonesia. With the Palapa satellite, Indonesia did not simply have a new and modern system of communication. For the first time, the vast and sprawling archipelagic state could be integrated into one system of communication. By the end of the 1980s, the satellite with its forty earth stations had enabled the people in all provinces to enjoy TV programmes, automatic telephones, facsimile, and data transmission services. The territorial integrity of Indonesia might later be questioned in some parts of the country, but from the dimension of historical time, Indonesia had really become one country — no event of significance in one

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particular region was left unnoticed in the other regions at the time the event is taking place.10 The communication revolution has created a sphere in which one may feel as if one belongs to the same space as others who live in such a distant part of the country, and feel the impact of whatever dramatic event may have taken place there at the same time. One of the important aspects of this sense of temporality in the process of national integration lies in the fact that, more than ever, every province and, indeed, almost every kabupaten has become a multicultural entity. Good or bad news that came out from certain regions would likely be immediately felt — almost without the intermediary of time — by the people who originally came from that region. This factor has become very important since by the 1990s, there were only a few provinces, most notably the provinces on the island of Java (except the Special Region of Jakarta) and West Sumatra, where the ethnic communities of local origin remained by far the biggest ethnic majority. In some provinces, particularly those in the eastern part of Indonesia, there is hardly any ethnic community that constitutes the majority of the population. In some cases the newcomers, who came from several regions belonging to divergent ethnic background, have outnumbered the original settlers. 11 Either by spontaneous migration or by the government-sponsored transmigration programme, the high rate of geographical mobility can be taken as one of the characteristics of the New Order period. Whatever the merits and the demerits of the policies of the New Order to the process of nation-building, the fact that this regime had not only changed the geography of Indonesia but altered its demographic structure cannot be denied. The New Order made the notion of nation-building much clearer than the previous regimes or system of government had ever done. One of the most obvious policies for realizing such a grandiose national agenda was the stronger promotion of the transmigration programme. As a matter of policy, the government-sponsored transmigration programme was not meant to be simply an effort to relieve population pressures in Java and Bali. The transmigration programme was particularly seen and designed as a way to boost economic development in the sparsely populated recipient regions. To the New Order, this programme had another

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objective. It was a way to promote inter-ethnic cultural understanding and to advance national integration and, finally, to achieve cultural homogeneity of the nation. The government provided the new migrants with a piece of land they could till and daily provisions for a certain period until they could stand on their own feet by toiling the land. So important was this transmigration programme in the development programme that a cabinet minister was appointed to deal with it. By 1980, the government had directly sponsored over one million migrants to settle in various parts of Indonesia (the highest numbers were sent to the provinces of South Sumatra, Lampung, Jambi, and Riau). Since the early 1980s, the government had begun to look east — the sparsely populated islands in the East had become major destinations. In Irian Jaya, the selection of the sites for transmigration, however, gives every indication of the government’s attempt to use the programme as part of its security policy. The transmigration sites were mostly located near the border with Papua New Guinea. In spite of its economic potential, however, the transmigration programme had from the beginning created some sensitive political, social, and economic problems. The unsettled question of land ownership, the alleged negligence of the economic plight of the people in the recipient regions, and the less than cordial relationship between the migrants and the local population were some of the issues that continued to undermine whatever success stories the programme could offer. Good news about the experience and success of the people from one ethnic group in a certain region and locality might drive the others from the same ethnic group to the same region. The continuing regional disparities could easily attract people from the poor regions to the regions that offered better opportunities. It is for this reason, for example, that Ambon became very attractive to the people from South Sulawesi. It has been said, not totally wrongly, by the way, that the economy of Ambon was very much dominated by migrants, most notably, according to the Ambonese, the BBM people (Buginese, Butonese, and Makassarese). It was also good news that brought the Madurese from the island of Madura to West and Central Kalimantan. Unlike the BBM people in Ambon, who were mostly engaged in small enterprises or found employment in the informal sectors, the

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sociologically inward-looking Madurese were mostly agriculturalists. In the urban areas, the Madurese were usually active in the informal sectors. With such work preferences demonstrated, it is not too difficult to imagine that sooner or later the newcomers would have to deal directly with the original rural settlers, mostly the Dayak. The problem became more serious because the Dayak’s living space had been gradually and dramatically sliced by the licensed or unlicensed logging companies, owned by the people whose offices were, and still are, located in Jakarta or other big cities or even in another country. The fact that the Madurese have a reputation of being devout and, some may say, fanatical Muslims, and tend to isolate themselves from other ethnic groups, only made the situation more sensitive and fragile since the Dayak are mostly Christians. Before the major clashes between the two ethnic groups erupted in 1996, the two ethnic groups had engaged in eight armed clashes.12 After living in Kalimantan for one or two generations, the Madurese and the original or older ethnic settlers may already share some cultural affinities and symbols, but their basic cultural differences and their sense of belonging to separate groups seemed to have persisted. Apparently the highly centralized state of the New Order tended to ignore the significance of ethnic pluralities in the real social interaction in the regions. The regime was more concerned with the process of nationbuilding at the higher level of analysis. The New Order government was very much aware of the fact that nation-building was not simply a matter of creating a sphere where every citizen could feel at home and make a decent living; nor was it only a question of administrative and political unity or even the existence of legal certainty. It was also aware of the fact that nation-building was also not merely a question of having a well-run system of governance. In order to maintain the integrity of the state, it needed some kind of integrative myths and symbols to represent its political beliefs to sustain its legitimate existence. Within this context, it is understandable that after so many years of liberating itself from the colonial yoke, Indonesia, under the New Order regime continued to give old meanings to past historical experiences. The official meanings of “colonialism” and the notion of “disunity in the past” remained what they were during the time Indonesia “was rediscovering its revolution”.

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These historical concepts continued to be used as the overall explanations for the nation’s less than glorious achievements. The regime never failed to remind the nation of the need for it to liberate itself from the negative sociological and psychological impact of colonialism. One of the ways to do this was to commemorate and to celebrate the glorious events in the process of nation formation and nation-building. August 17 (Proclamation Day) and 10 November (Heroes’ Day) remained high in the hierarchy of national myths and symbols. Next in the hierarchy of importance were 20 May (1908, the National Awakening Day), 28 October (1928, the Day of the Youth Pledge), and 5 October (1945, the birth of the national armed forces). The New Order added three more dates to be remembered, namely, 1 March (1949 — the attack on the occupied city of Yogyakarta, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Soeharto), 11 March (1967, President Sukarno issued the order to General Soeharto to tackle security problems) and 1 October (1965, the so-called the “Day of the Sacredness of Pancasila” — the day six army generals were murdered and Soeharto managed to thwart the attempted coup). The proposal of the Sukarno loyalists to celebrate 1 June as the “birthday of Pancasila” was for obvious reasons largely ignored. Why should the New Order celebrate the contributions of the founder of “the Old Order”? In the 1970s, there was an attempt to question the historical validity of Sukarno being (in Sukarno’s word) the sole “digger (penggali) of Pancasila”.13 It may be noted in passing that Sukarno never claimed to be the “creator” or even “the formulator” of the state ideology, he was only, as he stated many times, the person who rediscovered it from the historical heritage of the nation. Every 30 September night, the TVRI screened a feature movie on the tragic events that took place on the night of 30 September 1965 and the success of General Soeharto in foiling the attempted coup d’état. The TV programme was a way to remind the people that they should never forget the tragic night and the great service Soeharto had rendered to defend the Pancasila state. Soeharto had good reasons to take special pride in the fact that he, as a young lieutenant colonel of the national army (TNI), was the commander of the daring attack on the Dutch-occupied capital of the Republic, Yogyakarta (1 March 1949). It is therefore understandable if in the New Order’s official

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historical discourse on the national revolution, “Yogyakarta — 1 March — Soeharto” were treated as three revolutionary elements that should never be separated. The month of March had a special place in the New Order’s Indonesia, because that was the month when General Soeharto received the Supersemar (1966) and the month (1967) when he, as the Acting President, was sworn in. The month was used as the end of the fiscal year. Unlike President Sukarno who always gave his rousing Independence Day speech on the top stair of the Merdeka Palace on 17 August in front of thousands of adoring audience, President Soeharto presented his in the parliament on 16 August. The speech was actually an annual report of the Head of State to the House of Representatives. That was the time when the President reported the progress of government programmes and the projections for the coming year. (The President revealed the annual budget at the end of the fiscal year in March.) August 17 was purely a day of celebration. The President and the First Lady, high officials, foreign diplomats, and other dignitaries (veterans, members of the parliament, etc.), with their respective spouses celebrated the event in front of the palace. The Speaker of the MPR would read the Proclamation of Independence. The Minister of Religious Affairs read the prayer. The carefully selected boys and girls (students of senior high schools), who represented the 27 provinces, accompanied by military cadets, ceremoniously hoisted the Red and White flag. And about 15 hundred junior high school students of Jakarta would sing some patriotic songs. The celebration began at exactly ten o’clock in the morning — the hour when Sukarno and Hatta proclaimed Indonesian Independence in 1945 — with siren and gun salutes. After about one and a half hours, the official ceremony was over. The celebration of the Proclamation Day was — and still is — an occasion for the state to officially recognize the noble contributions of its citizens to its cause. On 16 August, after the Presidential address in the parliament, the President bestowed the Medal of Honour (usually the Bintang Mahaputra, the second highest category of the Medal of Honour. The highest category of the Medal of Honour is the Bintang Republik Indonesia), which is as matter of fact, rarely given. The Ministers bestowed the lower level medals to selected officials in their respective ministries. Usually these

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ministerial ceremonies were undertaken before the state ceremony at the palace began. The real celebrative sphere of the Proclamation Day, however, could usually be felt and experienced in the kampung sections of the big towns, or sometimes, in the rural areas. It was among these “little people” that Proclamation Day was genuinely celebrated. That was the occasion when one could really appreciate the meaning of belonging to one nation — a community that was created through a long struggle — and to be the citizens of an independent state of the common people. The celebration of Heroes’ Day on 10 November — the day in 1945 when the Allied Forces furiously attacked and bombed Surabaya — also followed a patterned routine. On November 9 or after returning from the solemn ceremony at the Jakarta’s heroes’ cemetery, the President would confer the official state Medals of Honours on the heirs of the persons who had given invaluable contribution to the country at the Negara Palace. Sometimes that was also when the President conferred state recognition to the heirs of the person who had just been honoured as a “National Hero”. Indonesia is perhaps the only country with an ever-increasing number of “national heroes” officially recognized by the state. Although the tradition of the state recognizing national heroes had begun in 1959, it was under the New Order that a relatively well-organized procedure was established. Since then it has become obvious that state recognition of national heroes is practically a way for the state to compose a “national family album”. The inclusion in the “portraits into the national album” is the official national recognition of the struggles and sacrifices they have made to the nation and the tanah air, the homeland. It is understandable that every province would look deep into its respective history to see whether there was someone in the past who had sacrificed and given his or her life to the glory of the nation and the tanah air. However what is the meaning of tanah air? It was in the BUPKI sessions in 1945 that the founding fathers of Republic for the first time made serious efforts to translate the patriotic and poetic notion of tanah air, homeland, into a territorial and political concept. If tanah air was an elusive concept, which recognizes no clearly defined boundaries, the existence of a state, however, is defined by its clearly demarcated boundaries. It was along this line of thought that President Sukarno, in spite of his continuing romantic

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notion of the state, fought for the inclusion of West Irian. In 1963 his Guided Democracy successfully paved the way towards the inclusion of West Irian into the fold of the Republic of Indonesia. Under the supervision of the United Nations, Soeharto’s New Order completed the process by holding the Act of Free Choice in 1969. With the internationally recognized inclusion of West Irian in the Republic, the national claim that was designed by the founding fathers in 1945 was finally realized. In 1973, the MPR issued the Decree No. IV/1973 in which it stressed the concept of Indonesia as an archipelagic state. With this Wawasan Nusantara (Nusantara concept) the New Order renewed the claim that had been forwarded by the Djuanda cabinet on 13 December 1957, which had also been actually legally enacted in 1960 (Ordinance No. 4, 1964). The Djuanda’s declaration on the area of Indonesia’s “territorial waters”, reads as follows: That all waters around, between and connecting the islands, or parts of islands, that make up the landmass of the Indonesian Republic, disregarding their breadth, are true parts of the regional area of the Republic of Indonesia and therefore are part of the internal waters or national territorial waters under the absolute sovereignty of the State of the Republic of Indonesia. The innocent passage of foreign ships in these territorial waters is guaranteed as long as, and only if, it does not conflict with sovereignty and security of the Indonesian state. The determination of territorial sea limits of a distance of 12 miles measured from lines connecting the outermost points of the islands of the Republic of Indonesia will be secured by law. The United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands, immediately refused to acknowledge the validity of the claim, but some other states, such as China and the USSR, recognized it. The 1973 Decree of the MPR was a follow-up to the many attempts to get international recognition. In 1982, Indonesia and Malaysia reached an agreement on their respective archipelagic waters. When the claim finally gained international recognition, Indonesia’s previous state area of 2,027,087 sq km of land was

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enlarged to about 5,193,250 sq km (land and sea).14 With the Wawasan Nusantara the New Order had successfully completed the process of Indonesian territorial integration. Yet still, the regime’s tendency to interpret the state from a cultural perspective made its direct impact on its attitude in its dealing with the territories — the further it is from the centre, the less important the territory becomes. If in the traditional concentric political order, it is the centre that really matters, the modern nation-state as a rule has always been sensitive to any probable infringement on its territorial integrity. When the two tendencies collided, the modern RepubIic of Indonesia, that claims to be the genuine reflection of inherited cultural values had to face its moment of truth. That was the time when the regime in power was forced to realize that territorial integrity should always have been taken as a basis for its claims to legitimacy. The dispute over the small islands of Sipadan and Lakitan and their eventual loss to Malaysia (2002) can be taken as an example of how continuing adherence to the notion of traditional concentric political order in the modern political constellation can only work to the detriment of the country. The New Order, which, like the Guided Democracy, looked at itself as the genuine heir of “the greatness of the glorious past”, had to swallow the bitter pill of defeat in the world court. The sudden awareness that the problems of the border areas were linked to the integrity of its territory was, to some extent, also due to the fact that the New Order already felt secure about its relative success in solving pressing domestic problems. That was also the time when the New Order government began to abandon its low profile in foreign affairs. There was a time when President Soeharto felt that his participation in the Non-Aligned Nation Movement was a waste of time. His experience in the summit meeting of the movement in Lusaka in September 1970 gave him the feeling that the time was not ripe for Indonesia to be active on the international stage. He had decided not to follow, at least, not as yet, in Sukarno’s footsteps to be a leader in the world community. In the first place, he felt a little bit slighted by the Non-Aligned leaders, who were obviously more familiar with the flamboyant Sukarno. The rather antiWestern mood of the conference was also not to his liking. In the early

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process of its economic rehabilitation efforts, Indonesia, according Soeharto’s assessment, should have a better relationship with the Western powers and their allies. During this inward-looking phase of the New Order, President Soeharto let the diplomatic rupture with China remain open, although, as a matter of principle, Indonesia never recognized Taiwan as a sovereign state. The annual meeting of the Inter-Government Group on Indonesia, a multi-national meeting that discussed Indonesia’s economic needs, which was formed soon after General Soeharto became the Acting President, naturally never escaped his close attention. In addition to the IGGI, ASEAN, the formation of which he encouraged, also remained high on his agenda. With the gradual relative success of the economic rehabilitation programme and the improvement of internal security, Soeharto began to react to foreign attitudes towards his government and to get himself directly involved in the formulation of foreign policies. Gradually the rather dominant position of the Ministry of Defence in foreign policies shifted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. That was the time when diplomatic relations with China was resumed (1989) and President Soeharto personally became more interested in foreign affairs. When the conference of the Non-Aligned Movement was successfully held in Jakarta (1992), President Soeharto, as had already been expected, was elected the chairman. It was one of his proud moments. He did not simply enjoy the honour; he really made serious efforts to strengthen the solidarity among members of the Non-Aligned Movement. Indonesia provided scholarship grants to students from several African countries. President Soeharto also played his role successfully as the host of the second conference of the APEC countries in Bogor. Awareness of the relatively rapid trend of globalization in many aspects of life — finance, trade, communication and information, which made direct impacts on the economic, social, and political system — was undoubtedly one of the major factors that influenced the decision to be more active in foreign affairs. “Whether we like it or not,” President Soeharto stated after the second APEC conference in Bogor,” we are now entering the process of globalization.” Realistically, or not, Soeharto’s growing confidence in his ability to deal with domestic affairs, as indicated by economic trends,

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was another factor that influenced his decision. However, how could he ever forget the continuing international rejection of the inclusion of the former Portuguese Timor in Indonesia? The Santa-Cruz killing (November 1991) — the mass riot that took place during the commemoration of the death of an anti-integration activist which ended up in the killing of many rioters and onlookers — continued to haunt the New Order regime despite the fact that soon after the event, the President took drastic action to minimize the damage by firing the commander,15 whose headquarters was located in Bali. He set up a special military tribunal that finally gave a damaging verdict to the reputations and the careers of several officers of the TNI. The Santa-Cruz tragedy also prompted him to expedite the formation of the National Commission for Human Rights (1993). On the day the national newspapers reported GOLKAR officially announcing the regime’s electoral machine (with over 70 per cent votes) making the final decision to nominate Soeharto for the seventh consecutive time in the MPR session, Soeharto reflected on his position as the President of a state that had been hit by the most serious monetary crisis. If in 1995, when Indonesia celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, he had rejected the idea of putting Sukarno’s profile together with his own on the gold commemorative medal, now, at the critical juncture of his Presidency; he had the mental urge to compare himself with the leader he had replaced.16 “Bung Karno was really a great leader,” he said in a reflective mood, “but how about him, as a President?17 He did not give the answer to this emotionally charged question but his eyes gave every indication that he was quite satisfied with his performance. He was still hopeful and full of confidence that soon after he received the mandate from the MPR, everything would return to the situation before the monetary crisis hit in July 1997. However there were other forces that might not have directly threatened his position, but had seriously undermined the success of his determination — since the time he established the New Order — to continue the process of nation-building. Some of the forces he inherited from the Guided Democracy were still there to be tackled, but some others grew in strength as a reaction to his policies and to the kind of tradition of violence the New Order had unwittingly cultivated. Economic recovery

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and growth did indeed improve the level of people’s prosperity, but at the same time, it also created its own nemeses. In spite of all these serious problems that had threatened the integrity of the state, the MPR unanimously re-elected Soeharto for the seventh consecutive term. However, by then the monetary crisis had transformed itself into a multidimensional crisis.

Unity, Stability, and the Tradition of Violence “One of the major achievements of the Soeharto regime”, as two Australian political scientists put it, “has been to solidify considerably the sense of national unity in Indonesia.” This is, they say, in sharp contrast with the situation before.18 As if to support the statement of his two colleagues, an Australian economist states, “While serious interregional economic disparities remain, Indonesia has become a more integrated economic entity aided by a strong and generally development-oriented government, oil and capital inflow, and major investment in physical and social infrastructure.”19 In a highly optimistic book, an American author gives similar impressions. “’The New Order is one of Indonesia’s great success’, a thoughtful American who has resided in Jakarta for many years told me,” he reports in his book. “Looking at the ethnic disputes, the economic roller coaster, Islamic fundamentalism, and official corruption, the only thing that impresses me [is] that Soeharto really have things nailed down. I mean Islam is nailed down, the press is nailed down, the courts, population growth, economic development, infrastructure plans, measured political progress, they are all under control. In this sense Indonesia is a genuine success story.”20 One may wonder, however, what price had to be paid for this socalled “genuine success story”? What could the ability to “nail down” everything that might disturb the power structure mean other than the imposition of an authoritarian system based on the rationale of the need to maintain stability and secure a workable democratic system? The New Order could never let anyone forget the night when some elements of the Cakrawirawa regiment stormed the houses of seven generals and managed to kidnap and kill six of them. October 1 was always to be commemorated as the Day of the Sacredness of Pancasila — the ideology survived despite

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the “cowardice and treacherous acts of the communists”. 21 A huge monument was erected at Lubang Buaya, on the outskirts of Jakarta, where the bodies of the murdered generals were exhumed. The few hours from midnight of 30 September through the morning of 1 October 1965 might well be remembered as the most crucial few hours that triggered the worst and most tragic events in contemporary Indonesia. However, on historical hindsight, the few hours could also be seen as the beginning of the end of the era of political and ideological compromise. The moment the emerging regime, through the hurriedly assembled MPRS, branded the PKI as the enemy of the state and rejected and condemned MarxismLeninism as a legitimate ideology, Indonesia was no longer the same political society its founding fathers once visualized. It was no longer a bazaar of ideologies where one could “buy” whatever one thought might offer a congenial present and a better future. In the course of its development, the New Order gradually created a new ideological world in which the state not only imposed Pancasila as the sole legitimate ideology, but also made itself as the only authoritative interpreter of the imposed state ideology. Commemoration and celebration are a double-edged sword, however. These occasions may induce people to remember something that needed to be cherished, but at the same time, they may also remind them of something that needed to be forgotten. How can one forget the simple historical fact that the New Order was born after a “treacherous act” had been committed? But on the other hand, had not the dawn of terror of 1 October (1965) opened up the gate of revenge that continued to haunt the nation many years to come? It unleashed the demon that had hitherto been domesticated by the call for struggle against neo-colonialism and imperialism. The fact that it was Lieutenant Colonel Untung, who led some platoons of the Cakrabirawa regiment that shot and kidnapped the top leaders of the army, and issued the formation of the Revolutionary Council, already belongs to the genre of accepted history. “I knew who Untung was. He was very close to the PKI and a keen disciple of Alimin, the PKI boss.”22 The verdict was final. It was the PKI behind the night of terror that had threatened the state. The case was closed. In the process, a new tradition in post-independence

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politics had been introduced — violence became the ready-made choice for tackling whatever form of vertical conflict might occur. When the special paratroopers (RPKAD), under the command of Colonel Sarwo Edhie, hunted the communists and their followers in Central Java, the convergence between the communal hatred that had been brewing since the promulgation of the Agrarian Law, and state terrorism took its gruesome shape. Under the guidance and encouragement of well-armed and well-trained paratroopers, local youth came out to search for suspected communists, the people thought to have insulted their religion and threatened their lives in the so-called aksi sepihak, “one-sided action” during the agrarian and ideological conflicts. After the mass frenzy had subsided and the mass-murders terminated, a Special Military Court was held. Several most prominent PKI leaders, and several distrusted former ministers — such as Soebandrio, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was once thought to be the second man in the Republic — and the former Commander of the Air Force, Umar Dhani were put on trial. Most of them were condemned to death, although actually only the PKI leaders were finally executed. In the meantime suspected communists were divided into three categories — the hardcore communists, the activists, and the followers.23 The followers were obliged to report regularly to the authorities and at the same time lost their political rights as citizens. Prisons were for those who had been branded as belonging to the first and second categories. Those considered to belong to the A category were punished by death, life sentences, or long-term imprisonment. Many of the people who belonged to B-category were exiled to a remote island, far away from Java, from where they mostly came from. They were exiled to work on a new settlement project on a sparsely populated island of Buru in the Maluku province. They lived there and toiled the land for almost two decades. Prominent novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who was active in the Communist-affiliated cultural association, the Lekra, before the tragic event of 30 September, was exiled to this remote island. It was here that he wrote his (now) famous four-volume novel on the early period of the nationalist movement in the then Netherlands Indies, and other important works. Yet of course, the novel and his other writings, including those that were written in the early 1950s, were banned in the

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New Order’s Indonesia. The writing and the political reputation of the person behind the writing were equally important in determining whether a publication was allowed or not as public consumption. Once a person had been branded as belonging to any one of the three categories, he lost his rights as a citizen. He became a political pariah. His alleged political sin was also to be shouldered by his relatives — spouses, children, nieces and nephews, or whoever else is considered to be close to him. Until the end, the New Order regime applied the concepts of what was then called “bersih diri” (clean-self) and bersih lingkungan (clean environment). The first deals with the question of whether one was ever in any capacity associated with the PKI or with its social and cultural affiliates, while the second concerns itself with the problem of whether one was related to someone who was not “clean” politically. Only those who were “clean” on both accounts would be allowed to take up government-related occupations. Even the candidates for local legislature and national parliament had to pass the test of the two “cleanliness”. In its efforts to “homogenize” society, the New Order not only imposed Pancasila as the sole foundation, but also marginalized some sectors of the society at the same time.24 On the surface, a relative social calm was achieved, but at the same time, the tradition of revenge had also been laid down. The Blitar-affair in East Java and the “mbah Suro affair” in Central Java in the late 1960s, in which the alleged remnants of the PKI were supposed to make a comeback, only strengthened the tradition of violence and revenge that had been planted. It was also with the use of violence that the state apparatus solved the almost endemic problems of crime. In March 1983, a piece of strange news appeared in many newspapers — people found dead bodies, with tattoos on the corners of lonely streets in several big cities. After the bodies had been identified, people realized that they belonged to a group usually called residivis, ex-convicts, preman, thugs, or whatever term was used to call the criminal elements in society. But who had killed the alleged criminals? Since nobody knew for sure, newspapers just called the killers the “penembak misterius” (mysterious shooter) and the event penembakan misterius (mysterious shooting), both better known as Petrus. Then the people realized that the state apparatus was behind the mysterious killings. Whatever the

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lawyers and law-abiding people might say, the fact remains that many lowincome people, particularly the street vendors, applauded the illegal shooting because it did somehow reduce the level of crime. No more thugs would come to squeeze them and no more petty thieves would steal whatever merchandise they might want to sell. It was obvious that the Petrus did not fail to create terror in the hearts of anybody who had in some way been involved in crime. A question, however, could not be avoided. Who ordered the mysterious killings that sometimes took innocent people as its victims? Nobody questioned the possibility that the order must have come from someone at the top of the military leadership. To the surprise of everybody, Soeharto in his “autobiography” not only took responsibility for the illegal shootings, but also boasted about the fact he had ordered this violent method.25 If that was the case, who would be surprised to learn that occasionally, whenever the state apparatus of violence was not around to tackle crime that was thought to have been committed, the masses would occasionally take matters into their own hands?26 There was some grain of truth in the New Order’s claim that there had been no serious threat to the integrity of the state since the consolidation of the regime. It was, however, under the New Order that the separatist movements increased in number. There was only the RMS (Republik Maluku Selatan) that announced itself as a separate state in the pre-New Order period, but under the New Order, Aceh, once the great defender of the Republic, and Papua, the new member of the nation-state, became the regions where separatist elements managed to make inroads among the local population. In spite of the many major development projects that had been brought to East Timor, the majority of the people of the former Portuguese colony never really felt they were part of the Indonesian nation. The New Order tended to solve the occasional political and ideological conflicts and controversies with the quickest method possible. Using Presidential Decrees, the regime of the Guided Democracy might have dissolved several political parties; in its turn the New Order simply reshaped the country’s political constellation. It only allowed the existence of two parties and one government electoral machine, that is, GOLKAR. Its Opsusoperators involved themselves in determining the internal affairs of the

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political parties. The moment the leading members of the political party reacted negatively to the intervention, the authorities would simply use a more violent method to deal with the recalcitrant elements. Soon after the challenge was exposed, the common method of violence would likely follow. Observing this tendency, one may then wonder about the claim of the New Order as being the “loyal adherent” of the 1945 Constitution. However, for the sake of unity and stability, the New Order could simply ignore the constitutional right of the people to express their opinion and to have their own association (Article 28). The final blow to the relative freedom of the political parties and other kinds of voluntary associations took place in 1984,when the Repelita (FiveYear Plan) IV began to operate. That was also the time when President Soeharto officially launched his major ideological offensive. He wanted all voluntary associations — political, educational, religious and others — to adopt Pancasila as their basic foundation. On 30 May the government officially sent a draft bill on the matter to the MPR.27 The imposition of Pancasila as “the sole foundation” of all voluntary social and political associations might not only have seriously annoyed the many educational foundations and institutions that had served as the backbone of Indonesian civil society, but had also unfailingly created a frustrating dilemma for religiously based organizations. In the first place, most of these organizations had been established long before the nation-state itself was born. The niyah, the sacred intention, to form these organizations, as the leaders of Islamic organizations argued, was to help the ummah lead their personal and communal lives in accordance with the wish of God. In short, the ultimate objective of the Islam-based voluntary association was the creation of “a religiously right guided society”, however the different organizations might define and give meaning to the exalted abstract concept. It took several frustrating months before these religiously based organizations could comply with the non-compromising policy. After holding several meetings with the government and military representatives, even with President Soeharto himself, the Islamic organizations, in their respective national congresses, finally had no other option but to follow the government decision that had been endorsed by the MPR. The solution they could think of was simply to

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add the word “Pancasila” to the previously stated basic foundation of the organization. Instead of having one basic foundation, with the acceptance of Pancasila, the Islamic organizations had now two. While keeping the previous one intact, these organizations simply added another one, the Pancasila. As the highly respected and moderate chairman of Muhammadiyah, K.H. Fachruddin, put it in one of his Friday sermons, “Pancasila as an obligatory foundation can be likened to wearing [a] helmet. The government says that whenever you ride a motorcycle you have to put on the helmet. So put it on. And if you have an organization, as the government says you have to state that Pancasila should be its foundation. So just state it.”28 The obligation, however, created a temporary breach in the rank and file of the NU. Still when the organization finally decided to adjust itself to the government’s wish, the NU abandoned practical politics. With the slogan “return to the khittah of 1926” — the year the organization was formed — the NU returned to the basis of its origin (December 1984). The NU would again become an organization of the ulama, whose main concern was the awakening of the ummah in accordance with the true teachings of sunni doctrine.29 Unlike the Islamic organizations, the nationwide Christian/Protestant and the Catholic organizations were not lay organizations. Both the Christian Indonesian Council Churches (DGI) and the Catholic Indonesian Council of Clergies (MAWI) were based on theological foundations. How could the theologically based organizations take national ideology as their basic foundations? The President simply refused to take these arguments into consideration. He would not have had second thoughts about banning these organizations had their leaders failed to comply with the newly imposed law.30 Finally the leaders of the organizations agreed to comply. As a consequence of this acceptance, they had to change the characters, orientations and names of their respective organizations. With these fundamental changes, the problem had been solved, but at the same time, these organizations had to write a new volume of their respective histories as their organizations were no longer the ones their founders had envisaged.

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Forcing the big organizations to amend their basic foundations, however, did not immediately solve the problem. No religious authority and no organization could impose its will on Islamic communities as a whole. The big organizations, such as the Muhammadiyah and the NU and others, with enormous social responsibilities, might finally find acceptable solutions to the ideological offensive of the President, but some much smaller organizations had the courage to refuse to comply with what they regarded as a dictatorial obligation. The HMI (Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam — Islamic Students Association), the oldest Republican student organization, with its more than 150,000 registered members, found itself divided into two factions (March 1986). After the failure of the Minister of Youth and Sports — himself a former leader of the HMI — to persuade the student organization to follow the new law, the once united HMI became a history for contemplation. From then, there were two organizations with the name HMI — the legal one, which accepted the obligation — and the “illegal one”, which continued to claim itself as the genuine HMI. The radical and youthful PII (Pelajar Islam Indonesia — Indonesian Islamic Students) chose to disband itself (December 1987) rather than bow to government’s pressure. There were others, the so-called religious splinter groups, that not only refused to comply with the imposed obligation, but also openly opposed such an authoritarian law. The “Tanjung Priok Affair” (1984) and the series of minor, but bloody, incidents, such as Lampung Affair (1989), were the work of those belonging to this category. Tanjung Priok is the biggest port-town around Jakarta. It is also the biggest and busiest harbour in the country. Like any other port town, the population of Tanjung Priok consisted of people from all over the country, although the majority came from Java, Madura, and South Sulawesi. Life on the waterfront had become more difficult in the early 1980s, because the workers had to compete with the introduction of containers and the relocation of many warehouses to other parts of Java. On the waterfront, the people from diverse ethnic groups might compete for better deals with the shipping companies, but in the social sphere off the waterfront, they could always find some common ground in their neighbourhood mosques. It was in these mosques that they might hear strong religious arguments

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against the imposition of the concept of one sole foundation. The congregation of one particular mosque was especially active in its opposition to the ideological offensive of the President. At the peak of the opposition, on 7 September 1984, according many eye-witnesses, a soldier, who happened to be a non-Muslim, entered the mosque without taking off his shoes, and ordered the people to remove wall posters opposing the state policy of “one sole foundation”. The next day he and his friend came again and saw that the posters were still there. They threatened the people with their pistols. Their arrogant attitude really angered the people. They had not only shown disregard for the people’s feelings, but also, in the eyes of the already provoked Muslims, insulted the house of God. Four people who showed opposition to the way the soldiers’ behaviour were arrested. A few nights later, on 12 September, hundreds of people assembled in the front of the mosque, listening to the fiery speeches of young mubaligh, preachers, who urged them to liberate their friends from police custody. Around 1500 people went peacefully to the police station demanding the release of their friends. They soon became restless and began to chant, Allahu Akbar when the police refused their demand. Suddenly, perhaps out of fear for their lives or for whatever other reasons, the police, who were later aided by the military, which was specially dispatched from other garrisons in the capital city, opened fire on the chanting crowd. The leader of the demonstration died instantly and along with him many other victims fell. Nobody was sure about the number of victims, but hardly any outsider could believe the account given by the Commander of the Armed Forces, who happened to be non-Muslim. The “Tanjung Priok Affair”,31 as the incident is better known, did not end with the fall of the uncounted victims. The authorities continued their persecution by arresting anybody who was suspected of trying to gather an accurate account of the incident. One of the persons persecuted was Lieutenant General (retired) H.R. Dharsono, the former Secretary General of ASEAN, who was once, as the Commander of the Siliwangi Division, considered to be one of the “kingmakers” of the New Order, being what he was then — a supporter of Soeharto. The trial was a cause célèbre in the defence of human rights. Despite the fact that Dharsono was defended by

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a group of prominent human rights lawyers, the court found him guilty of being the instigator of the riot and punished him with eight years’ imprisonment.32 One of the defence lawyers, Adnan Buyung Nasution, the founding leader of the Institute of Legal Aids and a prominent advocate of human rights, lost his licence for his alleged contempt of court during the trial. The memory and mood of revenge of the “Tanjung Priok affair” kept haunting the New Order and its loyal supporters until long after the fall of the regime. In public memory the tragic incident became one of the most cited cases of impunity. However tragic or, one may tempted to say, cruel, the “Tanjung Priok affair” might be, it was not the only incident that tarnished the image of the New Order in its dealings with the alleged opposition to its policy. Early on the morning of 7 February 1989, the Commander of the regional military unit battalion, the Garuda Hitam (Lampung), Colonel A.M. Hendropriyono, led his troops to attack a small hamlet, Cihideung in the village Raja Basa Lama in Central Lampung. The attack was the military retaliation for the death of a captain two days earlier. The captain and his platoon came to investigate a report filed by the local authorities about a religious teacher who might have delivered strange and politically subversive religious sermons. The authorities suspected that he might eventually threaten the security of the district. The report also said that the people of the hamlet had collected weapons and taken part in some kind of military training. After the attack was over, the army claimed 27 of the villagers died. Other sources, however, claimed that more than one hundred people had lost their lives, including women and children.33 With this incident, the desire of those simple people to establish an “Islamic village” within the Pancasila State found a bloody end. The idea of having an Islamic village that was based on the principles of “Islamic personality”, “Islamic family”, “Islamic society”, “Islamic state”, and “universal Islamic unity”, was simply too much for the Pancasila state to tolerate. At a time when the New Order was trying to “unify” the national community and to “homogenize” the value orientations of the nation, the intrusion of these Egyptian Ikhwanul Muslimin-inspired five principles could not be otherwise seen but as subversive elements. As such they should be immediately eliminated, by violent force, if necessary.34 The attempts of the

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simple villagers and the few disgruntled urban semi-educated people to establish an alternative community was destroyed, but the memory of the violence lingers on. The leaders of the New Order never failed to remind the people that the concept of opposition was not known in the Pancasila democratic system. Opposition, as a cornerstone of Western liberal tradition, had simply no place in the kekeluargaan system of the Pancasila democracy. Yet would the Pancasila democratic system allow a political party to choose its own leader? What would the consequences be if a political party chose its own leader without the consent of the “High Priest” of the Pancasila? The PPP and the PDI had learned their lesson at the beginning of their respective existence. In the beginning, these parties experienced some kind of internal conflict that obliged the government to offer its services. Before the members of the parties realized what had really happened, they already had new persons as their official leaders. However, should this trend continue after the New Order had secured its position politically? The PDI was, it should be reminded, a merger of all “secular” nationalist and the Christian and Catholic political parties. From the beginning, the party not only ended up being the smallest party in the general election, it was also the party that never seemed to tire of its continuing internal dissensions. The PDI began to change its image and its political posture after Suryadi (born 1939), a former leader of the nationalist student organization (GMNI) who was relatively unblemished by the incessant quarrel among the senior leaders, was elected Chairman of the PDI (1987). To the surprise of everybody, the party gradually showed its serious desire to initiate needed political reforms. In facing the general election of 1992, the new chairman recruited Megawati Sukarnoputri (born 1947) and her younger brother, Guruh Sukarnoputra (born 1953), the two children of Sukarno who had been serving as rather undistinguished members of the parliament, as the star campaigners. As can be expected, the PDI, as it did in the past, gave every sign that it was the party that had really inherited Sukarno’s teachings. Pancasila as the brainchild of Sukarno loomed large in the campaign. As if that was not enough, Suryadi also talked about the need for real competition to get the office of the Presidency. He talked about the importance of having more than one candidate in the Presidential election. Unlike GOLKAR and the

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PPP which had already promised voters they would nominate Soeharto again, the PDI refrained from naming its candidate. Guruh Sukarnoputra, who had played his role as a star campaigner better than expected, openly stated that he was willing to be nominated as the next President. Few, if there were any, member of the politically conscious public in the capital city, took Guruh’s challenge seriously.35 However the fact that he had the courage to challenge Soeharto was reason enough for the President to feel annoyed. In the first place, the challenge could be seen as a transgression of the mufakat tradition, in which decision should never be made by voting. Secondly, the challenge not only registered a vote of no confidence in Soeharto, but also exposed the cracks in “the harmonious political world” of the New Order. Furthermore, the Guruh’s challenge could also have given credence to a political rumour that the relationship between Soeharto and the army had been somewhat strained and that some military personnel had thrown their support to the PDI. The PDI’s fresh approach to the imposed political system and convention made it attractive to a large number of new voters in the big cities. During the election campaign period — the “fiesta of democracy” — the PDI, with its new recruits and supporters, conducted well-orchestrated election campaigns. When the election returns had been counted, however, the PDI remained what it was in the past. It was still the smallest party, although with 15 per cent of the votes the party could garner some more seats in the parliament. Whatever the outcome of the general election might be, the PDI had to show its constituents that it really wanted to fulfill its campaign promises. But how could its newly elected representatives do this if GOLKAR and the Armed Forces factions were already there to block any attempt that might undermine the existing political status quo? As many had predicted, in the end the PDI had no choice but to attach itself to the already entrenched political tradition. The political pressure, openly or secretly, was simply too heavy for the board of the party to carry. In its conference of January 1993, the PDI finally took the route that had been taken earlier by the PPP — that of planning to nominate the Patron of GOLKAR, Soeharto, as the next President.

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In the MPR session of March 1993, the party put forward some proposals its leaders had been discussing for sometime. PDI faction proposed among other things, the participation of the representatives of the political parties (PDI and PPP) in the election committee. Why should the government bureaucrats monopolize this committee? Being members of GOLKAR, the bureaucrats who served in the committee were after all also among the contestants in the election. In questioning the propriety of the composition of the committee, PDI and the PPP obviously pretended to ignore the simple fact that GOLKAR was actually the electoral machine of the military and civilian bureaucrats under the direct command of the President. The PDI and the PPP also demanded that the Election Day be announced as a public holiday, so that civil servants could cast their votes in the election booths in or near their respective residential areas. It was common knowledge that having to vote in their respective offices, meant that civil servants had practically been obliged to vote for GOLKAR. The political parties, PPP and the PDI, also raised the question of the importance of having the institution of judicial review. How could one guarantee that all laws and regulations that had been passed were in accordance with the texts and the spirit of the constitution? To nobody’s surprise, these demands failed to get the support of the MPR. GOLKAR had accomplished its mission to maintain the political status quo, such as is stated in its platform — “political system should not be changed as it had brought political stability”. In the meantime, President Soeharto could apparently not forget the rather recalcitrant political behaviour of Suryadi. He wanted to settle the score and the time came when the PDI held its national congress in Medan, the capital of North of Sumatra and one of the strongholds of the PDI, in July 1993. One of the most important items on the agenda of the national congress was to elect the chairman and the members of the central board of the party. It had been widely known that the government wanted somebody else to become the chairman. In the eyes of the government, Suryadi had made several hardly pardonable political mistakes. He had recruited Sukarno’s children, who had at one time agreed among themselves to stay away from politics,36 reviving Sukarnoism in earnest; and had put forth the idea of the need to

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have more than one candidate for the Presidency, and so forth. Therefore, the PDI should have a new chairman who could be trusted politically. However, it was exactly because of the so-called political mistakes that Suryadi’s popularity among the party cadres soared. To the surprise of the “secret” political operators of the regime, the Congress decided to elect the new chairman on the first day, instead of the last day of the congress, as the convention states. A huge majority of the participants re-elected Suryadi. However the moment his name was announced as the newly elected chairman, strong reaction came from several quarters. Interestingly enough, no one was really surprised to see this reaction. After all, the PDI had the reputation of having a none too gallant style of internal conflict. The most devastating reaction, however, came from the government representatives. The Minister of Internal Affairs bluntly stated that the election of Suryadi had a cacat hukum, a legal defect; therefore the government refused to recognize it. The congress itself should be rated a failure. In order to solve the fiasco, the Minister suggested that a special congress be held in Jakarta under the auspices of the government. The PDI had no choice but to accept the government’s solution. Under the protection of the military, the special congress of the PDI was held in Jakarta (December 1993). It was obvious to the political public that the government wanted to recover from its failure in Medan. It was widely known that the government was very keen to have someone, who was a senior PDI parliamentarian, as the new chairman of the party. A number of influential leaders of the PDI, however, despite their unfinished internal dissension, seemed to have become fed up with the incessant outside interference, and suddenly turned their attention on a housewife who had just served one term as a member of the DPR, without distinction. Her name was Megawati Sukarnoputri. Suddenly the daughter of the first President of the Republic became the rallying point. She handily defeated the candidate, who had been widely known to have the support of President Soeharto. In the eyes of the President, the military commander of Jakarta, Major-General Hendropriyono, the former commander of Lampung, and his Chief-of-Staff, Brigadier-General Agum Gumelar, had failed in their missions. They were soon demoted to less strategic positions.

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It was not, however, the end of the story. Engineered, manipulated or whatever else, some elements of the PDI refused to acknowledge the validity of the election. They accused the election of being a fraud. They appealed to the government to annul the election. Naturally the government could find no convincing reason to simply reject the validity of the election. However, as the Minister of Internal Affairs indicated, if the PDI leaders wanted to solve their internal problems on this critical issue, the government would be willing to give its support. So what happened was subsequently another special, but bigger, congress was held in Surabaya, the kota pahlawan (“the city of heroes”) and the second biggest city in Indonesia where Sukarno spent his youth. The process of electing the chairman started again from the beginning. The “clandestine” political operators tried again to gear the congress participants to elect the already rejected candidate. Several names, however, came up and even the chairman of the congress, who was expected to be neutral, put his own name as a candidate without hesitation. The participants talked a lot about many things, but up until the last day, the election of the new chairman could not be held. The chairman of the congress could do nothing other than officially announce that the special congress had failed. That was the first time Megawati showed herself to be the real daughter of Sukarno, the romantic freedom fighter. She gave a quick press interview and publicly announced, “De facto I am still the chairperson of the PDI.” There was simply no way for the government’s political operators to annul this political fait accompli. So what happened, unintentionally, was that President Soeharto had laid the solid ground for the process of making Megawati a leader, as well as a symbol, of the opposition. The governors could still harass the newly elected provincial boards of the party, by postponing the recognition of the chairmen of the local branches, for example, but the place of Megawati as a new leader, as well as a symbol of opposition, could not be erased. Party consolidation was obviously the first task of the newly confirmed chairperson. However, after two years, suddenly out of the blue, the majority of the members of the party’s central board, under the leadership of Suryadi, staged an internal revolt. Accusing Megawati of failing to form the board of advisers, as stipulated by the congress, they fired Megawati as the

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chairperson. Suryadi again emerged as the new chairman. When the result of this internal coup was formalized in June in a special congress held in Medan (June 1996), the political public no longer needed an answer to the question of the power behind the internal coup. The Minister of Internal Affairs officially opened the “extraordinary” congress. But to the surprise of everyone, at the end of the congress, some elements of the PDI had the courage to literally bulldoze the gate of the conference building. They rejected the validity of the government-sponsored “extraordinary” congress. Internal dissensions in the party continued and became more serious as days passed.37 Megawati’s followers took the initiative by occupying the headquarters of the PDI, which was, incidentally, provided by the government actually. When the Minister of Internal Affairs acknowledged the legitimacy of the newly elected central board of the party, Megawati took up a legal battle against him. For the first time, a chairman of a political party sued a minister on legal grounds. In the meantime, Megawati’s supporters transformed the headquarters into some kind of an open political forum. Every day people could come and express his or her political opinions and openly criticize the New Order’s authoritarian political style. The Suryadi camp kept demanding that Megawati give up the headquarters because she no longer had the right to occupy the building, but she simply refused to listen. Even if she did want to comply, no one was likely to follow her order. The open forum had given something people had missed for so long. For several weeks, groups of people took the opportunity to express their opposition to the New Order’s political and economic policies. Some members of the political public in Jakarta might well be quite critical of the open forum. Some others were very much concerned that something might already be in store for such blatant opposition to the Mandate Holder of the MPR — as Soeharto, influenced by Sukarno, preferred to call his position. Violence might again be used as the easy solution. It was unfortunate that it was not a far-fetched prediction. The open forum had somehow to be stopped — no matter what. 27 July 1996. Early that morning people wearing civilian clothes with military boots and crew cut hair attacked the PDI’s headquarters. They beat

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up the people who had been staying at the headquarters to guard the building from being taken by Suryadi’s followers. It was a terrible morning, indeed. In a very short time, the attack that began in the headquarters of the PDI at Diponegoro Street, transformed itself into a major violent riot. It spread to the nearby major streets, most notably Cikini Raya, Kramat Raya, and Matraman streets (Central Jakarta). In the process, a few big buildings were destroyed. Nobody knew for sure how many people had died during the attack and how many were missing. The next day, the authorities accused the members of an “unrecognized” political party, the Partai Demokrasi Rakyat (People’s Democratic Party), of being the instigator of the riot. The leftist students’ discussion group that called itself a political party was announced as a forbidden organization and its leaders were arrested. A few months later, more than one hundred people arrested during the riots were finally released.38 Megawati had lost her position as the recognized chairperson of the PDI, but her supporters not only continued to look at her as the real legitimate leader of the party, but also treated her as the symbol of opposition to the government’s interference. They ignored the existence of the officially recognized party and called themselves PDI Perjuangan (Struggle). Since they assumed the PDI-P was a real legitimate party,they felt it certainly had the right to send a list of its candidates for the forthcoming general election (1997). They sent the list, but the General Election Commission, as had been widely predicted, rejected it. The commission only acknowledged the right of the “legal” PDI to send its list of candidates. When the election returns had been counted, the government-recognized PDI emerged, by far, the smallest party in the parliament — to the extent that it found difficulty having the right person as its representative in the ten parliamentary commissions. The party only managed to get eleven seats and the parliament had ten commissions. The demise of the PDI was a question of time, while Megawati and her supporters simply waited patiently on the fence. Megawati’s time finally came in 1999 when the transitional government after the fall of Soeharto held a new and more open general election. The PDI Perjuangan emerged as the biggest party. The rump PDI still managed to get one seat.

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Who was responsible for the attack on the headquarters of the PDI? No one ever questioned the fact that the military personnel were involved in the attack. However, who gave the order and who made the plan? Whoever they were, one thing is certain — the attack was in line with the pattern that had already been established since the New Order began to consolidate its power, except that this early morning attack was the clumsiest operation ever. Furthermore, the attack took place when the security argument of the early days of the New Order had lost most of its weight. It was already out of tune with the changing time. Also, it was directed against the daughter of Sukarno, whose name could still evoke the aroma of revolutionary romanticism amidst the ideologically boring style of Suharto’s New Order. The morning attack on the PDI’s headquarters added to the list of the highly controversial impunity issues after the fall of the New Order. Persatuan dan kesatuan — unity and oneness — under the banner of Pancasila remained the cornerstone of the New Order. In order to maintain and to strengthen these national qualities, the government insisted on the importance of kewaspadaan nasional, national alertness or vigilance. Indeed, as Soeharto never failed to stress, keterbukaan, openness, was very important, but without kewaspadaan, the nation might lose everything. He and the security people were very much aware of the social-economic and ideological sources that could easily be manipulated to threaten the state of unity and uniformity. Therefore, as Admiral (Ret.) Soedomo, who was once the Chiefof-Staff of the Kopkamtib, never tired of warning the people, the questions of ethnicity, religion, race, and social status, or in the Indonesian penchant for acronym, SARA (suku, agama, ras, antar-golongan), should never be brought into the open. Yet how could these sensitive issues remain hidden if some people and some regions felt that the ideas of persatuan and kesatuan had given them nothing but the feeling of being cheated? What was the point of those ideas if everything should be decided by the centre and if the kewaspadaan could also mean the authorities’ suspicion of their wish to have a better present and a more promising future? If these questions were openly asked, the New Order could simply look at its treasury of readymade answers. When the questions transgressed the boundary between economic wishes and political demands, then the tradition of violence might express itself in social and political reality.

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The violent annihilation of the PKI and the continuing persecution and political marginalization of its supporters and its alleged followers had become part of the collective memory that continues to haunt the nation’s consciousness. There were times when the loyal Republican supporters had to find all the rational or even irrational reasons to make peace with the knowledge that a number of their compatriots had, for whatever reason, abandoned the Republic and sided with the Dutch-designed programme for the future of Indonesia. However, by the time Indonesia had entered the crisis of parliamentary democracy, the controversy between the Republican “unitarists” and the Dutch-sanctioned “federalists” had lost much of its weight. In the course of time, a host of other sensitive issues had also gradually subsided. However the violent destruction of the PKI and its aftermath remain part of the collective memory that refuses to fade away. There are simply too many signs and marks that make the memory stay alive. As such, the notion of revenge remains part of any political game. Commemoration and celebration may, on the one hand, glorify the victory against political enemies but at the same time, they can also deepen the feelings of shame and perpetuate the sense of revenge. When the regime took the slogan of persatuan dan kesatuan as an ideological argument in controlling the state and society, the only path it could perceive taking was the issuance of laws and by-laws that would eventually lead to the centralization of power and the unification of the system of administration, even to the lowest level of administrative units. By issuing Law no. 5/1974 and Law 5/1979, the New Order regime could not only boast that it was the first regime to centralize the whole fabric of the decision-making process in local administration, but that it was also the only regime that had succeeded in penetrating deeply into the social fabric of the hitherto largely independent village life. The social consequences of the penetration of the power of the state were clear enough. It deprived the village from its centuries-old tradition of organizing its social lives and it also isolated the still influential traditional leaders from the centre of village-affairs. The state had practically embarked on the process of the bureaucratization of the leadership pattern. The imposition of Pancasila as the sole foundation not only expanded the scope of the state’s sphere of power, but it also immediately coerced all

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elements of civil society onto the same line that had been drawn by the state. The tradition of the state being the locus of power as well as the source of “legitimate” wisdom had practically crippled the social ingenuity of the nation. More than any other previous regimes or system of power, for that matter, the New Order had practically made the state very strong at the expense of society. The impact of the ideological coercion, the domestication and co-optation of civil society were to be deeply felt when the state had to face a major crisis. When the state failed to give a proper answer to the financial crisis that had hit Indonesia, the people suddenly felt that nothing could function properly anymore. That was the time when the notion of revenge that had been nurtured by the tradition of violence came to the surface. In the meantime, the actual situation in the restless regions, such as Aceh and Papua, and of course, East Timor, had become public knowledge as well as a national concern of great importance. What really happened in Aceh, the defender of the Republic during the revolution, and the region that had at one time shown major progress in its development efforts? What had really taken place in West Irian, the easternmost province that had been renamed Irian Jaya (Glorious Irian)? Should the inclusion of East Timor in the Republic of Indonesia be maintained at all cost even if the local opposition continued and the Indonesian international reputation was tarnished? What really was the meaning of the lofty ideals expressed in the Pancasila that had been made the sole ideology if the state failed to express them in facing conflicting hard realities?

Local Resentment and National Integration Integrity of the state and the maintenance of national integration are not simply the political ambitions of the regime in power. These ideas are two of the most important ideological pillars of the state as well as the demands of the constitution. However, in spite of its economic successes, the New Order could never fully liberate itself from its anxiety about the threat to these twin ideological duties. Who could be sure that there would never be any serious threat emerging at the least expected moment? Some of the perceived threats to these noble duties could have come from the still

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unfinished process of state building. In historical hindsight, however, one may suspect that the threats could well have been due to the over-zealous centralization impulses of the regime. Other factors that led to the almost endless threats could not have been but the New Order’s own making. Aceh, Papua, and East Timor were the thorniest yet divergent threats to the integrity of the state and national integration. The threats to national integration and the integrity of the state posed by these regions became greater the moment Soeharto stepped down from the Presidency despite the fact that it was in the post-Soeharto era that the central government really made serious efforts to address itself to the divergent character of the ideological, political, and economic plights of the three restless regions. Aceh is certainly the most sensitive issue in the process of national integration. Aceh has every right to be proud of its history of nation and state formation. It occupies a special place in the history of the Islamization of the archipelago, nation formation and national revolution. Yet it is also the Acehnese who have had to experience successive political and economic, or even ideological disappointments. The way the central government treated them after national independence had been won gave them almost nothing but the feeling of being rejected. Aceh might have finally received its special status after Tgk Daud Buereueh agreed to cease his rebellion against the central government in 1958. However what was the substance of the right of being a special region? Apparently not much had really changed except for the fact that Aceh once again, like it was during the national revolution, had become a separate province. Within the context of the “guided economy” of the Guided Democracy, Sabang, located on the small island of Weh, north of Aceh, was announced as a free port in order to enable the province to conduct direct trade with the neighbouring countries, without the interference of the central government. The special right of Aceh to apply the syariah law remained an unfulfilled project. Hardly anybody seemed to really care; not the central government and not even the local administration, but the unfulfilled promise was still there. The Guided Democracy might have been busy with its business of “rediscovering the revolution” that made it forget to attend to the ideological and political plight of the region. In 1965–66, Aceh let itself be part of the mass frenzy of the anti-communist pogrom. Many innocent small traders of Chinese

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descent, who were accused of supporting the “atheist” Communists, were expelled from Aceh. Then a new regime was established. The New Order was born. A new era might have begun for Aceh. In the early 1970s, Aceh gave every sign of becoming an exemplary model of what a region should be in the era of development. Under the chairmanship of the Rector of the local Syahkuala University, Professor Madjid Ibrahim, a nationally well-connected economist, the Aceh Development Board, which he established with other Acehnese intellectuals, worked closely with the governor of Aceh. The working relationship between the university and the governor’s office became closer after Madjid Ibrahim himself was appointed the governor (1978). That was the time when a number of lecturers were directly assigned to the provincial administration. The head as well as some members of the local planning agency came from the university. Several district heads (bupati) were recruited from the university and State Islamic Institute. Since Aceh was about to embark on major development projects, the former governor who had tried to give his best by paving the way towards the industrialization of Aceh, was appointed as one of the directors of the PT Arun, a joint venture with foreign companies. The Syahkuala University became the host to a social science research-training centre with participants coming from all over the country. Practically this programme means that every year twelve young scholars from other parts of Indonesia had the opportunity to study the various aspects of the Aceh life situation.39 The capital of Aceh, Banda Aceh, hosted a big national event — the Qur’anic recital competition — and other activities. Everything seemed quite promising and a bright future could already have been waiting around the corner. Ironically it was its natural wealth that ruined the bright future of Aceh. In the sphere of state nationalism that had been cultivated by the New Order, Aceh found itself in a disadvantaged position. The moment its natural wealth had been exploited, Aceh became a cow to be milked by the centralized state. In 1971, a contractor of Pertamina, Mobil Oil Indonesia, had succeeded in its explorations. The district of North Aceh was rich in natural gas, 17.1 trillion Standard Cubic Feet. In 1973, Pertamina, Mobil Oil, and a Japanese consortium jointly founded PT Arun NGL to

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exploit natural gas. In 1978, PT Arun NGL exported its products. By 1980, the joint company had already managed to contribute just under US$1.7 billion to the state treasury. In addition to the contribution of the PT Arun, the Pertamina exploration and production units of Rantau, East Aceh, throughout the 1970s, contributed about 50 per cent of the total of Pertamina’s output. Throughout the New Order’s period Aceh was consistently one of the four provinces (the other three were Riau, East Kalimantan, and Irian Jaya) that contributed to the national treasury. But what did the province get in return? Some mistakes might have been made in the regional planning or in its execution. It was obvious that the rate of development in Aceh was much slower than that in some poorer provinces. From the time PT Arun and other companies began to make such a huge contribution to the national treasury, both local officials and informal leaders — the still influential ulama, members of the local legislatures, and former leaders of the revolution and others — proposed that 20 per cent of the earnings should be returned to the province. A high local official had calculated that if the central government could just return 10 per cent of the revenue, the people of Aceh would very be grateful. With that amount of money, they could do something what they thought needed to be done. The central government simply ignored the pleas. As two Acehenese economists put it, “By 1985 Aceh was the third largest source of exports, behind only Riau and East Kalimantan. The benefit to the local community, however, have been much smaller and the cost-benefit calculus more problematic. Perhaps ironically, Aceh, one of the most staunchly independent regions, which had long been in a sphere of conflict with the central government, was now subsidizing that government and the rest of the country.”40 But then PT Arun and other foreign or domestic (mostly state-owned) enterprises had opened up new opportunities. The once sleepy town of Lhok Seumawe became a booming town. It attracted people from everywhere to go there. In the process, the Acehnese did not simply learn about the meaning of competition, but now had to experience it intensely. The rapid flow of migrants to compete for jobs in the newly industrialized Aceh immediately put the Acehnese at a disadvantaged position. Most of

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the workers were recruited from the other regions simply because they were better qualified than the local people to work in the high technology industries. It wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration to say that in the early 1980s, the urban population of Aceh had practically become a divided community — of hopefuls and those disappointed.41 The hopefuls might have taken the competition as a challenge. Among them the catch-up psychology became dominant. The district head of Pidie, north of the North Aceh district, had the courage to establish a college in order to train teachers who, in his words, “would be able to teach mathematics and science”. And he was not alone in visualizing a brighter future. The urban entrepreneurs had begun to look beyond Aceh. The disappointed section of the community, on the other hand, could not help but recall the glorious past of Aceh and, most significantly, the time when the Acehnese, under the leadership of their ulama, fought against the Dutch and later, after the revolution, against the central government that was thought to have insulted the dignity of Aceh. In one of his speeches, the old warrior, Tgk Daud Beureuh, said that the central government acted like someone who was eating the durian, while the people of Aceh could only smell its aroma.42 Again, he was not alone. After all, Aceh was supposed to base itself on the syariah law, but actually remained as what it was under the Guided Democracy. The region simply had to live with the unfulfilled promise. The imposition of Pancasila as the sole basic foundation of voluntary associations was another deep disappointment for the old ulama. Before long, the number of disappointed members of the community had expanded. The educated urban population might have engaged in the growingly heated political debates on the proper course Aceh had to take, but the little people who had been resettled in the interior had to face a new reality. With the support of the local administration, PT Arun and other foreign companies — mostly located on the East coast — had successfully resettled the coastal people in the interior. In spite of the compensation given, which was in itself a highly sensitive issue, the resettled coastal people, who used to make a living by going to sea to catch fish, were now expected to change their way of life. They had to become peasants who had to toil on their newly acquired land. It was certainly not too difficult to change the address

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of their homes, but altering their way of life and the mode of making a living that had been passed down for many generations was not that easy. What would happen after they run out of the money that had been given to them to compensate for their coastal land? For old times’ sake, they might go — and they did — for a visit to their place of birth, but only to find out that strange people with a strange style of life had occupied the land. The strangers were not Acehnese or, sometimes, they were not even Muslims. The sense of being cheated gradually crept in. The industrialization of Aceh had inadvertently created its own nemesis. The disgruntled people who felt that they had been unjustly shortchanged increased in number. In the meantime, unknown to the population at large, a former junior diplomat who had abandoned his service in the United States soon after outbreak of the Aceh rebellion in 1953, came home. Muhammad Hasan di Tiro (born around 1925 in the district of Pidie), the turncoat diplomat, was successful enough to make more than just a decent living abroad.43 In 1974, he managed to get a new passport.44 By then he was already a businessman with, as he claimed, a wide connection. The time had come for him to contribute something to the country of his birth. Unfortunately he failed to get a business contract from Mobil Oil. After consulting many former leaders of the rebellion of the 1950s, who, as one of them claimed,45 had secretly revived the already defunct Tgk Daud Buereueh-led Republik Islam Aceh (Islamic Republic of Aceh), he came to the conclusion that the time had come for Aceh to separate itself from Java-dominated Indonesia. He was apparently successful in winning the heart of the still very influential old lion, Tgk Daud Buereueh. On 29 November 1976, Hasan Tiro founded the Aceh-Sumatra National Liberation Front (ASNLF), better known later as the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh Movement). On 4 December, at the same place, Bukit Cokan, in the sub-district of Tiro, the district of Pidie, Hasan di Tiro, as the chairman of the ASNLF, proclaimed the independence of Aceh-Sumatra, “in the name of the sovereign people of Aceh, Sumatra”. The declaration of independence addressed to “The people of the world”, states, We, the people of Aceh, Sumatra, exercising our right of selfdetermination, and protecting our historical right of eminent domain

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to our fatherland, do hereby declare ourselves free and independent from all political control of the foreign regime of Jakarta and alien people of the island of Java.46 It was a deliberately chosen date. On that date in 1911, the nephew of Tiro’s mother, Teungku Maat Tiro, was killed in a battle against the Dutch. According to Hasan, Maat Tiro, being a descendant of Teungku Chick di Tiro (who died in 1891), the leader of the opposition to the advancing Dutch military,47 was the last ruler of the sultanate of Aceh — a claim that repudiates the historicity of Sultan Muhammad Daud Syah (1878–1903), who finally had to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Netherlands Indies. Since Maat Tiro left no direct descendant, he, being the closest relative, had the legitimate right to occupy the vacant throne. In 1977, a year after its establishment, the GAM began its activities. First, Hassan Tiro formed the structure of power and composed the cabinet, in which the founder himself became the President (wali negara). He divided the newly “re-established” state of Aceh into 17 wilayah (provinces) and appointed its respective governors. He designed the symbol of the state,48 which was a modified version of the old Sultanate flag. And, of course, he also drew up a strategy to propagate the existence of the new state to the general populace. The GAM was ready to make a move. The most urgent task, however, was to collect weapons and to assemble the fighters for the noble cause. After all, as Hasan Tiro kept insisting, the GAM was not planning to establish a new state, but to recommence the interrupted history of the “oldest independent state in Southeast Asia”. He did not appoint himself as the wali negara; he was only retaking the position that was legally his, being, as he claimed, the rightful descendant of the last legitimate ruler of Aceh.49 The moment the authorities learned about the plan, a military operation was soon launched. The GAM had hardly begun with its plan to “reestablish” the independent state of Aceh when Hasan Tiro had to escape from Aceh secretly. With the promise to return to Aceh in “three months” with the much-needed weapons, he escaped to Singapore (1979). He never returned to Aceh, but instead made Stockholm his permanent post and became a Swedish citizen, while continuing to maintain contact with his

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loyal supporters in Aceh. However that was also the real beginning of his intense activities to win international support for his cause. In the meantime in Aceh itself, many local informal leaders and the ulama, particularly the members of the local council of ulama (MUI), warned people not to get involved with the outlawed GAM. The real breakthrough of the GAM in its opposition to the unitary state of Indonesia came when Hasan Tiro was successful in getting the support of Libya. Since 1986, through various channels the GAM managed to send a few hundred Acehnese to be trained in Libya. Upon their return these “Libyan graduates” trained a few hundred more prospective “freedom fighters”. In 1989, the newly trained fighters began their armed activities — attacking isolated military and police posts, killing members of civil authorities and suspected informers, stealing weapons, murdering foreign employees, and terrorizing Javanese trans-migrants (who had to find shelter in another district), and burning school buildings. At the same time, in order to finance their activities, the GAM members were engaged in ganja trafficking. The activities of GAM were largely concentrated on the East Coast of Aceh — in the districts of Pidie, North Aceh, and East Aceh, where, in addition to the district of Aceh Besar, the huge majority of the population was Acehnese.50 Facing the increased activities of the GAM, the local authorities finally found themselves powerless. After consulting several influential local leaders the governor, a former Rector of Syahkuala University, decided to ask the President to send more troops to Aceh to tackle the security problems. The moment the President decided that “enough is enough” Aceh entered its long nightmare of terror. The so-called Red Net (Jaring Merah) Operation was launched. Aceh officially became the “daerah operasi militer” (DOM, the military operation zone). That was the time when the tradition of violence that had been nurtured since the beginning of the New Order got the upper hand. The principle of “a just and civilized humanity” of the Pancasila could be, it seemed, set aside for a while. A large number of people, either the followers of GAM or simply frightened people, ran away to neighbouring Malaysia. The GAM and its supporters might continue to find ways to smuggle weapons to Aceh, but the rest had to find a new life. Many stories have been

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told and repeated again and again on the plight of the Acehnese and on the atrocities and cruelties inflicted by the state apparatus of the Pancasila state. A large number of the stories can easily be verified while others may well be only rumours,51 but if even only half of the stories were true that was enough to implant a long lasting feeling of remorse and revenge in the hearts of the people. By 1993, it was estimated that between 1,300 and 2,000 or more people had been killed and about 3,000 to 4,000 tortured. The NGO Forum Aceh estimated that around 3,900 disappeared. There were several hundred cases of rape and torture of women. It has also been estimated that 16,375 children had been orphaned and around 3,000 women widowed.52 At the end of 1992, the numerical strength of the GAM was almost down to zero. But the short period of intense military operations had left a deep social and psychological wound. Many families in the three districts can still recount the suffering they had to endure — the loss of husbands, the orphaned children, the tortured relatives, the raped sisters and other atrocities. In the meantime, across the Straits of Malaka, there were still relatives who could remind them not to be easily lured by the so-called Operasi Bujuk, persuasion operation, launched by the military. And, the wali negara and his ministers from the far away country, Sweden, could always send messages of hope about the eventual victory — Aceh would finally free itself from the domination of what they prefer to call “Indonesia-Java”. The heavy-handed policy of the central government had ironically strengthened the determination of the GAM members and their supporters. The state’s style of radical official nationalism had practically hardened their ethnic nationalism. When Soeharto stepped down, a new beginning seemed to have risen in the tragedy-prone province. Would the fall of the regime be the beginning of the era of reconciliation and reformation, when the local voice can be heard again and the gate of democracy opened? One thing was certain, however. The fall of the New Order brought to the surface the long suppressed feelings of suffering and grievance and the suppressed demand for justice. Once the opportunity to express grievances had been released, Aceh immediately entered a new phase in its history. It is no longer simply a history of rebellion and repression, but also one that

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is full of hope, deceit, corruption, and international scrutiny. In the meantime Aceh continues to suffer, and the country as a whole bleeds unceasingly,53 and remains a thorny question in the unending process of national integration and nation-building. The vertical armed conflict in Aceh might begin with the short honeymoon that had gone astray, but West Irian or Irian Jaya or West Papua or West New Guinea had never really tasted a political honeymoon. From the beginning of the internationally recognized inclusion of the region into the Republic of Indonesia, there were already some sections of the population reacting negatively to the decision. Even before the United Nations transferred temporary authority to the government of Indonesia (1963), opposition to the probable inclusion of the region in the Republic of Indonesia had begun. The people in this easternmost part of the Indonesian archipelago did not apparently stay dormant while Indonesia and the Netherlands had their quarrel about the country of their birth. The educated section of the population, mostly those who lived in the coastal areas, was aware of the Indonesia-Dutch conflict and they also knew something about the situation in the Republic of Indonesia. Not less important was the fact that while the government of the Netherlands never ceased to prepare itself to counter whatever arguments Indonesia might offer in the international forum, the Dutch authorities in the West New Guinea had made serious efforts that could frustrate Indonesia’s claim to the region. One may say, with some exaggeration to be sure, that throughout the Indonesia-Dutch conflict over the region, the political sphere in the West New Guinea can be likened to the Netherlands Indies before the arrival of the Japanese Occupation army — that is, the pro-independence group had been gaining ground, with one notable exception. Many educated Papuans still thought it was important that Dutch tutelage remain some time. Aceh, Java, Minahasa, Ternate, Banjar and even Tanah Hitu in Ambonisland and other localities in the archipelago might have been common ties through their shared history, no matter how serious the discords, conflicts, and quarrels they might occasionally experience among themselves, but the same thing cannot be said about West New Guinea. Indeed while Raja Empat islands, Biak, and some coastal regions, such as

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Fak Fak, had been territories under the Sultanate of Tidore since the 15th century, the rest of the region then called West New Guinea remained largely outside the world that was once connected by various types of historical forces. Except for the scattered small islands around the big island and some spots in the coastal regions, West New Guinea remained isolated from the rest of the country until the middle of 19th century, when a Dutch Protestant missionary began his activities. In the middle of the 19th century the Dutch claim on the region was based on the historical fact that the region was under the Sultanate of Tidore, which had been under the Dutch tutelage. If that was the case in the early period of colonialism, why could a similar claim not be used to describe the early period of decolonization? In 1956, as a symbolic gesture that West Irian was an inseparable part of the Republic of Indonesia, in spite of the fact that the region was still under the control of the Dutch, the Indonesian Government appointed the Sultan of Tidore as the governor of West Irian.54 The Dutch might officially claim that West New Guinea was under their administration, but at the same time, there was perhaps only half of the population on the big island, which consisted of about 250 ethnic groups, living under the Dutch administrative umbrella. It was in 1895 that the European powers drew a border, and in 1910 that the separation of the big island into two parts was officially made. In 1960, there were already 461,858 people living under direct government control and more than 70,000 had been brought under regular government patrol. Yet around 170,000 were thought to have remained outside the reach of the Dutch authorities. The people in the Central Highlands continued to live in independent tribal organizations.55 Boven Digul and Tanah Merah on the southern part of east West New Guinea occupy important symbolic places in the history of the Indonesian independent movement. In 1927, soon after the short-lived so-called Communist rebellions (in West Sumatra and Banten) had been crushed the colonial government turned the two places into camps for the exiled. In 1934, the colonial government sent Hatta and Sjahrir to Boven Digul. It was here that they both learned another tragic lesson in colonial history — the majority of the exiles could hardly be called “communists”. Most of

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the exiles were just simple nationalists who had been accused of wanting to destroy the colonial state. On the other hand, Merauke, a small town near the border of the then Australian Papua New Guinea, had, from the time Indonesia voiced its claim on West Irian, been taken as a symbol of Indonesian territorial integrity. Along with Sabang, located on a small island, Weh, off the coast of the northern tip of Sumatra, Merauke had since been included in the myth of the undivided tanah air, homeland. “From Sabang to Merauke, there are sprawling islands,…that is Indonesia,” Once the myth has been taken as a representation of reality, it gradually becomes a non-negotiable issue. The Papuan nationalists, however, simply changed the myth to “From Sorong to Numbai”, with being both located in the troubled region.56 Since the time the Dutch colonial government consolidated its power, it had begun gradually to open up opportunities to quite a few business ventures in the coastal towns. For this purpose, it recruited workers from the other parts of the then Netherlands Indies. It also recruited the bettereducated people from the more developed neighbouring islands to assume several roles in the bureaucracy. It is, therefore, understandable if the outbreak of the national revolution in 1945 did not go unnoticed on the big island. In 1946, two well-educated Indonesians formed the Komite Indonesia Merdeka (Committee for Indonesian Independence) in Hollandia (later called Jayapura). Although the majority of the members were of non-Papuan descent, a number of Papuans did join the group. It was among this group that the idea of making West Papua part of the province of Maluku developed. This idea, that simply followed the administrative division of the newly declared Republic of Indonesia, really surprised the Dutch authorities. They had planned a different route for the region. The idea expressed by the Komite Indonesia Merdeka was a wake-up call to the colonial authorities. Serui, Sorong, and Fak Fak, three coastal towns with racially mixed populations, can be rightly considered as the centres of the Indonesian nationalist movement. Since 1946, particularly after the Dutch exiled the Republican governor of Sulawesi, Dr Sam Ratulangi, to Sorong, the proIndonesian group had intensified their activities. In November 1946, Silas

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Papare57 established a political party, which used the ultimate objective of the party as its name, that is the Partai Kemerdekaan Indonesia Irian (PKII — Indonesian Irian Independence Party). The party had its branches in Sorong and Fak Fak. Some members of the PKII were involved in the antiDutch rebellion that was immediately crushed. Up till the 1960s, the PKII with its pro-Indonesian stand, was still active. It managed to spread its influence to most of the major coastal towns on the island.58 Only now it also put forth a sociological argument — most of the Irianese/Papuans were still relatively underdeveloped. In 1949 the pro-Indonesia section of the population financed the travel of Silas Papare to Indonesia, not as a leader of the liberation movement, but as a cult figure, who would bring the koreri, the promised utopia, “on the back of the Indonesian invading armed forces”.59 Silas Papare did not return on time, but he later became a member of the senate of the RUSI, and in the unitary state of Indonesia, he became a member of the provisional parliament. In 1950, the Dutch authorities arrested the leaders of the Pemuda Indonesia (PPI) in Sorong for their alleged subversive activities. After they were released in 1956, they revived the organization under the name Pemuda Baru, but it was not easy for the organization to find new leaders, now that the old leaders had to keep a low profile. Sorong, the centre of oil production, with a great number of workers from the other islands in the archipelago, was one of the centres of pro-Indonesian activities. It is therefore understandable if the Dutch authorities used the iron hand tactic in this town. A number of leaders or suspected followers were arrested and sentenced to prison. So successful was this operation that, according Dutch intelligence assessment, by 1960 Sorong could no longer be rated as a centre of pro-Indonesian activities. But the Muslims of Raja Empat and Fak Fak remained what they were, dreaming of the time when they could be a part of the Republic of Indonesia. In spite of the slow process of the introduction of modern education, the Dutch authorities gradually managed to produce a few Western-educated Papuan elite. It was among this small elite that the future of the region became a major concern. In the meantime, the Christian missionary established organizations to promote Papuan political emancipation. In

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1952, an amalgamation of two organizations took place with the formation of Gerakan Persatuan Nieuw Guinea (GPNG — Movement for the Unity of New Guinea), with branches in several coastal towns. It rejected the idea of making New Guinea the new fatherland of the Dutch Eurasians. However, the movement could never really get off the ground. In 1957 the Democratische Volkspartij (DVP — People’s Democratic Party) was established to replace the dying GPNG. Again this Western style political party was not very effective. The party simply could not cope with the continuing personal rivalries among its leaders. Its programmes, however, were clear enough — the retention of the Dutch rule, the rejection of the Indonesian claim, and the improvement of the people’s economic welfare. By the beginning of 1960, when the Indonesia-Dutch conflict was about to reach its crucial climax, the DVP visualized the future of Papua as being a part of a “sovereign, democratic, and prosperous Melanesian federation”. Although it still managed to send a resolution to the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs which demanded that the independence of West New Guinea should not be declared until a solid national economic foundation has been set up, it had run out of time. The arrival of a new party, Partai Nasional (PARNA) practically sealed the fate of the DVP. Supported by the members of the Papuan civil servants and the graduates of secondary schools and a few of the tertiary institutions, the formation of the PARNA was a reflection of the Papuan educated class’s awareness of their inferior status in the colonial setting. The party visualized a situation in which the Papuans could achieve their political and socioeconomic objectives without depending on outsiders. It rejected racial discrimination and dreamed of a having system in which Christian divine love became the basis of authority. It hoped that within a decade the “Papuanization” of the public service could be accomplished. It was not really a far-fetched hope because in 1960 the Dutch had actually begun the preparation for Papuan self-rule. In February 1961, the government held the election for the Volksraad (West New Guinea Council). About 80 per cent of the registered voters in Hollandia and Manokwari gave their votes, but in the towns with a huge Indonesian population and sympathizers, such as in Serui, Sorong and Fak Fak, the turnout was only slightly more

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than 50 per cent. The Papuans won twenty-two out of the twenty-eight seats and when the council began its session in April, it was obvious that the dominant feeling was anti-integration with Indonesia.60 However, in the middle of 1961, the so-called Luns Plan, that is, the proposal of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, was announced. The plan proposed the transfer of sovereignty to the indigenous Papuans, although for the time being the task of day-to-day government administration was to be entrusted to the United Nations, which would in the meantime educate and guide the Papuan people towards self-determination. It was really big news for the Papuan nationalists. On 1 December 1961, the Papuan nationalists held a special ceremony to celebrate the plan. They hoisted the Bintang Kejora (Morning Star) flag and for the first time sang Hai Tanahku Papua.61 It was an historic event. The Papuan nationalists would later take this date as the national Independence Day. As time went by, the event gradually transformed itself from an empirical historic event into a national myth of major significance. The date of the event has become a national day to be remembered and celebrated. As it drew closer to the date of the event — and apparently still not influenced by its symbolic significance — the PARNA in August 1962, called for the establishment of a Papuan independent state by the year 1970 and emphasized the right of the Papuans for self-determination. In the meantime the Komite Nasional (National Committee), established by a Dutch member of New Guinea Council, also held its meeting. Attended by about eighty leaders representing several parties and groups, the meeting emphasized the Papuan right to self-determination. The meeting demanded that the voting to determine the future of Papua, be held in 1963, instead of 1969, such as proposed by the United Nations, and requested that during the U.N. interim period the Papuan national flag and anthem should be allowed. On 19 October 1962, the Komite Nasional held another important meeting. Attended by seventy leaders, the meeting, with the approval of the New Guinea Council, decided that the name for West New Guinea should officially be Papua Barat (West Papua).62 It adopted the Bintang Kejora as the national flag and Hai Tanahku Papua as the national anthem. The sphere and the ideas expressed in the meeting,

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however, were too much Hollandia-centred. It is understandable that the meeting immediately invited criticisms from the other parts of the region. More significantly, out of the seventy persons who attended the meeting only forty signed the manifesto. The idea of “one unified Papua” might still have a long way to go but the notion of an independent Papua did not easily slip into the ocean of the forgotten. The memory of the event on 1 December 1961 was there to strengthen the commitment to the struggle for independence. As can be expected, the announcement of the Luns Plan immensely angered President Sukarno. He reacted harshly to the plan by issuing on 19 December 1961 the “trikora” (tiga komando rakyat — three people’s commands) — frustrate the formation of the Papuan state, hoist the Red and White flag on the soil of that part of Indonesia, and start mass recruitment. The rapid escalation of the Dutch-Indonesia conflict over West Papua dispute put the PARNA and other political parties in a very critical situation. The intensification of the conflict also invited the direct involvement of the United States and the United Nations. If there was indeed a hope that the Papuan educated elite would come up with one common stand in confronting the rapid course of events, it was dashed by the conflicting views on the future of the region. Indonesia and the pro-Indonesia elements apparently did not stay aloof in the Papuan internal controversies. In the meantime, the Netherlands no longer had the monopoly in determining the tone of the Indonesian mode of discourse. The involvement of the United States had made the United Nations the forum to settle the Dutch-Indonesia conflict. The future of West Irian should be settled by the tripartite agreement between the two contending parties and the United Nations. The decision reached in the New York Agreement (signed on 15 August 1962) was a deep disappointment to the members of the West New Guinea Council. They were also disappointed because the agreement failed to discuss the position of the Morning Star flag. Indonesia, however, had from the beginning, made it clear that it would never tolerate such a distinct national symbol. It is therefore understandable that out 28 members of the council only 13 were willing to take an oath of allegiance to the incoming United Nations administration.63 On 1 October 1962, West New

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Guinea was temporarily put under U.N. administration. On 1 May 1963, the United Nations officially handed over the administration of the disputed region to Indonesia. West New Guinea or Irian Barat was officially put under U.N. trusteeship with an Indonesian Administration until 1969 when “the Act of Free Choice” was to be held. From 1963 the ball was already in Indonesian hands. President Sukarno had partly achieved his goal. The name of Hollandia was changed to Sukarnopura (later it was called Jayapura). West New Guinea or Irian Barat was since then officially called Irian Jaya. The faculty of teachers training to be part of the Cendrawasih University was established. The Indonesian military, however, banned all political parties and activities.64 In the meantime, the Indonesian interim government made the necessary preparations so that when the time to express “the Act of Free Choice” came, the people would have no other choice but to opt for being part of Indonesia. Before the decisive moment came, the New Order had come to power. It was this military-dominated regime that had the obligation to see the national goal to its final conclusion. In its decree number XXI/MPRS/1966, the MPRS states “The West Irian region shall be brought into accord with and be further adjusted to the position of the autonomous regions.” But, of course as an official publication, it states, “just as in the case of democracy, autonomy absolutely needs ‘certain prerequisites’, such as ‘being always state-centred’, ‘nation-centred’, ‘possessing political and moral integrity’ and ‘sufficient creative power’ ”.65 A question, however, has to be asked. What would happen to the autonomy if such prerequisites were still not there to be found? Since the vast majority of the people were still living in various stages and forms of tribal traditions, and since their settlements were also scattered in many isolated places, the Indonesian interim government argued, the decisive vote could only be undertaken by the members of Consultative Assembly for the Act of Free Choice — the CAA (Dewan Musyawarah Pepera — DMP). Out of the 809,327 people, the authorities selected 982 men and 43 women as members of the CAA. They made up the 400 “traditional representatives”, 360 “regional representatives” and 266 “representatives of political and mass organizations and other groupings”. The sessions of the CAA to determine the future of West Irian were held

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in Merauke, Waimena, Nabire, Fak Fak, Sorong, Manokwari, Biak, and Jayapura. As can be expected, the official report says, “Not a single member of the CAA has voiced or expressed an attitude other than remaining within the RI. They were determined not to separate themselves from the unity of the state and the nation of the Republic of Indonesia, from Sabang to Merauke”.66 The official report cites several events to emphasize the determination of the Papuans to be part of the Republic of Indonesia. On one occasion Stevanus Rumbewas of Biak stated that “The people of Serui have carried out several acts of free choice since 1948 at their conviction and this AFC is not necessary.”67 The Act of Free Choice, however, was not exactly a political honeymoon, as the Indonesian authorities would like to claim. Indeed some sectors of the Papuan population would like to have shortened the United Nations’ trusteeship and wanted immediately to be part of the Republic of Indonesia, such as expressed by “Kota Baru Charter” (3 February 1962) and the mass demonstration in front of the office of the UNTEA representative (14 February 1963),68 but at the same time (17 February 1963) the Papuan Voluntary Corps staged a mutiny in Manokwari. In August 1967, the Arfak tribesmen staged a rebellion. It lasted about two years. More than one hundred people lost their lives and a few thousand surrendered. The leader of the rebellion, however, managed to escape. Skirmishes with the authorities also took place around Sukarnapura, Fak Fak, Kaimana, and Sorong. In late 1968, a rebellion took place in Merauke, and in April 1969, a major rebellion broke out in Enarotoli. Thousands of people fled to the bush when the government sent paratroppers to crush the rebellion. Armed opposition might have continued but the Act of Free Choice resulted in the unanimous vote for integration. Both the Dutch and Indonesia accepted the outcome. On 19 November 1969, the U.N. General Assembly also endorsed the outcome, with 84 member-states giving their positive votes, none giving a negative vote, but with 30 abstentions. A harsh critic of Indonesia’s New Order later gave his judgement on the outcome of the Act of Free Choice by stating that, “At all events the Indonesian completely outwitted the United Nations Team. It was a clever

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manoeuvre, but not a bold one: the interest of the big powers, the indifference of the others, and the flabbiness of the U.N. presence ensured that there would be no serious complaints”.69 In promoting the Indonesian case in the Act of Free Choice the critic accused the Indonesian authorities of playing “the Javanese perception of persuasion, intimidation, and violence”.70 In an interview session held after the Act of Free Choice, a reverend, a member of the CAA from Jayapura, angrily retorted, “Jakarta was not interested in us as Papuans but in West Irian as a territory. If we want to be independent”, he (Ali Moertopo) said, laughing scornfully, “we had better ask God if He could find us an island in the Pacific where we could emigrate.”71 In any case there is no doubt that the execution of Act of Free Choice was less than proper, to say the least. It is therefore understandable that at times when the disappointment with the highly centralized state could no longer be tolerated, the execution of the Act of Free Choice would be used as a pretext to oppose the government or, even, to stage armed rebellions. On 1 July 1971, a staunch supporter of Indonesia, Rumkorem, abandoned the Republic of Indonesia he used to admire and proclaimed the independence of Papua. He harshly denounced the development strategy for Irian Jaya. He particularly condemned the transmigration programme. To Rumkorem, this programme would eventually make the Papuans foreigners in their own land and the poor in the rich country.72 The transmigration programme certainly insulted the local Papuans’ sense of justice because the programme could and did easily transgress the Papuan right to land — the sphere where they could hunt and conduct their nomadic food gathering. The inclusion of West Irian or West Papua in the Republic bureaucratic system also invited further voluntary migration to this relatively less developed region. For many years, the huge majority of the civil servants were either non-Papuans or people from the more developed parts of the region, mostly the island of Biak. The government opened up new economic opportunities — such as foreignowned companies, the Freeport and logging companies and other types of private enterprises — and at the same time, opened the doors to the incoming migrants. Before long, the newcomers from the other islands had dominated urban economic activities.

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Whatever good intentions the central government might have had to alleviate the plight of the Papuans, the feeling of being pushed aside by the forces they could not control gradually moulded the feelings of a large number of the educated Papuan youths. After all, the armed movement of the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM — Free Papua Movement) was there to remind them on the right to self-determination. The OPM might not have been a well-structured organization with a dominant commander and settled headquarters and all that, but was rather a scattered people’s armed movement that might strike here and there. It was, however, not only the oldest armed opposition, but also the most consistent movement to oppose the Republican authorities. Furthermore the ideology and the activities of the OPM posed as a striking cultural contrast to that of the Republic. As an observer put it, the OPM had “some characteristic of a cult”.73 The feeling of being economically short-changed, politically manipulated and socially oppressed could certainly be culturally interpreted. In its turn this interpretation might make its appearance in a thoroughly political action. Arnold Arp, a well-respected anthropologist, resented very much the fact that the Papuan society had undergone what he labelled as “the Malayanization” and Westernization processes. He tried to revive the Papuan traditional arts within the context of the increasingly urbanized Papuan life. No one could be sure how well Arp might have succeeded in his attempts to “re-Papuanize” the course of social development, because one day in 1984, he was mysteriously tortured and murdered.74 If the murder was politically motivated, then one may assume that the murderer(s) might have thought that Arp’s cultural programme was a real nuisance to the New Order’s programme of “homogenizing” the national community. His cultural message, however, was not lost even to the educated people who had been living within the political and ideological sphere of the New Order. On 14 December 1988, Thomas Wanggai, who received a Ph.D. in Public Administration in Japan, had the courage to proclaim the independence of what he called “West Melanesia” — thus reviving the programme of the DVP in the late 1950s. For such a blatant anti state action he was soon arrested, tried, and finally punished with twenty years’

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imprisonment. His wife, a Japanese woman, was penalized for seven years. She was released in 1994. But Dr Wanggai died in the Cipinang prison in Jakarta on 3 March 1996. A few days later, his body was returned to Jayapura and hailed by thousands of Papuans. In a very short time, the deeply saddened crowd turned violent. A major riot took place along the street between Jayapura and Sentani. In Abepura it was reported that four people were killed, sixteen people injured and eleven houses ruined.75 In many places people took the courage to hoist the Morning Star flag. The Papuan nationalism had found a new channel of expression. Many people demanded that a referendum be held to determine the future of Irian Jaya.76 The fall of the New Order did not solve the problem, but brought the issue onto a higher level of controversy. Looking back at the genesis and development of the opposition of the educated Papuans to the Indonesian national integration, one may get an impression of the limits of the subjective foundation of nation formation. “It was not our similarities that really brought us together,” the majority of Indonesian founding fathers tended to say, “but our strong desire to live together as a nation.” Racial differences, such as argued by Hatta (during the BPUPKI session in 1945), and divergent historical experiences, as the case of West Papua shows, did apparently count for something in the process of nation formation and nation-building. The objective foundation of a nation cannot be simply ignored as something insignificant. The Christianization of Papua put the population further away from the Islamic majority of Indonesia. The cultural notion of Melanesian Christianity, as some people tend to believe, had also separated the people in the region from the Indonesian Christian tradition.77 But then cultural pluralities or even cultural contrasts, along with their respective ethnic and religious stereotypes, have been some of the hard realities from which hardly any nation-state could escape. One may assume that the objective and noticeable differences among and between the local communities and population at large can theoretically be solved by the execution of democratic distribution of power and a just and proper arrangement of economic opportunities. However, it was exactly on these points that the centralization tendencies of the New Order’s style of governance and ideology had serious problems. The unbalanced social and

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regional development, due largely to divergent historical experiences, had practically worked to the disadvantage of the Papuans. The New Order regime refused to acknowledge politically and ideologically the fact that there were major regional differences that needed special attention and careful and separate treatment. The idealized concept of “unity and oneness” in effect ignored the social and psychological significance of differences. The notion of one integrated Indonesia, for example, had opened up the region to all members of the national community. As a result of this tendency, as a great many Papuan nationalists have been saying “we have become the foreigners in our homeland” had become a hard and depressing social reality. Transmigration, and spontaneous and voluntary migration had limited the bureaucratic and economic spaces available to the less trained Papuans. Growing urbanization and increased social differentiation certainly did not help the case of the Christian Papuans. Despite the fact that about 75.51 per cent of the 2,213,831 population of Papua/Irian Jaya are Christians (according to the Census of 2000), followed by Muslims (24.16 per cent) with the remaining being Buddhists, Hindu and others, Jayapura, the capital and the biggest city, give a totally different picture. The Muslims constitute 45.05 per cent of the population compared with 54.17 per cent Christians, while the rest are much less significant. And not less significant is the fact that the Javanese (12.48 per cent) had become the largest ethnic group in Papua. It is followed by Biak Numfor (7.43 per cent) and Dani (7.12 per cent) and Lani (5.05 per cent) and Ekagi or Ekari (3.94 per cent). The Buginese (3.51 per cent) is the sixth largest group. In other words, the number one and number six largest groups came from outside Papua.78 It means that bureaucracy, agriculture, and the economy have practically been in the hands of the outsiders. Finally, the story of Aceh seems to repeat itself in Papua — heavyhanded treatment of the central government in the region with rich natural resources. Not unlike Aceh, Papua also had its share of the stories of state violence. The stories of the people who were forced to cross the boundaries that divided Indonesian Papua and Papua New Guinea are still very common. It is not without a solid foundation that the NGOs on human

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rights have been very active in this province. Again, like Aceh, Irian Jaya/ Papua belonged to the four provinces (the other being East Kalimantan and Riau) that “feed” the country as a whole. In 1967, the PT Freeport Indonesia, an American mining company, began its operation in Irian Jaya, which was then still under the Indonesian trusteeship. In 1973, President Soeharto officially inaugurated the Freeport project. By early 1997, the assets of Freeport were already valued at over USD 44.1 billion with around 16,000 employees.79 Timika and Tembagapura had emerged as bustling mining towns. From 1992 to 2000, the company paid well over USD 1 billion in taxes to the Indonesian Government and it had an estimated annual gross production of approximately USD 40 billion.80 What was the impact of this massive mining enterprise on the life of the people and the environment? “In 1995 the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) revoked Freeport’s political risk insurance (worth USD 100 million) due to Freeport’s alleged violation of U.S. regulations on pollution and the creation of unreasonable environmental health, and safety standards with reference to the local terrestrial ecosystem and inhabitants”.81 The majority of the Papuans may still not have been affected by whatever opinions were expressed in the outside world. They may still have been living in their respective small village communities and sustaining their lives by fishing, hunting, and collecting sago and not bothering much about the changes that have been taking place in the nearby surroundings. But to the growing number of people who have been exposed to the gradual process of urbanization, education, and modern communication the multidimensional changes that have been taking place sent conflicting messages — opportunity and disappointment. The latter message, however, has been growing over the course of time. Like in the case of Aceh, the real battle for the hearts and minds of the Papuans really began after the fall of the New Order. Whatever the nature of the efforts may have been, one thing is certain — without daring and creative political and administrative steps, the future of West Papua would remain a thorn in the unitary state of Indonesia. When Indonesia proclaimed its independence in 1945, it perceived itself to be the rightful and legitimate successor to the colonial state of the

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Netherlands Indies. The integration of West Irian/Papua was therefore an historical inevitability that could never be compromised. It was a political necessity as it was a never-dying ideological myth. Any nation needs all kinds of integrative myths to sustain itself. The problem begins when the myth is taken as an objective and as empirical hard reality that cannot be denied. The idea of the historically sanctioned unity of the whole Indonesian archipelago is perhaps only a myth. But the moment it has been politically and legally strengthened by the notion of Wawasan Nusantara the myth can form a basis for a certain system of action. Incited by a strongly felt political anxiety, the myth may also change itself into an aggressive system of action. The failed integration of the former Portuguese Timor (East Timor) into the Republic of Indonesia can be said to be an unfortunate convergence between the enduring myth of the oneness of archipelago and the New Order’s political alarm on the possibility of having a leftist, independent small state right in the heart of Indonesia. When the New Order government finally intervened in the civil war that had erupted after the Portuguese decided to abandon the eastern part of the island of Timor, where they opened their first trading station in the early 16th century (not, apparently, without the almost constant opposition of the local people),82 Indonesia had not only abandoned its ideological belief, such as stated in the Preamble of the Constitution (“freedom is the right of every nation”), but had also landed itself in a military and political mess from which it could not liberate itself. In the process, Indonesia, which was once the darling of the liberation movement of the colonized people, began to be seen as an oppressor. To the end, the international community never recognized its occupation of East Timor. If the history of the central government’s efforts to tame Aceh and even, with some reservation, that of Irian Jaya/Papua can still be called part of Indonesia’s frustrating process of nation-building, the same thing cannot be said about its adventure in the former Portuguese colony. From an ideological perspective, one can say that the misadventure of occupying East Timor is an unfortunate deviation of history. If it were only a matter of a nationalistic dream, then one could say that Sukarno and Yamin had already in 1945 visualized the inclusion of

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Portuguese Timor in the fold of the Republic of Indonesia, but as an empirical fact, the history of the involvement of Indonesia in the region began when the incoming revolutionary government in Portugal decided to abandon its isolated post in the Indonesian archipelago in 1974. While Indonesia carefully watched the rapid course of events that had been taking place in its neighbour that was located right in the middle of its territory, in East Timor itself, several political parties began to compete in laying out the future of the soon-to-be-abandoned Portuguese colony.83 While watching on the fence, Indonesia, most notably, its military intelligence, did not conceal its sympathy to the small party, the APODETI (Associacao Popular Democratica Timorense). The party wanted to integrate the Portuguese colony with Indonesia. However, the biggest party, the UDT (Uniao Democratica Tomrense), which was supported by the mestico elite, the indigenous chiefs, and some Portuguese, called for democratization, income distribution, selfdetermination while remaining in federation with Portugal. Another political party, ASDT (Associacao Social Democrata Timorense), wanted to liberate Timor from colonial government. The party grew up from a secret group of young teachers and administrators. By the end of 1974, after the return of several radical young intellectuals who had been exposed to Marxism and Maoism from Portugal, ASDT had radicalized its political stance and finally changed its name to FRETILIN (Frente Revolutionaria de Timor-Leste Independente).84 There were other political parties but these three parties practically represented the three major political orientations in the colony — pro-integration with Indonesia, temporary federation with Portugal, and pro-independence. The growing strength of the leftist political orientation in East Timor’s political map alarmed Indonesia, the country that had just undergone its most traumatic ideological conflict. The more the Indonesian Government sensed that FRETILIN had a better prospect in the political competition, the higher the anxiety and the stronger the argument of the intelligence body to invade East Timor. For a few months (from January to May 1975), the FRETILIN and the UDT joined forces to face the growingly visible support of the Indonesian intelligence agencies for the APODETI. The alliance between the “rightist” and “the leftist” parties could not last long, however. The Indonesian

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intelligence body might have had a role in breaking up the strange marriage of the two opposing camps. In August, believing that the FRETILIN’s leftist leaning would destroy the chance of independence, the UDT staged a coup with the aim of expelling the communist elements from East Timor. The FRETILIN responded to the so-called coup by forming its military wing, the FALINTIL (Forcas Armada de Liberacao Nacional de Timor L’Este) and fought back. After three weeks of heavy fighting and much bloodshed, the FRETILIN managed to control practically the whole of East Timor, except a few villages near the border. The UDT had been defeated, but in the process, 1,500 to 3,000 East Timorese lost their lives and thousands of them fled to West Timor. Indonesia’s intelligence had lost the gamble — by waiting on the fence, hoping East Timor would crumble. The failure of the gamble demanded a more drastic change of policy. In October Indonesia sent its “volunteers” to help the cause of the pro-integration factions. However, Indonesia had to pay a high price for the so-called secret operation. In order cover up the operation, the “volunteers” might have killed five Australian journalists in Balibo. This is an accusation that continues to haunt Indonesia until the present. In the meantime, anticipating an Indonesian full-scale invasion, on 24 November the FRETILIN declared the independence of East Timor. The Indonesian Government saw this proclamation as nothing less than the emergence of a serious threat to its integrity. Suddenly it was no longer a matter of helping the underdog in its internal power struggle, but confronting a serious threat to the integrity of the state. Right at the heart of Indonesia an independent and leftist state had been established. “It is now important to determine what we can do to establish peace and order for the present and the future in the interest of the area and Indonesia,” Soeharto reportedly said to the visiting U.S. President, Gerald Ford, and his State Secretary, Henry Kissinger. ”We want your understanding we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action.” To this statement, Ford gave a simple answer; “We understand the problem and the intention you have.”85 The American leaders left Jakarta on 6 December and the next morning Indonesia launched its biggest invasion in history. The story of occupation had begun.86

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The realities of East Timor were there to be seen and experienced, but what did the rest of the country, particularly those in the capital city, know about the new venture of the state? On 17 December 1975, a provisional government in East Timor was formed. In May the next year, the government appointed 37 “representatives” of the new region to the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), which immediately voted for the integration of East Timor with the Republic of Indonesia. On 17 July, President Soeharto officially announced East Timor to be the 27th province of the Republic. By this announcement, the former Portuguese colony had joined the wagon of the era of development.87 New roads, new buildings and new schools were constructed. A university was established. East Timor received a higher budget per capita than even that allocated to East Java, the province with the highest income without oil and forest products. Gradually Bahasa Indonesia became widely used in a region where there were eight major languages. Portuguese, the language of a very small elite, was forbidden. Since the integration, the new province regularly sent its contingent to national sport competitions. Thomas Americo, a Timorese youth who had moved to Malang, East Java, became a national idol in the 1980s after winning a world boxing bout. Despite the accusation that the Indonesian army, mostly those who came from South Sulawesi, tried to Islamize the East Timorese youths, it was only under the Indonesian authorities that Catholicism ceased to be the religion of the elite. If under the Portuguese, only 30 per cent of the population of over 650,000 registered as Catholics, a few years after the integration, the percentage had increased to 90 per cent. Since Portuguese could no longer be used publicly, Tetum, the lingua franca of the non-elite, became the language of the church. Catholicism easily could be made a marker of difference in the Islamic sea to which East Timor was included by force. For the first time in history, the East Timorese acquired a very strong unifying institution and symbol. In 1989, Pope John Paul II visited Dili and was welcomed by thousands of the adoring crowd. The people in the rest of the country could observe the participation of the East Timorese in the political process of the New Order. The East Timorese elected their representatives to the local and national legislative bodies. The governor of East Timor and most of the heads of the districts,

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bupati, were the East Timorese themselves. A number of educated East Timorese joined the Indonesian diplomatic services. Some East Timorese youths joined the army or people’s militia. At the urging of the governor, who was hoping for the inflow of investment to the province, the government in 1988 decided to announce East Timor as an open province. With this decision, East Timor gradually became an integrated part of the country. People could come to East Timor and the East Timorese were allowed to live and make a living in regions outside their province. Asphalt roads linking East and West Timor were constructed and regular flights to and from Dili introduced. A new social dynamics seemed to have begun. In a relatively short time, the new province attracted people from other islands, with most of the migrants coming from South Sulawesi and Bali. From the perspective of the newspaper readers in Jakarta and other big cities, it was obvious that by 1990, East Timor had already become a full member of the national community, except for the fact that the international community still officially refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the inclusion of East Timor. It was indeed “the pebble in the shoe”, as the former Foreign Minister Ali Alatas later titled his book on the issue. Suddenly on 12 November 1991, the Santa Cruz tragedy took place.88 The whole nation was shocked by the news. It took place when everything seemed to have been running smoothly. The atrocities that took place on that very unfortunate day not only exposed the continuing problems of integration in new province but also, to the chagrin of the growingly critical political public, the suffering of the people of East Timor under the militaristic policies of the New Order. The tragedy revealed how the so-called development efforts had practically intensified social discrepancies and multiplied the number of jobless educated youth. In 1990, more than 20 per cent of the labour force between the ages of 15 to 25 was unemployed in Dili alone.89 In that moment of truth, suddenly people in other parts of Indonesia realized that the predicament of East Timor could be compared to that of Aceh and West Papua rolled into one, but on a much grander and frustrating scale.90 The exodus of the immigrants began. Whatever optimistic perception one might have been cultivating on the future of East Timor as the newest province of the Republic, the tragic

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incident simply dashed it away. Torture and murder for the sake of order and security became public knowledge. President Soeharto might have punished the responsible commanders, but the concerned intellectuals in several university cities, most notably in Jakarta, held a number of discussions and workshops. What really happened in East Timor and what kind of social and political remedies should be introduced to the unfortunate province? When recommendations had been defined and made public, some knowledgeable persons could not help but feel sorry for the serious and sincere efforts. Most of the recommendations had actually been made many years ago. As such, the recommendations should have turned into policies long before the tragic events took place. However, one has to accept the fact that academic considerations rarely, if ever, went along with political and economic expediencies. In late 1992, the Indonesian army managed to capture Xanana Gusmao, the leader of FRETILIN. He was brought to Jakarta, but instead of becoming a subject of hatred, he was gradually changed from a subject of curiosity into an admired personality. In spite of the government’s good intentions, time had apparently already run out for the future of East Timor within the fold of Indonesia. “If the people of East Timor are now asked to choose between [being] independent and to remain to be part of Indonesia,” a lecturer of the local university in Dili, himself a Catholic Sumatran, once said privately in 1995, “the huge majority would reject the second alternative.”91 The revived interest of the international community on the issue also did not help Indonesia’s case. Since the early 1980s, the number of spontaneous migrants throughout the archipelago had already more than doubled that of the governmentsponsored transmigration programme. During the period of economic boom the potential and real negative impact of the rather rapid geographical mobility within the context of the highly centralized authoritarian state could to some extent be taken lightly. Local conflicts could simply be treated as a purely local affair. The central government could still have the luxury of treating this problem half-heartedly. In Irian Jaya and later also in East Timor (since 1988), the spontaneous migration not only brought about social and economic discrepancies, but also led to serious political implications. The well-connected and relatively more dynamic migrants

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gradually managed to dominate the economy, job markets and the bureaucracy. In the process, they only left a few positions to the local born people. The political consequence of these social tendencies was clear enough — the nation-state had repeated the sociological irony of the colonial state it had replaced. It opened up the opportunities for the people to get middle and higher education, but at the same time it also produced a large number of disgruntled and deeply disappointed “internal proletariats”, who could easily be persuaded to search, or even to fight, for a better and more congenial political realm. When economic and social disparities and injustices were translated in cultural and religious terms, the religious and ethnic sense of justice easily became the predominant factor in moulding the system of action. That was also the time when the door for compromise was closed. One of the problems in the efforts to maintain, and strengthen, national integration was the low degree of sensitivity of the central government to the political implications of local social issues. On the whole, one may say that in confronting local issues, the New Order regime tended to perceive them from an economic perspective. Rarely, if ever, did the regime in power look carefully at the socio-political implications of the emergence of local social and cultural plurality. The government might rapidly increase their expenditure in, or give grants to, the needy provinces, particularly the poor ones in Eastern Indonesia, in order sustain their economies,92 but it left the non-economic consequences of the efforts to the local authorities. In a highly centralized state, one can naturally ask oneself “how large were the authorities of the local administration in solving the problems that had in effect national implications?” The central government might have simply thought that the migrants could always return to their respective regions of origin in case the situation in the new place of residence was no longer felt to be suitable for making a living. Many books and articles have been written, many memoirs and recollections of the East Timorese published, and a number of national and international seminars and conference held, to show the illegitimacy of Indonesia’s occupation, the complicity of world power politics, the heroic resistance of the East Timorese, and the suffering of the gallant nation. More

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than anything else, it was the harsh occupation of Indonesia that really forged a sense of nationhood among the East Timorese. If the meaning of the proverbial expression that learning a lesson is acquiring the wisdom to avoid making the same mistake and having the good judgment to follow the successful route to achieving the goal, then one can say that the tragedy lies in the fact that Indonesia cannot learn a lesson from its political and historical fiasco in East Timor. The blunder can only be perceived as a sad and poignant experience to endure. The case of East Timor is something that cannot be repeated. Once it happened, it became a history to contemplate on. The misadventure in East Timor is another traumatic tragedy Indonesia has to bear in the process of nation-building. The case proves again that great ideas that are located within the fold of an authoritarian political system may eventually create a monster from which no state can escape without serious scratches to its body and self-esteem. In the meantime there were other challenges that had to be faced. The test to President Soeharto’s daring remarks on the need to be prepared to enter the process of globalization came too soon. When the contagion effects of the Asian monetary crisis hit Indonesia, all the rotten socioeconomic elements came to the surface and Soeharto had to face the hardest fact in his life.

Money, Power and Dissent In its famous but controversial report, the World Bank classified Indonesia as one of the “high performing Asian economies.”93 This assessment was based on the fact that by the 1990s, the New Order had succeeded in bringing Indonesia from among the ranks of the poorest low-income countries to the group of lower middle-income countries. Over the period from 1965–97, the economy managed to grow an average of 7 per cent per year. This meant that every decade, Indonesia’s real gross national product roughly doubled. By the 1990s, the New Order had also succeeded in bringing the country from being a largely agrarian economy to the early critical stage of an industrial economy. As can be expected, the relative rapid economic growth led to significant social structural changes. It was under the New Order that Indonesia experienced a significant reduction in

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its agricultural labour force, the enlargement of the old urban centres and the growing number of new ones, the greater role of trade in the economy, and naturally, within the context of a centralized state, the increasing role of the central government in the economy. Soeharto had indeed every right to be proud of the fact that rapid economic growth had also led to the rising of standards of living and the gradual elevation from absolute poverty. If statistics can be taken as representative of social reality then one can say with confidence that the benefits of Indonesia’s rapid growth “have been distributed reasonably fairly”. However, the moment the problem of ownership is taken into account, another picture is bound to emerge. Until November 1996, according to the data produced by the office of the State Minister/Chairman of National Development Planning Agency, there were 33.5 million enterprise units. Out of this number, only 66,428 units or 0.21 per cent could be classified as “middle” or “big” enterprises, but they controlled 61.1 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product. The rest, 99.79 per cent or 33.4 million units could only produce 38.9 per cent of the GDP.94 Suddenly as an economist puts it, “Indonesia’s equity picture is complicated by ethnic and regional dimensions. It is no exaggeration to state that the country’s social integrity and cohesion will be threatened as long as there are sharp divisions between the pribumi and the non-pribumi and between the richer and the poorer provinces.”95 The political significance of the latter has been briefly discussed above but the former — that is the division between the pribumi and the non-pribumi — was a far more complex problem. It was not simply a matter of public resentment to the question of how come “they, the non-pribumi could get easily richer while we, the pribumi, remain poor”. The problem was closely tied with the question of power alliances that emerged in the pro-pembangunan, development, and pro-growth government of the Pancasila state. The sociological implication of social- economic disparities, however, was clear enough. The process of the enlargement of the economic middle class was not in tune with the relatively rapid economic growth. “The key to understanding power in Indonesia is realizing that the New Order is essentially a coalition among ABRI, the bureaucracy, and the Chinese,” as “one thoughtful Indonesian” said to an optimist writer on

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the future of Southeast Asia. “These are the most powerful factions in a political economy dominated by factional alliances.”96 The informant might have forgotten the important place Soeharto was still occupying on the political map. Or perhaps, more likely, he saw Soeharto as the apex of the three power centres in the New Order’s political economy. Was it not President Soeharto who was not only constitutionally but also, one may add, historically, the Supreme Commander of the ABRI in the New Order? Was he, being the Chief Executive, not the head of the bureaucracy? The “thoughtful Indonesian” was certainly not referring to the Chinese communities, who may constitute about 2.11 per cent of the Indonesian population.97 He was most likely referring to the very few Sino-Indonesian conglomerates that controlled a large percentage of the economy. A number of them were known to have good personal relations with Soeharto and some of them were even his close friends, whose acquaintance can be traced back to the revolutionary period and early 1950s. As a political entity, the bureaucracy was practically represented by GOLKAR, which was at the same time a political party, an electoral machine of the regime, and, together with the army, a training centre for the ruling elite. The “thoughtful Indonesian”, however, was right in suggesting that, in effect, the so-called “factional alliances” were also a relatively closed entity. It was not easy for the newcomers, let alone those considered to be the outsiders, to get into the circle. As time went by, it became common knowledge that only those who had been groomed by the powers-that-be could have any possibility of entering “the mansion of power”, at the local level and, naturally, at the centre of power. Who did not know the simple political fact that only after the President had unofficially made his decision, could members of the local legislature (DPRD) officially elect the new governor? The name of the person to be elected had been whispered in the ears of the majority of the honourable members. The longer the New Order was in power, the greater the impression that gradually, the regime had practically translated the relatively abstract notion of negara kekeluargaan, the state hat was based on family values, into a negara keluarga, the family’s state. If, in the beginning of the New Order period, the President still felt the need for including two or three leaders of

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the political parties outside GOLKAR (PPP and PDI) in the cabinet, since the early 1980s, he could simply forget the two political parties. Only the leaders of GOLKAR and the active or retired military officers had the chance to be appointed as ministers in Soeharto’s cabinet. In his last cabinet (1998), he appointed his eldest daughter, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana (better known as Mbak — sister — Tutut born 1949) and one of his closest friends (Muhammad “Bob” Hassan), the timber tycoon, as the ministers. It was even widely rumoured that most of the ministers were either recommended or approved by the daughter. Whatever the case may be, one thing was obvious, the daughter had emerged as a strong political figure despite the fact that she only occupied a rather low-ranking cabinet post (Minister of Social Affairs). Statistically speaking, it is not at all important; however, symbolically it says many things. From this perspective one may say that the election of Soeharto as the President for the seventh consecutive time was not only secured by the fact that he was supported by GOLKAR and the military/ police factions in the MPR. His chance to be elected was also helped by the fact that his four children and one daughter-in-law plus one half brother and one cousin were members of the MPR. The wives of four ministers were also members of the MPR. Most of the wives of the governors were appointed as members of the MPR as representatives of the provinces from where they came from. The wives and relatives (children or younger brothers or sisters) of the leaders of the DPR and that of several former ministers still had the nerve to join the political wagon.98 In short, one may say, with a little exaggeration, to be sure, that the New Order that was established — as what the then Acting President Soeharto said in his inaugural speech (1967) — to promote a healthy democratic system had, in effect, transformed itself into a closed system of oligarchy in a greedy state. The strong tendency of the oligarchy to monopolize power (plus the ideology and the nation’s collective memory) and its determination to maintain and to strengthen economic dominance finally brought the nation and the state to its most serious crisis. The First Family can be taken as the model of a perfect system of political and economic oligarchy. As the President of a state that was based on an executive-heavy constitution (the 1945 Constitution), Soeharto was

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already one of the strongest Presidents on earth. Since he was certain that the ability of the state to promote the welfare of the people was very limited, he felt it was only proper for him to find non-budgetary sources of financial support to help the situation. He decided to make himself the benevolent ruler of a poor country. Soeharto established and directly controlled one, then two, and finally more than ten yayasan, charitable foundations. In order to accumulate the assets of the yayasan, he issued a Presidential instruction that obliged state-owned enterprises, such as banks and oil companies or others, to contribute about 8 per cent of their profits to the foundations. When the foundations had grown in size, they could either have their own enterprises, or more likely, become one of the biggest shareholders of the privately owned banks or other enterprises. But who were the partners or the other shareholders? If that is the question, then we meet the second component of the so-called “factional alliance”. They were the Sino-Indonesian conglomerates that might have given the yayasan some shares in their respective enterprises. Soeharto’s Yayasan Dharmais and Yayasan Dakap, for example, each received a 6.39 per cent share in Liem Sioe Liong’s PT Indocement Tunggal Prakasa. By the 1980s, the Yayasan Dharmais, Supersemar and Dakap held 72.6 per cent of the shares in the Bank Duta. When in 1990 the Bank Duta lost a huge amount of money (around USD 450 million) for its failed venture on the foreign exchange roller coaster, it was bailed out by Liem Sioe Liong and Prayogo Pangestu, two of the biggest Sino-Indonesian conglomerates as well Soeharto’s good personal and business friends. Naturally, as a token gratitude, they would receive profitable new concessions and contracts from either the state or the state-owned enterprises. Suharto’s yayasan owned 80 per cent of the Nusamba, while Bon Hasan, his golf chum, had ten per cent of it. Mrs Soeharto and the children also have their respective yayasan.99 Like those yayasan under the supervisions of the head of the family, these philanthropic enterprises, the yayasan, not only received such and such a percentage of the profits of the state-owned enterprises, but they also had shares in several privately owned enterprises, most likely those in partnership with the SinoIndonesian conglomerates.100 The First Lady’s several yayasan, for example, had hotels, hospitals, and the Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (Beautiful Indonesia

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in Miniature) on the outskirts of Jakarta. No one could argue that the foundations had made some important contributions to the welfare of the society. The meritorious acts ranged from giving scholarships to needy children to the building of modern and well-equipped specialist hospitals. Yet the way they accumulated their assets and their unspoken function as a vehicle to cement the unity of the several factions in the oligarchy could easily raise sensitive issues of political and ethical propriety. In the mid-1970s, it was only Soeharto’s oldest son who was directly engaged in business. By the middle of 1980s, almost all of his children had become active in the numerous profitable enterprises. Without exception, each one of them received all kinds of state facilities with, or without, the knowledge of the father. By the middle of the 1990s, each of the children had emerged as the big companies in their own right. Each one of them had already engaged in various fields of business activities — agricultural products, chemical industries, satellite communications, banking, mass communication/TV, automotives, toll roads, or other ventures that promised huge profits. Again each one of them received highly profitable contracts from Pertamina — the relationship that caused serious bleeding to the state oil company — and the other big state-owned enterprises.101 It was reported that 77 companies owned or partly owned by the six Suharto’s children and his grandson had contractual relationships with Pertamina.102 In 1993, the monopoly of the state-owned P.T. Telkom on telecommunications was broken by the awarding of the licences, without pay, to Satelindo, a company controlled by Bambang Triatmodjo (born 1953), Soeharto’s second son, to operate international direct-dial and mobile services. If the opinion of their father can be accepted, the President’s children had really made themselves an important backbone of the growing economic clout of the pribumi. If that was “really” the case, then the scandalous, but successful efforts of the third son Hutomo Manoala Putra (born 1962) to make his company the sole “mediator” between the clove farmers and the kretek-cigarette factories should also be understood properly. The fact that this venture had caused Bank Indonesia to lose a huge amount of money and thousands of clove farmers to go almost bankrupt could perhaps be blamed on some unknown factors. Similar “understanding” should also be given to the so-called mobil

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nasional, national car, again another incredible venture of the third son, although, as a matter of fact, the cars were imported ready-made from Korea, with enormous tax facilities.103 The fact that the control of the new toll road encircling Jakarta was in the hands of his oldest daughter should also be explained as the active participation of the children in the national development. Yet since in the people‘s estimate, the toll fee was rather high by the late 1980s’ standard, they simply opposed it by using a very familiar “weapon of the weak” — that is, by cracking a political joke. “If in India there is Taj Mahal, then in Jakarta, there is toll mahal (expensive).” Bimantara, Humpuss, and Citra Lamtorogung can certainly be cited as three of the biggest holding companies in the New Order’s Indonesia. Although the children had the major shareholdings in their respective holding companies, as a matter of political, as well as economic, strategy, they invited the participation of others in the equity holdings of the companies. Some of their companies were registered on the stock exchange. In their turn, they might also have shares in the companies of the conglomerates, either by buying up some shares, or simply by receiving the shares free of charge from the founders, or the majority shareholders. It was common knowledge that they had their shares — in their respective individual capacities — in some of the newly formed foreign companies. Given the fact that each of the children had such intricate links to business, who would then be surprised to learn that several studies have been made on the way the three holding companies and other companies owned by the children, were quite often in competition among themselves? By studying the growth of their companies and the ways they conducted their businesses, one would certainly get a better understanding of the nature of the relationship between political power and economic ventures, the working system of the so-called “factional alliances” and the decolonization of the corrupt practices of power arrangements in the New Order’s Indonesia. The members of the First Family were the models for, and at the same time, the most powerful links in the intricate business connections of the bureaucratic section of the political and economic oligarchy. A number of the still serving ministers and former ministers who were lucky enough to become the confidantes of the President might also have had their own business-

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cum-political profitable ventures. The classic example was B.J. Habibie, who was appointed as the Minister of Research and Technology in 1978. He was specifically instructed by the President to develop high-tech industries. He transformed the small airplane industry of the Air Force into a gigantic stateowned aircraft manufacturing company (IPTN). He was in charge of a shipbuilding company and responsible for changing the sparsely populated island of Batam into a booming industrial complex. He was also entrusted to tackle other industrial ventures. In the process, as widely rumoured at that time, how could he refrain from the temptation of inviting his relatives to be involved in the related businesses? At the lower level, one can imagine, with the support of available empirical facts, that the relatives of some, if not all, governors and former governors, were also involved in the lucrative economic ventures. At the first glance one can easily get the impression that they followed the example set by the First Family — chairing or participating in leading yayasan, having shares in the established companies, and inviting people to have shares in the companies in which they were the majority shareholders. Of course, being part of the emerging oligarchy, they could hope to get whatever laxity and facilities the powers-that-be could offer. For obvious reasons, the military/police establishment was also an important element in this unofficial political and economic power structure. The historical origin of the military involvement in high-level business ventures may well be traced to the period when the state under martial law, finally decided to employ military officers to run the newly nationalized Dutch enterprises. The deeper and wider participation of the “guardians of the Republic” in this rather lucrative venture, however, was due to the inability of the state to provide enough of the national budget for the military establishment. Pressed by the need for the soldiers to conduct their duties as the guardians of the Republic, many military commanders founded yayasan and, of course, business companies. The organization of the wives might also have its own yayasan. Under the chairmanship of the wife of the former commander of the army, who had become the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, their yayasan held the majority shares in several starrated hotels and specialist hospitals. As for the rest of the story of the economic ventures of “the businessmen in uniform”, as a critical former general put it, one can simply imagine the repetition of the already

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established practice among the members of the oligarchy, with perhaps, a slight difference. The military could be more enthusiastic than their civilian counterparts in pursuing the objectives of their business ventures and more willing to come down to the root of potential profit, no matter what. Finally one may wonder how the soldiers would behave in the restless and turbulent areas if they knew what the ruling oligarchy, to which their commanders belonged, had been doing while they had to face the uncertain future. Would they have remained loyal in their duty as the true guardians of the Republic, or would they have tried to take advantage of whatever was there in the violent regions? In the meantime, the social and political restlessness of the regions continued. The First Family, the high bureaucrats and the military/police establishments might have the real power, but it was the Sino-Indonesian conglomerates that contributed much to the working relationship of the three important groups of the political oligarchy. The crucial, and one may say, strategic position of the Sino-Indonesian businessmen lies in the fact that they were the owners of their own companies, the minor shareholders of the companies that might be owned by some members of one of the three groups of the oligarchy, and not less importantly, the link between new established companies, that were managed by the newcomers, as well as the “advisers” to the newcomers. One can easily state that never in the history of modern Indonesia had the rich Sino-Indonesians had a better economic position than what they were having during the New Order. But there was a price to be paid for this privileged position. Their close working relationship with the political elite, without directly sharing the power, had practically made them captives as well as a beneficiaries of the growingly exclusive club of the economic oligarchy. In order to maintain this position, it is understandable that they should also make themselves ready to be the milk cows of the political elite and that of their political and social organizations. At the same time, they had to take the risk of being perceived as the “unelected representatives” of the Chinese communities in times of political and social turmoil. They could be easily perceived both as the ungrateful “guests” in a country of poverty-stricken people, and the frontmen of the corrupt political oligarchy. Hence they had unintentionally

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strengthened the traditional suspicion of the Chinese community as the corrupting element in the power structure. Any open and aggressive social resentment towards the political and economic oligarchy could simply be channeled to the least protected members of the Sino-Indonesian communities. It was mostly the ordinary and hardworking urban Chinese communities that became the targets of anger. By the beginning of the 1980s, the power and role of the technocrats, the economic planners, and the decision makers of the early period of the New Order, were significantly in decline. They had practically been relegated to the positions of planners of the national development programme and the bureaucrats to carry out and oversee the execution of the plan. It was the President, both as the Head of the State and the head of the oligarchy, who made the major economic decisions. Any opposition by the technocrats to the decisions the power holders were planning to make could simply be ruled out by the issuance of various types of Presidential orders. The power of the President became greater after he gave the State Secretary the task of controlling government contracts and the allocation of supplies in 1980. This strategic task could easily make the state-owned enterprises the biggest players in the economy and, under the nationalist oriented Minister/State Secretary, the office had the opportunity to enlarge the economic clout of the politically well-connected pribumi conglomerates or prospective conglomerates. Some of them might well have been former leaders of the student movements during the critical transition years from the Guided Democracy to the New Order, some others might have been the heirs of the once flourishing pribumi companies, but on the whole, one might say they were already on the fringe of the centre of power. When the time came — that was after the fall of Soeharto — these “new people” had already had the luxury of leaving their business ventures to their relatives or to the hired managers, and could, with full confidence, join the competition to become the selective occupants of “the mansion of power”. The New Order was, as its rulers never failed to state, a negara kekeluargaan with the aim to create a “just and prosperous society”. The New Order did not simply write the two ideas on paper but also promoted

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them through various channels, among others, by obliging school children of all levels, civil servants, and so-called “informal” local leaders to take courses on the state ideology and basic policy orientations. Whatever one might say about the effectiveness of these courses, one thing was clear — any newspaper reader could easily detect that there was a contrast between the teachings and empirical realities. The question is therefore, “How would the people react to the perceived contrasts?” In the beginning, it was only a matter of how one could exchange gossip about the economic activities of the First Family or occasionally make jokes about them. In 1978, for example, a bold graffiti was written on the wall of the already burnt down residence of the former Portuguese governor. “We are suffering here, but Sigit Soeharto (the eldest son, born in 1951) is getting richer.”104 The graffiti was certainly written by a soldier who had to gamble with his life in invading East Timor. In the mid-1980s, the people in Jakarta referred to the President’s children with a code name as if they were talking about political parties. Such and such company was owned by the PPP (not the Islamic party, but the Putra Putri Presiden, the sons and the daughters of the President) and that one might as well be controlled by the PDI (not the democratic party, but Presiden Dan Isteri, the President and his wife). By the beginning of the 1990s, when all “the sons and daughters” of the President had engaged themselves in various types of lucrative business ventures, the mass media could openly report their business activities by mentioning both their full names and nicknames. The tasks of the media became heavier, however, because by the mid-1990s, Soeharto’s grandson had jumped on the lucrative bandwagon. He unsuccessfully tried to monopolize the selling of liquor and beer in Bali. The hotel managers simply refused to buy. In the process, the word “scandal” ceased to be merely a semantic curiosity but a reality that had to be squarely confronted. In the beginning, it was only a matter of the freedom of information and the freedom to express an opinion. That was the time when opinion leaders and economic experts, as well as a number of entrepreneurs, began to openly criticize the plan of Hutomo (Tommy) Mandala Putra, the third son, to make his company the sole broker between the clove farmers and kretek industries, and the producer of the so-called national car. The President

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simply ignored the criticisms and forced the state-owned banks to grant the necessary credit to his favourite son. But when Tempo (1994) exposed publicly the controversy between the Minister of Research and Technology and the Minister of Finance on the price to buy used warships from Germany and the unhappiness of the Navy on the deal, the President simply ordered the Minister of Information to withdraw the publication licence of the newsweekly. The newsweekly had committed “an unpardonable sin” — it had not only exposed the rupture in the ranks of the political elite, but also the crack in the oligarchy. By then, however, the younger members of the politically conscious public in several big cities had grown fed-up with the scandalous behaviour of the oligarchy.105 In retrospect, it can be said that the year 1995, when the Republic of Indonesia celebrated its 50th Anniversary, was the last good year of the New Order. After that year, it was a slow downturn drift of the regime. If for argument’s sake, the far from satisfying situation in Aceh, Papua, and East Timor can be set aside, one can still say that since 1996 Java, the centre of the so-called “Inner Indonesia”, had begun to experience the impact of the weakening of society and the bureaucratization of the local leadership pattern. For whatever reason, any slight infringement on the sense of propriety and justice of the local community could easily trigger a major riot. The less-than-maximum punishment imposed on the person who had allegedly insulted the recently deceased, highly respected ulama (in Situbondo), the rude handling of the recalcitrant junior student by his seniors (in Tasikmalaya), the less-than-proper treatment of a female religious student who had been wrongly accused of stealing a package of chocolates from a Chinese-owned supermarket (in Purwakarta), and other small incidents, exploded into major riots in a matter of one or two days, with religious or ethnic overtones. In hindsight, one can say that these riots could, in fact, have been thwarted had the informal leaders managed to persuade the people to restrain their anger. But the informal leaders failed to sooth the communal anger, simply because their social clout had been deeply undermined by the success of the New Order in bureaucratizing the leadership pattern. In the meantime, there were also no state bureaucrats who could tackle the rapidly emerging problems, because it

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was exactly the prestige and the authority of the bureaucracy that had been put into serious question. The New Order had indeed succeeded in “nailing down” (as the observing American expatriate put it) most, if not all, of its potential opponents. All political and social organizations had been domesticated by forcing them to be based on the sole foundation that had been controlled by the state. The freedom of the press had been tampered with, both by the notion of “responsibility” and the right of the Minister of Information to withdraw the licence to print and publish. The state practically controlled everything, including the kind of music and songs to be performed on the state-owned TV. In this situation, the availability of proper channels to express social and political anxieties became a serious problem. If the feeling of social anxiety reached near-explosive point, then one can simply guess that instant-leadership would emerge to give directions. In the process, social anger would simply be channelled onto whatever target they could easily identify. The end result was obvious. Not only could the reputation of the government be seriously undermined, but social harmony was also put in serious danger. A more positive response to the challenge of the overpowering state and the political and economic dominance of the oligarchy was the mushrooming of national or local and sometimes religiously-based nongovernmental organizations (NGO). They were usually referred to as the lembaga swadaya masyarakat (LSM or the institute of social self-help). Some of them were active in community development projects, others in educational programmes for the underprivileged, helping people’s cottage industries, promoting intellectual discourse among youth, or other programmes. No less important were those whose main activities were to defend the right of the society against the possible intrusion of the state. There were also, albeit only a few, high-profile NGOs whose main activities were laying a healthier foundation for the democratization process in the political sense. As it turned out, these politically inclined NGOs could easily have been drawn into investigating the wheeling and dealing of the oligarchy. However at a time when the state already had hegemony on meanings, the existence of these divergent types of NGOs or LSM gave

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rise to the proliferation of new words that were free from the state. If the word “democracy” had been entirely under the domination of the state, why not talk about the nature of “civil society”? Small but energetic, and potentially politically “subversive” in their concerns, these NGOs quite often had their origins in university campuses. It took several years for the university students to liberate themselves from the domestication programme called “the normalization of campus life”, introduced by the Minister of Education in 1978. With this programme the students could no longer have their “council of students”, that covered all the students in the university, nor were the activities of the so-called “extrauniversity” student organizations allowed on the campus. In 1982 the students could have their own “study groups”. In the beginning, the members of each study group were exclusively the students from the same departments. The biological study-group could only recruit members from the department of biology. It was purely a group to study together to face the coming exams. Before long, in some major universities and Islamic institutes (IAIN), the study group’s interests could no longer be confined to the subject matter of their course work. They began to get interested in current social issues, such as the environment, globalization, postmodernism, and the ideas of popular names, such as Foucault, Ivan Illich, or other issues.106 Of course, some others might have been more interested in studying the relevance of religion, their religion, in the rapid social change. If the boundaries of scientific disciplines had been crossed over, the time had come when the members of the study groups began to look closely at the political and social situation they were in. If that indeed had taken place, then it took only a few steps before they entered into the realm of politics. In the meantime, student activists in many campuses began to establish their own “extra-university” study groups. Gradually the “politically domesticated” students managed to escape from the confinement of the so-called programme of the “normalization of campus life”. In the early 1990s, when the political parties and GOLKAR began their preparations to enter the general election, some student activists had already had the courage to express their political opinions openly while some others without hesitation simply rejected the legitimacy of the prevailing

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political system. It was from among the activists of the study groups, for example, that the PRD, the “leftist party” accused of being the mastermind behind “the 27 of July” riots after the morning attack on the PDI headquarters, was born. The over ideologically dominant greedy state of the New Order had apparently inspired the student activists to find new alternatives. Some of them studied the still forbidden teachings of Marxism and the history of the PKI and made themselves the banner carrier of the new Marxist party in Indonesia. It was also from among such study group members that the idea of the Islamic state was revived. And a host other possibilities were beginning to be entertained by the young minds who had become bored with the ideological hegemony of the New Order. Whatever their ideological and political orientations, by the middle of 1990s, the divergent university student groups had become a politically restless community. And, as they saw it, the corrupt oligarchy was there to be rejected. Until the very end, even after Indonesia had been hit by the monetary crisis, the oligarchy, under the leadership of the First Family, was still not aware of the fact that their less than proper economic ventures had been under the serious scrutiny of the growing number of critical students and LSM activists. Whatever success Soeharto had achieved in maintaining his power among the well-defined political groupings — the political parties, military establishment and others — through his well-tested ability in political manoeuvring, the size of the disenchanted political public continued to grow. They only needed a unifying cause and daring and inspiring leaders to emerge. When President Soeharto had to sign again the agreement with the IMF, after Indonesia transgressed many of the agreements in the first one, the cry of “Reformasi” could no longer be contained on university campuses and their vicinities. The event showed that Indonesia under Soeharto’s leadership had entered its most serious economic crisis. Since economic successes had from the beginning been the real solid foundation of the legitimacy of Soeharto’s New Order, the meaning of the economic crisis could not be other than the crisis of legitimacy itself. The students took their strong appeal for “reformasi” directly to where it could really matter — the parliament buildings. And to nobody’s surprise, the political public saw to it that the students were not at all alone.

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But not as the Wise Sage (Pandhito) On 17 October 1990, the police closed down a very commercially successful play that had been staged for a few days at the Jakarta art centre, Taman Ismail Marzuki. The name of the play was Suksesi, as if it was the name of a girl. It was the story of a king having difficulty in finding a successor. The news of the closing down of the popular play became a subject of discussion for a simple reason. The word suksesi, succession, had been one of the hottest political debates as well political rumours since the middle of 1980s. The central issue, however, was not the possibility of Soeharto running again for the fifth time. After all everybody knew that if he wanted to run, he would again be unanimously elected. The central issue was the proper interpretation of 1945 the Constitution. How many times can one occupy the highest position in the Republic? The 1945 Constitution is not very clear on this point. The Constitution only states that the President and Vice-President are to be elected every five years and after serving their terms “they can be elected again”. No provision is made on how many times one can be elected to the highest position. In the case of Soeharto, he had been elected “again” and “again”. Experts on the Malay/Indonesian language might argue that according to the tacit understanding of the language, the meaning of “again” in that context was “once” but, of course, they were talking about the semantic meaning, not the political implications of the use of the word. How about the proper understanding of the constitution? Soeharto himself stated that there was no need for a limit as long as one was not elected as the President for life. If that was the case, then it was certainly unconstitutional.107 In spite of some very polite suggestions expressed in public that it was better if Soeharto, at the peak of his leadership, withdrew from the nomination, he made himself unanimously re-elected. In the early 1990s, the political public in Jakarta began to talk again about the possibility of Soeharto’s withdrawal from the next presidential election. The issue took an important twist when Dr M. Amien Rais, a member of the central board of the Muhammadiyah brought the issue into a national conference of the organization. He bluntly suggested that the big Islamic organization should take a clear stand on the controversial political issue. If the Muhammadiyah would not mention the name of the next President, then it should bold

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enough to list the criteria of the person to be elected as the President. Should the Muhammadiyah follow this sensitive proposal? If the organization only followed the popular sentiment, it would have no choice but to make it one of the conference’s decisions, but matters were not as easy as they might seem. The fact that Muhammadiyah was not a political organization could certainly be played down as long as it was politically worthwhile. It was a dilemmatic question, nonetheless. It might not be too important politically, but the fact that Soeharto had publicly acknowledged that he was a former student of a Muhammadiyah school was symbolically significant. Would the Muhammadiyah abandon its own former student, who now happened to be the President of the country? Sentimentality aside, serious concern for the political implications of whatever clear-cut decision was made had already precluded the organization from taking a clear stand on the issue. Amin Rais’s proposal was taken out of the agenda but the issue did not die out. Soeharto was later, at the Muhammadiyah congress (muktamar) in Banda Aceh, to repeat the same claim, and asked the organization to forgive him in case his performance was not up to the high standard set by the Muhammadiyah. He hoped the organization that had nurtured him was not ashamed of having him as one of its former students. In order to counter the increasingly popular appeal of suksesi, Lieutenant General (retired) Alamsyah, the former Minister of Religious Affairs, who in the early period of the New Order belonged to Soeharto’s inner circle, successfully managed to assemble a national gathering of ulama in May 1992. About 37 Islamic organizations from several regions sent their representatives to the national gathering in Jakarta. At the end of the politically motivated gathering, the ulama took an oath that they sincerely supported the re-nomination of Soeharto to the Presidency.108 It was a major victory for Soeharto, who because of his disappointment with the military establishment for its failure to support Soeharto’s candidate for Vice-President (the State Secretary, Soedharmono), had given signs of abandoning his alleged anti-political Islam stance. Since the ulama had set an example, several groups also held their meetings and took an oath supporting Soeharto to be re-elected. He was of course re-elected for the sixth consecutive time.

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Soeharto might have proved himself to be a student who was better than his teacher, Sukarno, in building up a greedy state, but he never tried to emulate Sukarno’s personal style. Sukarno was a civilian but he rarely appeared in public without full military dress, with all the stars and medals, although with the national cap on his head. Since his election to the Presidency, Soeharto, the general, preferred to wear civilian dress, except on very special occasions. Sukarno could easily explode in public the moment he felt and knew that people had begun to question his stature as the great leader of the nation. Soeharto had a different style. At a time when the political public began to discuss the question of suksesi seriously, he calmly talked about the importance of attaching oneself to the constitution. Of course, he would say, he could be replaced as long as it was carried out in accordance with the constitution. But, as he put it in one of his very rare press interviews, which he usually gave on the returning plane from a trip abroad, “if it is not in accordance with the constitution, tak gebug (I would clobber)”. And he showed his fist. Indeed if not for anything else, Soeharto would always be remembered as a leader who had enriched Indonesia’s political vocabulary and expressions with Javanese words, just like Sukarno did with his Dutch, English, French, or even Latin expressions. Only on one occasion did Soeharto, who had certainly heard some political jokes about him, use a seemingly English word. “There are a number of people who said that I should stand aside because according to them I have reached the top”, he said smilingly. People laughed, because the word top was not at all used as an English word — it was an abbreviation for “tua, ompong, pikun” or “old, toothless, senile”. But behind the joke, there was a strong determination. In historical hindsight, one may now reflect that if the 1970s was the time when Soeharto had to carefully manage his newly acquired power, the 1980s was his “time of success”, the early 1990s was the time when he really felt he was the only one who mattered politically. After his re-election for the sixth time, no one could visualize any longer a time in Indonesia without Soeharto, at least not openly. His very presence at the centre of power seemed to have clouded the vision of the future. Suddenly the regional monetary crisis hit Indonesia (June 1997) badly. In a matter of weeks, the New Order’s Indonesia, once glorified as one of

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“the new Asian tigers”, was forced to return to the state from which it started. Indonesia had statistically been demoted to being one of the lowincome countries. If it was only a matter of macroeconomic calculations, perhaps only economists, economic planners, and the people in the business sectors, might worry about the crisis. It was not the case, however, because the crisis made its impact directly on the daily necessities and the economic future of the ordinary people. All prices of daily necessities went up beyond control. Immediately, the almost quiet students returned again to where they started at the end of the Guided Democracy. They again held “parliament sessions” in the places they could really control no matter how high the price might be. The places were the university campuses and the city’s main streets. They demanded that the government lower all prices. “Turunkan harga” (Lower the price) was the war cry of the student demonstrators in practically all important university cities in the country — Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Bandung, and many others. Before long the war cry was no longer addressed to the government but to themselves and to the public at large, because the word harga had ceased to be merely a word. It had become an abbreviation for (Soe) Harto dan keluarga (and family). The war cry meant nothing less than “Topple Soeharto and family!” That was the time when GOLKAR, the biggest winner of the 1997 election, officially announced that it wanted to nominate Soeharto again as the President. By then, Soeharto had somewhat mellowed. He had lost his beloved wife; he had perceived how some people had managed to outmanoeuvre him politically; he had made a political blunder in his dealings with the emergence of Megawati; he could also see how his handling of his children had lost him important support even from the kind of oligarchy he had successfully built, and now GOLKAR, the party he patronized and the one that had managed to become the real “single majority” (as its chairman, Harmoko, had sworn to get) wanted him again as the next President. He had no doubt about the sincerity of GOLKAR leadership; after all they were there — at the apex of political power — because of him. But did GOLKAR really represent the voice of the majority of the people? “Is it true the majority of the people still trust me?” he asked in the meeting with GOLKAR leaders (October 1997). “If the people

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can no longer trust me, I have no problem with it. Because I would place myself in the succession philosophy of the wayang: “lengser keprabon, mandek pandhito” (step down as the king, become a sage). And finally he said, perhaps in earnest, “If later it turns out the people can no longer trust, I have no problem with it”.109 Many people thought that Soeharto made himself available again because he did not want to run away from his responsibility to solve the monetary crisis that had begun to sap many aspects of the state. He wanted to bring Indonesia back on the right track. He was unanimously elected. In spite of the efforts of a great number of intellectuals to oppose his candidate for Vice-President, his choice, B.J. Habibie, was also unanimously elected. But his time was already running out. The simple war cry of the students had become more and much more sophisticated. Negatively, it could simply be summarized as the strong opposition to the very foundation of the Soeharto oligarchy that was KKN (korupsi, kolusi, nepotisme — “corruption, collusion, and nepotism”). The overall programme was summarized in one word that is reformasi — that wanted to transform the whole structural foundation of the New Order. By that time the students, with their many groups and organizations, no longer had the monopoly of the “street parliaments” Other social groups had joined the opposition. On 12 May 1998, a political calamity took place in restless Indonesia — four students died as “martyrs of the reformasi” during a street demonstration. On 14–15 May, Jakarta was hit by the biggest and worst riot in memory. Many buildings were robbed and burnt and some hundreds of people lost their lives. That was also the time when the raping of Indonesian women and girls of Chinese descent was widely reported. It was perhaps the worst and most scandalous riots Jakarta, or perhaps Indonesia, ever experienced. Soeharto had to rush home from Cairo, where he was attending the Conference of the Non Aligned Nations. He held several meetings and promised to begin the process of reformasi, but to his chagrin, he found out that he had been left alone. He held a meeting with several selected Muslim leaders asking for their opinions and advice to solve the crisis only to be told that the real meaning of reformasi was a change of President. When the crisis escalated with a series of delegations coming to the MPR and thousands

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of students swarming all over the buildings, the leaders of the MPR, under the chairmanship of the very person he had groomed, Harmoko, politely but publicly asked him to step down. While he was still making a list of potential members of the soon-to-be-reshuffled cabinet, fourteen of his ministers wrote him a letter informing him that they did not want to serve in his next cabinet. On 21 May, Soeharto chose the only way that was still available to him — writing a letter to the MPR that he resigned from the Presidency. When the thousands students who had occupied the parliament/ MPR buildings learned this news they hugged each other, cried, laughed, danced, and were speechless.110 Has the new era begun? Sukarno never admitted Hatta’s accusation that his revolution reflect Nietzsche’s famous dictum — “the revaluation of all values”, although both his speeches and actions clearly reflect that apt expression. Soeharto in his own way and without ever stating it, explicitly wanted to reverse the trend. He gradually introduced the sphere where “the homogenization of all values” could take place. In politics one of his earliest decisions was to disband the communist party and to hunt down in whatever way its members and sympathizers. Later he weakened political parties even after they had been regrouped and reorganized. In ideology, the New Order could only tolerate azas tunggal, the sole foundation, which was the Pancasila. With the slogan persatuan dan kesatuan, unity and oneness, his regime not only introduced a highly centralized system, but also tried to abolish traditional differences among the local communities. He was much more obsessed with the idea of unity and uniformity than Sukarno ever was. If Sukarno saw the absolute need of unity of the three major ideological trends — Islamism, nationalism, and communism — Soeharto simply forcefully erased communism and changed the nature of the other two into “spiritual- materialism” and “material-spiritualism”, whatever they may mean. Both should find their places within a clearly defined state ideology, the Pancasila. But history simply shows that whichever approach the two successive Heads of State took in dealing with Indonesian cultural and ideological pluralities, as it turned out, they produced the same disastrous social and political consequences. Whoever was to blame for the terror that took place on the night of 30 September 1965, one thing is, however, certain. The night of terror shows

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that Sukarno’s revolutionary state had unintentionally created intense polarization in the society. Once the power that kept the growing social polarization at bay had been weakened, the demon of conflict came out to settle the score. Suddenly not only was the survival of the revolutionary regime threatened, but the seeds of conflict that had unwittingly been sown came out in an ugly mood of revenge. Soeharto’s homogenizing policies — by making Pancasila the sole foundation, depolitizing Islam and ethnicity, introducing the uniformity of the village administration system and so forth — finally ended up with the emergence of a multidimensional conflict situation. The New Order’s harmonious world had turned into a society that was facing an acute crisis of mutual distrust. Whatever their differences they might have had, both Sukarno and Soeharto were the patrons of their respective greedy states, which unfortunately could only sustain themselves as long as their patrons were still able to function properly. Sukarno was right when he said that there was no ending journey for a struggling nation. The moment the nation builders began to embark on the journey to reach the completion of national integration they ought to realize that it was a journey that knew no end. Every success that could be reached in the poignant process of nation-building was actually nothing but a terminal in the never-ending journey. It was a terminal that demanded, on the one hand, that one look ahead — to visualize the future — and on the other, that one contemplate the route that had just been traversed. In the more than half a century of its existence as a nation-state, Indonesia has had its share of success stories to tell and tragic ones to contemplate upon. By looking at these stories, one may lament the fact that the same pattern of mistakes was repeated over and over again. Many of the sad stories may be interpreted as the time when a terminal in the journey had been taken simply as a stepping-stone for going ahead rather than the time to reflect on the past. The fall of Soeharto can therefore be taken as another test case — would the nation go ahead in reaching the ideals, that been formulated and fought for by the founding fathers of the nation. Would it be able to liberate itself from the shackles of history that is clouded by the sphere of revenge? Would it now be able to visualize the future with an open heart and mind?

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NOTES 1

Soeharto, My Thoughts, Words and Deeds: An Autobiography, as told to G. Dwipayana and Ramadhan K.H., translated by Sumadi and edited by Mut’iah Lestiono (Jakarta: P.T. Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, 1991), pp. 1–5. 2 In spite of his accomplishments as a division commander of the TNI, Soeharto was not highly regarded by his superiors. Compared with the other generals, he was not well known among the politically conscious public in the national capital. On Suharto’s career, see R.E. Elson, Suharto: A Political Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 3 See for example the friendly on and off debates between Sukarno and the famous visiting American journalist, Louis Fischer, on this matter, in the latter’s book, The Story of Indonesia (New York, Evanston & London: Harper & Row Publisher, 1959), op. cit. 4 From BPS (Central Bureau of Statistics) and other sources quoted by Terence Hull, “Fertility Decline in the New Order Period: The Evolution of Population Policy 1965–1990”, in Indonesia’s New Order: The Dynamic of Socio-Economic Transformation, edited by Hal Hill (St. Leonards, N.S.W., Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1994), pp. 123–45. 5 The adjective “traditional” should be used to differentiate it from “official” villages, which are in most cases only a half or a third of the original village. The Law 5/1979 had practically destroyed the administrative unity of the old ones. 6 Gavin Jones, “Labour Force and Education”, in Hill, ibid., pp. 145–78 (quotation, p. 161). 7 Quoted in Christine Drake, National Integration in Indonesia: Patterns and Policies (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989), pp. 62–64. 8 Personal communication from Prof. Bernd Nothofer of the University of Frankfurt, who has done some preliminary linguistic research on the island of Enggano, 2001. 9 Soeharto, p. 277. 10 On the expansion of the communication system, see Drake, National Integration, pp. 119–23. 11 On the ethnic composition, see Leo Suryadinata, Evi Nurvidya Arifin, and Aris Ananta, eds., Indonesia’s Population: Ethnicity and Religion in a Changing Political Landascape (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2003). 12 Syarief Ibrahim Alqadrie, “Factors in Ethnic Conflict, Ethnic Identity and Consciousness, and the Indications of Disintegrative Processes in West Kalimantan”, in Communal Conflict in Contemporary Indonesia (Jakarta: Center for Languages and Cultures/Kondrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2002), pp. 125–53.

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In spite of the weak foundation of the attempt, Hatta made his personal “testament” for Sukarno’s eldest son, Guntur Sukarnoputra, public. In the testament he emphasized the fact that Guntur’s father was the first to formulate the Pancasila. There are, however, substantial differences between Sukarno’s Pancasila speech and the final content of the Pancasila, such as is stated in the Preamble of the Constitution. This portion on the Wawasan Nusantara is based on Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, “The Concept of the Indonesian Archipelago” in Indonesia: Government and Politics, edited by Verindar Grover (New Delhi: Deep & Deep Publications PVT Ltd, 2000), pp. 67–83. The author, a prominent expert on maritime law, was one of the architects of the Wawasan Nusantara concept. A leading member of the “45 Generation” (Angkatan 45) — the state-sponsored organization of former leaders of the 1945 revolution — recounted this event in disgust a few weeks after Soeharto’s refusal. The Angkatan 45 was officially authorized (with the Bank Indonesia) to publish the commemorative gold coin. The President said this when the writer, requested by the Minister/State Secretary, saw him to present a book on the National Revolution, September 1997. Jamie Mackie and Andrew MacIntyre, “Politics”, in Hill, ed., Indonesia’s New Order, p. 29. Hal Hill, ed., Unity and Diversity: Regional Economic Development in Indonesia since 1970 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 53. Steven Schlosstein, Asia’s New Little Dragons: The Dynamic Emergence of Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1991), p. 110. It was officially announced by the Minister/Commander of the Army on 16 October 1965 (Surat Keputusan no 977/9/1966). Soeharto, pp. 100–01. In the answer he gave to The Times in 1973, President Soeharto said 2,457 persons belonged to category A, and 26,650 to category B. Quoted in Roland Challis, Shadow of Revolution: Indonesia and the Generals (Thrupp, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing Limited, 2001), p. 163. The Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security issued an elaborate meaning of the concept of “clean environment”. Quoted as an Appendix in Asia Watch, “Injustice, Persecution, Eviction: A Human Rights Watch Update on Indonesia and East Timor” (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1990), pp. 9–94. Soeharto, p. 364. See Joshua Baker, “State of Fear: Controlling the Criminal Contagion in Suharto’s New Order” in Violence and the State in Suharto’s Indonesia, edited by Benedict R.O’G. Anderson (Ithaca, New York: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 2001), pp. 20–53.

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As had already been predicted, the MPR passed the bill in December 1984. He stated this in one of his Friday sermons at the Syuhada Grand Mosque in Yogyakarta. From personal recollection. A shortened version of this quotation can be found in Abdul Aziz Thaba, Islam dan Negara dalam Politik Orde Baru (Jakarta: Gema Insan Press, 1996), p. 272. In reality, it should be emphasized that the course of events that led to the acceptance of the Pancasila as the “sole foundation” was far more complex and emotional. Inside information from the person who was deeply involved in the process, as the President’s “envoy”. Personal recollection, 1984. See Tim Penyusun Pusat Studi dan Pengembangan Informasi (PSPI), Tanjung Priok Berdarah (Jakarta: Gema Insani, 1998). On the trials of the people accused of being directly or indirectly involved in the “Tanjung Priok Affair”, see Indonesia: Muslims on Trial (London: Tapol, 1987). Irfan S. Awwas, Trauma Lampung Berdarah: Di Balik Manuver Hendro Priyono (Yogyakarta: Wihdah Press, 2000). The book is a collection of newspaper and newsmagazine clippings when the event was brought again to public scrutiny in 1999 and 2000. In his introduction, the “editor” tends to blame Hendropriyono, who in 1999 had become the Minister of Transmigration in the Habibie’s cabinet. Two clippings of Hendropriyono’s press interviews are also included. Abdul Syukur, Gerakan Usroh di Indonesia: Peristiwa Lampung 1989 (Yogyakarta: Ombak, 2003). He is better known as a choreographer and a song- writer. The head and stage director of the Swara Mahardhika, Guruh used to perform in extravaganza dance performances. This is one of the reasons Guntur Sukarnoputra, the oldest son, and Rachmawati Sukarnoputri, who many believed to be the most politically astute Sukarno’s offspring, refused to join the party. Guntur remained consistent in the decision, but Rachmawati later — after the fall of Soeharto — established her own Sukanoist political party and emerged as the strongest opponent of her older sister. Sukmawati, the youngest sister, also joined the political foray and became the chairperson of another Sukanoist political party. Both parties did not do well in the general election of 2004. See for example, Stevan Enklöf, Indonesian Politics in Crisis: The Long Fall of Suharto, 1996–98 (Copenhagen: NIAS, 1999), pp. 23–49. See also, Sumarno, Megawati Soekarnoputri: Dari Ibu Rumah Tangga sampai Istana Negara (Depok: Penerbit Rumpun Dian Nugraha, 2002), pp. 10–34. On the event, see for example, Jakarta Crackdown (Jakarta: Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), Asia Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUMASIA), Institute for the Studies on Free Flow of Information (USAI), 1997). The

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Indonesian version of the book is Peristiwa 27 Juli, Jakarta, 1997 (two printings — January and October). See also 1996: Tahun Kekerasan; Potret Pelanggaran HAM di Indonesia (Jakarta: Yayasan Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Indonesia, 1997), pp. 3–19. The programme was initially funded by the Ford Foundation and organized by the cooperation of the Social Science Foundation (Yayasan Ilmu-Ilmu Social), the Ministry of Education and the Syiahkuala University. After ten years it was taken over the University. The program was proposed by Prof. Clifford Geertz of Princeton University, who was commissioned by the Ford Foundation to design a programme for the development of social sciences in Indonesia. Dayan Dawood and Sjafrizal, “Aceh: The LNG Boom and Enclave Development” in Unity and Diversity: Regional Economic Development in Indonesia since 1970, edited by Hal Hill (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 115. See Taufik Abdullah, “Islam, Sejarah dan Politik di Aceh” in his Islam dan Masyarakat: Pantulan Sejarah Indonesia (Jakarta: LP3ES, 1987). This article was partly based on field research conducted in 1983. Quoted in M. Isa Suleiman, Aceh Merdeka: Ideologi, Kepemimpinan dan Gerakan (Jakarta: Al-kautsar, 2000), p. 7. When Sjafruddin Prawiranegara, the former chairman of the PDRI, as the Deputy Prime Minister in the Hatta cabinet (1949),was stationed in Kutaraja (now called Banda Aceh), he took with him Hasan Tiro, then a student of the UII in Yogyakarta. In Kutaraja, Hasan Tiro worked as a liaison officer between the office of the Deputy Prime Minister and that of the Resident of Aceh. He was then appointed the private secretary to the Resident, Teuku Chik Daudsyah, who was the only Resident appointed as a member of the Indonesian delegation to the RTC. Suleiman, Aceh Merdeka, p. 18. For his short biography, see pp. 11–21. Abu Jihad (pseud.), Hasan Tiro & Pergolakan Aceh (Jakarta: PT Aksara Centra, n.d.). The author, like his father and older brother, joined Tiro’s movement. But later he found out that Tiro was just an adventurous liar and a megalomaniac pretender. According to him Tiro was never able to keep his promise, but he managed to persuade Tgk Daud Buereueh to trust him. The author’s brother, a young physician, a deputy of Hasan di Tiro as “the head of state”, was one of the earliest leaders killed in a military operation launched by the TNI. Al Chaidar, Gerakan Aceh Merdeka: Jihad Rakyat Aceh Mewujudkan Negara Islam (Jakarta: Madani Press (Penebar Buku Islam Radikal), 2000), pp. 165–73. The book is an anti-Hasan Tiro track but it supports the idea of the Islamic state of Aceh. The full text is in Lukman Thaib, Acheh’s Case: A Historical Study of the National Movement for the Independence of Acheh, Sumatra (Kuala Lumpur: University of

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Malaya Press, 2002). True to its title this book represents the GAM’s view and version of history. In referring to the GAM, the book uses the words “we” and “they” interchangeably. The government of the Republic of Indonesia has officially recognized Teungku Chick di Tiro along with Teuku Umar Johan Pahlawan, and Cut Nyak Dien, Cut Meutia as the “national heroes and heroines”. They were leaders in the colonial war in Aceh (1873–1904). On the structure of the GAM, see Kirsten E. Schulze, The Free Aceh Movement (GAM): Anatomy of a Separatist Movement (Washington, D.C.: East-West Center Washington, 2004), pp. 10–15. See Isa Suleiman, Aceh Merdeka, pp. 26–41. It should be noted in passing that although the Acehnese were the majority in the province of Aceh, in some parts of the province they do not belong to the majority. The Gayo is very predominant in Central Aceh, the Temiang and Alas in South Aceh, and the so-called Anak Jamee (of Minangkabau descent), in West Aceh. See for example, Al Chaidar et. al., eds., Aceh Bersimbah Darah: Mengungkap Penerapan Status Aceh Operasi Militer (DOM) di Aceh 1989–1998 (Jakarta: Pustaka al-Kautsar, 1998). The figures are quoted in Schulze, The Free Aceh Movement, p. 73. Other sources give different figures. On Aceh after the fall of Soeharto, see Isa Suleiman, Aceh Merdeka, pp. 65–151 and a more analytical treatment, Rizal Sukma, Security Operations in Aceh: Goals, Consequences, and Lessons (Washington, D.C.: East-West Center Washington, 2004). The capital of the province was Soa Siu. In 1961, however, the province was liquidated. Quoted in Penders, ibid., p. 393. Decki Natalis Pigay, Evolusi Nasionalisme dan Sejarah Konflik di Papua (Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 2000), p. 361. Silas Papare was for obvious reasons very popular among Indonesian political leaders. See the publication of The Ministry of Information, Republic of Indonesia (Jakarta, n.d.). His biography is on pp. 13–17. Pigay, Evolusi Nasionalisme, pp. 189–92. Quoted in Penders, ibid., p. 403. Robin Osborne, Indonesia’s Secret War: The Guerilla Struggle in Irian Jaya (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1985), p. 70. Richard Chauvel, “Papua and Indonesia: Where Contending Nationalisms Meet”, in Autonomy and Disintegration in Indonesia, edited by Daniel Kingsbury and Harry Aveling (London & New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), pp. 115–27.

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On the origin and the symbolic significance of the name Papua, see J.R. Mansoben, “Arti Sebuah Nama: Penggunaan nama Papua untuk Menggantikan Irian Jaya”, Masyarakat Indonesia XXX, no. 1 (2004): 1–14. John Saltford, The United Nations and the Indonesian Takeover of Papua, 1962–1969 (London, New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), p. 21. Jacques Bertrand, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflicts in Indonesia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 148. West Irian: Implementation of the ACT OF FREE CHOICE: 14 July–2 August 1969 (second edition), Official Report on the Implementation of the Act of Free Choice by the Minister of for Home Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia/ Chairman of the Government Team for the Implementation of the Act of Free Choice to the Special Session of the Provincial House of Representatives and the Provincial Government of West Irian at Djajapura on 5 August 1969, pp. 15–17. Ibid., p. 7. Ibid., pp. 11–12. Pigay, Evolusi Nasionalisme, pp. 255–56. Brian May, The Indonesian Tragedy (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1978), p. 188. Ibid., p. 179. Quoted in Saltford, The United Nations, p. 158. Osborne, Indonesia’s Secret War, p. 95. May, Indonesian Tragedy, pp. 182–83. Osborne, Indonesia’s Secret War, pp. 51–56. Muhadjir Darwin, “Freedom from Fear: Social Disruption and System of Violence in Indonesia” (Part II) in The Indonesian Crisis: A Human Development Perspective, edited by Aris Ananta (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002), p. 132. Pigay, Evolusi Nasionalisme, pp. 305–17. Cf. Richard Chauvel, “Papua and Indonesia: Where Contending Nationalisms Meet” in Autonomy and Disintegration in Indonesia, edited by Damien Kingsbury and Harry Aveling (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003). See Suryadinata et al., Indonesia’s Population, pp. 160–63. Jim Elmslie, Under the Gun: Indonesian Economic Development and West Papuan Nationalism (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002), pp. 85–96. Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, Building Human Security” (Sunday, 27 June 2004). Ibid., p. 3. Since the late 19th century, the Portuguese position became relatively secure. In the early 20th century, a definitive border that divided the island of Timor into

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two parts was made. Since the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, Portuguese lost its monopoly as the main language for the study of the region. Any bibliography on East Timor can now attest to the growing number of studies written in English and other languages. See “East Timor: Bibliography, 1970– 94”, Part of Peter Carey and G. Carter Bentley, eds., East Timor at the Crossroads: The Forging of a Nation (London: Cassel & SSRC, 1995), pp. 195–237. For a short background on East Timor prior to the departure of the Portuguese, see for example James Dunn, East Timor: A Rough Passage to Independence (Double Bay: Longueville Books, 2003, 3rd ed.), pp. 1–44. See also John G. Taylor, “The Emergence of a Nationalist Movement in East Timor”, in Carey & Bentley, eds., East Timor at the Crossroads, pp. 21–39. On the origins and ideologies of these political parties, see Dunn, East Timor, pp. 45–65. From the recently disclosed transcript of the U.S. State Department, quoted in Don Greenlees & Robert Garran, Deliverance: The Inside Story of East Timor’s Fight for Freedom (Crows Nest, NSW: 2002), p. 13. On the international setting of the time Indonesia launched its invasion, see for example Benedict R.O’G. Anderson, “East Timor and Indonesia: Some Implications”, Carey & Bentley, eds., East Timor at the Crossroads, pp. 137–47. For the complicities of Australia and the great powers, see Dunn, “The Timor Affair in International Perspective” in ibid., pp. 59–72; see also his East Timor, pp. 303–22. See Bilveer Singh, East Timor, Indonesia and the World: Myths and Realities (Kuala Lumpur: ADPR Consult (M) Sdn. Bhd, 1996, revised edition, pp. 109–42. On the incident and its international repercussions, see ibid, pp. 143–227. Riwanto Tirtosudarmo, “Population Mobility and Social Conflict: The Aftermath of the Economic Crisis in Indonesia”, in Ananta, ed., The Indonesian Crisis, p. 233. A number of books and articles have been written on these scattered events. Private discussion with a grantee of research grant from the Social Science Foundation/Toyota Foundation, December 1995. Hal Hill, ed., Unity and Diversity: Regional Economic Development in Indonesia since 1970 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 22. Quoted in Thee Kian Wie, “Reflections on the New Order ‘Miracle’ ”, in Indonesia Today: Challenges of History, edited by Grayson Lloyd & Shannon Smith (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2001), pp. 163–80. Unless otherwise cited, this portion on New Order’s economic achievement is based on this article. Quoted in Sukowaluyo Mintorahardjo, BLBI Simalakama: Pertaruhan Kekuasaan Presiden Soeharto (Jakarta: Resi, 2001), pp. 61–62.

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95 Hal Hill, “The Economy” in Hal Hill, ed., Indonesia’s New Order, p. 115. 96 Steven Schlosstein, Asia’s New Little Dragons: The Dynamic Emergence of Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1991), p. 80. 97 Leo Suryadinata et al., Indonesia’s Population, p. 78. 98 The list is quoted in Rezim Suharto: Memupuk Harta Menuai Bencana (Jakarta: Yayasan Pustaka Grafiksi, 1998), pp. 32–38. Many of them withdrew from the MPR after the fall of Soeharto. 99 On the strategic role of the yayasan, see Richard Robison and Vedi R. Hadiz, Reorganising Power in Indonesia: The Politics of Oligarchy in an Age of Markets (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), pp. 54–60. 100 It is estimated that Soeharto and his family (wife, children and grandchildren) controlled or partly controlled 48 yayasan. His cousin (with his Sino-Indonesian partners) and half-brother controlled eight yayasan. The list is included in Rezim Suharto, pp. 14–19. 101 See Robison & Hadiz, Reorganising Power, pp. 77–80. 102 Tempo, 16 November 1998, reprinted in Investigasi, pp. 39–54. 103 See for example, Andrew Rosser, The Politics of Economic Liberalisation in Indonesia: State, Market and Power (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2002), pp. 139–43. 104 Personal observation in April 1978. Sigit Soeharto is the name of the oldest son. 105 See for example, “Investigasi: Dari Skandal ke Skandal: Kumpulan Tulisan Rubrik Investigasi Majalah Berita TEMPO” (Jakarta: Majalah Berita Tempo, 1999). 106 Irene H. Gayatri, “Arah Baru Perlawanan: Gerakan Mahasiswa, 1889–1993”, in Muridan S. Widjojo et al., Penakluk Rezim Orde Baru: Gerakan Mahsiswa ‘98 (Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1999), pp. 64–125. 107 Leo Suryadinata, “Suharto’s Indonesia in the mid-1980s” in his Interpreting Indonesian Politics (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1998), pp. 173–75. 108 Tempo, 9 May 1922. 109 Gatra III, no. 50 (November 1997). 110 On the dramatic events leading to the downfall of Soeharto see for example, Kees van Dijk, A Country in Despair: Indonesia between 1997 and 2000 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2001), pp. 137–84. See also Kevin O’Rourke, Reformasi: The Struggle for Power in Post-Soeharto Indonesia (Crows Nest N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, 2002), pp. 38–135.

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Reproduced from Indonesia: Towards Democracy, by Taufik Abdullah (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute Epilogue • 527> of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg

C H A P T E R

S E V E N

Epilogue

Reformasi in the Democratic Euphoria

T

he failure of the New Order regime to fully comprehend the consequences of being an inseparable part of the global economy might well be one of the major factors for the downfall of Soeharto. At the time, the Western powers as well as the World Bank, the IMF, and other international financial bodies saw the strategic geographical and political positions of Indonesia and they eagerly supported Indonesia’s economic development efforts. With their support, the newly established New Order government not only could feel secure with the rather pro-West posture of its “independent and active” foreign policy, but it also made the decisive choice of joining the global market economy. In the controversy between “growth” and “equity” or, to put it in more ideologically tinted terms, “prosperity” and “social justice”, in the basic development strategy that took place in the early period of its era, the New Order had definitively chosen the first alternative. The choice was made in the hope that the “trickle down effects” of the strategy would gradually expand the sphere of prosperity to the general populace. The regime found out too late the probable negative consequences of the chosen alternative. The financial and monetary crises that took place in other countries could have its direct impact on the economic fundamentals of Indonesia. The destruction of the Berlin wall and the successive dramatic events that finally led to the breakup of the Soviet Union and the termination of the Cold War definitely changed the political constellation of the world. The success of the People’s Power to topple President Marcos of the Philippines suddenly showed to the people that the entrenched political

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and economic oligarchy had its limit. These dramatic events might not lead to “the end of history”, as a famous book emphasizes, but to Indonesia, they revealed the awkward relationship between economic liberalization and the authoritarian political system in Indonesia’s New Order. This kind of marriage of convenience unfailingly opened up the gates to the socalled KKN — corruption, collusion, and nepotism — and strengthened the political and economic clout of the emerging and gradually entrenched oligarchy. However, when the contagion effects of the regional monetary crisis hit Indonesia, the assumed-to-be-strong macro economic fundamentals simply failed to function. Many national big companies found themselves unable to pay off their huge foreign debts. A number of banks collapsed because of their failure to collect their credit and pay off their own debts. In the event, a large number of workers suddenly found themselves jobless. In the event, the results of the more than two decades of economic growth were dissipated. The number of people living below the poverty line multiplied. The once prided achievement of the New Order went to pieces with this economic downturn of the ordinary people. Indonesia, a country newly elevated to the ranks of the middle-income group, saw itself approaching the situation from which it started in the late 1960s — a poor and underdeveloped country statistically. The early victim of the economic consequences of the monetary crisis that hit Indonesia in July 1997 was the political and social stability of the state. Although in the 1997 general election, GOLKAR, the New Order’s electoral machine, came out as the biggest winner ever, it was actually the worst general election Indonesia ever experienced. During the election campaigns, mass riots occurred in some big towns, such as Pekalongan (Central Java) and Banjarmasin (South Kalimantan). In the event, the uncontrolled masses destroyed a number of new buildings (hotels and shopping malls) and transformed several living quarters of the ordinary people into ashes. During these ugly events, a number of innocent people lost their lives. With GOLKAR’s victory, the re-election of Soeharto for the seventh consecutive time was secured. In conformity with the already established convention, the MPR elected Soeharto unanimously. As usual the President in his inaugural speech presented his optimistic view of the

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future. In spite of the multiple crises Indonesia was facing, the President confidently stated — by citing the title of a popular song — “Badai Pasti Berlalu” (The storm is certain to fade away). The optimism soon faded away with the continuing monetary and economic thunderstorm. The crisis had apparently penetrated deeply into the nation’s social fabric. In the meantime, the almost politically dormant university students, who had for so long been tamed by several draconian academic measures in their respective university campuses, suddenly awoke and thronged the major streets again, like they used to do in the late 1960s and early 1970s, to express their deep social and economic concerns. They protested against the worsening economic situation of the people and, naturally, that of their own families and what they saw as the continuing political unresponsiveness of the authoritarian regime. In many university towns, street demonstrations of the students became daily affairs. Until one day, on 12 May 1998, in Jakarta the rather peaceful, though noisy and not too orderly, demonstrations turned into a human tragedy. Four student demonstrators of the Trisakti University became victims of the bullets of the state apparatus. The next day, the economically deprived masses took over. Whether engineered by some ugly and sinister hidden political forces — as many suspected, not without reason apparently — or not, mass demonstrations and riots of major proportions took place in many places of the Jakarta metropolitan. The state apparatus of violence, the police and the military, had obviously lost control of the city. It was the worst and cruelest riot in recent memory. Hundreds, if not more, lost their lives in the burning shopping malls and many innocent women of Chinese descent became the victims of sexual assaults. These tragic events gravely intensified the sense of crisis among the urban population. As if under the command of central commandos, these social dissatisfactions expressed themselves in a common forum of protest. Many students from several university towns in Java joined their counterparts in Jakarta. They came not only to continue their growingly anti-government demonstrations, but also to emphasize their demand for a total reformasi. It was the call to end the three evils — the KKN, corruption, collusion, nepotism — to establish “good governance and a clean

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government”, to reintroduce the principles of the supremacy of law, the respect to human rights, and to resume the process towards the establishment of a healthy democratic system. Before long, the already disgruntled intellectuals and other political dissidents joined the student movement. Despite their internal divisions — some were more radical than the others and some others were more ideologically oriented than the rest — and without a single common leadership, the groups found common agreement on one crucial point — that was, the career of the New Order had to be terminated. The call for reformasi had become a symbol for the change of the regime. When the opposition to the once unshakable regime had reached its climax thousands of demonstrating students occupied the parliament buildings. Many unknown supporters came to provide the students with all the logistics they might need in the highly critical political event. Whatever ethical and legal judgment may be passed on the occupation of the parliament buildings, where the formally elected representatives of the people deliberate the people’s wishes, it is nonetheless an event that can be hardly forgotten in the collective memory of the nation. Bombarded by the visits of so many delegations from all kinds of social groups — ranging from the representatives of the scholars to that of the workers and the peasantry — that demanded the resignation of Soeharto, the leadership of the MPR was forced to make its stand public. Realizing that all efforts to get some kind of political compromise were futile, the Speaker of the People’s Consultative Assembly, the MPR, and his deputies, who represented all factions of the assembly, finally made a very decisive move amidst the cheering student crowd. They, who a few months earlier led their respective factions to re-elect Soeharto unanimously, finally came to the dramatic decision of politely and publicly asking Soeharto to step down. In a normal situation, they could rightly be accused of being turncoats, particularly the Speaker, Harmoko, the former Minister of Information, for it was largely due to Soeharto’s blessing, if not his straightforward sponsorship, that they could occupy such respectable and strategic political positions. In a day or two after Soeharto received the public appeal of the leadership of the MPR, he had to face a harder political fact. Fourteen of his own ministers refused to serve in the reformed cabinet the besieged

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President had been planning to install. When their letter of refusal reached him, Soeharto immediately came to the final conclusion — his time as President was over. Times had indeed changed. Politics had again revealed its true nature. It was definitely the art of making the right decision at the right moment. On 21 May 1998, the term of the President who had been in power for more than thirty years ended when his hand-picked Vice-President, B.J. Habibie, was sworn in as the new President. The short ceremony took place at the Merdeka Palace, instead of the MPR building. Soon after, Habibie gave his short acceptance speech, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, General Wiranto, moved forward and took the microphone. In his very short speech, he committed the full support of the military to the newly installed President and promised to provide protection to the former President. It was most likely a personal initiative but the assurances of support did give Habibie something to hold on to. The real and more frustrating political drama of Indonesia was about to begin. From the first day he was in office, President Habibie had to face the crisis of legitimacy. In spite of the fact that he was officially elected as the Vice-President and therefore had the right to replace the resigning President, his constitutional, let alone moral and political, legitimacy remained a matter of controversy. Looked from another angle, the issue of legitimacy clearly shows how deep the crisis Indonesia had been undergoing was at this crucial time. The nation and the state had apparently been deeply wounded. The world of harmony and consensus that was intensely cultivated by Soeharto’s New Order had virtually lost whatever persuasive capacities it might have had. The moment Habibie occupied the highest officially elected political position in the Republic, he had practically jumped into a world of euphoria where the once carefully guarded, albeit enforced, mutual trust, under the guardianship of a strong President had failed to function. While Soeharto, when he was still in power, might have been able to show the political as well as ideological strength of having a unanimous decision on any fundamental state policy, his fall clearly exposed the fragile foundation of the consensual world that had been supported by an authoritarian ideological and cultural mould. When the strong state lost its

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credibility, it was the artificial consensual world itself that became one of its earliest victims. All of a sudden, the serious and consistent efforts of the state to dominate the state ideology and to homogenize the nation’s divergent social system of values, revealed their real weaknesses. The imposed homogenized system of values simply failed to contain the outburst of incompatibilities of prevailing political and economic heterogeneities. However, it was exactly at the time when the imposed homogenized system of values revealed its weakness that the gate to the process of democratization was reopened after being relatively closed for almost four decades. Throughout the time he served as the Chief Executive, President Habibie never had a peaceful time. Many former military and political leaders and a number of disgruntled intellectuals saw his position as nothing but a continuation of the already politically discarded New Order regime. The composition of his cabinet, which consisted of many of Soeharto’s former ministers, certainly did not help his case in this rapidly changing political sphere. In the eyes of his opponents, President Habibie simply failed to liberate himself from his biggest biographical sin, being as he was, the “golden boy” of the fallen President. The fact that he was the Chairman of the rapidly expanding and influential ICMI only added salt to the political wound. The hatred towards the newly installed President was so intense that a group consisted of former as well as aspiring politicians and retired generals launched a series of political campaigns and street demonstrations calling for the removal of Habibie and his replacement by the so-called Komite Rakyat, People’s Committee, which would take care of the state’s affairs until a new and “legitimate President” was elected. This effort failed but it shows that in the sphere of political euphoria, the questions of constitutionality and legal propriety became irrelevant whenever political hatred had become the determinant factor in making a political stance. The fall of Soeharto may be seen as the beginning of a period of ideological reorientation on the one hand, and that of ideological disarray, on the other. Hardly anybody spoke anymore of the importance of the attachment to the Pancasila that had been made the only legitimate ideology during the New Order era. There was also never any rejection of the validity of the ideology. It was simply put out there — far above the world

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of reality. It was also, however, a time of political ironies. Everybody wanted to say something of importance, but everybody seemed to have ears only for their own voices. The period of the crisis of mutual distrust among the political elite began when the desire to rebuild the national community had been reinvigorated. The commonly shared desire to “reinvent” Indonesia emerged when the trust that used to bind the nation was having its deepest crisis. That was the time when the students and later, also the divergent professional groups, intensified their demand for drastic political changes. Not unlike the situation in 1966, after the collapse of the attempted coup (staged by the communists or other sinister powers, whoever they might be) and when the students suddenly emerged as a major pressure group in dismantling Sukarno’s Guided Democracy, the monetary crisis also provided the opportunity for the long suppressed student movements to take centre stage. By appealing to the need for reformasi, they also insisted on bringing Soeharto to the people’s court for his alleged crimes in stealing from, and squandering the state’s treasury. Though they never attempted to become a political force, by putting more emphasis on the enlargement of their symbolic capital, the students put pressure on the prevalent political system. The students continued their demonstrations demanding the confiscation of Soeharto’s wealth and putting him on trial. However, there was no definitive decision really ever made on this crucial issue. The used-to-be very powerful state had apparently lost its determination to solve the matter once and for all. In the meantime, the ABRI, Indonesian armed forces, most notably the army, could no longer hold on to its once dominant political position and its ideological predominance, being the holder of the ideologically and historically sanctioned dwifungsi, dual-function. It also had to undergo internal critical examination and finally decided to abandon the concept of dwifungsi, and abolish the ideological foundation of its continuing presence and dominance in politics. On 1 April 1999, the reformation of the ABRI began when the police were put directly under the President and no longer under the command of the Commander-in-Chief of the ABRI. The police became again an independent, state-armed apparatus in charge of the security of the populace. With this reorganization, the ABRI as an institution

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that had four branches of armed forces, ceased to exist and the military used again its old name, the TNI, with its three branches, namely the army, the navy, and the air force. The police became the Polri, the police of the Republic of Indonesia, whose main duty was to safeguard the security and the safety of the members of society. The army was still a power to reckon with — its large presence could hardly be ignored — when a great number of the long subdued political groups established their divergent types of political parties. In May 1998, there were already 33 political parties that had announced their existence. In June, 25 political parties made their appearance, in July — 18, in August — 34, and so on, and by March 1999, the so-called “era of reformasi” had broken a historical record — there were already 144 political parties registered.1 The fall of the authoritarian state had also provided the opportunity for the long subdued divergent Islamic political aspirations to make their appearance. It also offered the opportunity for the “rebirth” of several Sukarnoist political parties, which despite their basic ideological similarities, preferred to have their own separate parties. During this hectic transfer of power, several, if small and scattered radically oriented movements, began to act, as if they were the real guardians of anything considered sacrosanct. The trend towards the radicalization of some Islamic groups became apparent in this early phase of reformasi. Several partly armed militias of divergent political orientations, most notably that ones that used Islam as the foundation of their existence, made their appearance and showed their hard line political stance. In the meantime, President Habibie not only had to deal with the various types of challenges to his authority, but also had to address himself to the most delicate emotional problem. How should he deal with the fallen President, his own mentor? However hard Habibie might try to protect his “genius Professor in politics”, as he sometimes referred to his mentor, he could not ignore the MPR’s Decision of No. XI/MPR/1998, issued on 10–13 November 1998. The decision demanded the government eradicate KKN and put Soeharto and “his cronies” on trial for their alleged involvement in the KKN practices. In the meantime, the students kept their daily activities of staging street demonstrations near the private house of Soeharto. In response to the

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public demand, President Habibie sent the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General to Switzerland to investigate the possible existence of Soeharto’s bank account. Regardless of the undying personal loyalty he felt towards Soeharto, President Habibie did initiate the process of dismantling his mentor’s authoritarian state. It might well be only a matter of personal style, but in a relatively short time, Habibie “re-humanized” the sphere of the Presidency that had somewhat been sanctified by the captivating charisma of Sukarno and the unflappable aristocratic style of Soeharto. He went to the market places, asking the people how they had been doing. He listened attentively to all the jeers and harsh criticisms launched against him in the parliament, and so forth. Symbolically and politically more significant than this personal style was his decision to abolish a pet project of Soeharto’s, the office of BP7, that is the office that took care of the indoctrination programme. It was as if through the closure of the office, which had its branches in all district and provincial capitals, the President, whose legitimacy was still being contested, wanted to say that from now on, the state would no longer try to control people’s consciousness and to dominate the nation’s collective memory. In short, Habibie wanted to say that the time of the greedy state was over. In spite of the continuing efforts to undermine his authority, President Habibie still managed to introduce a number of legislations that could be expected to pave the way towards better prospects for a democratization process. In a relatively short time, the government opened up the gate to licences for anyone to publish newspapers, tabloids, newsmagazines or journals. By April 1999, there were already 852 new licences for various kinds of publications issued. Later the need to have a licence before one could publish newspaper or journal was abandoned. During Habibie’s Presidency, the government issued several new licences for private TV channels. With these basic approvals, the almost exclusive right of the well connected “economic oligarchy” to have private TV channels was over. By issuing these series of reforms, the government gave every indication that it really wanted to uproot the already well-established tradition of the socalled “telephone culture” — that is, the unwritten convention in which the

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authorities would warn the editors on the kind of news that was “unfit” to print. The government also allowed the establishment of new journalist associations. By these series of important decisions the government wanted to honour the constitutional rights of the citizen, such as stipulated in Article 28 of the 1945 Constitution, but at the same time, it left the fate of the dailies and weeklies largely to market forces and, to a lesser extent, to the still threatening sedition law. Two of the major legislations with far reaching consequences introduced by this government were the laws on local autonomy (22/1999 and 25/1999). The two laws that were finally approved by the parliament put an end to the highly centralized state. These two laws — the first on local administrative rights and tasks, and the second on financial arrangements — put the main emphasis of governing at the district level. These laws practically left the system of village administration to the political and administrative discretion of the respective local governments. In theory the villages could return to their respective traditional system. However, introduced to the country that had been forced to familiarize itself with the over-centralized system and to a society that been somewhat crippled by the overbearing state, the introduction of these two laws can be said to be “too much and too soon”. When the laws began to be put into practice, one common conclusion cannot be avoided — how deeply the tradition of the strong centre had penetrated into the structure of consciousness and mindsets of both the local and national political elite. After some years (officially implemented in 2000), a new law (32/2004) was introduced. The revised law, among other things, returned some powers to the governor and — to nobody’s surprise and many people’s dismay — to the central government. It re-emphasizes the full authority of the central government on defence, security, foreign relations, monetary and fiscal policies, justice, and religion. Naturally the most immediate practical problem the government had to face was the continuing economic crisis. In less than two years, the government managed to control the fall of the rupiah — from the 20,000 rupiah per one dollar to around 6,000 rupiah, which was, however, still far below the rate before the monetary crisis hit Indonesia (roughly 2,500 rupiah). President Habibie, however, had to face unpredictable hard realities

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in dealing with the separatist movements that had been troubling the nation-state since the New Order’s early period. In his determination to solve the East Timor problems that had haunted the nation from the time of the enforced inclusion of the territory in the Republic of Indonesia, Habibie offered the East Timorese two options — to remain part of the Republic of Indonesia with a special autonomy status, or independence. Ironically he offered these two options when the Minister of Foreign Affairs was still negotiating the draft of the special autonomy law with the representatives of East Timor in New York. When the people of East Timor made their choice under the supervision of an international commission, Indonesia might have liberated itself from the “heavy burden of history”, but at the same time, Habibie’s own chances of occupying the Presidency became slimmer. On 30 August 1999 the people of East Timor opted for the second alternative — 78.5 per cent of the votes — and Indonesia had to suffer international condemnation for the alleged violations of human rights of its supporters and armed militias. Another of Habibie’s daring decisions was his agreement to hold the general election that would also determine his own fate. Instead of holding the general election in 2002, in accordance with the already established fiveyear rhythm of the general election, Habibie agreed to have it in the middle of 1999. On 1 February 1999, the parliament passed Law No. 3/1999 on the general election. If in the old days the general election was managed and supervised by the government bureaucracy, this time it was to be conducted under the supervision of the committee, the Komite Pemilihan Umum (the KPU), the General Election Committee, which consisted of the representatives of the contending political parties and that of the government, but they too had no official positions in the administration. They, who were actually private citizens, were only entrusted to represent the concerns of the government. The credibility of the government representatives was unblemished because one of them was the famous lawyer and human rights activist, Adnan Buyung Nasution (born 1934). Under the chairmanship of Rudini (1929–2005), the former Minister of Internal Affairs, who represented a party which had separated itself from GOLKAR, the KPU managed to conduct the general election properly. After

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the general election of 1955, the one that was held in 1999 (1 June) was undoubtedly the “cleanest” election Indonesia ever had. Out of almost 150 political parties that were established after the fall of the New Order, only 48 political parties qualified to participate in the general election. Contrary to many predictions, the general election that was undertaken under the supervision of several international electoral observers ran smoothly and almost without any disturbances. Unlike in the old days when the general election was dubbed the “fiesta of democracy”, this time people went orderly to the polling stations. More than 90 per cent of the registered voters came to the polling stations to cast their votes. The PDI-P (Perjuangan — Struggle), the party of Megawati Sukarnoputri, that had been victimized by the Soeharto regime in 1997, emerged as the biggest winner (33.76 per cent of the votes — 153 seats). This nationalist party could never forgive Habibie’s policy on East Timor and for the fact that he was for many years the close confidant of Soeharto. To the disappointment of the radical students and the hard-core anti-Soeharto groups, GOLKAR, the party they had blamed for almost all the disgraceful political manoeuvrings during the New Order regime, emerged as the second party (22.46 per cent — 120 seats). Surprisingly, Amien Rais’ PAN (Partai Amanat Nasional), despite its popularity among the educated class, only emerged as the fifth (7.12 per cent), but in the parliament, the elected members of the newly established Partai Keadilan, Justice Party, joined the PAN. Together they formed fraksi Rerformasi with 41 seats. Out of 48 contestants, only 21 managed to get at least one seat. Amien Rais, however, was elected as Speaker of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), while the chairman of GOLKAR, the consummate politician who was once a minister in both the Soeharto’s and the Habibie’s cabinet, Akbar Tanjung (born 1945), was elected as Speaker of the Parliament. The composition of the new parliament and the MPR, which consisted of members of parliament, plus the regional and functional representatives, did not help Habibie’s chances of winning the Presidential election. That was the time when M. Amien Rais, who had gained political prominence for his daring opposition to Soeharto when the latter was still very much in control, played his role as the kingmaker. Since his party, PAN, did not do

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very well in the general election, he felt he had no moral right to nominate himself as the next President, but he succeeded in establishing a caucus, called the Central Axis, which was supported by the NU-affiliated new political party, the PKB (Partai Kebangkitan Nasional) — which with 12.6 per cent votes (51 seats) had emerged as the number three party; the “Islamist” PPP (with 10.72 per cent, was the number four — 58 seats); and the PAN, plus a few other Islamic-oriented small parties. The Central Axis hoped to play a decisive role in the already predicted competition between Habibie and Megawati, the Presidential candidate of the PDI Struggle. The Presidential election was the last and the hardest personal lesson in politics for Habibie. Not only had he to suffer all the criticisms and even the jeers of the newly elected member of the Parliament, his accountability speech was rejected by 355 out of the 677 attending members. On that eventful day (14 October) only 322 members accepted his speech, while nine votes abstained and four votes were invalid. It was widely believed that a number of GOLKAR representatives gave their negative votes to the speech. The moment his accountability speech was rejected, Habibie withdrew his candidacy as the next President. The Central Axis, as had been predicted earlier, officially nominated Abdurrahman Wahid, the former Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama and an influential political thinker as the next President. In the dramatic Presidential election (16 October), with 373 votes Wahid handily defeated Megawati, who at one time, was seen by Wahid’s party, the PKB, as its potential candidate for the Presidency. Megawati could only garner 313 votes. The moment the news of the defeat became public knowledge, mass riots took place in Denpasar (Bali) and Solo (Central Java). The rioters could not accept the fact that their beloved candidate failed to get elected to the position that was once occupied by Sukarno, Megawati’s father. In the meantime, in the MPR buildings, many politicians busied themselves trying to persuade Megawati to run for the Vice-Presidency. She apparently could not face the possibility of being rejected for the second time. When she could finally be persuaded to run, she rather handily defeated the other aspirants. Megawati, the once shy new member of the parliament, was elected as the Vice-President. And the MPR began to look at the urgent need for making necessary amendments to

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the executive-heavy 1945 Constitution. The newly elected MPR simply set aside the decision made by the New Order’s MPR — at the insistence of Soeharto — that an amendment could only be introduced through a national referendum. It took three years (1999–2002) and four amendments before the MPR was satisfied with the changes of the foundation of the state. Abdurrahman Wahid (born 1940) was not simply the former chairman of the NU and a grandson of its founder; he was also a well-known intellectual in his own right and a prominent activist of the democratic movement. He was the first President elected in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution. Sukarno, the first President, was never properly elected; he was widely recognized as the only person who had the historical legitimacy to lead the newly established nation-state (1945). It was the un-elected members of the MPR-S, who elected Soeharto, the second President, as the Acting President in 1967. In spite of his impaired sight, Wahid showed his determination to hasten the process of political transformation. The quality of Wahid’s performance as the President can be debated, but he was certainly not an unimaginative Head of State. Once he made a decision, he was determined to pursue it till the end, no matter what. When he composed the cabinet, he simply eliminated two ministries — information and social affairs — from the list of the cabinet. Suddenly several thousand civil servants found themselves without bureaucratic functions. More importantly, several kinds of services — particularly those under the jurisdiction of the Department of Social Affairs — could not be properly performed. In order to accommodate these problems, the President established two non-departmental bodies under the supervisions of state ministers without portfolio. The rather hasty decision to abolish the two departments presented Wahid with his first confrontation with the parliament. Many members of the parliament severely questioned this decision. The seed of animosity between the President and the parliament was planted when Wahid bluntly stated that he was not sure whether he was addressing a parliament or a kindergarten. President Wahid had the courage to talk about a host of political taboos. He thought loudly about the possibility of opening up trade relationship with Israel. He suggested — not too forcefully to be sure — the need for the state to abrogate a decision of the MPR-S, the Provisional MPR, to forbid the

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teachings of Marxism and Leninism. He might not make any decision about the two ideas, but the fact that he had expressed the ideas was enough to shock the country with its huge Islamic majority. He talked a lot about other non-conventional political wisdom. His intervention in the internal affairs of the military and the police, despite the support of the political public, however, backfired. The two newly separated state-armed apparatus, the TNI and the Polri, simply sat on the fence waiting for the right moment to strike back. In spite of the fact that he was elected by the MPR, President Wahid could never manage to maintain a good and productive relationship with the MPR and the parliament. He kept changing the composition of his cabinet. The appointment of a minister is, according to the Constitution, a prerogative of the President, but since the President needs the support of the Parliament, it is conventional wisdom to appoint a minister who can be seen as the representative of a certain political party. This was exactly the political problem Wahid had to face. Except for a very few ministers, most of whom came from his own party, the PKB, that continued to occupy their ministerial positions, he almost never allowed the ministers to finish whatever policy they might want to pursue. Every change he made only resulted in the weakening of his political clout. The first month he was in power he antagonized the PPP, one of his earliest supporters, by firing Hamzah Haz, the Chairman of the PPP, who served as the Coordinating Minister for Social Welfare. A few months later, he fired a minister from the PDI-P and appointed someone from his own party. At the same time he also dismissed a minister from GOLKAR and appointed a retired general, and so on. Perhaps it was mostly his personal idiosyncrasies rather than his policies that made him easily lose political support. The political tragedy of Wahid may well lie in his inclination to continue to look at himself as an independent intellectual rather than the top manager of the state. He sometimes forgot or ignored the fact that in performing his role the President should follow certain established procedures. With the gradual loss of his political support, Indonesia experienced a strange political irony — the President was practically treated as an outsider in mainstream politics. Finally the conflict between the President and the MPR reached a decisive climax. Wahid inadvertently issued a Presidential decree (22 July 2002) that

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dissolved the highest legislative body. The decree was made public at the time when the MPR was already expecting this decree to be issued. The next day, 23 July, the hurriedly held special session of the MPR rejected the constitutional legitimacy of the decree. All factions, including the TNI and Polri, but the PKB, rejected the legal validity of the decree. With the rejection, Wahid’s term as the President also ended. On the same day, Wahid lost the Presidency, and the Vice-President, Megawati, became the new President. That was also the breach of the once close personal friendship of the two leaders. The MPR elected Hamzah Haz, the first minister, who after only one month in office was fired by Wahid, as the new Vice-President. The political turmoil in the capital city became much calmer after Megawati took over. Unlike Wahid who never hesitated to give his opinion on whatever subject crossed his mind, President Megawati preferred to keep her opinions largely to herself. On 31 July, the Supreme Court rejected the demand to disband GOLKAR and confirmed the right of the party to participate in the 2004 general election. The parliament could continue to deliberate on the divergent types of new legislations proposed by the government, without bothering too much about government policies. The new President and her government in the meantime had to face several continuing problems and the unintended consequences of new basic changes that had been introduced. In the meantime, the economy was still in bad shape. The September 11 dramatic events that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and partly damaged the Pentagon (2001) also directly made an impact on Indonesia. The terrorist acts, both in and outside Indonesia, and the threats of SARS dealt devastating blows to the tourist industry in Indonesia. The number of unemployed people remained high and was in fact climbing. The closure of several factories and the reduction of manpower in others created labour unrest in some industrial towns. The government indeed had to deal with many interrelated social, economic and political crucial issues. The continuing practice of the KKN, the three evils that had deeply undermined whatever accomplishments the Soeharto regime had achieved — remained a major issue. Many of the big fishes, particularly those who had taken advantage of the government’s efforts to help the banks, continued to enjoy their freedom, as if they were beyond the

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reach of the law. All these and other social and economic issues continued to haunt the Megawati Government to the end. The most serious threat to the integrity of the state, however, came from the still unsolved separatist movements, the problems of decentralization, and naturally the notorious and barbaric terrorist bombings. The case of East Timor might, for both psychological and ideological sake, be treated as an historical aberration, but the separatist movements in Papua, and particularly in Aceh, had undoubtedly forced the Indonesian leaders to look deeply into the nature of the nation’s existence. All these and other social and political events caused Indonesia to re-examine not only the structure of its state, constitution, and system of governance, but also the very foundation of the nation itself. In the meantime, the state not only had to address the divergent types of communal conflicts, but also the activities of the various groups of vigilanté who claimed to be the defenders of the sanctity of religion. These and a host of other problems had come to the surface before Megawati assumed Presidential power. They did not disappear after her term as President ended. These problems had begun from the time Habibie took over and have continued with different intensity till the present. In the meantime, Megawati, like her predecessors, had to pave the way towards the future direction of the state. One of the controversial problems that President Megawati had to take care of was the drafting of the National Education Law. While the parliament was debating the articles in the draft, many demonstrations were held in many towns to support or to reject a few crucial articles in the draft. Although the debates and controversies of the draft were highly emotional, street demonstrations to support or to reject the draft were quite orderly and peaceful. When, with a majority of votes, the parliament finally made the draft into law on 11 June 2003, both state and private schools found themselves obliged to provide their students with religious instruction in accordance with the religion of the students. During Megawati’s term, the parliament managed to produce several laws that were expected to pave a better way towards the healthy process of democratization. The parliament passed new laws on the general election, the election of the President and Vice-President, political parties, and the composition and functions of the MPR, the DPR/parliament, DPD, and the

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DPRD/the local legislature. The so-called Open Proportional electoral system that was passed by the parliament immediately became a target of harsh criticisms from the non-partisan intellectuals. This general election law allows voters to cast their votes for either the individual candidate or the party to which the candidate belongs. Unless his name is very high on the list of the party’s candidates, the individual candidate can only expect to be elected if he or she manages to receive the number of votes needed to get elected in the particular district. In other words, it is not the voters, but the elite of the party who determine who they expect to represent the party in the parliament. (As it turned out later, only two candidates got elected despite the fact that their names were low in the list of the candidates of their respective parties.) In conformity with the demand for the reformasi, the MPR continued its deliberations on the revisions of the constitution. It took three sitting years before the amendments could be completed. On 10 August 2002, the MPR passed the fourth and last amendment of the 1945 Constitution. While maintaining the sanctity of the Preamble of the Constitution, which was drafted by “the founding fathers” of the Republic in 1945, the MPR amended several important articles and expanded on some others, such as, for example, those on human rights and rights of the citizen. With this amendment, the once very powerful Presidency becomes a history to reflect on. On paper at least, the parliament can no longer be considered a rubber stamp parliament. The President and the Vice-President are to be directly elected by the people, no longer by the small elite who happened to be members of the MPR, and they can only be elected for two consecutive terms. Similar rules are also to be applied to the governors, district heads, and mayors — they and their respective deputies are to be elected directly by the people and they can also serve, if elected, for two consecutive terms. The amended constitution introduces a new, but much weaker legislative body other than the parliament, the Dewan Perwakilan Daerah — the DPD, the Council of Regional Representatives. Regardless of the size of its population a province has the right to send four elected representatives. The new MPR was to consist of the members of the parliament and those of the newly instituted Council of Regional Representatives. However it can be predicted that it

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would take some years before the DPD, the Senate-substitute, can play a significant role in determining basic state policies. It is obvious that the then existing political parties would not easily give up even some portion of their newly acquired power. A far reaching consequence in the effort to make the concept of the supremacy of law a living reality is the establishment of the Judicial Review, which is entrusted to select the members of the Supreme Court and to guarantee the right conduct of the judges; and the Constitutional Court, which is entrusted to guarantee the constitutionality of legislations and other state regulations and policies. One of the first decisions made by the Constitutional Court was, in effect, an attempt to lessen the burden of history on the shoulders of the nation. The amended Constitution provides no place for the representatives of the TNI and the Polri to sit in parliament. Since the MPR felt that the revisions were still not quite up to the ideal standard of what a constitution should be, it appointed a special constitutional commission, consisting of several constitutional experts, to tidy up the amended version. In its decision of 24 February 2004, the court rejected the constitutionality of Law number 12/2003, which makes it impossible for former members of the PKI to participate in the general election. It means that from 2009 onwards, they would be allowed to participate in the general election and to nominate themselves to occupy whatever positions there are that are being contested. The court had also chastised the government for its failure to set aside 20 per cent of the state annual budget, as required by the amended constitution. Furthermore the amended constitution abolishes the DPA, the Supreme Advisory Council, once considered to be the council of respectable elder statesmen, but later, at the peak of the New Order’s power, became what some cynics called “the parking lot” for loyal politicians. On 31 July 2003, the DPA, was officially abolished by a Presidential decision. It was a sad ending for the DPA, whose members at its closure consisted of well-respected leaders appointed after the fall of the New Order. On 5 April 2004, the event that might have somewhat clouded the statesmanship and political wisdom of established and aspiring political leaders finally came. During the period of continuing political trepidation and economic uncertainty, the 2004 general election was held. Out of about

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250 registered political parties, only 28 qualified to participate in the general election. As it turned out, it was a disappointing election for President Megawati. Her PDI-P failed to maintain its position as the number one party. Not only was its place as the party of the majority taken over by GOLKAR, the PDI-P also lost more than 10 per cent of its constituents. The “reformed” GOLKAR managed to get more than 24 million votes with 128 seats, while the PDI-P could only garner 109 seats as a result of its slightly above 21 million votes. The real big winners, however, were the two newly formed political parties, the Democratic Party, which had just been established to promote the Presidential aspiration of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and the Islamist Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS — Justice and Prosperity Party), the reformed Partai Keadilan. The PKS even succeeded in emerging as the biggest party in the Jakarta Special District. In such a short time, the parties managed to join the club of the middle-sized parties. The Presidential election was a bigger disappointment to the incumbent President. Despite the fact that she had invited Hasyim Muzadi, the chairman of the biggest Islamic organization, the NU, as her running mate, Megawati failed to win the Presidency. Vice-President Hamzah Haz, who also ran on his own ticket, had to swallow a devastating defeat by ending up as the biggest loser in the election in which five contestants participated. As many had predicted, the former Coordinating Minister for Political and Defence Affairs, General (retired) Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and his running mate, the former Coordinating Minister for Social Affairs, Mohammad Jusuf Kalla, were elected as the President and Vice-President. The other two contestants were General (Retired) Wiranto and M. Amien Rais with their respective running mates. On 20 October 2004 the People’s Consultative Assembly, the MPR, officially installed the first directly elected President and Vice-President of the Republic of Indonesia. But then a question has to be asked. With the direct Presidential election, has Indonesia entered a new phase in its political history? There were several unfinished programmes the successive Presidents had to face squarely. The urban population in Indonesia had to cope with the activities of terrorists who did not hesitate to explode bombs anywhere they liked. On 13 September 2000, bombs exploded in the basement of the

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Jakarta Stock Exchange building. Several people lost their lives. On Christmas Eve, bombs exploded in some churches in Jakarta and several other cities on the islands of Java and Sumatra. In these events, 16 people died and 20 wounded. Actually the most devastating bomb explosions took place on the night of 12 October 2002 in Kuta, Bali, where more than 200 persons died and about 300 were wounded. Many of the victims were foreign tourists, mostly from Australia. Indeed the perpetrators could be arrested, but in the same month that the terrorists were condemned to death (August 2003), the luxurious hotel, JW Marriott, became the target of terrorist bombs. Jakarta and Bali were to experience two more bomb incidents, which up till the present, still left their deep marks on the psyche of the urban population. Suddenly Indonesia, the biggest Islamic country in the world, had to realize that it had become a target of attacks of international terrorist networks of militant Islamic groups. The threats to the newly recovered, long dormant democratic tradition however did not only come from sinister and power hungry militant groups, but also from the unanticipated consequence of the desire to make democracy a living reality. How should the dismantling of the authoritarian and highly centralized state be cautiously undertaken? The old system had apparently not only sapped local resources and ingenuity, but had also weakened the ability of the region to solve its own problems and face unprecedented challenges. When the decentralization laws were put into effect, the damages to the highly centralized system revealed itself in various forms. In the first place, the implementation of the law revealed the uneven distribution of well-trained human resources to manage the sudden local tasks. Since the newly autonomous region, the district or kabupaten, was now expected to have its own financial resources, the local administration not only had to wrack its brains to find new ways to generate new, taxable, economic activities for the people, but also had to secure its administrative boundaries. As a result, inter-regional disputes on matters pertaining to the border areas erupted here and there. The abandonment of the centralized state also opened up the opportunity for the local people to have administrative units of their own choice. With the agreement of the provincial legislature and the Ministry of Internal

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Affairs, the parliament could, after some deliberations, finally pass a law on the creation of a new province or a new district/kabupaten or municipality. From the time of the Habibie Presidency to the end of Megawati’s term, seven new provinces had been created (North Maluku, Bangka-Belitung, Banten, West Irian Jaya, Gorontalo, West Sulawesi, and the Riau Archipelago) and no fewer than 128 new kabupaten and municipalities had been created. The formation of the new autonomous regions did not always run as smoothly as expected, however. The formation of the province of North Maluku, for example, was a factor that led to the outbreak of a violent communal conflict. The formation gave the local elite the opportunity to contest for the newly available pinnacle of local power. The formation of the West Irian Jaya province remains a contested decision. A great number of the Papuan elite, particularly those who lived in Jayapura, interpreted the decision as an example of the “divide and rule “policy of the central government. The formation of new district/kabupaten gives source to varied but not always very colourful and encouraging stories. In some places, the formation of a new kabupaten could have been seen as a means to avoid communal conflict or even simply, as a way to bring the government closer to the people. However, in other places, the division of one kabupaten into two only resulted in the outbreak of violent conflicts among the people who had, while living in one district, maintained their peaceful coexistence. When the regulation on the direct election of the governor/deputy governor, the bupati/deputy bupati or the mayor/deputy mayor was finally issued, it turned out that the decentralization law had not only intensified the competition among the political parties, but had also inadvertently aroused politically suppressed primordial values. What criteria should be used to elect the new head of the local administration? Religion or perhaps, religious orientation, ethnicity, the place of origin, the basis of political support or something else, instead of the number of votes the candidates could garner in the election, could play hidden roles in accepting or rejecting the winners. In a relatively homogenous population everything could run very smoothly. However, in the politically heterogeneous regions, social unrest could occur in the event of an unwanted candidate coming out as the winner. The court, however, is quite often used only as the last resort, after demonstrations or even vandalism failed to achieve their

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objective. A governor or a bupati/mayor might still win an election even without the support of the region’s big political parties. Once the bupati/ mayor had been elected, they might embark on a new course to the extent of even antagonizing some sections of the population. There are already about twenty kabupaten/municipalities that are applying syariah-based by-laws in their respective regions. The measure might be locally popular but it could pose social, political, and constitutional problems. Indeed, in spite of its lofty idea — “the people’s sovereignty” — democracy apparently remains something to be learned and properly practised. Democracy is obviously not only a system that allows people to elect their own leaders and to visualize the kind of society they want to have; it is also a system that may occasionally inspire people to look deep into the history of its past experiences. Is the present the legitimate reflection of the dream that had been cultivated in the past? Or, more likely, can the claim of the regime in power on the foundation of the state be considered historically legitimate? As the nation-state had passed through several dramatic and even traumatic experiences since its formation, the fall of Soeharto unfailingly inspired the reading public to re-examine the validity of the history that had been taught at schools. What really happened on the night of 30 September and the early morning of 1 October 1965, that triggered the bloodiest internal conflict Indonesia has ever experienced? Who were the real culprits? What really happened to the greatest founding father of the nation, Sukarno? Was Soeharto really the savior of the nation and its ideological foundation, the Pancasila, or was he only the pretender who managed to get the upper hand in a time of crisis? What was his role during the revolution? How could Indonesia have got itself involved in the crisis of Portuguese Timor? A host of other questions were also openly asked and debated. It is an old story, indeed. The fall of an authoritarian state has unfailingly opened up the gate to the re-examination of the historical claim of its existence. History, as a reconstruction of the past, may well continue, as it should, to be written and debated. History is, after all, not only an attempt to reconstruct the past but also a type of discourse. As such, history will not only continue to revise itself — as new evidence surfaced, new questions are asked, and new approaches are used — it is also a mirror through which the present can be better understood and the future visualized. The most

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frustrating moments, however, may occur when knowledge of history and the concerns of the present collide. The question is finding a psychologically satisfying solution to the dilemma between the principles of justice that have somehow been supported by a certain notion of revenge, and the feeling of gratitude and notion of pity for the physically helpless former leader. The legal position of Soeharto has since the time of the Habibie Presidency, never ceased to occupy the attention of the political public. Should he be tried for corruption, but what about his illness? How about the crimes against humanity that took place during his time as the Head of State as well as the symbol of the state? The case of Soeharto is not, and indeed, has never been, simply a matter of impunity and justice, but also a question of cultural and ethical propriety in dealing with a fallen leader, who had admittedly served the country since his youth. Several times the government made the decision to abandon his case, but several times the decision had to be revised. In the meantime, several student groups and many political as well as social leaders would readily resume their protest demonstrations the moment the government shows any sign of doubt.

Problems of Integration and the Hardening of Stance Jakarta and the political elite were certainly very much concerned with the prevailing political instability and economic crisis. In the meantime, outside the circle of the political elite in the capital city, intensified geographical mobility as the result of the continuing policy of transmigration, the uneven economic opportunities, the growing regional disparities, and improved transportation system, had practically made every region or even small towns fertile ground for the emergence of unstable plural societies in both ethnic and religious terms. In a situation where geographic mobility had become a major social phenomenon, dynamic migrants could emerge as strong competitors in the attempt to climb up the economic and social ladders. At the same time, local-born ethnic communities could gradually feel that they have been politically dislocated and economically marginalized. In a highly centralized political system that was supported by the policy of making ethnic and religious differences politically and ideologically irrelevant, they felt that social,

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political and economic unbalances could gradually transform themselves into explosive social time bombs. This was what ultimately occurred when the once powerful state fell into a deep crisis of credibility and legitimacy. The seal of the long suppressed sources of conflict was opened and brought forth with it the explosion of social time bombs in several sensitive areas. With these explosions, Indonesia began to experience its worst ethnic and religious conflicts in memory. The continuing horizontal social conflicts had not only disturbed social and national integration, and even threatened the integrity of the state, but they were also to become a theatre of human tragedies — the tragedies that made one wonder whether Indonesia could ever liberate itself from the tradition of revenge that it had inadvertently created and sustained. The series of communal conflicts that occurred between the Dayaks and the Madurese migrants in West Kalimantan unfailingly gave a picture of what could happen to the growingly pluralistic society if there was no serious effort to manage the inter-ethnic relationship. Although according to estimates before the outburst of the biggest communal conflict West Kalimantan ever experienced, the Madurese constituted only about 3 per cent of the population of the province, the Dayaks, nevertheless, felt growingly threatened by the presence of the Madurese, many of whom had actually lived there for two or three generations. Living far away from their place of origin, the Madurese had the reputation of being strong adherents of their own way of life. They preserved all the traditions of belonging to the Madurese ethnic group. They continued to look at the ulama, religious teachers and scholars, who lived on the island of their origin, as their spiritual and intellectual mentors, instead of trying to associate themselves with their coreligionists of Kalimantan. These tendencies only strengthened the negative ethnic stereotype image of the Madure in the eyes of the others. On the other hand, the Dayaks, whose living space had continually been decreasing as the result of legal or illegal logging, found themselves gradually dislocated from their own land. They also felt that they had no voice in the politics in the highly centralized state. There were very few Dayaks who occupied high government posts. In this situation, it is hardly surprising that they tended to look at the Madurese migrants not only as

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the culprits who should be blamed for helping to make their living space shrink, but also as the outsiders whose main social concerns were to safeguard their own close-knit ethnic interests and the sanctity of their rather exclusive Islamic religion. Also, of course, in the eyes of the others, the Dayaks also had their own negative stereotype image. In this increasingly unpleasant social environment, isolated minor incidents between the members of the two distinct ethnic groups that occasionally would take place here and there unfailingly added to their feelings of mutual animosity. When the sphere of hostility was already on the increase and the deference to the authority of the state was declining, any small and insignificant incident could become the cause of major communal conflicts. This was what happened in 1996–97 — a little incident involving two youths immediately incited major conflicts in Sambas, West Kalimantan. In the process, a few hundred Madurese were reportedly killed. In 1999, the Madurese were involved in a conflict with their coreligionists, the Malays, who were supported by the Dayaks. It was only after most of the Madurese left Sambas that a relative peace could be restored. Yet, by the year 2000, several hundred Madurese had lost their lives and around 50,000 had to live either in refugee camps or were forced to return to the island of Madura. In February 2001, Sampit, a small town in Central Kalimantan, witnessed the Dayak massacre of the Madurese. Unlike their counterparts in West Kalimantan, the majority of the Dayaks, about 70 per cent, in Central Kalimantan were Muslims. Sampit was also the only town where the Madurese belonged to the majority. About 60 per cent of the population of Sampit was Madurese. The Dayaks only constituted about 10 per cent of the population while the rest were the Banjarese (about 20 per cent) and the Javanese (10 per cent). A quarrel between a Dayak and three Madurese that took place in a small town near Sampit in December 2000 triggered the violent communal conflict. In the violent brawl, a Dayak man was killed. The killers managed to escape. In their desperation for the failure to capture the killers, the Dayaks murdered and tortured any Madurese they could find and ransacked and burned their houses. Before long, the conflict spread to Sampit. For two days in February, the Madurese, being in the majority,

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controlled Sampit and kicked out the Dayaks. However, thousands of Dayaks who came from the surroundings of Sampit managed to assemble and attack the town. Hundreds of Madurese lost their lives. Their houses were plundered and ransacked. The police and the military were immediately sent to Sampit but they could hardly guarantee the safety of Madurese lives and properties. They did, however, manage to evacuate the Madurese from other threatened towns. Those who were saved had to flee from their houses — the homes they had made with hard work — to their place of origin, the island of Madura, the island which to many of them was only real in their cultural imagination. The Madurese became refugees in the place of their origin, with scant opportunity, if any, to return to Central Kalimantan, where they had successfully made a decent living. When the Kalimantan People’s Congress was held from 4–7 June 2001 at Palangkaraya, the capital of the province of Central Kalimantan, it was decided that only the Madurese who had Dayak relatives and had been living in Kalimantan for more than 10 years were allowed to return with one condition. They should apologize to the Dayaks. In other words, the victims had to apologize to their tormentors before they were allowed to return to their abandoned property.2 Ambon shows another sign of the crisis Indonesia had to cope with at a time when the nation seriously wanted to return to the ideal state of order visualized by its founding fathers. Suddenly among the Ambonese, the people who were famous for their melodious Hawaiian style of music tradition, religious differences could also easily transform an ordinary human being into a hated enemy to be killed. As the capital of the province of Maluku, the city of Ambon had since the beginning of the 1980s become a major attraction, particularly to the people from the southern parts of Sulawesi. Gradually the migrants, nicknamed the BBM because they consisted of the Buginese, Butonese, and the Makasarese, not only disturbed the delicate balance between the two universal religions in the city of Ambon, where the Muslims outnumbered the Christians, but also dominated the non-formal sector of the economy. That was also the period when the used-to-be politically marginalized Ambonese Muslims began to exert their presence in politics. They wanted to have some positions in the bureaucracy,

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the field that had been dominated by the Christians since the colonial period. The growing political clout of the Muslims at the centre of the highly centralized state of the New Order also reflected itself in the local political scene. The Christians felt that the Muslims had successfully undermined the “inherited” Christian political and bureaucratic space. The fall of Soeharto could also be seen as an opportunity to settle a score. That was the sphere when the whole foundation of the nation-state had been put under some kind of primordially inspired political and social scrutiny. It was exactly at that time that a little incident — just like the case of the Dayak-Madurese conflict in Kalimantan — could easily explode into a major social conflict (January 1999). In the event, a great number of the BBM left Ambon and returned, perhaps temporarily, as refugees to their place of origin. However when religion was taken as the central issue in a communal conflict, ethnic ties could easily be transgressed. A rumour that the central mosque in the city had been set ablaze immediately drove the Muslims from the Islamic villages on the island to the centre of the city. They were determined to defend the mosque at all costs. While passing the Christian villages on their way to the city, they set some churches ablaze. The interethnic conflict between the Muslim migrants and Christian original settlers, had changed into an internal conflict of the Ambonese. Religion had become the real marker in determining friend or foe. The small island of Ambon may well be seen as a divided world religiously, but at the same, it is also an integrated ethnic community culturally. Every village could really have been an integrated and homogenous community, but the attachment to different religions segregated the villages. However, looking at it from a cultural and historical perspective, the so-called “religious conflict” in Ambon actually meant nothing more than an inter-village conflict — something that could occasionally occur. Conflict between “Islamic village” and “Christian village” was quite a common phenomenon in the history of Ambon. This inter-village open conflict, however, rarely lasted more than a few days. The society had their long-lasting tradition of healing any breach of peace. In the post-New Order period, the conflicts continued without the ability of the tradition or

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the state apparatus or any other power, for that matter, to mediate, let alone solve the open and violent conflicts. There was a time when the Ambonese society had a highly valued institutional tradition for solving whatever type of conflicts it might find itself in. After a day or two of the open conflict, a tradition-based source of moral and historical authority would be brought to the fore by their respective local raja to terminate the open conflict. As an old wisdom states, the normal situation could be restored. The awareness of the fact that the differences of religions — and, naturally, the distinctive historical experiences of conversion — may become a source of internal conflict has apparently made the Ambonese very cognizant of the importance of maintaining the historical or even mythological memories of the sacred ties that bound the communities of different villages. It is the memory that despite their religious differences they actually belonged to the same ancestors. As folklore states it, the moment they realized the existence of these ancestral kinship ties, the fighting that might have occurred by accident, would stop and the feelings of brotherhood return. The present continuing conflicts strongly suggest that the local community had lost its ability to defend itself against its own structural weaknesses. The uniformity of the village administration throughout the archipelago that had been introduced by the New Order regime had immensely crippled the sanctity of adat institutions and local integrative myths. By the time the communal conflicts occurred, the village administration law had already torn apart the widely shared heritage of the defence mechanism of the local community. The internal conflict in Ambon took place at a time when the society had been seriously weakened by the authoritarian state that was having its own crisis of legitimacy. It is therefore understandable that whenever the local leaders of both factions had the time and opportunity to reflect on their state of affairs, they would in chorus demand the rehabilitation of their traditional institutions. The conflict in Ambon became more complicated when in April 2000, the Java-based and most likely well-trained Lasykar Jihad came to help their co-religionists in Ambon. The Muslims might have seen the relatively well-equipped Lasykar Jihad as the group that might relieve them from all

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kinds of social distress, but to the Christians, they were just perpetrators of the world of quarrelling brothers. It took about sixteen attempts before the then Coordinating Minister for Social Affairs, Jusuf Kalla, managed to persuade the leaders of the two religious communities to come to Malino, a small town near Makassar, to seal their peace by signing the so-called Malino peace agreement on 12 February 2002. By that time, the Ambonese had to learn to live in a world of differences. By that time, the conflict had taken a few hundred lives. It was only after peace had been restored that the Ambonese could hope to feel safe in their own homes, beaches and gardens, and to sing “sweet Ambon” with a light heart. Although somewhat different in their sociological motives and economic background, similar types of horizontal conflicts spread to the other islands of the once world-renowned Spice Islands. Horizontal conflicts, with shorter durations, but sociologically far more complex, flared up in Halmahera (August 1999) and Ternate (November 1999). Here religious differences, ethnic-based political and economic competitions, the lust for power of the local elite rolled into one and produced human tragedies and a bundle of feelings of revenge.3 Later the conflict took a worse form when it spread to the district of Poso in Central Sulawesi. Violent communal conflicts may not be a new phenomenon in the history of Indonesia. However, the fact that these rather scattered conflicts took so long to subside could make people wonder about the capability of the nation-state to preserve social integration. What had really happened to this national community that had for so long been relatively able to maintain its peaceful existence? The communal conflicts might not directly endanger the integrity of the state, but it did show that the crisis of mutual distrust among the political elite that flared up soon after the fall of Soeharto had somewhat disconnected their relationship with the masses. In the process, the crisis of mutual trust of the elite had also sown the seed of crisis management. The fact that the horizontal conflicts took so long to settle was but one example of this crisis phenomenon. However, in spite of the disruption to local social integration, the horizontal communal conflicts did not directly pose a threat to the integrity of the state. It was the inability of the government to put an end to the vertical conflicts that really made the integration of the state difficult. The separatist character

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of the vertical conflicts not only sapped the political and economic energies of the state, but could possibly also open up domestic political gates to outside interference. When Habibie assumed the Presidency, he had to address himself immediately to the problems of the independent movement in East Timor and the separatist ones in Aceh and Papua. His decision on the case of East Timor is already well-known. The wisdom of the decision has been and may be continually debated. Still, however one may judge the wisdom of Habibie’s decision to offer the people of East Timor the right to choose between independence and a special autonomy right within the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia, the decision reflects his acknowledgement that geographical proximity, without the support of the feeling of shared historical destiny, is a weak foundation for making a nation. When the people of East Timor finally made their choice (1999), a new nation was born. At the same time, Indonesia had actually liberated itself from the heavy burden of having committed an ideological sin — “Freedom is the right of every nation”, as the Preamble of its Constitution states — and from its historical aberration. The cases of Aceh and Papua, however, were entirely different stories. The fact that the succeeding Presidents directly addressed themselves to the questions of the two regions shows how sensitive these issues really were to Indonesia’s national integration. One of the earliest attempts of the Habibie government to solve the Aceh problem was to abandon the policy of making the region a military operation zone. The army headquarters soon withdrew several army battalions from the province. President Habibie came to Banda Aceh, the capital of the province, and conducted an open public discussion in the central mosque. He apologized for past mistakes and promised to find a better solution for the people of Aceh. General Wiranto, the Commanderin-Chief of the Armed Forces, also came, and like the President, he apologized for past mistakes of the armed forces. Soon after that, a delegation from the National Commission for Human Rights came to investigate the alleged past abuses of human rights. That was the time when people became more aware of the tragic experiences the people of Aceh had to undergo during the time their region was classified as a military operation zone.

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The new policy, however, failed to make Aceh a peaceful province and to create a new political environment. Armed clashes in the attempted nonmilitary sphere still took place here and there. The GAM and the military could not trust each other. One of the most serious armed incidents took place (July 1999) when the military, on the basis of a wrong intelligence report, attacked a religious school and killed its teacher and about one hundred of its students. The killings were not simply serious abuses of human rights, but also a political blunder of major proportions. The religious school was located in the district of West Aceh, a region that could hardly be said to be under the influence of the GAM. The killings might not have immediately enlarged the sphere of influence of the GAM, but it did seriously worsen the army’s already tarnished credibility in the eyes of the local population. The military culprits, except for its commander, who for whatever reason managed to escape, were later arrested and court-martialled (April 2001). Tremendous political damage in the eyes of the local population as well as the national reading public, nonetheless, had been done. The other armed clashes or mass riots that took place when the army battalions were on their way to the port clearly demonstrated the mistrust between the army and the local people. It should also be noted, however, that amidst the ugly situation, there were still some bright spots in Aceh, where the army troops managed to seal a true friendship with the local people. In spite of its failure to terminate the sphere of enmity, the central government, pressed by public opinion or worried about its place in the international community or other reasons, did not give up its effort to find some kind of win-win solution to the Aceh problem. Its delegations conducted several preliminary talks with the representatives of the GAM in Davos and later in Geneva. On 15 May 1999, the delegations of both sides signed the “Joint Understanding Humanitarian Pause on Aceh”. On the basis of humanitarian considerations, both sides agreed to cease armed hostilities. A brighter prospect seemed to have emerged when the two sides met in Geneva, under the auspices of the Henry Dunant Center, and on 9 December 2000, they signed the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (COHA). In spite of the presence of international inspectors, COHA did not last very long. The COHA failed to function properly when scattered clashes resumed. In the continuing armed clashes, the only logical option available

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to the foreign inspectors was to withdraw. The differences between the two sides were too large and their mutual mistrust too deep. The GAM still insisted on the separation of Aceh from Indonesia while Jakarta could and would never tolerate ceding even a slice of the country. The attempt to renew the agreement as well as to find a long lasting solution had to be abandoned when President Megawati sensed that the negotiation could mean a transgression of Indonesia’s sovereignty on Aceh. The GAM negotiators who happened to be still in Aceh were arrested and later put on trial and punished for treason. The rift between the two sides deepened because in the meantime, the government and the parliament had agreed on changing the Special Province of Aceh, which, as many critics complained, was without anything special to it, into a special territory known as the Nangroe Aceh Darussalam. The central government had now definitively given Aceh special rights such as allowing Aceh to apply Islamic laws. In other words, the central government had finally agreed to give Aceh the unfulfilled promises in the 1950s when Daud Buereueh ceased his rebellious opposition. The GAM, however, was not interested in the application of the Islamic law. It wanted to establish an independent state and a secular one, for that matter. In the meantime, inspired perhaps by the East Timor case, the student communities in Aceh demanded a referendum, which would allow the people of Aceh to make their choice to either remain within the fold of the Republic or be an independent state. Instead of creating political controversy in the capital city, this demand only strengthened the determination of Jakarta to solve the Aceh problem within the confines of the NKRI — Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia (the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia). Since the possibility of Aceh to secede from the Republic of Indonesia was something no one would ever dare to contemplate, Aceh was put under military emergency law. The military, under the highly nationalistic President Megawati, being as she was, the daughter of Sukarno, returned again to its more familiar tactics of security. In the meantime, the local elites of the western and southern parts of Aceh were beginning to sound out the need for dividing the present Aceh into three provinces. Ethnically speaking, the majority populations of these two regions are not Acehnese, whose hometowns were mostly in the northern and eastern parts of the province.

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The most urgent problem remained, however, the activities of the GAM — their violent operations in Aceh and diplomatic manoeuvres abroad. Whatever sorts of movement made by the leaders of GAM in Sweden and other parts of the world, there was practically only two kinds of news that came regularly out of Aceh — the arrest of the ganja (marijuana) traders and corrupt officials, and the violent armed encounters. There were also only two questions that could then be realistically asked — “How many GAM fighters are in the jungle?” and “Who are the people behind the ganja traffic?” That was the situation when the 2004 general election and the Presidential election were held. The large majority of the people of Aceh, like any other ordinary Indonesian citizens, eagerly participated in the once-called “fiesta of democracy”. After the elections, the sphere of business as usual returned to Aceh. In the meantime, far away from Aceh, the people of Nabire in Papua, and later those who lived on the small island of Alor, in the province of East Nusatenggara, had to suffer the damage caused by an earthquake. Suddenly on 24 December 2004, a tsunami hit Aceh. Several towns and villages were simply destroyed and could as well have disappeared from the map, and more than 200,000 people lost their lives. The calamity suddenly awakened the nation to the question: “What has happened to our brothers and sisters, the people who live in the politically troubled region?” Within a day or two, people all over the country, including those who lived in Alor and Nabire, who might have thought that their sufferings were light in comparison with that of the people of Aceh, began to collect contributions. More than any other event in history, the spontaneous reaction to the tsunami disaster showed how deep the feeling of belonging to one nation among the ordinary people was. The tsunami disaster soon became a focus of international relief efforts, but the political future of Aceh was still a big question. Would the newly elected President re-examine the rather tough policy of his predecessor? The deadly tragic natural disaster immediately halted military operation. The GAM ceased its hit-and-run operations. Like any other natural disaster, the tsunami unfailingly made the people reflect on their existence as human beings as well as God’s creatures. What was the divine message behind such a colossal calamity? Whatever the answer to this reflective question

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might be, it was after the great disaster that the GAM and the central government had the urge to resume their several interrupted negotiations. It was the tacit willingness of the GAM to abandon its demand for independence that really started the process. The President apparently trusted the Vice-President, Jusuf Kalla, the engineer of the two Malino agreements that managed to enforce peace in Ambon and Poso, to supervise the process directly. With full confidence in the possibility of reaching a long lasting settlement, the Indonesian Government sent its formal, if “unofficial”,4 delegation to meet the GAM representatives, most of whom had been living in Europe, in Helsinki. Under the able sponsorship of the former President of Finland, Martti Ahtisari, the leader of the Crisis Management Initiative, negotiation processes were held several times between January and May 2005. When the Memorandum of Understanding was finally signed on 15 August, Indonesian territorial integrity remained intact and Aceh received important concessions unmatched by any other region in Indonesia. The MoU consisted of the basic agreements on “governing Aceh”, “human rights”, “security arrangements”, “amnesty and reintegration into society”, “establishment of the Aceh Monitoring Mission” and “dispute settlement”. In the first article of the First Chapter (governing Aceh), both parties agreed on some basic principles of “law on the governing Aceh”, which among other things, states that “decisions with regard to Aceh by the legislature of the Republic of Indonesia will be taken in consultation with and with the consent of the legislature of Aceh”, “Aceh has the right to use regional symbols, including a flag, a crest and a hymn” and “the borders of Aceh correspond to the borders of 1 July 1956”. The second article deals with the question of “political participation”, which guarantees the right of the Acehnese to establish “Aceh-based political parties that met national criteria” and to fully participate in the political process. In the third article — that on the economy — the MoU gives Aceh the right to raise funds with external loans, set taxes, keep 70 per cent of the revenue from its natural resources, jurisdiction over living resources in the territorial sea surrounding Aceh, and jurisdiction on monetary and fiscal policies, etc. The fourth article deals with “rule of law”. The Second Chapter (Human Rights) states

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that in addition to the promise of the government of Indonesia to adhere to the U.N. International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, it is also agreed that a Human Rights Court will be established and a Commission for Truth and Reconciliations will be formed. The Third Chapter (Amnesty and reintegration into society) among other things states that the government of the Republic of Indonesia would give amnesty to political prisoners, facilitate the reintegration of the former GAM members, secure the right of former GAM members who have renounced their citizenship to regain it, etc. The Fourth Chapter (Security Arrangements) among other things states the cessation of violence, the decommissioning of GAM armaments, the withdrawal of non-organic military and non-organic police forces from Aceh, etc. In the Fifth Chapter (Establishment of the Aceh Monitoring Mission — AMM), it is agreed that the AMM would consist of the representatives from the European Union and ASEAN countries. The government of Indonesia would guarantee the safety and the rights of the AMM. The moment the full text was made public — actually, even before that time — several articles of the MoU became the subject of criticisms in and outside the parliament. Many argued that several agreed items, such as the questions of justice, local political parties, monetary and fiscal policies and others, might have transgressed existing law. To all of these criticisms the negotiators, the Minister of Law and Human Rights, and the Minister of Communication and Information, replied that throughout the process of negotiation, they never compromised the three fundamental principles. They stood firm on the principles of the integrity of the NKRI, the sanctity of the Constitution, and the willingness of the GAM to abandon their demand for independence.5 However what kind of local administration would Aceh finally have? Whatever the case, one thing is certain — since the signing of the MoU, Aceh can now visualize its future in a much better light. It is a special region, with important special rights, but remains a part of the nation-state. The same thing, however, can still not be said about the then still called province of Irian Jaya. Unlike the GAM with its well-structured organization that enabled its members to see it as a kind of government in exile, the OPM

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was a rather loosely organized fighting unit. However it could still pose a threat to the security and safety of the people and the government officers. Occasionally these armed guerilla fighters might attack a police or military post, but it was the attitude of the local elite that really gave the central government a political headache. Whatever the GAM leaders might say about the historical foundation of its existence, they could hardly speak about their basically distinct racial and cultural identity from the rest of Indonesia, like the local elite of Papua had been doing. How should the government deal with such a situation? Contemporary trends might have shown, as a result of cultural and religious encounters and inter-marriages, that the once much adored Melanesian identity, with its distinct physical traits, cultural uniqueness, and Christian religion, has lost some of its unified character. The claim of belonging to the Melanesian race, nevertheless still had its emotional attraction. The local elite continued to use it as a cultural and political marker that set the divergent Papuan ethnic communities aside as a separate entity vis-à-vis the rest of Indonesia. Collective memories and historical understanding of the recent past and the present experiences only intensified this undying sense of distinctness. Not unlike the situation in Jakarta, when the fall of the New Order inspired people to review the state-sponsored reconstruction of history, the Papuan leaders and intellectuals had also been demanding the reopening of the historical archives on the Act of Free of Choice that took place in 1969. By demanding a re-examination of the history of the event, they might have hoped the central government would acknowledge its past mistakes and be prepared to take the consequences. The demand for the reopening of the archives and the rewriting of history was intensified by the tendency of the military to use its less than proper tactics in dealing with the occasional local outburst of violence. The transgression of human rights in confronting the opposition from the local population remains a history that has never been properly written although it continues to enrich local collective memories. The demand for justice and respect, the desire for the acknowledgement of the Papuan distinctness, the insistence that the nation-state admit its past mistakes, may well be the unifying claims of the Papuans. However, beyond

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these value-laden demands, the local elite differed on the kind of proper solution to the cultural, political, and economic predicaments of the Papuans. It is not simply because of their ethnic and cultural diversities and their divergent levels of development that make it difficult for the Papuans to find one definite answer to their commonly shared predicaments. Inconsistencies in the central government policies, the dual interests of the TNI — to safeguard the integrity of the unified state and to guarantee the safety of the business interests, one of which was the biggest tax payer, the Freeport Inc. — and the availability of several types of economic and political opportunities had unfailingly created divergent desires for the present and dreams for the future among the elite. The growing number of the immigrants who constituted more than half of the population of about 2 million had also undoubtedly somewhat tempered the unity of political desire and the vision of the future of the original settlers of the province. The critical period of power transition in 1998 was also a time when the Papuan ethno-nationalists intensified their activities to gain political concessions. Mass demonstrations took place in Jayapura, Biak, Sorong, and Wamena. In Jakarta, several Papuan leaders managed to hold what was later known as the Jakarta Informal Meeting in late November 1998. This meeting led to the dialogue between President Habibie and 100 Papuan leaders in February 1999. The President might have hoped the dialogue could be the beginning of healthier communication between the restless province and the central government. To his surprise, the 100-strong delegation simply made two highly sensitive requests, namely, the declaration of the then-still-officially-called Irian Jaya as an independent state, and the establishment of a transitional government under the supervision of the United Nations. If necessary, they said, the United Nations could be invited as a participant in the international dialogue between the government of Indonesia and the people of Papua. As can be expected, President Habibie could hardly find the words to react to such high-bid demands. However, the central government had just passed a new autonomy law that based its promulgation on the political rationale of the need for the government to be close to the people. With such a large territory, how could the administration of Irian Jaya take care of its people properly? Therefore a law (45/1999) that divided the province of Irian Jaya into three provinces

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— West, Central, and East — was promulgated. The majority of the Papuan elite rejected this law. As a result of this opposition, the law simply became a dead document, at least for a while. It was still there, but nothing realistically could be done about it. The central government waited for the right time to come. The change in the Presidents in November 1999 gave a new sphere in the relations between the central government and its restless province. As a sign of its determination and its growing strength, the Papuan nationalists held the 38th anniversary of “Papuan independence” on 1 December 1999. As usual, the Morning Star flag was hoisted and the hymn “Hai Tanahku Papua” was sung. Yet, at the same time, they also hoisted the Red and White flag and sang the national hymn, Indonesia Raya. No incident took place. In the meantime, the newly elected President, Abdulrahman Wahid, seemed to be prepared to make some kind of breakthrough in the growingly heated debate on the future of the easternmost province. That was the time when the Papuan leaders had more freedom to consolidate themselves. In February 2000, they held the Musyawarah Besar Papua (Papuan Mass consultation) which among other things, managed to establish the Presidium Dewan Papua (Papuan Presidium Council) which consisted of twenty members with two chairpersons. From late May to early June, with the tacit approval of the President, who gave some financial support and permission to hoist the Morning Star flag, the Second Papuan National Congress was held in Jayapura. Not unlike Habibie, President Wahid might also have been surprised when the Congress produced a document called the Manifesto on the Basic Rights of the Papuan People. In the Manifesto, the participants of the Congress declared that the people of Papua had been a sovereign nation since 1 December 1961. It rejected the validity of the New York Agreement of 1962 and did not acknowledge the legitimacy of the Act of Free Choice. The Manifesto therefore urged the United Nations to revoke its resolution that had acknowledged the result of the Act of Free Choice. The Congress demanded that Indonesia, the Netherlands, and the United States, and the United Nations investigate the transgressions of human rights and the process of the Indonesian annexation of West Papua. There was no immediate reaction from the government to these demands. In December 2000, President Wahid went to Jayapura to formalize

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the change of the name of Irian Jaya to Papua. In its session of 2000, the MPR rejected the wisdom of the President’s rather accommodative approach. The local authorities soon marginalized the position of the Presidium and arrested five of its leaders, including Theys Hiyo Eluay, a former member of the national parliament for two consecutive terms, and removed the Papuan nationalist symbols from public display. Not long after he was released, Eluay was murdered by a military conspiracy (November 2001). Although the killers would later be arrested, the Presidium Dewan Papua had lost its momentum. For in the meantime, the parliament had finished the draft of the law on the Special Autonomy of Papua (October 2001) and President Megawati issued a Presidential Instruction (Number 1/2003) that formalized the existence of the province of West Irian Jaya. Although the instruction is consistent with Law 45/1999, it contradicts the law that had been finally passed by the parliament on the Special Autonomy of Papua (Law 21/2002). This law does not only simply formalize the change of Irian Jaya to Papua, but provides the region with special rights. In addition to the local legislature, as a part of the government structure, like in other provinces, it also has its special elected body, the Majelis Rakyat Papua, the People’s Council of Papua, which serves as the advisory and supervisory body. The administrative confusion could continue because, unlike the local legislature, the DPRD, the council is also an elected representative body for all Papua. These administrative confusions certainly cannot immediately settle the Papua case. One thing is certain, however, these confusions offer several political options to the Papuans — to adhere to the ideas of the Special Autonomy that covers the whole Papua, to demand independence, or to support the establishment of the West Irian Jaya Province.6 As the latest election of the governors of both Papua and West Irian Jaya province show, the emotional political support for the two alternatives are very strong. In the meantime, the future political settlement of Papua is still hanging in the air and occasionally violent riots and skirmishes may still continue. The cases of Aceh and Papua show that the centralization of power and an authoritarian political system in a multi-ethnic and multi-historic nationstate is a scenario for disaster. The use of the military methods, which sometimes cannot be easily separated from state terrorism, may for some

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time suppress armed local resistance, but obviously it fails to solve the basic problems of local dignity and rights. However if Aceh may hope to have a better future, despite its bloody past and natural disaster, within the confines of the NKRI, the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia, Papua will still have to find a better solution for its present problems and a brighter prospect for its future.

Conclusion: History as a Mirror of Self While he was still in power Habibie on several occasions, publicly asked himself, “Why did Sukarno and Soeharto fall into the trap of dictatorial power?” This question was soon followed by another, “What should we do so that the next Presidents do not fall again into the trap of power such as experienced by the former Presidents?” Cynics might simply reject this question as Habibie’s acknowledgement of the weakness of his claim to the Presidency. There may well be some grain of truth in this cynical assumption, but Habibie did form a team, consisting of a number of civilian and military intellectuals, including Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the present President, to formulate a strategy for the advancement of civil society. However, regardless of the result of this team, looking back at what President Habibie tried to do, one can get the impression that the fall of Soeharto did expose something to ponder about. The fall of the strong President immediately shows the weaknesses of Indonesia as a modern nation-state, which, as its leaders never fail to emphasize, has based itself on the Pancasila, the five basic principles of the state. It reveals the faulty roads it happened to have taken in the process of nation-building. The fall also emphasizes the need for a new beginning of the re-examination of the course of the state. It is as if with the fall of Soeharto, the heavy ideological burden that had been put on the shoulders of the nation, had been lifted. Suddenly the hegemony of discourse that had for so long imposed itself to mould and control the structure of consciousness of the nation lost its power and its credentials. That was the time when Habibie tried to make the presence of his Presidency felt but that was also the time when the voices of the others wanted to dominate the field. The political significance of the other voices was even more obvious after the first constitutionally-elected President

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came to power. President Wahid found to his, and his followers’ chagrin, that there were other voices that needed to be listened to. Who can forget the lament of President Megawati about the heavy burden of the Presidency and the almost unheard voice of her office in the jungle of crowded political utterances? The new directly elected President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whose legitimacy is beyond doubt, has for obvious reasons, not only to continue solving the problems left unsolved by his predecessors, but also pursue new roads that promise to bring the nation-state back to the goals of its creation. The newly elected President called his cabinet, Indonesia Bersatu — Indonesia in Unity. The name is a symbol as well as a programme. It can actually mean more than that — the name is also a recognition that the struggle that has been embarked upon since the beginning of the nationalist movement is still in its early stage. Was it not the desire for unity that really gave the nationalist movement its strongest motivation? Was it not because of the strong urge to gain human dignity, liberty, and justice that the freedom fighters were ready to sacrifice themselves on the battlefronts during the national revolution? From the time President Sukarno established the Guided Democracy regime in 1959 to the period when Soeharto stepped down as President, Indonesia had most likely deviated from its own cherished foundation of the state. During the tenures of the two Presidents, the official basic foundation of the state, which was succinctly stated in the Preamble of the Constitution had sometimes been used as the ideological pillar for the regime to maintain its power. As a result, when they were pushed out of power, the nation they themselves loved so much had to experience major social and political crises. Sukarno’s revolutionary state, with its conflict paradigm in understanding political and social realities, and its eagerness to continuously change whatever state of stability had been achieved, finally resulted in the cruel polarization of the national community. Suddenly Indonesia became a killing field of its own people. When Soeharto’s time came, he abandoned the conflict paradigm, and in its place, instituted a consensual world and tried to homogenize divergent ideological orientations, but in the end, his regime only produced a society that was in conflict with itself. Indonesia had to

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face a multidimensional conflict. What future lies ahead? Would the process towards the creation of a nation-state such as is visualized in the Preamble of the Constitution find its proper path? How can Indonesia liberate itself from the present frustrating period before it finally recovers the very idea that had served as the earliest pillar in the process of nation formation? What is in store for the future of democracy? The democratization of the state and national life has, since the fall of Soeharto, become the loudest voice as well as the strongest demand. For democracy is not simply one of the basic principles of the state, nor is it only a matter of historical heritage that has made the formation of the multiethnic nation possible, but is also the unavoidable political and social imperative that can never be ignored. How many more crises has this nation to undergo if it ignores again — like it did several times in the past — this basic principle of nationhood? Indeed no one has ever denied, at least not openly, the need for paving the proper way towards the healthy development of democratization. However the stronger the demand the more one has to realize how deep the authoritarian mindset that has apparently penetrated the nation’s structure of consciousness was. It was as if for the sake of democracy, everybody simply has to follow what everyone else has been saying. Suddenly the nation has to realize that it has to relearn both the meaning and the requirement of a democratic life. The slow pace of the completion of the amendment of the Constitution is but only an example of the relearning process. The successive heads of state that came to power after Soeharto are not only obliged to properly manage state affairs, but also to lead in the process of re-examination of the course of the nation-state and the process of nation-building. In the process, not only has the future to be visualized, but the unfinished problems of the past also have to be squarely faced. The present is not simply the present, it is also, at the same time, the remnants, or even the continuation of the past and the seeds of the future. This is undoubtedly a conventional wisdom, but since the fall of Soeharto, the demands of these three layers of time have immensely multiplied and strengthened to the extent that a ranking of priority can hardly be made. While the various types of conflict — ranging from the acts of the vigilanté,

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the divergent types of terrorist acts, to the separatist and communal conflicts — have to be solved while hoping at the same time that a better and more solid foundation for the healthy development of the national community and the integrity of the state can be found, the voices of revenge from the past have also intensified its demands. How can a peaceful state of affairs be achieved if the call for impunity has become even louder? Indeed looking from another angle, the so-called era of reformasi as what people preferred to call the post-Soeharto period can rightly be said to be the beginning of the process of re-examination of the existence of the multi-ethic and multicultural nation-state. The process of re-examination becomes more intense not only because history has shown the inadequacies of anti-colonial nationalist slogans and mode of discourse for maintaining social and national integrity. The political and economic implications of globalization have penetrated into structural reality and the structure of consciousness. Should the history of the national struggle simply be forgotten or can this history and the notion of a common destiny function creatively in the process of “remaking Indonesia”, as some intellectuals have been asking themselves? Or, perhaps more likely, does a new and more creative response to the many facets of the unprecedented challenges have to be found? If history has any lesson to give, then one can also see that it is the creative understanding of the present and the past and the willingness to visualize a brighter future that has successfully planted the seeds of the new nation called Indonesia. Now, after Indonesia has passed through all kinds of social and political experiences — some, quite promising, while others very disappointing — it has grown into an adult nation that may still make mistakes, but in the process, it also gained some wisdom. In time to come, Indonesia may again recover its almost forgotten creative responses to new and unprecedented challenges. NOTES 1 2

Daniel Dhakidae, Partai-partai Politik Indonesia: Ideologi, Strategi, dan Program (Jakarta: Kompas & Gramedia, 1999), p. 34. There are already several studies on the conflicts, but the basic empirical facts are taken from “Communal Violence: in Indonesia: Lessons from Kalimantan”, ICG Asia Report, no. 19, 27 June 2001.

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3

4 5 6

There are already several studies on the communal conflict in Ambon. See among others, Sri Yanuarti et al., Konflik di Maluku Tngah: Penyebab, Karakteristik, dan Penyelesaian Jangka Panjang (Jakarta: Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia, 2003). For a comparative study on the communal conflicts in Ambon and North Maluku, see Sri Yanuarti et al., Konflik di Maluku dan Maluku Utara, Strategi Penyelesaian Konflik Jangka Panjang (Jakarta: LIPI Press, 2005). The President did not forget to stress this status in his Independence Speech to the parliament on 16 August 2005. The MoU is reprinted and discussed in Thung Yu Lan et al., Penyelesaian Konflik di Aceh: Aceh dalam Proses Rekonstruksi & Rekonsiliasi (Jakarta: LIPI Press, 2005). The above discussion on Papua is partly based on Ikrar Nusa Bhakti, “A New Kind of Self-Determination in Papua: The choice between Independence and autonomy”, in Violent Internal Conflicts in Asia Pacific, edited by Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Hélène Bouvier, Glenn Smith, and Roger Tol (Jakarta: YOI, LIPI, LASEMA-CNRS, KITLV-Jakarta, 2005), pp. 211–36. and Adriana Elizabeth et al., Agenda & Potensi Damai di Papua (Jakarta: LIPI Press, 2005).

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Reproduced from Indonesia: Towards Democracy, by Taufik Abdullah (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute Chronology • 573> of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg

Chronology

20 May

1908

The establishment of the first modern organization, the Boedi Oetomo — the date has been taken as the Day of National Awakening.

28 October

1928

The Youth Oath (Sumpah Pemuda) — ”One nation, one Homeland, Indonesia recognize one national language — Bahasa Indonesia”.

9 March

1942

The capitulation of the Netherlands Indies to the advancing Japanese military might.

October

1943

The formation of the PETA (“Defenders of the Homeland”).

1 March

1945

The formation of the BPUPKI.

1 June

1945

Sukarno’s Pancasila speech.

15 August

1945

The Emperor of Japan announced the surrender of Japan to the Allied Forces.

17 August

1945

Sukarno and Hatta “on behalf of the Indonesian nation” proclaimed the independence of Indonesia.

18 August

1945

Sukarno and Hatta were elected as the President and Vice-President of the new state. With two important revisions , the constitution (later known as the ‘45 Constitution), that had been drafted by the BPUPKI, was accepted.

31 August

1945

The first Presidential cabinet formed.

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5 October

1945

The birthday of the national armed forces (it was first called TKR, later changed its name to TRI, finally TNI — Tentara Nasional Indonesia).

10 October

1945

The issuance of the Maklumat X — The provisional parliament (KNI-P) in function.

14 November

1945

Parliamentary cabinet under Prime Minister Sutan Sjahrir.

7 October

1945

The first day of the so-called “Three Regions Affairs” in the North coast of Central Java.

3 March

1947

“The night of blood”. The “social revolution” in East Sumatra began.

25 March

1947

The signing of the Linggajati Agreement.

21 July

1947

The First Dutch Aggression.

17 and 19 January

1948

The Renville Agreement signed.

18 September

1948

The first day of the “Madiun Affairs” — the Left Wing challenged the central government.

19 December

1948

The Second Dutch Aggression. The Dutch occupied Yogyakarta and Bukittinggi and other Republican towns. They arrested Sukarno, Hatta, and a number of other Republican leaders.

22 December

1948

The formation of the PDRI (Emergency Government of the Republic of Indonesia) under the Chairmanship of Sjafruddin Prawiranegara, the Minister of Prosperity in the Hatta Cabinet, in Halaban, a small town in West Sumatra.

1 March

1949

“Six Hours in Yogyakarta” under the command of Colonel Soeharto.

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7 May

1949

Roem-van Royen Statements — to cease hostility and and the Dutch agreed to “return Yogyakarta” (into the fold of the Republic).

19–22 July

1949

The first Inter-Indonesia Conference in Yogyakarta.

31 July– 2 August

1949

The Second Inter-Indonesia Conference in Yogyakarta.

7 August

1949

The Darul Islam movement proclaimed the establishment of the Negara Islam Indonesia (Islamic State of Indonesia), under the leadership of Kartosuwirjo, with its capital “somewhere” in province of West Java.

23 August– 31 October

1949

Round Table Conference (Republic of Indonesia, BFO, and the Dutch) in The Hague.

15 December

1949

The KNI-P endorsed the agreement reached at the RTC.

16 December

1949

Sukarno was elected as the President of the newly formed Republic of the United States of Indonesia (RIS — Republik Indonesia Serikat).

27 December

1949

Queen Juliana of the Netherlands officially “transferred” the soverignty of Indonesia to the chairman of the Indonesian delegation, VicePresident/Prime Minister Mohammad Hatta, in The Hague.

28 December

1949

Sukarno’s triumphant return to Jakarta, the capital of RIS.

29 December

1949

Hatta’s cabinet formed.

18 February

1950

Surat Kepercayaan Gelanggang — a cultural manifesto.

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14 April

1950

The proclamation of the Republik Maluku Selatan (Republic of South Maluku).

16 August

1950

The dissolution of the RIS and the re-establishment of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI — Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia).

17 August

1951

Kahar Muzakkar took arms against the NKRI (7 August 1953 he announced that his movement was part of the NII — under Kartosuwirjo).

21 September

1953

Tgk Daud Buereueh (the former Republican Governor of Aceh) rebelled against the central government.

18 April

1955

The Asia-African Conference officially opened in Bandung (West Java).

29 September

1955

The first General Election (to elect the members of parliament) and in December to elect the members of the Constituent Assembly.

21 February

1957

President Sukarno announced his konsepsi.

2 March

1957

Masyumi, NU, Catholic, and PSI rejected the konsepsi. “Only the Constituent Assembly has the right to change existing structure of the state.”

15 February

1958

The Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia (PRRI — Pemerintah Revolusioner Repulik Indonesia) proclaimed its existence in Padang. The civil war began.

19 February

1959

The President proposed to the Constituent Assembly to take the 1945 Constitution as the new constitution to replace the existing 1950 Provisional Constitution.

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30 May

1959

The Constituent Assembly voted on the proposal. After three voting it failed to get two thirds of the votes.

5 July

1959

The issuance of the Presidential Decree — Indonesia “returned to the 1945 Constitution”. The Guided Democracy was born.

8 July

1958

The Presidential Cabinet was formed. Djuanda, the former Prime Minister, was appointed as the First Minister.

23 July

1958

The Constituent Assembly was dissolved.

5 March

1960

The President dissolved the elected parliament.

25 June

1960

The Mutual-Help House of People’s Representatives — Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat-Gotong Royong (DPR-GR) was officially opened.

10 November– 7 December

1960

The first session of the Provisional People’s Consultative Assembly — Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat-Sementara (MPRS).

15 April

1961

The Presidential Decree — the state could only allow the existence of eight political parties.

8 May

1962

Tgk Daud Buereueh of Aceh “returned to the fold” of the Republic of Indonesia.

1 December

1961

Papuan nationalists hoisted the Bintang Kejora (Morning Star) flag and sang “Hai Tanahku Papua”. The day has been glorified as the “Independence Day of Papua”.

19 December

1961

President Sukarno declared the “Three People’s Commands” (Trikora — Tiga Komando Rakyat) — on West Irian Conflict.

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15 August

1962

The New York Agreement.

1 October

1962

West New Guinea under the U.N.’s Administration.

1 May

1963

The U.N. entrusted the administration of West New Guinea to Indonesia.

4 April

1963

The politics of konfrontasi against the formation of Malaysia was announced.

17 August

1963

Manifest Kebudayaan (Cultural Manifesto). It was banned on 8 May 1964.

September

1964

Barisan Pendukung Sukarnoisme (Front of the Supporters of Sukanoism) was established (it was banned in December).

30 September– 1 October

1965

”The night of terror”. The 30 September Movement announced the establishment of the so-called Revolutionary Council.

24 February

1966

Major student demonstration frustrated the first meeting of the newly formed cabinet (better known as the “Cabinet of 100 Ministers”).

11 March

1966

Surat Perintah Sebelas Maret (11 March Letter of Command) from Sukarno to Soeharto.

June 20– July 5

1966

Sessions of the MPR — Sukarno’s title as “the President for Life” stripped.

9 October

1966

The DPR-GR passed a resolution to impeach Sukarno.

22 February

1967

Sukarno transferred power to Soeharto.

12 March

1967

The MPRS appointed Soeharto as the Acting President.

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11 March

1968

The MPRS elected Soeharto as the President. He was to serve until the elected MPR elect the new President.

19 November

1969

The UN General Assembly endorsed the outcome of the Act of Free Choice in West Irian. The territory officially became part of the NKRI.

5 July

1971

The first General Election in the New Order period.

5 January

1973

The formation of Partai Persatuan Pembangunan (PPP — United Development Party).

10 January

1973

The formation of the Partai Demokrasi Indonesia (PDI — Indonesian Democratic Party).

24 November

1975

The FRETILIN declared the independence of the former Portuguese Timor (East Timor).

7 December

1975

Indonesian army invaded East Timor.

17 July

1976

East Timor officially became the 27th province of Indonesia.

29 November

1976

Hasan Tiro announced the formation of AcehSumatra Liberation Front (ASNLF) better known as GAM (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka — Aceh Independence Movement).

4 December

1976

The Proclamation of the independence of AcehSumatra.

30 May

1984

Draft bill to make Pancasila as the “sole foundation” sent to the MPR.

12 September

1984

The Tanjung Priok Affairs.

7 February

1989

The Lampung Affairs.

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9 December

1990

The establishment of ICMI (Association of Muslim Intellectuals in Indonesia).

1995

The year of celebration — Indonesia celebrated the Fiftieth Anniversary of Independence.

27 July

1996

The headquarters of the PDI stormed by “unknown” elements.

June

1997

Massive krismon (Monetary crisis) began to hit Indonesia.

12 May

1998

The “Trisakti (University) tragedy”. Military snipers killed four demonstrating four students on the way back to the campus.

14–15 May

1998

The ugliest and cruelest mass riots hit Jakarta.

21 May

1998

President Soeharto resigned and the Vice-President, B.J. Habibie took over.

1 April

1999

78.5 per cent of the East Timorese voters opted for independence.

1 June

1999

The first general election after the end of the New Order. Megawati’s PDI-P was the biggest winner.

14 October

1999

The MPR rejected accountability speech.

16 October

1999

The MPR elected Abdurrahman Wahid of the PKB, Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa (with the support of the so-called Central Axis) as the new President. Two days later the body elected Megawati Sukarnoputri as the Vice-President.

22 July

2002

The MPR impeached the President. Vice-President Megawati took over and Hamzah Haz of the PPP was later elected as the Vice-President.

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5 April

2004

General Election — the Golkar Party replaced the PDI-P as the biggest party.

5 July

2004

The first direct Presidential election. No absolute winner.

20 September

2004

The second round of Presidential election.

20 October

2004

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and M. Jusuf Kalla were sworn in as the President and Vice-President respectively.

24 December

2004

The big tsunami hit Aceh and the island of Nias (North Sumatra). Over 200 thousand people lost their lives.

15 August

2005

The GAM and the Republic of Indonesia signed the Memorandum of Understanding. Aceh won a special status within the fold of the Republic.

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Reproduced from Indonesia: Towards Democracy, by Taufik Abdullah (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute Selected Bibliography • 583 of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg >

Selected Bibliography

Abaza, Mona. Changing Images of Three Generations of Azharites in Indonesia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1993. ———. Islamic Education, Perceptions, and Exchanges: Indonesian Students in Cairo. Paris: Association Archipel, 1994. Abdulgani, Ruslan. Heroes Day and the Indonesian Revolution. Djakarta: Prapanca, 1964. ———. “The First Year of the National Council”. Reprinted in his, Pantjasila: The Prime Mover of the Indonesian Revolution. Djakarta: Prapantja, 1965. Abdullah, Taufik. Schools and Politics: The Kaum Muda Movement in West Sumatra (1927–1933). Ithaca, New York: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1971. ———. “Modernization in the Minangkabau World: West Sumatra in the Early Decades of the Twentieth Century”. In Culture and Politics in Indonesia, edited by Claire Holt et al. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1972. ———. “The Study of History”. In The Social Science in Indonesia, edited by Kuntjaraningrat, vol. I, pp. 79–120. Jakarta: Indonesian Institute of Sciences, 1972. ———. “The Making of the Schakel Society: The Minangkabau Region in the Late Nineteenth Century”. Majalah Ilmu-ilmu Sastra, 1977. ———. “Social and Cultural Scenes”. In Trends in Indonesia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1982. ———. “Nation Formation and Structural Concern: A Problem in Indonesian Historiography”. Prisma: The Indonesian Indicator, no. 29 (September 1983): 31–43. ———. “Response to Colonial Power: The Jambi Experiences in Comparative Perspective”. Prisma: The Indonesian Indicator, no. 33 (September 1984): 13–29. ———. “Islam and the Formation of Tradition in Indonesia: A Comparative Perspective”. Itenerario xiii, no. 1 (Special Issue 1989). ———. “The Formation of a Political Tradition in the Malay World”. In The Making of an Islamic Political Discourse in Southeast Asia, edited by Anthony Reid. Clayton, Victoria: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1993.

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———. “History, Political Images and the Dutch in the Indonesian Archipelago”. Studia Islamica I, no. 3 (1994): 1–24. ———. Islam dan Masyarakat: Pantulan Sejarah Indonesia. Jakarta: LP3ES, 1987; second reprint, 1996. ———. Islam dan Pluralisme di Asia Tenggara. Jakarta: PMB-LIPI, 1996. ———. “The Emergence of New Paradigm?: A Sketch on Contemporary Islamic Discourse”. In Toward a New Paradigm: Recent Developments in Indonesian Islamic Thought, edited by Mark R. Woodward. Tempe, Arizona: Arizona State University, Program for Southeast Asian Studies, 1996. ———. “Situasi Kebahasaan di Masa Kini: Kepungan Eksternal Dalam Perkembangan Bahasa dan Wacana”. In Bahasa dan Kekuasaan, edited by Yudi Latif and Idi Subandy Ibrahim. Jakarta: Mizan, 1996. ———. “Inherited Identity” and “The New Nation: The Politics of Cultural Discourses in Indonesia”. In Identity, Locality and Globalization: Experiencves of India and Indonesia. New Delhi: Indian Council of Social Science Research, 2001. Abdullah, Taufik, H. Misbach Yusa Biran, and S.M. Ardan. Film Indonesia: Bagian I (1900–1950). Jakarta: Dewan Film Indonesia, 1993. Abeyasakere, Susan. “One Hand Clapping: Indonesian Nationalists and the Dutch, 1939–1942. Melbourne: Monash Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, 1976. ———. Batavia: A History. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1990. Adam, Ahmat B. The Vernacular Press and the Emergence of Modern Indonesian Consciousness (1855–1913). Ithaca, New York: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1995. Adams, C. My Friend, the Dictator. New York: Bobbs-Merril, 1967. Agung, Ide Anak Agung Gde. Twenty Years Indonesian Foreign Policy, 1945–1965. The Hague, Paris: Mouton, 1973. ———. ‘Renville’ als Keerpunt in de Nederlands-Indonesische Onderhandelingen. Alphen aan den Rijn: Stijhoff, 1980. ———. Bali Pada Abad XIX. Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 1989. ———. From the Formation of the State of East Indonesia Towards the Establishment of the United States of Indonesia, translated by Linda Owens. Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia, 1996. Al Chaidar. Gerakan Aceh Merdeka: Jihad Rakyat Aceh Mewujudkan Negara Islam. Jakarta: Madani Press (Penebar Buku Islam Radikal), 2000. Alfian, T. Ibrahim. Perang di Jalan Allah. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1987. Alfian, and Taufik Abdullah et al. Masa Awal Pembentukan ASEAN. Jakarta: LRKNLIPI, 1986. Algadri, Hamid. Prime Minister Sjahrir as Statesman and Diplomat: How the Allies Became Friends of Indonesia and Opponents of the Dutch (1945–1949). Jakarta: LP3ES, 1995.

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Selected Bibliography • 585

Alisjahbana, S. Takdir. Indonesia: Social and Cultural Revolution. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1966. Alqadrie, Syarief Ibrahim. “Factors in Ethnic Conflict, Ethnic Identity and Consciousness, and the Indications of Disintegrative Processes in West Kalimantan”. In Communal Conflict in Contemporary Indonesia. Jakarta: Center for Languages and Cultures/Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2002. Amin, S.M. Kenang-Kenangan: Dari Masa Lampau. Jakarta: Pradnya Paramita, 1978. Amir, M. Boenga Rampai. Medan: Centrale Courant en Boekhandel, 1940. Amran, Rusli. Sumatra Barat: Plakat Panjang. Jakarta: Penerbit Sinar Harapan, 1985. ———. Padang Riwayatmu Dulu. Jakarta: C.V. Yasaguna, 1988. Anderson, Benedict. The Spectre of Comparison. New York, London: Verso, 1998. ———. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London, New York: Verso, 1983, revised edition, 1991. Anderson, Benedict R.O’G. Java in a Time of the Revolution: Occupation and Resistance, 1944–1946. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1972. ———. “Sembah-Sumpah: The Politics of Language and Javanese Culture”. In Language and Power: Exploring Political Cultures in Indonesia. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1990. Anshari, Endang Saifuddin. Piagam Jakarta, 22 Juni 1945: Sebuah Konsensus Nasional Tentang Dasar Negara Republik Indonesia (1945–1949), third edition. Jakarta: Gema Insani Press, 1997. Anwar, H. Rosihan. Menulis dalam Air: Sebuah Otobiografi. Jakarta: Penerbit Sinar Harapan, 1983. ———. Sebelum Prahara: Pergolakan Politik Indonesia, 1961–1965. Jakarta: Penerbit Sinar Harapan, 1984. Arifin, Marzuki. Peristiwa 15 Januari 1974. Jakarta: Publishing House Indonesia, 1974. Assaat. “The Chinese Grip on Our Economy (1956)”. In Indonesian Political Thinking, 1945–1965, edited by Herbert Feith and Lance Castles. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1970. Atmakusumah, ed. Tahta Untuk Rakya: Celah-celah Kehidupan Sultan Hemengkubuwono IX. Jakarta: Penerbit P.T. Gramedia, 1982. Avé, Jan B. “ ‘Indonesia’, ‘Insulinde’, ‘Nusantara’: Dotting the i’s and the t”. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 145, no. 2–3 (1989): 220–34. Awwas, Irfan S. Trauma Lampung Berdarah: Di Balik Manuver Hendro Priyono. Yogyakarta: Wihdah Press, 2000. Aziz, M.A. Japan’s Colonialism and Indonesia. ‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, N.V., 1955. Baker, Joshua. “State of Fear: Controlling the Criminal Contagion in Suharto’s

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New Order”. In Violence and the State in Suharto’s Indonesia, edited by Benedict R.O’G. Anderson. Ithaca, New York: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 2001. Balfas, M. Dr. Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo: Demokrat Sedjati. Djakarta: Penerbit Djambatan, 1952. Benda, Harry J. and Ruth McVey, eds. The Communist Uprisings of 1926–1927 in Indonesia: Key Documents. Ithaca, New York: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1962. Benda, Harry J. The Crescent and the Rising Sun: Indonesian Islam under the Japanese Occupation, 1942–1945. The Hague/Bandung: W. van Hoeve, 1958. Bertrand, Jacques. Nationalism and Ethnic Conflicts in Indonesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Biro Agitprop D.P. Partai Murba. “Bung Karno tentang Partai Murba, Tan Malaka dan Perdjuangannja: Pidato Amanat Presiden Sukarno kepada Resepsi Pembukaan Kongres ke V Partai Murba diBandung 15–17 Desember 1960”. Djakarta: Biro Agitprop D.P. Partai Murba, 1960. Blumberger, Petrus. De Nationalische Beweging in Nederlandsch Indie. Haarlem: Tjenk Willink & Zoon, 1931. Boland, B.J. The Struggle of Islam in Modern Indonesia. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982. Bone, Robert C. The Dynamics of Western New Guinea (Irian Barat) Problem. Ithaca, New York: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1958. Bourchier, David and John Legge, eds. Democracy in Indonesia 1950s and 1990s. Clayton, Victoria: Centre Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1994. Breman, Jan. Taming the Coolie Beasts: Plantation Society and the Colonial Order in Southeast Asia. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Burger, D.H. “Structuurveranderingen in de Javaanse Samenleving”. Indonesie, II, III, 1948–1950. Carey, Peter and G. Carter Bentley, eds. East Timor at the Crossroads: The Forging of a Nation. London: Cassel & SSRC, 1995. Challis, Roland. Shadow of Revolution: Indonesia and the Generals. Thrupp, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing Limited, 2001. Chambert-Loir, Henri. “Mas Marco Kartodikromo (c.1890–1932) ou l’Education Politique”. In Literature Contemporaines de l’Asie du Sud-est, edited by P.B. Lafort and D. Lombard. Paris: à l’Asiatique, 1974. Chaniago, J.R. Menuju Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia: Peranan Pemimpin Lokal dalam Dinamika Politik di Sulaesi Selatan dan Sumatera Timur, 1950. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, 2002. Chauvel, Richard. Nationalists, Soldiers, and Separatists: The Ambonese Islands from Colonialism to Revolt, 1880–1950. Leiden: KITLV, 1990.

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Selected Bibliography • 587

Colombijn, Freek. Patches of Padang: The History of an Indonesian Town in the Twentieth Century and the Use of Urban Space. Leiden: Research School CNWS, 1994. Cote, Joost. Letters from Kartini: An Indonesian Feminist 1900–1904. Clayton: Victoria, Monash Institute of Asian Studies, Monash University, 1992. Cribb, Robert, ed. The Indonesian Killings of 1965–1966: Studies from Java and Bali. Monash Paper on Southeast Asia No. 1. Clayton: Monash University, 1990. Crouch, Harold. The Army and Politics in Indonesia. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1978. D. Larson, George. Masa Menjelang Revolusi: Kraton dan Kehidupan Politik di Surakarta, 1912–1942, translated by A.B. Lapian. Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 1990. Dahm, Bernard. Sukarno and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence, translated from German by Mary F. Somers Heidhues. Ithaca and New York: Cornell University Press, 1969. Davidson, Jamie S. and Douglas Kammen. “Indonesia’s Unknown War and the Lineages of Violence in West Kalimantan”. Indonesia, no. 73 (April 2002). Dawood, Dayan and Sjafrizal. “Aceh: The LNG Boom and Enclave Development”. In Unity and Diversity: Regional Economic Development in Indonesia since 1970, edited by Hal Hill. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989. de Graaf, H.J. and Th.G. Th. Pigeaud. Eerste Moslimse Vorstendommen op Java: Studiën over de Staadkundige Geschiedennis van de 15e en 16e eeuw, VKI 69. s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhof, 1974. de Jong, L. The Collapse of a Colonial Society: The Dutch in Indonesia during the Second World War. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002. de Josselin de Jong, P.E. Minangkabau and Negeri Sembilan: Socio-Political Structure in Indonesia. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1952. Dhofier, Zamakhsari. Tradisi Pesantren: Studi Tentang Pandangan Hidup Kyai. Jakarta: LP3ES, 1985. Djajadiningrat-Niewenhuis, Madelone. “Notosoeroto: His Ideas and the Late Colonial Intellectual Climate”. Indonesia, no. 55 (April 1993): 41–72. Dobbins, C. Revivalism in a Changing Peasant Economy: Central Sumatra, 1787–1847. London/Malmö, 1983. Drake, Christine. National Integration in Indonesia: Patterns and Policies. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989. Drooglever, P.J. “The Komite Nasional Indonesia Pusat and Internal Politics in the Republic of Indonesia”. In The Heartbeat of the Indonesian Revolution, edited by Taufik Abdullah. Jakarta: P.T. Gramedia Pustaka Utama & Program of Southeast Asian Studies, LIPI, 1997. Dunn, James. East Timor: A Rough Passage to Independence. Double Bay, N.S.W.: Longueville Books, 2003.

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Dwipayana, G. and Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin, eds. Among Friends: Pak Harto at 70: A Penetrating Look at a Unique Leader by his Closest Associates, translated by Muti’ah Lestiono. Jakarta: PT Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, 1993. Effendy, Bisri, ed. 17 Oktober, 1952: Kronik Hubungan antara Parlemen, Militer dan Istana. Jakarta: Riset Informasi dan Analisa Kecenderungan, 2001. El Ibrahimy, M. Nur. Peranan Tgk. M. Daud Beureu-eh dalam Pergolakan Aceh. Jakarta: Media Da’wah, 2001. Elmslie, Jim. Under the Gun: Indonesian Economic Development and West Papuan Nationalism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002. Elsbree, W.H. Japan’s Rule in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements, 1940–1945. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953. Elson, R.E. Suharto: A Political Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Engelen, O.E., et al. Lahirnya Satu Bangsa dan Negara. Jakarta: Penerbit Universitas Indonesia Press, 1997. Enklöf, Stevan. Indonesian Politics in Crisis: The Long Fall of Suharto, 1996–98. Copenhagen: NIAS, 1999. Federspiel, Howard. The Persatuan Islam. Ithaca, New York: Modern Indonesia Project, Cornell University, 1966. Feith, Herbert and Lance Castles, eds. Indonesian Political Thinking, 1945–1965. Ithaca/ London: Cornell University Press, 1970. Feith, Herbert. The Indonesian Elections of 1955. Ithaca, New York: Modern Indonesia Project, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1957. ———. The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, Press, 1964. ———. “Suharto’s Search for a Political Format”. Indonesia, no. 6 (October 1968): 88–105. Fischer, Louis. The Story of Indonesia. New York, Evanston & London: Harper & Row Publishers, 1959. Florida, Nancy. Writing in the Past, Inscribing the Future: History as Prophecy in Colonial Java. Durhan & London: Duke University Press, 1995. Forster, Harold. Flowering Lotus: A View of Java in the 1950s. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989. Frederick, William H. Vision and Heat: The Making of the Indonesian Revolution. Athen: Ohio University Press, 1988. Geertz, Clifford. The Religion of Java. Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1960. ———. “Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in New States”. In Old Societies and New States, edited by Clifford Geertz. New York: Free Press, 1963. ———. Islam Observed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. Gibbels, Lambert J. Soekarno, Nederlands Onderdaan: Biographie 1901–1950. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1999.

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Selected Bibliography • 589

Gonggong, Anhar. Abdul Qahhar Muzakkar: Dari Patriot hingga Pemberontak. Jakarta: Grasindo, 1992. Goto, Ken’ichi. Jepang dan Pergerakan Kebangsaan Indonesia, translated from Japanese. Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia, 1998. Gouda, Frances. Dutch Culture Overseas: Colonial Practice in the Netherlands Indies, 1900–1942. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1995. Green, Marshal. Indonesia: Crisis and Transformation, 1965–1968. Washington, D.C.: The Compass Press, 1990. Greenlees, Don and Robert Garran. Deliverance: The Inside Story of East Timor’s Fight for Freedom. Crows Nest, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, 2002. Hamka. Ayahku. Djakarta: Djaja Murni, 1967. Hanifah, Abu. Tales of a Revolution, edited by C.L.M. Penders. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1972. Hanna, Willard. “The Rebel Cause, October 9, 1959”. In Bung Karno’s Indonesia, Part VII. New York: American Universities Field Staff, 1961. Harahap, H.A.R. and B.S. Dewantara. K. Hadjar Dewantara Dkk. Jakarta: PT Gunung Agung, 1980. Harvey, Barbara. “Tradition, Islam and Rebellion: South Sulawesi 1950–1965”. Ph.D. Thesis, Cornell University, 1974. Hassan, Kamal. Muslim Intellectual Response to ‘New Order’ Modernization, Indonesia. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan bahasa dan Pusataka, 1980. Hatta, Mohammad. Kumpulan Tulisan, four volumes. Djakarta: Penerbit Buku Indonesia, 1952. ———. Verspreide Geschriften. Djakarta, Amsterdam, Surabaja: Van der Piet, 1952. ———. “Indonesia Between the Power Blocs”. Foreign Affairs XXXVI, no. 3 (1958). ———. Demokrasi Kita. Djakarta: Pandji Masjarakat, 1960. ———. Past and Future. Ithaca, New York: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1960. ———. Sekitar Proklamasi 17 Agustus 1945. Jakarta: Tintamas, 1969. ———. Portrait of a Patriot: Selected Writings by Mohammad Hatta. The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1972. ———. Memoir. Jakarta: P.T. Tinta Mas, 1976. Henley, David E.F. Nationalism and Regionalism in a Colonial Contexts: Minahasa in the Dutch East Indies. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1996. Hering, Bob. Soekarno: Founding Father of Indonesia, 1901–1945. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002. Hill, Hal, ed. Unity and Diversity: Regional Economic Development in Indonesia since 1970. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989. ———. Indonesia’s New Order: The Dynamic of Socio-Economic Transformation. St. Leonards, N.S.W., Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1994. Hill, Hal. “Indonesia: From ‘Chronic Drop-out’ to ‘Miracle’ to ‘Catastrophe’?”. In Indonesia after Soeharto. Auckland: The University of Auckland, 1999.

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590 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

Hisyam, Muhammad, ed. Krisis Masa Kini dan Orde Baru. Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia, 2003. Howard, Dick. “Formation of the ‘Nation State’ 1930–1966”. In The Emergence of a National Economy: An Economic History of Indonesia, 1800–2000, by Howard Dick et al. Honolulu: Unwin & Allen and University of Hawaii Press, 2002. Hurgronje, C. Snouck. Mekka in the Latter Part of the Nineteenth Century: Daily Life, Customs and Learning; the Muslims of the East-Indian-Archipelago, translated by J.H. Mohanan. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1931. Idris, Kemal. Bertarung dalam Revolusi. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1996. Ingleson, John. Road to Exile: The Indonesian Nationalist Movement, 1927–1934. Singapore, Kuala Lumpur: Heinemann Educational Books (Asia), 1979. Inomata, Aiko Kurasawa. “Indonesia Merdeka Selekas-lekasnya: Preparations for Independence in the Last Days of Japanese Occupation”. In The Heartbeat of Indonesian Revolution, edited by Taufik Abdullah. Jakarta: P.T. Gramedia Pustaka Utama & Program of Southeast Studies, LIPI, 1997. Insider. Atjeh Sepintas Lalu. Jakarta: Fa. Archipelago, 1950. Ismail, Faisal. Islam and Pancasila: Indonesian Politics, 1945–1995. Jakarta: Badan Litbang Agama dan Diklat Keagamaan, 2001. Ismail, Taufiq, and D.S. Moeljanto. Prahara Budaya: Kilas Balik Ofensif Lekra/PKI dkk. Jakarta: Mizan & Republika, 1995. Jones, Howard Palfrey. Indonesia: The Possible Dream. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971. Jones, Russel. “Earl, Logan and ‘Indonesia’ ”. Archipel, no. 6 (1973). Junge, Gerhard. The Universities of Indonesia: History and Structure, pp. 6–10. Bremen: Bremen Economic Research Society, 1973. Kahin, Audrey R., ed. Regional Dynamics of the Indonesian Revolution: Unity from Diversity. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1985. Kahin, George McT. Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1952. ———. Southeast Asia: A Testament. New York/London: Routledge Curzon, 2003. Kahin, R. Audrey and George McT. Kahin. Subversion as Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia. New York: The New Press, 1995. Kartamihardja, Achdiat, ed. Polemik Kebudajaan. Djakarta: Balai Pustaka, 1948. Kartodirdjo, Sartono. Protest Movements in Rural Java. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1973. ———. Profiles of Malay Culture: Historiography, Religion and Politics. Jakarta: Directorate General of Culture, Department of Education and Culture, 1976. Klooster, H.A.J. Indonesiërs Schrijven hun Geschiedenis: De Ontwikkeling van de Indonesische Geschoedbeoefening in Theorie en Praktijk, 1900–1980. Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1985.

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Selected Bibliography • 591

———. Bibliography of the Indonesian Revolution, Publications from 1942 to 1994. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1997. Koch, D.M.G. Om de Vrijheid: De Nationalitische Beweging in Indonesie. Djakarta: Jajasan Pembangunan, 1950. Korver, A.P.E. Sarekat Islam: Gerakan Ratu Adil?, translated by Grafitipres. Jakarta: Grafitipres, 1985. Kosut, Hal, ed. Indonesia: The Sukarno Years. New York: Facts on File, 1967. Kurasawa, Aiko. Mobilisasi dan Kontrol: Studi tentang Perubahan Sosial di Pedesaan Jawa, 1942–1945, translated by Hermawan Sulistiyo. Jakarta: P.T. Gramedia Widiasarana Indonesia, 1993. Kusumaatmadja, Mochtar. “The Concept of the Indonesian Archipelago”. In Indonesia: Government and Politics, edited by Verindar Grover. New Delhi: Deep & Deep Publications PVT Ltd, 2000. Laffan, Michael Francis. Islamic Nationhood and Colonial Indonesia: The Umma Below the Winds. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Lapian, A.B., and P.J. Drooglevers, eds. Menelusuri Jalur Linggarjati: Diplomasi dalam Perspektif Sejarah. Jakarta: Grafiti, 1992. Legge, J.D. Sukarno: A Political Biography. London: Alan Lane The Penguin Press, 1972; third edition, Singapore: Archipelago Press, 2003. Legge, John D. “Daulat Ra’jat and the Ideas of the Pendidikan Nasional Indonesia”. Indonesia, no. 32 (October 1981): 151–68. Lev, Daniel S. and Ruth McVey, eds. Making Indonesia: Essays on Modern Indonesia in Honor of George McT. Kahin. Ithaca, New York: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1996. Lev, Daniel S. The Transition to Guided Democracy: Indonesian Politics, 1957–1959. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1966. Liddle, R. Wlliam. Leadership and Culture in Indonesian Politics. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1996. Lucas, Anton. One Soul One Struggle: Region and Revolution in Indonesia. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1991. Lyon, Margo L. Bases of Conflict in Rural Java. Berkeley: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California, 1970. Mackie, J.A.C. Konfrontasi: The Indonesia-Malaysia Dispute, 1963–1965. Kualu Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1974. Malaka, Tan. From Jail to Jail, translated and introduced with notation by Helen Jarvis. Athens: Ohio University, Center for International Studies, 1991. ———. Gerpolek. Yogyakarta: Penerbit Jendela, 2000. Mangkupradja, Gatot. “The Peta and My Relations with the Japanese: A Correction of Sukarno’s Autobiography”. Indonesia, no. 5 (April 1958): 105–34. Matheson, Virginia, and Barbara Andaya. The Precious Gift. Singapore, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1982.

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592 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

Matters, Mirjam. Dari Perintah Halus ke Tindakan Keras: Pers dari Zaman Kolonial Antara Kebebasan dan Pemberangusan, translated by Mien Joebhaar. Jakarta: 2003. Mattulada. “Kahar Muzakkar: Profil Patriot Pemberontak”. In Manusia dalam Kemelut Sejarah, edited by Taufik Abdullah et al. Jakarta: LP3ES, 1978. May, Brian. The Indonesian Tragedy. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1978. McVey, Ruth. The Rise of Indonesian Communism. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1965. ———. “Faith as an Outsider: Islam in Indonesian Politics”. In Islam in the Political Process, edited by J. Piscatori. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Mohamad, Gunawan. Sajak Lengkap, 1961–2001. Jakarta: Metafor, 2001. Mozingo, David. Chinese Policy toward Indonesia, 1949–1967. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1976. Mrazek, Rudolf. “Tan Malaka: A Political Personality’s Structure of Experience”. Indonesia, no. 14 (October 1972). ———. Sjahrir: Politics and Exile in Indonesia. Ithaca, New York: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1994. Nagazumi, Akira. The Dawn of Indonesian Nationalism: The Early Years of the Budi Utomo, 1908–1918. Tokyo: Institute of Developing Economies, 1972. Nasution, A.H. Menegakkan Keadilan dan Kebenaran. Djakarta: Seruling Masa, 1967. ———. Bisikan Nurani Seorang Jenderal (Kumpulan Wawancara dengan Media Masa), edited by Dr Bakri A.G. Tianlean. Bandung: Mizan, 1997. Nasution, Adnan Buyung. The Aspiration for Constitutional Government in Indonesia: A Socio-legal Study of the Indonesian Konstituante 1956–1959. Den Haag: CIP, Gegwens Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1992. Noer, Deliar. Partai Islam di Pentas Nasional, 1945–1965. Jakarta: P.T. Pustaka Utama Grafitti, 1987. ———. The Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia, 1900–1942. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1973. ———. Mohammad Hatta: Biografi Politik. Jakarta: LP3ES, 1990. Notosusanto, Nugroho, ed. Pejuang dan Perajuit: Konsepsi dan Implementasi Dwifungsi ABRI. Jakarta: Sinar Harapan, 1991. Notosusanto, Nugroho. Pemberontakan Tentara PETA Blitar Melawan Djepang (14 Februari 1945). Djakarta: Lembaga Sedjarah Hankam, Departemen Peretahanan-Keamanan, 1968. O’Rourke, Kevin. Reformasi: The Struggle for Power in Post-Soeharto Indonesia. Crows Nest N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, 2002. Onghokham. Runtuhnya Hindia Belanda. Jakarta: Penerbit P.T. Gramedia, 1987. Osborne, Robin. Indonesia’s Secret War: The Guerilla Struggle in Irian Jaya. Sidney: Allen & Unwin, 1985.

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Selected Bibliography • 593

Oshikawa, Noriaki. “Patjar Merah Indonesia and Tan Malaka: A Popular Novel and a Revolutionary Legend”. In Reading Southeast Asia. Translation of Contemporary Japanese Scholarship on Southeast Asia, volume I. Ithaca, New York: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 2000. Paget, Roger. Indonesia Accuses!: Soekarno’s Defence Oration in the Political Trial of 1930, edited, translated, annotated, and Introduced by Roget K. Paget. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1975. Pamberton, John. On the Subject of “Java”. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1994. Paris, Jonathan, and Adam Schwarz, eds. The Politics of Post-Suharto Indonesia. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1999. Pelras, Christian. The Bugis. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996. Penders, C.L.M. The Life and Times of Sukarno. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1974. ———. Milestone of My Journey: The Memoir of Ali Sastroamidjojo: Indonesian Patriot and Political Leader. Queenslands: University of Queenslands Press, 1979. ———. The West New Guinea Debacle: Dutch Colonization and Indonesia, 1945–1962. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002. Pigay, Decki Natalis. Evolusi Nasionalisme dan Sejarah Konflik di Papua. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 2000. Pluvier, J.M. Overzicht van de Ontwikkeling der Nationalitische Bewegiing in Indonesië in de Jaren 1930 tot 1942. s-Gravenhage & Bandung: W. van Hoeve, 1953. Poeze, Harry A. et al. In het Land van de Overheerser I: Indonesiërs in Nederland 1600– 1950, Verhandelingen van het. Dordrecht-Holland/Cinnaminson, USA: KITLV Press, 1986. Poeze, Harry A. Tan Malaka: Strijder voor Indonesië’s Vrijheid, Levesloop van 1892 tot 1945. Leiden: KITLV, 1976. Pranowo, M. Bambang. “Creating Islamic Tradition in Rural Java”. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Monash University, Clayton, 1991. Pringgodigdo, A.K. Sedjarah Pergerakan Rakjat Indonesia. Djakarta: 1945; fifth printing, Pembangunan: 1964. ———. Tiga Undang-Undang Dasar. Djakarta: P.T. Pembangunan, 1957. Raillon, François. Politik dan Ideologi Mahasiswa Indonesia: Pembentukan dan Konsolidasi Orde Baru, 1966–1974, translated by Nasir Tamara. Jakarta: LP3ES, 1985. Ramage, Douglas E. Politics in Indonesia: Democracy, Islam and the Ideology of Tolerance. London and New York: Routledge, 1995. Ras, J.J. Hikayat Banjar: A Study in Malay Historiography. The Hague: Martinus Nijhof, 1968.

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594 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

Reid, Anthony, and David Marr, eds. Perceptions of the Past in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Heinemann Educational Books, 1979. Reid, Anthony. The Blood of the People: Revolution and the End of Traditional Rule in Northern Sumatra. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1979. ———. Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680, Volume Two; Expansion and Crisis. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993. Resink, G.J. Indonesia’s History Between the Myths. The Hague: W. van Hoeve, 1968. Ricklef, Merle C. Jogjakarta under Sultan Mangkubumi, 1749–1792: A History of the Division of Java. London-New York: Oxford University Press, 1974. Robison, Richard, and Vedi R. Hadiz. Reorganising Power in Indonesia in Indonesia: The Politics of Oligarchy in an Age of Markets. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. Rocamora, J. Eliseo. Nationalism in Search of Ideology: The Indonesian Nationalist Party, 1946–1965. Quezon City: Philippine Center for Advanced Studies, University of Phippines, 1975. Roem, Mohammad. Bunga Rampai dari Sedjarah. Djakarta: Bulan Bintang, 1972. Roff, William. The Origin of Malay Nationalism. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1967. Rose, Mavis. Indonesia Free: A Political Biography of Mohammad Hatta. Ithaca, New York: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1987. Rosser, Andrew. The Politics of Economic Liberalisation in Indonesia: State, Market and Power. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2002. Sadikin, Ali. Tantangan Demokrasi. Jakarta: Sinar Harapan 1995. Said, Salim. Genesis of Power: General Sudirman and the Indonesian Military in Politics, 1945–1949. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan/Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1991. ———. Tumbuh dan Tumbangnya Dwifungsi: Perkembangan Pemikiran Politik Militer Indonesia, 1958–2000. Jakarta: Aksara Karunia, 2000. Salam, Solichin. Hadji Agus Salim: Pahlawan Nasional. Djakarta: Penerbit Djajamurni, 1965. Salim, Arskal, and Azyumardi Azra, eds. Shari’a and Politics in Modern Indonesia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2003. Saltford, John. The United Nations and the Indonesian Takeover of Papua, 1962–1969. London, New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Sani, Asrul. Surat-Surat Kepercayaan, edited by Ajip Rosidi. Jakarta: Pustaka Jaya, 1997. Sato, Shigeru. War, Nationalism and Peasants: Java under the Japanese Occupation, 1942– 1945. St. Leonards, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin in association with ASA of Australia, 1994.

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Selected Bibliography • 595

Schlosstein, Steven. Asia’s New Little Dragons: The Dynamic Emergence of Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1991. Schrieke, B. Indonesian Sociological Studies, vol. I. The Hague/Bandung: W. van Hoeve, 1957. Schulze, Kirsten E. The Free Aceh Movement (GAM): Anatomy of a Separatist Movement. Washington, D.C.: East-West Center Washington, 2004. Shiraishi, Takashi. “The Disputes between Tjipto Mangoenkoesormo and Soetatmo Soeriokoesoemo: Satria vs. Pandita”. Indonesia, no. 32 (October 1981). ———. An Age in Motion: Popular Radicalism in Java, 1912–1926. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1990. Siegel, James T. The Rope of God. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969. Sihombing, O.D.P. Pemuda Indonesia Menentang Fasisme Djepang. Djakarta: Sinar Djaja, 1962. Simatupang, T.B. Membuktikan Ketidakbenaran Suatu Mitos. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1991. Singh, Bilveer. East Timor, Indonesia and the World: Myths and Realities. Kuala Lumpur: ADPR Consult (M) Sdn. Bhd, 1996. Situmorang, Sitor. Penyair Danau Toba, Angkatan 45. Jakarta: Sinar Harapan, 1996. Sjahrazad. Renungan Indonesia, translated by H.B. Jassin from Indonesische Overpeinzingen. Djakarta: Poestaka Ra’jat, 1948. Sjahrir, Sutan. Our Struggle, translated with an Introduction by Benedict R.O’G. Anderson. Ithaca, New York: Modern Indonesia Project, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1968. Sjamsuddin, Helius. Pegustian dan Temenggung: Akar Sosial, Politik, Etnis, dan Dinasti Perlawanan di Kalimantan Selatan dan Tengah 1859–1906. Jakarta: Balai Pustaka, 2001. Sjamsuddin, Nazaruddin. The Republican Revolt: A Study of the Acehenese Rebellion. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1985. ———. Revolusi di Serambi Mekah: Perjuangan Kemerdekaan dan Pertarungan Politik di Aceh 1945–1949. Jakarta: Penerbit Universitas Indonesia, 1999. Skinner, G. William. “The Chinese Minority”. In Indonesia, edited by Ruth McVey. New Haven: Human Relations Area File, 1963. Smail, John R.W. Bandung in the Early Revolution, 1945–1946: A Study in the Social History of the Indonesian Revolution. Ithaca, New York: Modern Indonesia Project, Cornell University, 1964. Soedjatmoko, et al. An Introduction to Indonesian Historiography. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1964. Soeharto. Amanat Kenegaraan I, 1967–1971. Jakarta: Inti Idayu Press, 1985.

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596 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

———. Amanat Kenegaraan IV, 1982–1985. Jakarta: Inti Idayu Press, 1985. ———. Soeharto, My Thoughts, Words and Deeds: An Autobiography, as told to G. Dwipayana and Ramadhan K.H., translated by Sumadi and edited by Mut’iah Lestiono. Jakarta: P.T. Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, 1991. Soemitro. Pangkopkamptib Jenderal Soemitro dan Peristiwa 15 Januari, 1974 (Sebagaimana dituturkan kepada Heru Cahyono). Jakarta: Penerbit Sinar Harapan, 1998. Sophiaan, Manai. Apa yang Masih Teringat. Jakarta: Yayasan Mencerdaskan Kehidupan Bangsa, 1991. Steenbrink, Karel. Dutch Colonialism and Indonesian Islam: Contacts and Conflict, 1596– 1950, translated by Jan Steenbrink and Henry Janter. Amsterdam Atlanta: GA 1993. Subandrio. Indonesia on the March. Djakarta: Department of Foreign Affairs, R.I, 1963. Sudharmono S.H. Pengalaman Dalam Masa Pengabdian: Sebuah Otobiografi. Jakarta: P.T. Gramedia Widiasarana Indonesia, 1997. Sugiono M.P., ed. Sang Demokrat, Hamengku Buwono IX. Jakarta: Yayasan Budi Luhur, 1988. Sukarno. “Let Us Transform the World”. A speech delivered at the Conference of Asia-Afican Journalists, 24 April 1963. ———. “Ilmu dan Amal: Geest, Wil, daad”. Reprinted in Dari “Lahirnya Pantja Sila” sampai “Tjamkan Pantja Sila” Berdasarkan Adjaran Bung Karno, edited by H.A. Notosutardjo. Djakarta: Endang dan Pemuda, April 1965. ———. Dibawah Bendera Revolusi, 2 vols. Djakarta: Panitya Penerbit Dibawah Bendera Revolusi, 1965. ———. Sukarno: An Autobiography as Told to Cindy Adams. Indianapolis: BobbsMerril, 1965. ———. Ilmu dan Perjuangan: Kumpulan Pidato Ketika Menerima Gelar Doctor Honoris Causa dari Universitas dalam Negeri. Jakarta: Inti Idayu Press/Yayasan Pendidikan Soekarno, 1984. Suleiman, M. Isa. Sejarah Aceh: Sebuah Gugatan Terhadap Tradisi. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1997. ———. Aceh Merdeka: Ideologi, Kepemimpinan dan Gerakan. Jakarta: Al-kautsar, 2000. Suminto, Aqib. Politik Islam Hindia Belanda: Het Kantoor voor Inlandsche Zaken. Jakarta: LP3ES, 1985. Sundhaussen, Ulf. The Road to Power: Indonesian Military Politics, 1945–1967. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1982. Suny, Ismail. Pergeseran Kekuasaan Eksekutif. Djakarta: C.V. Calindra, 1965. Surjomihardjo, Abdurrahman et al. Beberapa Segi Perkembangan Sejarah Pers di Indonesia. Jakarta: Kompas, 2002. Suryadinata, Leo, Evi Nurvidya Arifin, and Aris Ananta. Indonesia’s Population:

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Selected Bibliography • 597

Ethnicity and Religion in a Changing Political Landascape. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2003. Suryadinata, Leo. Interpreting Indonesian Politics. Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1998. ———. Pribumi Indonesians, the Chinese Minority and China, third edition. Singapore: Heinemaan Asia, 1992. Sutanto, Himawan. Perintah Presiden Soekarno, “Rebut Madiun…”. Jakarta: Pusataka Sinar Harapan, 1994. Sutherland, Heather. The Making of a Bureaucratic Elite: The Colonial Transformation of the Javanese Priyayi. Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong: Heinemann Educational Books (Asia) Ltd., 1979. Syukur, Abdul. Gerakan Usroh di Indonesia: Peristiwa Lampung 1989. Yogyakarta: Ombak, 2003. Tamara, Nasir. “ICMI dalam Pentas Politik Nasional”. In Reformasi Politik: Dinamika Politik Nasional dalam Arus Politik Global, edited by M. Dawam Rahardjo. Jakarta: Internasa, 1997. Tasya, T.A. Batu Karang Ditengah Lautan (Perjuangan Kemerdekaan di Aceh), 1945– 1946. Banda Aceh: Lembaga Sejarah Aceh, 1990. Taylor, Alastair M. Indonesian Independence and the United Nations. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1960. Taylor, Cf. Jean Gelmar. The Social World of Batavia: European and Eurosian in Dutch Asia. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1983. Teeuw, A., and David Wyatt, eds. Hikayat Patani. The Hague: Mouton, 1970. Teeuw, A. Modern Indonesian Literature, 2 volumes. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, first edition, 1967; 1979. ———. “The Impact of Balai Pustaka on Modern Indonesian Literature”. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 35, no. 1 (1972): 111–127. Tempo. “Investigasi: Dari Skandal ke Skandal: Kumpulan Tulisan Rubrik Investigasi Majalah Berita TEMPO”. Jakarta: Majalah Berita Tempo, 1999. Thaba, Abdul Aziz. Islam dan Negara dalam Politik Orde Baru. Jakarta: Gema Insan Press, 1996. Thaib, Lukman. Acheh’s Case: A Historical Study of the National Movement for the Independence of Acheh, Sumatra. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 2002. Thomas, R. Murray. A Chronicle of Indonesian Higher Education. Singapore: Chopmen Entreprises, 1973. Tim Penyusun Pusat Studi dan Pengembangan Informasi (PSPI). Tanjung Priok Berdarah. Jakarta: Gema Insani, 1998. Tjokroaminoto, H.O.S. Islam dan Sosialisme (Tertulis di Mataram 1924). Jakarta: Bulan Bintang. n.d.

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598 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

Toer, Pramoedya Ananta. “Koesalah Soebagyo Toer, and Ediati Kamil”. In Kronik Revolusi Indoneisa∏ vol. I (1945). Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, 1999. ———. Sang Pemula. Jakarta: Hasta Mitra, 1985. Tsuchiya, Kenji. Democracy and Leadership: The Rise of the Taman Siswa Movement in Indonesia, translated by Peter Hawkes. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987. Twang, Peck Yang. The Chinese Business Elite in Indonesia and the Transition to Independence, 1940–1950. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1998. Ubani, B.A., O.K. Durraini, Mohd Moein. Indonesian Struggle for Independence. Aundh: Aundh Publishing Company, 1946. van der Meulen, D. Ik Stond er bij; Het Einde van Ons koloniale Rijk. Baarn: Bosch & Keuning, 1965. van der Veur, Paul. Education and Social Change in Colonial Indonesia (I). Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Center for International Studies, Southeast Asia Program, 1969. van der Wal, S.L. Some Information on Education in Indonesia up to 1942. Netherlands: The Hague, 1967. van der Wal, S.M., ed. De Volksraad en de Staatkundige Ontwikkeling van NederlandsIndie: Een Bronnen Publicatie, I (1891–1926). Groningen: J.B. Wolters, 1965. van Dijk, C. Rebellion under the Banner of Islam. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981. van Dijk, Kees. A Country in Despair: Indonesia between 1997 and 2000. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2001. van Klinken, Gerry. Minorities, Modernity and the Emerging Nation: Christians in Indonesia, A Biographical Approach. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2003. van Leur, J. Indonesian Trade and Society. The Hague/Bandung: W. van Hoeve, 1955. van Miert, Hans. Dengan Semangat Berkobar: Nasionalisme dan Gerakan Pemuda di Indonesia, 1918–1930, translated by Sudewo Satiman. Jakarta: KITLV Jakarta, Hasta Mitra, Pustaka Utan Kayu, 2003. van Niel, Robert. The Emergence of Modern Indonesian Elite. The Hague/Bandung: W. van Hoeve, 1960. van Ronkel, Ph. S. “Rapport Betreffende de Godsdienstige Verschijnselen ter Sumatra’s Westkust”. Verbal, no. 54 (4 April 1916). Vandenbosch, Amry. The Dutch East Indies: Its Government, Problems, and Politics. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1944. Vatikiotis, Michael. Indonesian Politics under Suharto. London: Routledge, 1993. Ward, K.E. The Foundation of the Partai Muslimin Indonesia. Ithaca: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1970. Ward, Ken. The 1971 Election in Indonesia: An East Java Case Study. Monash Papers on Southeast Asia, No. 2. Clayton: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1974.

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Selected Bibliography • 599

Weatherbee, Donald E. Ideology in Indonesia: Sukarno’s Indonesian Revolution. New Haven: Monograph Series, Southeast Asian Studies, Yale University, 1966. Wehl, David. The Birth of Indonesia. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1948. Weinstein, Franklin B. Indonesian Foreign Policy and the Dilemma of Dependence: From Sukarno to Soeharto. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1976. Wertheim, W.F. Indonesian Society in Transition, revised edition. Bandung, The Hague: W. van Hoeve, 1958. Widjaja, I Wangsa. Mengenang Bung Hatta. Jakarta: Haji Mas Agung, 1988. Williams, Michael C. Sickle and Crescent: The Communist Revolt of 1926 in Banten. Athens: University of Ohio, 1982. Wolf, Charles, Jr. The Indonesian Story: The Birth, Growth, and Structure of the Indonesian Republic. New York: The John Day Company, 1948. Yamin, M. Naskah Persiapan Undang Undang Dasar Republik Indonesia, Vol. I. Djakarta: Yayasan Prapanca, 1959. Yamin, Mohammad. Proklamasi dan Konstitusi. Djakarta: Penerbit Djambatan, 1952. Young, Ken. Islamic Peasants and the State: The 1908 Anti-Tax Rebellion in West Sumatra. New Haven: Yale Southeast Asian Studies, 1994. Zed, Mestika. Pemerintah Darurat Republik Indonesia: Sebuah Mata Rantai Sejarah yang Terlupakan. Jakarta: Pustaka Utama Grafiti, 1997. Zorab, A.A. De Japanse Bezetting in Indonesie en Haar Volkenrechtelijke Zijde. Leiden: Universitaire Press, 1954.

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Reproduced from Indonesia: Towards Democracy, by Taufik Abdullah (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute Index • 601 of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg >

Index

A

formation of province of, 265 Habibie’s attempts at resolving Aceh dispute, 557 Memorandum of Understanding (August 2005), 561 Operasi Bujuk, 474 Proclamation of independence, 471 purchase of first plane for Air Force, 237 Red Net Operation, 473 talks in Davos and Geneva, 558 tsunami disaster, 560 war and ideology, 167 Aceh murder, 89 Aceh-Sumatra National Liberation Front (ASNLF) see Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM) Achmad Dahlan, K.H., 20 Achmad Djajadiningrat, R., 27 Achmad Soebardjo, 145, 245, 309 Achmad Yani General, 321 kidnap of, 325 Act of Free Choice, 326, 411, 483, 484, 563 Acton, Lord, 369 Adam Malik, 359 formation of ASEAN, 355 Minister of Trade, 323 Adams, Cindy, 347, 348 adat, 71 adat chief Tan Malaka, 31

AA Conference Bandung, 311 Abadi, 356 Abdoel Moeis, 23, 169, 210 Abdoel Rivai, 72, 89 background, 8 emphasis on cosmopolitan world, 10 Abdul Karim Amrullah, Dr H., 171 Abdurrahman Wahid abolishment of two Ministries, 540 animosity with Parliament, 540, 541 background of, 408 dealing with demands of the Papuan people, 565 end of Presidency, 542 nomination as President, 539 role as President, 540 ABRI loss of dominance in political power, 533 reformation of, 533 Aceh, 60, 105, 237, 467 application of Islamic law, 236 barter trade with Singapore and Penang, 237 daerah operasi militer (DOM), 473 dissappointment with central government, 470 earnings not returned to province for development, 469 first rebellion against Japanese, 105 601

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602 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

administrative priyayi, 76 administrative system restructuring during Japanese Occupation, 107 Adnan Buyung Nasution, 456 African nations visits from leaders of, 430 Agoes Salim, Haji, 20, 51, 77, 86, 153, 187 Age of the Proclamation of Independence, 209 Agum Gumelar, Brigadier-General, 460 Aidit, D.N., 305 air force relationship with Presidents, 324 aircraft manufacturing company (IPTN) state owned, 503 Airlangga, 263 Airlangga University, 214 Akbar Tanjung, 538 Al Imam, 12 Al Irsyad, 366 Al Moenir, 12 alam Minangkabau (Minangkabau world), see Minangkabau world Alamsyah, Lieutenant Gen. (Ret.) assembling of ulama, 512 Algemeen Middelbaar School (AMS), 98 Ali Alatas, 493 Ali Boediardjo, 196 Ali Hasymi, 265 Ali Sadikin, 381 Ali Sastroamidjo, 216 Ali Sastroamidjojo, 233, 309, 333, 420 coalition cabinet, 248, 275 coalition government of PNI, Masyumi and NU, 275

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first Indonesian Ambassador to Washington D.C., 309 formation of cabinet of, 239 installation of new Chief-of-Staff, 247 resignation, 280 resignation as Prime Minister, 280 returning of mandate to President, 250 aliran (stream), 219 All-Indonesia Congress, 257 all-Indonesia youth organization, 67 Allied Forces, 163 control of Jakarta, 211 Alor, 560 Almujahid, 161 leader of youth wing of PUSA, 160 Alqadri, Hamid, 332 Ambon, 60, 193, 216, 438, 553 communal conflict, 554 debate on, 223 elite, 222 Malino peace agreement, 556 political scene, 224 studies on communal conflict in, 571 tradition for solving conflict, 555 under central government, 225 Amien Rais, 410 Amien Rais, Dr M., 511 political prominence, 538 Amir Hamzah, 163, 164, 222 Amir Sjarifuddin, 130, 133, 177, 259, 320 Andalas, 263 Anderson, 140 Andi Aziz, Capt., 196, 222, 224, 239 Angkatan 45, 202, 352, 519 Angkatan Perang Republik Indonesia Serikat, 196

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Index • 603

Anglo-Saxon capitalism sphere of, 143 Antara News Agency, 323 anti-individualism draft of constitution, 117 anti-liberalism draft of constitution, 117 anti-West campaign PKI, 317 anti-Western policy Japanese Occupation, during, 214 APODETI (Associacao Popular Democratica Timorense), 490 APRA (Angkatan Perang Ratu Adil), 195 Arab community representative in parliament, 254 Arab minorities, 114 Arief Rahman Hakim, 357 aristocratic class East Sumatra, of, 221 aristocratic elite western-educated Javanese, 96 Aristotle, 369 armed forces rationalization and modernization, 229 Armijn Pane, 204 army internal affairs of, 179, 279 Army Headquarters official report of, 337 Arp, Arnold, 485 Arun, PT, 468, 470 ASDT (Associacao Social Democrata Timorense), 490 Asian financial crisis effect on Indonesia, 513, 514 Islamic Bank unaffected, 405 Asian Games, 301 cause of ramplant inflation, 303 strain on finances, 303

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Asian Relation Conference, 308 Asian-African Conference, 310, 311 Asian financial crisis cause of economic and political crises, 415 impact of, 414 loss of confidence in rupiah, 415 private banks borrowing from abroad, 415 Asian tigers, 413 asisten pribadi (ASPRI) Soeharto, of, 367 Asmari Hadi, 337 Asrul Sani, 200, 202 Assa’at speaker of KNIP, 139 view on Chinese as an exclusive group, 257 Association of Muslim Intellectuals in Indonesia, 407, see also ICMI Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 355 Association of the Upholders of Indonesian Independence, 297 asyabiyah, 66 Australian, New Zealand, United Stated Treaty (ANZUS) Malaya as member of, 316 autonomy local, 169 autonomy law of 1974, 395 auxillary corps, 111

B Badan Koordinasi Keluarga Berencana Nasional (BKKN), 430 Badan Pendukung Sukarnoisme (Supporters of Sukarnoism League), 322

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Badan Penyelidik Usaha-usaha persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia (BPUPKI), 114, 285 sessions, 115 Badan Perencanaan Nasional (BAPPENAS), 374 Badan Persatuan Islam (Islamic Unity Agency), 109 Bahder Djohan, 34, 78 Bahasa Indonesia, 189, 210, 434 language of instruction in schools, 433 Balai Perguruan Tinggi Republik Indonesia establishment of, 211, 212 Balai Poestaka, 52 Bali bombing, 547 Bambang Sugeng, Col., 150 Bambang Triatmodjo ownership of Satelindo, 501 Bambang Utoyo, 333 Bandung venue of A A Conference, 311 Bandung Institute of Technology, 406 Bangka, 185 bangsa Hindia, 17 bangsa Islam, 17 Banjar, 60 Banjarmasin, 528 Bank Duta loss in foreign exchange dealings, 500 ownership, 500 Bank Indonesia, 216 reservations on opening of Islamic Bank, 405 banks liberalization of, 415 Banten, 92, 102 communist rebellions, 33

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BAPPENAS draft of five-year development plan, 375 Barisan Hizbullah, 152 barisan perjuangan (struggle units), 1, 153 barter trade Aceh, 237 Batak Toba, 167 Battle of Surabaya, 131 bazaar Malay, 52 Latin script, 13 Beel, L.J., 186, 187, 188 Benteng group, 257 Bhinneka tunggal ika, 198 Biak, 475 Biak Numfor, 487 bilingualism national phenomenon, 433 Bima, 60 Bimantara, 502 Bintang Hindia, 8 Bintang Kejora, 480 Bijeenkomst voor Federale Overleg (BFO), 187 Boedi Oetomo, 18, 90 birthday of, 94 issue of native militia during First World War, 24 spread of, 19 Boerhanoeddin Harahap, 247 Masyumi-dominated cabinet, 273, 333, 345 Bone kingdom of, 90 raja of, 153 Bonjol fort, 5 Borneo, 115 Boven Digul, 476

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Index • 605

Brebes, 158 Bugis Ambon, in, 553 Bukittinggi, 31, 57, 134 bupati, 380 Japara, of, 94 Butonese Ambon, in, 553

C cabinet swearing in, 275 cabinet formateur, 274 Cairo venue of Second Non-Aligned Conference, 317 Camus, 205 Campus Normalization Programme, 377 capitalism fight against, 314 Catholic Indonesian Council of Clergies (MAWI), 453 Catholic organizations, 453 Catholic Party formation of Liga Demokrasi, 298 Cendrawasih University, 482 Central Advisory Council Japanese Occupation, during, 108 Central Axis, 539 Central Committee of PKI, 316 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sponsorhip of local rebellions, 311 support to rebels, 311 Central Sumatra Muslims in, 290 Permesta rebellion, 345 Ceram, 225

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Ceribon, 102 Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (COHA), 558 Chaerul Saleh, 305 Chairil Anwar, 262 Chinese, see also Indonesian Chinese, 344 Chinese communities representatives in parliament, 254 Chinese minorities, 114 Christian Indoneisan Council Churches (DGI), 453 Christian missionary establishment of organizations to promote Papuan political emancipation, 478 Christianization aftermath of coup attempt of 1965, 401 CIDES, 411 Cimareme (Garut), 92 citizenship New Order regime, during, 395 Citra Lamtorogung, 502 civil servants attendance at P-4 courses, 401 civilian supremacy, 216 cloves monopoly of trade in, 377 coalition government Ali Sastoamidjojo, under, 275 Coljin Minister of the Colonies, 45 collective democratic system, 270 collective memories, 59 Javanese, 59 colonial towns segragated communities, 4 colonial administration, 167 colonialism, 18–31

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606 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

comfort women, 104 Comite Boemipoetra (Committee of the Sons of the Soil), 22, 23 Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, 191 commercialized newspapers, 67 Commission of Good Offices supervision of conflict, 308 United Nations, 308 Committee for Javanese Nationalism, 25 Committee of Good Offices of the U.N., 132, 134, 186 communist party, 99 communist-phobia, 299 communists punishment for, 449 rebellion of late, 30, 1926 rebellions in Banten and Silungkung, 33 Conference on the New Emerging Forces (CONEFO), 319 Conference on Non-Aligned Countries, 313 Congress for Javanese Cultural Development, 25 conservative group (kaum kuno), see kaum kuno Constituent Assembly, 218 Constitution 1943 Constitution (1945), 121, 129, 139, 190, 250, 285, 286, 287, 329 Article 20, 452 Article 28, 536 Chapter 37, 423 general election, 369 issue of succession, 511 return to, 312 preamble, 285

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rejection of return to, 286 village administration law, effect of, 380 Constitution Art 6, 27 and 28, 118, 120, 378 Art 28 and 29, 118 Article 3, 378 drafters, 329 integralistic interpretation, 389 Preamble of, 285, 489 President, requirement for, 120 Constitutional Court, 545 Consultative Assembly for the Act of Free Choice (CAA), 482 continuing generation (generasi penerus), 2 continuing revolution Sukarno’s notion of, 354 Coordinating Minister for Economy and Finance, 374 Corps Tjadangan Nasional (CTN), 226, 229 corruption, collusion, and nepotism (KKN) growth of, 415 counter-revolutionaries (kontrev), 323, 326 crime solution for, 450, 451 Crisis Management Initiative, 561 crush-Malaysia campaign, 302 cultural bazaar, 71 Cultural Conference second, 203 cultural ideologues, 203 Cultural Manifesto group, 322 cultural nationalism, 64 Cumbok War, 159 Cut Nyak Dien, 89

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Index • 607

D D.N. Aidit, 305 Dahm, 41 Dai Toa senso, 106 Dani, 487 Darul Islam, 192, 199, 220, 228, 230, 327 formation of, 133 rebellion, 345 transformation into Negara Islam Indonesia, 291 transformation of, 291 West Java, 234, 254 Datuk Soetan Maharadja, 6, 90, 96 abolishment of office of Tuanku Regen, view on, 11 background of, 7 formation of Boedi Oetomo, 9 involvement in kaum muda, 8 leader of kaum muda, 71 main concern of, 10 referred to as father of Malay journalism, 6 STOVIA, 9 Day of the Sacredness of Pancasila, 440, 447 Day of the Youth Oath, x Day of the Youth Pledge, 440 Dayak, 439 communal violence with Madurese migrants, 551 De Javasche Bank, 192, 215 de Jonge, Kiewit, 9, 79 Governor General, as, 45, 46 decade of ideologies, 218 decentralization importance of, 269 declaration of independence, 201 definitions human nature in Pancasila, 388 village, 380

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Dekker, Douwes, 21, 75 Democracy definition determined by state ideology, 396 design as operational political system, 252 notion of, 18–31 symbol of kemajuan and social equality, 17 theme of Hatta’s writings, 35 democracy and national identity, 279–90 Democratic League, 299, see also Liga Demokrasi banning of, 299 call for new parliament, 299 revelation of ideological flaws, 300 Democratic Party performance in 2004 elections, 546 democratic tradition re-emergence of, vii Democratische Volksparti (DVP), 479 Detik, 411, 414 development trilogy, 392 Dewan Dakwah Indonesia, 402 Dewan Nasional (National Council), 278 Dewan Pertimbangan Agung, 374 Dewan Perwakilan Daerah (DPD) (Council of Regional Representatives), 544 Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR) factions, 373 Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah (DPRD), 380 Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat-Gotong Royong (DPR-GR) (Mutual Help People’s representatives), 349 Dewan Revolusi (Revolutionary Council), 235

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608 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

Dewantara, K.H. ideas on importance of leadership, 39 national hero, 210 Dharsono, H.R., 455 dialogue with Sukarno, 266 Diapari, D.P., 196 Dibawah Bendera Revolusi, 80 Dienaren van Indie, 34 Dienbiempu fall of, 329 Digul, 98 diplomacy basic policy of Republic, 148 Diponegoro, 62, 65, 206, 262 discussion with Sukarno, 239 Dja Endar Moeda, 5, 70 Djalaluddin Thaib, 84 Djawa Hookoo Kai, 107 Djuanda, 281, 288 Prime Minister, as, 281 Dokter Jawa, 72 DPA (Supreme Advisory Council) abolishment of, 545 DPR-GR replacement of elected parliament, 299 dunia maju (progressive world), 18 Dutch police action, 185 Dutch companies seizure in West Irian, 283 seizure of, 283 Dutch East India Company (VOC), 66 Dutch enterprises confiscation of, 343 Dutch Occupation isolation imposed by, 227

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Dutch officials conservative, 69 Dutch policy rejection of political reform, 55 Dutch scientific terms, 110 Dutch sovereignty recognition of, 65 dwifungsi, 533 military forces, of, 349 military, of, 351 Soeharto’s explanation of, 419

E early stage of industrial economy, 496 East Sumatra, 161 centre of plantation economy, 237 Malay aristocratic class of, 221 social revolution, 165 East Timor, 490 abandonement by Portuguese, 412 decline in use of Portuguese, 523 development and improvements in, 492 failed integration, 489 integration with Indonesia, 492 non-integration of people from, 451 outbreak of civil war, 412 province of Indonesia, 412 vote for independence, 537 economic collectivism, 39 economic crisis handling by new government, 536, 537 resulting in growing dissent, 510 Economic Declaration (Dekon), 302 economic democracy, 39 economic development basic flaws, 415

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Index • 609

economic growth 1965–97, 496, 1997 division between pribumi and nonpribumi, 497 economic planners declining role of, 505 economic recovery slow and hard process, 415 economic well-being subordination, 303 economy Dutch domination of, 215 Editor, 411, 414 educated elite communication with mass population, 113 education democratization, 216 national budget allocation for, 432 Egyptian Ikhwanul Muslimin, 456 Egyptian ulama attack on historical materialism, 57 Eight-Year Overall Development Plan, 302 election defintion determined by state ideology, 396 elections local (1957), 277 elementary schools expansion of network of, 433 Emergency Government of the Republic of Indonesia (PDRI), 135 Emergency University, 212 Ethical Policy, 70, 94 ethnic-based national solidarity abandoning of, 68 Eurasian community representative in parliament, 254

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Eurasian minorities, 114 Europe Sukarno’s visit to, 306

F Fachruddin, K.H. chairman of Muhammadiyah, 453 Faculty of Letters of UGM, 213 Fak Fak, 476, 477 FALINTIL (Forcas Armada de Liberacao Nacional de Timor L’Este), 491 family system, 395 manifest of Pancasila worldview, 388 Farmers Association, 158 federal states Dutch sponsored, 187 Federation of Malaya, 315 Feith, 200 usage of Weberian “ideal type” approach, 264 fertility decrease in, 431 Fifth Five-Year Plan (Repelita) (1988–93), 432 First Indonesia Raya Congress, 272 First World War issue of native militia, 24 outbreak of, 23, 24 Five-Year Plan eight lanes of equality, 393 floating mass concept of, 371 flying lecturers, 213 Ford Foundation, 521 foreign orientals, 18, 255 foreign policy fee and active, 149

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610 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

foreign-owned plantations policy towards, 146 Forum Aceh, 474 foundation of state controversy over, 118 Fourth Five-Year Plan, 452 FRETILIN (Frente Revolutionaria de Timor-Leste Independente), 490 declaration of independence of East Timor, 491 Front Demokrasi Rakyat, 133 Front Pemuda Sunda, 254 functional group, 292 constitutional concept of, 292 functional groups Constitution 1945, in, 351 functional priyayi, 76

G Gabungan Politik Indonesia (GAPI) (Political Federation of Indonesia), 48, 55 Gadjah Mada, 263 Gadjah Mada Foundation, 212 Gadjah Mada University, 205, 208, 270, 271, 410 gambling prohibition of, 404 Games of the Emerging Forces (GANEFO), 319 Gang Kenari, 47 Gani, A.K., 136 GAPI, see Gabungan Politik Indonesia Garuda Indonesian Airways, 216 Garis-Garis Besar Haluan Negara (GBHN), 294, 295, 296, 373 Gatot Subroto, Gen., 136 Gayo predominance in various parts of Aceh, 522

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Geertz, 219 Gelanggang, 200 General Action (1955), 334 general election (1997) GOLKAR’s performance, 414 general election participation of military personnel, 249 second, 248 General Election Commission, 463 general elections (1997) worst in Indonesia’s experience, 528 General Major, 238 General Meeting of the Commanders of the Armed Forces speech by Soeharto, 381 generasi penerus (continuing generation), 2 Generation (1908), 2 Generation 1928, 66, 352, 366 Generation (1945), 2, 202, 206 Gerindo (Gerakan Rakyat Indonesia) (Movement of the Indonesian people), 48, 101 Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM), 471 depletion in numerical strength, 474 financing activities, 473 proclamation of independence of Aceh, 472 Gerakan Mahasiswa Nasionalis Indonesia (GMNI), 323 Gerakan Persatuan Nieuw Guinea (GPNG), 479 Gerpolek, 148 Gestapu Affair erosion of Sukarno’s power, 348 Gibb, 11 Giyu Gun expansion, 112 global economic recession, 45 globalization awareness of, 445

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Index • 611

Goethe, 307 golden bridge metaphor of, 218 GOLKAR (Golongan Karyawan), 370 percentage of votes, 372 performance in general election (1997), 414 representation of bureaucracy, 498 Golongan Putih (Golput), 372 Gorontalo, 60 gotong royong, 284 emphasis on, 284 significance in Pancasila Democracy, 388 gotong royong cabinet, 281, 305 Governor of Sumatra refusal to acknowledge surrender to Japanese, 103 scorched-earth policy, 103 Gowa, 60 Gowa-Tallo double kingdoms, 61 Gadjah Mada University, 205 graduates medical schools, from, 431, 432 Great Depression, 45 Great East Asiatic Conference Tokyo, 113 Great Leader of the Revolution, 330, 352, 353 Greater Asia War, 107 Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, 101 Greater East Asia sphere, 116 Greater Indonesia party, 68 guerilla fighters, 227, 228 rationalization and modernization, 240 Guided Democracy, 250, 269, 288, 330 belief that Malaysia neo-colonialist project, 316

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consolidation of power, 297 downfall of, 350 eight years plan, 302 establishment of, 128, 289 foreign policy, 300 fulfillment of Constitution, 295 holder of hegemony of political discourse, 297 ideological flaws revealed, 300 intensification of, 272 notion of being in constant sphere of revolutionary struggle, 3 on course, 236 origins of, 290 seeds planted, 290 significance of, 327 similarities with New Order, 107 slogans, symbols and myth, 304 solution to Permesta, 328 state of political hegemony, 297 system of dictatorship, as, 383 transformation into ideological orthodoxy, 272 Gunawan Mohamad, 372 Guntur Sukarnoputra, 520 Guruh Sukarnoputra, 457, 458 Gusmao, Xanana capture of, 494

H Habibie, B.J., 503 abolishment of office of BP7, 535 attempts at solving Aceh dispute, 557 choice given to East Timorese, 537 decision to hold general elections, 537 formulation of team for advancement of civil society, 567 introduction of legislation, 535 problems faced during Presidency, 532

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612 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

re-humanization of Presidency, 535 swearing in as new President, 531 Habibie, Prof B.J., 426 background of, 408 Hakko Ichiu, 106 Halmahera, 556 Hamengkubuwono I, 62 Hamengkubuwono IX, 128, 341 Hamka, 62 praise of Tan Malaka, 78 Hamzah Haz, 541 Harian KAMI, 356 Harian Rakjat, 325 Harmoko, 530 request that Soeharto step down, 516 Hasan di Tiro escape to Singapore, 472 proclamation of independence for Aceh, 471 stay in Sweden, 472 support of Libya, 473 Hasanuddin, 263 Hasanuddin Brigade, 228, 229 Hasanuddin University, 214, 231 Hasyim Asy’ari, K.H., 109 Hatta, 128, 330 arrest of, 150 endorsing Japanese decision to form voluntary army, 111 neither pro-Russia nor pro-U.S., 309 on hearing news of Dutch capitulation in Bandung, 102 proclamation of independence, 121 proposal included in Art 27 of Constitution, 118 Head of National Archives discovery of different versions of Supersemar, 420

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health care, 430, 432 Hei Ho, 112 Helsinki GAM representatives in, 561 Hendropriyono, Colonel A.M., 456 Hendropriyono, Major General, 460 Henry Dunant Center sponsorship of talks between GAM and Indonesian goverment, 558 Humpuss, 501 hero worship, 210 Heroes’ Day, 440 Hikayat Banjar, 60 Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai, 59, 62 Hiroshima, 122 Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam (HMI) (Islamic Students Association), 324, 454 historical materialism, 57 historical trilogy introduction by Sukarno, 43 history Neerlando-centred history, 207 regio-centric view of, 208 history textbooks, 208 Hitler’s Third Reich, 53 Hizbu’llah, 112, 156 fighting against Dutch, 154 Hollandia, 477 Hollandsch-Inlandsche School, 98 House of Representatives, 191 election of new members of, 218 human nature definition in Pancasila, 388 Hurgronje, C. Snouck, 63, 95, 159, 160, 168 Islam policy, 171 study of the Acehnese, 181 Husein Alatas, 78

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Index • 613

Hutomo Mandala Putra, 506 monopoly of clove trade, 501

I ICMI, see Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslim di Indonesia (ICMI) (Association of Muslim Intellectuals in Indonesia) Ida Anak Agung Gde Agung, 185 ideological differences aliran-bound, 219 ideologies decade of, 218 Indonesianization of, 219 Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslim di Indonesia (ICMI) (Association of Muslim Intellectuals in Indonesia), 407, 408, 427 close relationship with government, 411 fostering national integration, 411 objectives of leaders of, 409 Ikatan Pendukung Kemerdekaan Indonesia (IPKI), 2998 illiteracy eradication of, 433 Iljas Jacub, 84 Imamura, Gen., 102 commander of Japanese 16th Army, 102 independence struggle for, see struggle for independence theme of Hatta’s writings, 35 Independence Address (1962) Sukarno, 312 Independence Day address, 302 Independence Day Address (1962), 312 Independence Day speech, 281

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indigenous states pre-colonial, 118 Indische Partij, 21, 22, 23 use of new media, 30 individualism fight against, 117 indoctrination programme genesis of, 424 Indologie special system of knowledge, 95 Indonesia agreement with China regarding citizenship of Indonesian Chinese, 344 agreement with Malaysia regarding archipelagic waters, 443 censure from Security Council, 318 divided world, in a, 306–19 history of name of, 79 withdrawal from United Nations membership, 303 within sphere of influence of AngloSaxon capitalism, 143 Indonesia Accuses Sukarno’s defence speech, 58 Indonesia Berparlemen campaign for, 55 Indonesia in Miniature park, 377 Indonesia Menggugat Sukarno’s defence speech, 43 Indonesia Merdeka official slogan of PI, 35 Indonesia Muda (Young Indonesians), 47 Indonesia Raya, 47, 114, 115, 189, 315, 356, 376 Indonesian Association, see Perhimpoenan Indonesia (PI), 31 Indonesian Chinese citizenship, 344, 345

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614 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

Indonesian Council of the Ulama (MUI), 403 Indonesian culture, 201 Indonesian language, 110 Indonesian Leftist group, 308 relations with Russian bloc, 308 Indonesian mukims Mekka, in, 64 Indonesian nation genesis of, 68 Indonesian Planned Parenthood Association (PBKI), 430 Indonesian underground troops, 122 Indonesianization local Malay dialects, of, 435 Indonesianness, 201 Indonesians Chinese descent, of, see Indonesian Chinese higher economic status, 256 peranakan, 255 problem of, 255 trading activities during the revolution, 267 Indonesië Vrij, 79 Indonesisch Vereniging change of name to Perhimpoenan Indonesia, 34, 36 Indonesische Overpeinzingen, 45 Indramayu, 102 resistance against Japanese, 105 infant mortality decrease in, 431 inflation double digit, 303 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, xi Insulinde, 5, 6 integration problems of, 550–67 integration of state emphasis by Sukarno, 242

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integrity of state, 466 intelligentsia urban Javanese, 14 Inter-Asian Relations Conference, 186 inter-ethnic cultural understanding promotion of, 436 Inter-Governmental Group on Indonesia (IGGI), 355 Inter-Indonesian Conference, 138, 189 internal proletariats, 101, 495 International Monetary Fund agreement with Indonesia, 510 International Olympic Committee, 319 Investigating Body for the Preparations of the Independence of Indonesia, 114 IPKI formation of, 337 Irian Jaya, 482, 562, 563, 564 development strategy criticized, 484 mass demonstrations, 564 irrigation networks Java, 192 Iskandar Muda, Sultan, 71 Islam, 284 depolitization of, 400 ideologization of, 64 Japanese policy towards, 108 religion of majority, 219 sociological claims of, 65 spread of, 60, 61 Islam-Christian dialogue (1967), 402 Islamic Bank establishment of, 405 Islamic court need for, 405 Islamic Democratic party, 366 efforts to re-establish, 421 Islamic ethnic communities, 219 Islamic ideologues, 65 Islamic ideology, 74

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Index • 615

Islamic journals Jawi, use of, 13 Islamic Law codification of, 405 Islamic modernism Masyumi, 218 Islamic modernist schools, 99 Islamic newspaper Republika, 411 Islam policy Hurgronje, C. Snouck, 171 Islamic political groups Soeharto’s mission to frustrate political comeback of, 367 Islamic political parties weakening of, 400 Islamic rejuvenation spirit of, 399 Islamic resurgence worldwide phenomena, 409 Islamic voluntary corp setting up, 112 Ismail Marzuki, 155 Ismail Suko, 424

J Jakarta Charter, 175, 287 draft of Constitution, 119 seven magic words, 287, 384 Jakarta, hosting of Asian Games, 301 Jambi, 92 Jambi experience, 167 Japanese resistance against, 105 success in erasing mission civilisatrice image of European, 106 Japanese calendar introduction of, 171 Japanese kempeitei, 158 Japanese military cooperation of Sukarno and Hatta, 173 policy of Japanization, 106

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Japanese Occupation, 103–13 auxillary corps, 111 Badan Persatuan Islam, 109 comfort women, 104 end of discriminatory school system, 111 establishment of Tyuuoo Sangi-In, 108 forced labour, 104 forced rice deliveries, 105 impact of policies on peasantry, 170 Islam policy, 108 Japanization, policy of, 106 kempeitei, 158 Kyodo Giyu Gun, 111 latihan ulama, 109 Military Commander of Java, 112 mobilization of work force, 105 national language, issue of, 110 national language as language of science, 110 neighbourhood association, establishment of, 107 PETA battalion, 106 policy towards Islam, 108 restructuring of administrative system, 107 role of rural kyai or ulama, 108, 109 Seinendan, 111 short account of, 84 social mobilization, 107 socialization of ideology, 107 starvation during, 105 Tentera Sukarela Pembela Tanah Air (PETA) (Voluntary Armed Defenders of the Fatherland), 111 Tonari-Gumi, 107 total war structure, creation of, 105 Triple A Movement, 108 Tyuuoo Sangi-In (Central Advisory Council), 108

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616 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

ulama brought to mainstream of national politics, 108 youth corps, 172 Japanese troops landing on coasts of Indonesia, 102 Jassin, Col., 236 Java, 130 irrigation networks, 192 peasant oppositions, 91 Javanese language speech levels, 14, 16 Javanese nationalism, 16, 27 Javanese society divisions in, 8 Javanese speech levels, 73 Jawa Dipa, 19 cultural movement, 14 end of, 16 promotion of ngoko, 15 Jawah community, 63 Jawi use of, 13 Jayapura, 477 jiwa budak (slave mentality), 38 Johor Riau empire Raja Muda of, 62 Jones, Howard, 334 Jong Batak, 34 Jong Islamieten Bond, 47 Jong Java, 14, 34, 40, 46 congress in Bandung, 14 Jong Sumatra, 47 Jong Sumatranen Bond, 6, 34, 145, 162, 166 journalist associations establishment of, 536 Judicial Review establishment of, 545 June 25 affair, 299

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JW Marriott bombing of, 547

K Kabinet Karya (Working Cabinet), 281 Kahin, 269 Kakuei Tanaka visit to Indonesia, 375 Kalimantan communal violence, 551 Karim Amrullah, Syekh Dr A., 63, 109 Kartini, R.A., 15 Kartosoewirjo, S.M., 254 Kartosuwirjo, 300 capture of, 300 leader of Darul Islam, 230 Kartodikromo, Marco, 21, 75 kaum kuno (conservative group), 8 kaum muda (Young Group), 8 group in Sumatra, 30 leader of, 71 kaum muda ulama (Islamic reformists), 56 kaum pergerakan, 45, 46 kaum tua (old group), 8 Kawilarang, Col., 229 Keluarga Gerilya, 155 kemajuan notion of, 17 Kemal Idris memoir, 416 Kennedy, John F., 312 kepribadian bangsa, 285 kepribadian nasional (national personality), see national personality Kesatuan Aksi Mahasiswa (KAMI) (Indonesian Students Action Front), 356–57, 376

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Index • 617

Kesatuan Gerilya Sulawesi Selatan (KGSS), 228 Khalifat Congress Mekka, 63 Khruschev, Nikita, 312 Ki Bagus Hadikusumo, 113, 175 Ki Hadjar Dewantara, 51, 99 founder of Taman Siswa, 49 new name of Soewardi Soerjaningrat, 26 see also Soewardi Soerjaningrat King of Adat (Rajo Adaik), 58 King of Religion (Raja Ibadaik), 58 Kissinger, Henry, 491 KKN (corruption, collusion and nepotism), ix KL (Koninklijk Leger), 195 KLM loss of Indonesian operations, 344 KNIL (Koninklijk Nederlandsch Indisch Leger), 138, 195, 225 support to Australian troops, 153 troops, 222 KNIP, 138, 190, 308 Speaker of, 139 Working Body of, 130 komedi stambul, 52 komisi istilah, 110 Komite Indonesia Merdeka, 477 Komite Nasional Indonesia (KNI), 152 Komite Pemilian Umum (KPU) (General Election Commiittee), 537 Komite Rakyat (People’s Committee), 532 Kompas, 376, 403 konfrontasi, 302, 317 intensification of politics of, 329 isolation of Indonesia, 328

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Soeharto’s secret mission to end, 355 termination of, 413 Koninklijk Leger (KL), 195 Koninklijk Nederlandsch Indisch Leger (KNIL), see KNIL konsepsi opponents of, 282 Kopkamtib (Command for the Restoration of Security and Order), 367, 370, 464 Chief of Staff Soedomo, 396 Korean War, 309 China’s intervention, 309 Kotaraja, 161 Kotoe (Komando Tinggi Operasi Ekonomi), 304 KPM confiscation of ships, 344 krama Javanese speech level, 16 kramanization, 394 ksatria (warrior class), 24 Kyodo Giyu Gun, 111

L labour union communist backed, 293 Lakitan dispute over, 44 Lam Teh Agreement, 235 Lampung, 401 Lampung Affair, 454 language division into speech levels, 394 Langkat, 238 lasykar, 156, 175 ulama sponsored, 152 Lasykar AMPERA “Arief Rahman Hakim”, 357

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618 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

Lasykar Jihad, 555 Layskar Muslimin Indonesia (Lasymi), 156 law on local autonomy end of highly centralized state, 536 Law of Revolution, 295 Sukarno, 295 leadership centralization of, 300 importance of, 328 League against Imperialism, Colonial Oppression and for National Independence, 35 Leiden-school, 97 Leimena, Dr J., 224 Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia (LIPI), 217 Lembaga Kebudayaan Rakyat (LEKRA), 321, 322 lembaga swadaya masyarakat (LSM), 508 critical of First Family’s economic activities, 510 liberal democracy, 116, 249 political instability, 354 liberal democracy period characterized by political squabbles, 392 Libya training ground for GAM freedom fighters, 473 Liem Sioe Liong owner of PR Indocement Tunggal Perkasa, 500 Liga Demokrasi (Democratic League), 298 formation of, 298 Linggajati Agreement, 131, 132, 149 literati forced withdrawal, 29

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guardians of noble tradition, 29 Javanese, 25 local autonomy importance of, 269 local elections, 277 Lucas Kustarjo, 248 Luns Plan, 480 objection of Sukarno, 481 Luwu raja of, 153

M M. Amien Rais, 410, 511, see also Amien Rais Macapagal Philippines, 316 Machtstaat, 117 Madam Sun Yat Sen conversation with Sukarno, 327 Madiun Affair, 133, 134, 143, 150, 156, 178, 199 Madjid Ibrahim, Prof., 468 Madura, 130 return of Madurese to, 553 Madurese, 438, 439 communal conflict with Dayak, 551 Majapahit, 59, 60, 86, 95 goldern age of, 76 Majelis Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia (MIPI), 217 Majelis Permusyawaratan RakyatSementara (MPRS), 295 Majelis Rakyat Papua, 566 Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI), 403 Majlis Syuro Muslimin Indonesia (Masyumi), 109 Makarese Ambon, in, 553 Makaresse historical tradition, 61 Makassar, 63, 93

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Index • 619

Gowa, 60 KNIL soldiers landing on, 153 Malari Affair, 375 result of, 376 Malay Language Arabized, 13 bazaar, see bazaar Malay formal acceptance, 52 use of, 16 Malaya, 115 Malaysia agreement with Indonesia relating to archipelagic waters, 443 creation of, 315 election to Security Council, 303 infiltration of Indonesian military personnel, 317 Malino peace agreement, 556 Manado, 93 Manggarai first king, a Minangkabau, 60 Manifes Kebudayaan (Cultural Manifesto), 321 Manifesto Politik (Manipol), 289 essence of, 297 ideology of revolution, 296 Political Manifestor, 294 Manipol, see Manifesto Politik, 296 Manipol-USDEK, 300, 302, 326 basis of, 384 support of Nasakom, 300 Maphilindo, 316 Maramis, A.A., 135 March 11 Letter of Order (Surat Perintah 11 Maret), 357 Marhaenism, 263 Sukarno-designed nationalist ideology, 420 Marti Ahtisari, 561 marriage law, 404

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rejection of draft by Islamic faction, 375 Mas Mansoer, Kyai Haji, 108 mass demonstrations, 166 Massa Actie, 145 influence of, 33 Masyumi, 109, 220, 233, 269, 273 banning of, 236 formation of Liga Demokrasi, 298 Islamic modernism of, 218 Islamic modernist party, 48, 247 number of parliamentary seats, 274 proposal for inclusion of “escape clause”, 244 Mataram Dynasty, 23 Mataram kingdom, 61, 62 Matu Mona Pacar Merah, 164 May 1998 riots, 529 Mead, Margaret, 205 Medan, 93, 163 Medan Prijaji, 9 medical schools, 432 Megawati Sukarnoputri, viii, 457, 460, 461 defeat in Presidential elections, 539 drafting of National Education Law, 543 loss in 2004 elections, 546 passing of new laws, 543 Presidency, 542, 543 suit against Minister of Internal Affairs, 462 supporters attacked by government forces, 462 Vice-President, as, 539 Melanesian Christianity cultural notion of, 486 Melanesian identity, 563 Merauke, 477

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620 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

Merdeka Palace, 184, 341 M.H. Thamrim, 102 MIAI (Majlisul Islamil A’laa Indonesia), 109 middle way concept of, 346 migration spontaneous, see spontaneous migration military concept of dwifungsi, 346 concept of the middle way, 346 Military Commander of Java Japanese Occupation, 112 military matters, 246 MULO, 98 Minahasan Christian, 223 Minahasaraad, 77, 96 Minangkabau economic and social change of, 93 Padri War, 69 traditional political system, 71 uprisings in, 91 Minangkabau world, 5 Soetan’s revival of past glory of, 11, 12 Minang Saiyo, 254 Minimum Programme, 147, 164 Minister of Defence Sultan Hamengkubuwono, 346 Minister of Education RUSI cabinet, 259 Minister of Education and Culture, 377 Minister of Internal Affairs draft laws on politics, 378 legal suit by Megawati Sukarnoputri, 462 Minister of Justice, 371

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620

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Minister of Social Affairs Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, 499 Minister of the Colonies, Colijn, 45 minority note objection to village administration law, 381 Misbach, Haji, 30 Mochtar Lutfi, 55, 57, 84 Mochtar Lubis, 155 modernist religious schools, 153 modernization and rationalization, 342 modernization programme, 192 Moehammad Amir, Dr, 6, 162 Mohammad Hasan, T., 162 Mohammad Hatta, ix, 332 acceptance speech, 269 acquittal by court in The Hague, 40 biography, 79 chairman of PI in Netherlands, 33 decision to leave government, 250 definition of multi-ethnic and interisland nationalism, 36 fear for Sukarno, 40 formation of new cabinet under, 282 Indonesia Free speech, 35 observation of Western liberal democratic system, 37 pre-war political writings, 35 resignation of, 276 student in the Netherlands, 34 view on collectivism, 38 youth leader, 34 Mohammad Jusuf Kalla, viii, 546 Mohammad Natsir, 86, 135, 233, 276 annoyance with issue of West Irian, 273 comment on Aceh issue, 238 duration of cabinet, 245 dismantling of Aceh, 232

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Index • 621

exchange of opinions with Sukarno, 82 opponent of konsepsi, 282 Mohammad Roem, 137, 139, 188, 427 Mohammad Yamin, 174, 175, 302 chair of National Planning Council, 302 Moluccas, 223 Mongisidi, Wolter, 223 Monitor case, 403 monodualistic nature Soeharto’s theory of human beings, 387 monuments, 2 mortality rates mothers in childbirth, 430 mosque youths, 406 Movement of the Indonesian People, see Gerindo MPR deliberations on revisions to Constitution, 544 Mandate holder of, 296 MPRS election of Soeharto as President, 371 mufakat importance of, 382 Muhammad “Bob” Hassan, 499 owership of percentage of shares in Nusumba, 500 Muhammad Natsir formation of Dewan Dakwah Indonesia, 402 Muhammad Hasan di Tiro, 471 Muhammad Rasyid, 136 Muhammad Yamin, background, 3 Muhammadiyah, 20, 57, 62, 164, 366 abstention from practical politics, 402 establishment of, 13

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issue of Presidential succession, discussion on, 511, 512 leader of, 113 spread of, 20 Muhammadiyah schools, 49 Mujahiddin, 152 Mukti Ali, Prof., 407 appointment based purely on personal capacity, 427 Multatuli, 104 multi-complex revolution, 144 mutli-ethnic nation-state re-examination of, 570 Murba Party, 179, 312 Munawir Syadzali, 404 municipality councils, 96 Muslims central Sumatra, 290 historical claims of, 65 Muso, 150 musyawarah, 37, 284 emphasis on, 284 importance of, 382 Musyawarah Besar Papua (Papuan mass consultation), 565 Mutual Help People’s House of Representatives (DPR-GR) member’s reaction to Sukarno’s Independence Day address, 360 Mutual Security Act, 209, 245, 309

N Naar de Republiek Indonesie, 32 Nabire, 560 Naga Bonar, 181 Nagarakertagama, 59 Nagasaki, 122 Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) (Awakening of the Ulama), 20, 238, 320

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622 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

abdonement of politics, 453 traditionalist Islamic party, 273 withdrawal from politics, 402 Nangroe Aceh Darussalam, 559 Nasakom (Nasionalis, Agama, Komunis), 299, 300, 319, 383 principle of, 306 support of Manipol-USDEK, 300 nasionalisme ke-Rakyatan (popular nationalism), 42 Nasution, 341 alliance with Sukarno, 290 Minister of Defence, 288 political ostracization, 422 political weakening of, 301 position weakened, 320 as Speaker of MPRS, 420 visit to United States, 286 Nasution, Gen., 226, 234, 247, 370 alliance with Sukarno, 290 co-founder of IPKI, 248 Minister of Defence, as, 288 Sejarah Perang Kemerdekaan Indonesia, 417 urging Sukarno to change system, 251 weakening of position, 301 nation-building development from a wider meaning, 392 dynamics of, 429–47 nation formation beginning of story of, 4 nation-state designing of, 113–22 whether federal or unitary, 118 National Awakening Day, 18, 94, 440 national budget allocation for education, 432 National Congress of Education, 25, 49

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National Congress of Sciences, 217 National Commission for Human Rights (1993), 446 investigation into past abuses in Aceh, 557 national community, 66–69 National Council, 281, 284 legitimacy of, 335 National Development Planning Agency, 497 National Education Law, 543 National Front, 292 national government, 225 national heroes, 210 national history, 206, 210 national identity, 279–90 national integration, 437 maintenance of, 466 national language, 189, 210 issue of, 110 development of, 434 first attempt to make it language of science, 110 Malay language, 52 national personality (kepribadian nasional), 3, 272 notion of, 350 National Planning Agency, 288 National Planning Council, 302 National Reserve Corps, 226 national revolution, 249 nationalist movement, 241 national unity cornerstone of Sukarno’s political thinking, 41 Sukarno’s concern, 43 theme of Hatta’s writings, 35 nationalism consolidation phase, 46

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Index • 623

cornerstone of Sukarno’s political thinking, 41 different versions of, 219 narrow, 116 zenith of, 201 nationalist movement history of, 139 nationalist movement (1930s), 82 nationalization impact of, 344 nationalized Dutch enterprises operation by military officers, 503 Natsir, 44, 334, see also Mohammad Natsir Nawaksara, 360 Neerlando-centred history, 207 Nefos, 303, 326 Negara Bagian Aceh (NBA), 234 negara boneka, 187 Negara Indonesia Timur (NIT), 131, 154, 184 Negara Islam Indonesia (NII), 199, 230, 233, 291 negara kekeluargaan notion of, 498 negara keluarga transformation into, 498 negara kekuasaan, 117 negara pengurus, 117 Negara Sumatra Timur (State of East Sumatra), 165, 193, 194, 222 Nehru, Pandit Jawarharlal, 186, 310 neo-colonialism and imperialism (Nekolim), 318 Netherland Indies, x, 98 Netherlands liberation of, 22 Netherlands-Indonesia end of, 291

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New Emerging Forces, 314, 316 New Order birth of, 353 citizenship, issue of, 395 commitment to 1945 Constitution, 374, 391 commitment to Pancasila, 391 containing emergence of divergent Islamic orientations, 409 crisis of legitimacy, 510 depolitization of Islam, policy of, 403 hostility towards political Islam, 368 inability to comprehend inseparability of global economy, 527 morning religious sermons on radio, 400 objective of regime, 354 Pancasila Democracy, 389 practice of bersih diri dan bersih linkungan, 450 regime awareness of goal of nationbuilding, 439 slow downturn drift of regime after 1995, 507 solution to conflicts, 451 transformation into crisis of mutual distrust, 517 trilogy of development, 356 world of consensus, sustenance of, 393 New Order government military dominated, 372 new political alignment emergence of, 397–411 New York Agreement, 481 newspapers commercialized, 67 newsweeklies, 411

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624 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

ngoko Javanese speech level, 14, 15 Nine Saints (Wali Sanga), 60 niyah, 452 Non-Aligned Conference Second, 317 Non-Aligned Movement, 445 participation in, 444 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 508, 509 non-pribumi economic progress, 497 North Maluku formation of, 548 North Sulawesi Permesta rebellion, 345 problem of smuggling, 250 North Sumatra problem of smuggling, 250 Notosoeroto, 49 NU formation of Liga Demokrasi, 298 Nusamba ownership by Soeharto’s yayasan, 500 Nyoto, 305

old group (kaum tua), see kaum tua oligarchy transformation from democratic system into an, 499, 500 Olympic Games withdrawal of Indonesia, 301 one-sided action implementation of agrarian law reforms, 319, 320 Open Proportional electoral system, 544 Operasi Bujuk Aceh, 474 operasi khusus (OPSUS), 367 opposition definition determined by state ideology, 396 oppositionist view, 140 ORBIT, 411 Orde Baru (New Order), 325 Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM), 485 Organization of Scientific Research, 217 Orientalists, 399 Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), 488

O

P

October 17 Affair, 246, 337, 341, 342, 345, 416 aftermath of, 247 climax of complex problem, 253 internal military coup, 417 result of, 343 Oldefos, 303 Old Batavia prototype of colonial town, 87 Old Established Forces (Oldefos), 32, 303, 314, 319 control of United Nations, 318

P-4 Courses (Programme for Pancasila Comprehension and Practice), 383, 401 opposition of Islam faction in parliament, 386 Pacar Merah Matu Mona, by, 164 Pacar Merah Indonesia (Indonesian Scarlet Pimpernel), 52 Pacific War, 54, 100 beginning of, 53 Padang, 5, 93

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Index • 625

newspapers, 5 social history of, 70 Padang Panjang, 103 Padjadjaran University, 323 Padri War, 69, 262 Palapa, 436 Palar, L.N., 101 pan-Islamism, 63 Pancasila, 284, 378 affirmation of, 288 birth of, 114, 119 definition of human nature, 388 five principles of, 283 Sukarno’s lecture on, 313 transforming state into a greedy state, 397 understanding of, 384 Pancasila Democracy, 388 New Order, during, 389 reflection of identity of nation, 390 Pancasila personality objective of national education, 378 Pancasila society, 385 socialistic-religious society, 386 Pangeran Antasari, 65 Panglima Polem, 89 Panitia Sembilan, 174 Papare, Silas, 522 Papua Christianization, 486 heavy-handed treatment by central government, 487 Papua Barat, 480 Papuans plight of, 485 Parang Kamang, 90 Parang Mangopoh, 90 parliamentary democracy, 241–51 Parmusi victim of OPSUS operations, 422

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Partai Amanat Nasional, 538 Partai Indonesia Merdeka (PIM), 223 Partai Kebangkitan Nasional (PKB), 539 Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS) (Justice and Prosperity Party), 546 Partai Kemerdekaan Indonesia Irian (PKII), 478 Partai Nasional (PARNA), 479 political system loss of, 11 Padri War, 5 Pancasila Sukarno’s proposal of, 42 Panitia Persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia (PPKI) (Preparatory Committee for the Independence of Indonesia), 1, 121 Panitia Sembilan (Commission of Nine), 119 Parindra, 102 Parmusi modernist Islamic party, 402 Partai Demokrasi Indonesia (PDI), 373 Partai Indonesia (Partindo), 38, 81 Partai Indonesian Raja (Parindra), 48, 68 Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI), 21 radicalization of, 57 Partai Muslimin Indonesia (PMI), 366 Partai Persatuan Pembangunan (PPP), 373 Partai Republik Indonesia (PRI), 168 Partai Sarekat Islam Indonesia (PSII), 48, 51 Partai Sosialis Indonesia, 133 participation definition determined by state ideology, 396 Partindo, 44

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626 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

Pasai, 61 Islamic kingdom in Northern Sumatra, 59 role of, 59 Pasundan, 195 patriotic voluntary associations, 158 Pearl Harbour Japan’s attack on, 53 PBKI (Indonesian Planned Parenthood Association), 430 PDI accused of instigating riots, 463 attraction of, 458 change in political posture, 457 re-election of Suryadi, 460 requests relating to elections (1993), 459 special congress held in Jakarta, 460 PDI Perjuangan (PDI-P), 463 biggest party in 1999 elections, 463 loss in elections, 546 Pedoman, 293, 356, 376 confiscation of printing house, 293 Pekalongan, 528 Pekan Olahraga Nasional III Medan, 233 Pelajar Islam Indonesia (PII) (Indonesian Islamic Students), 454 Pemalang, 158 pembangunan, 156 Pemerintah Revolusioner Republik Indonesia (PRRI), 282 Pemoeda Sumatra, 34, 46 pemuda Ambon politics, 224 radical, 154, 162, 163 radical youth, 123 urban, 223 Pemuda Indonesia, (PPI), 478

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Penempatan Tenaga Mahasiswa, 215 Pendidikan Nasional Indonesia (New PNI), 38, 44 People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) election of Soeharto, 372 single majority of GOLKAR, 371 People’s Republic of China agreement with Indonesia regarding citizenship of Indonesian Chinese, 344 agreement with Indonesia relating to Indonesian-born Chinese, 255 birth of, 255 change in belligerent posture, 309 policy of peaceful coexistence, 256 Sukarno’s visit to, 312 People’s University, 211 peranakan, 255 Perdjoeangan Kita, 140, 165 Pergerakan, 329 dominance in political and cultural discourses, 29 history of, 104 leaders, 65 leaders, 30, 31 pergerakan nasional (nationalist movement), 241 Perhimpunan Indonesia (PI) (Indonesian Association), 31, 33, 46, 80, 117 Perhimpunan Kebaktian Rakyat, 107 movement for communal services during Japanese Occupation, 107 Peristiwa Tiga Daerah, 158 Permest rebellion, end of, 300 Permesta challanges posed by, 327 Permesta officers degeneration into gerombolan, 291

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Index • 627

Permesta rebellion, 235, 300, 345 Permi, 56, 84 Persatoean Indonesia, 48 Persatoean Kaoem Moeda (Association of the Young Group), 8 Persatoean Muslimin Indonesia (Permi), 39, 56 Persatuan Islam, 86 Persatuan Perjuangan (PP), formation of, 147 Persatuan Ulama Seluruh Aceh (PUSA), 160 Perserikatan Komoenis di Hindia, 21 Perserikatan Nasional Indonesia (PNI), 80 Perserikatan Partai-partai Politik Indonesia, see PPKI Pertamina contracts given to Soeharto’s children, 501 explorations for natural gas, 468 Pertamina fiasco, 376 Pertja Barat, 70 PERTI (Persatuan Tarbiyah Islamiyah), 238 Peryataan Keprihatinan (Statement of Concern) speech by Soeharto, 381 pesantren, 405 establishment of secular faculties, 406 pesantren kilat quick religious instruction programmes, 406 pesta demokrasi general election, 372 PETA (Tentera Sukarela Pembela Tanah Air) (Voluntary Armed Defenders of the Fatherland), 111

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PETA battalion, 106 Petisi, 50, 382 Petrus mysterious shooter, 450 Philippines SEATO, as member of, 316 Pires, Tomé, 5 PKI, 218 ability of members to run for elections, 545 anti-West campaign, 317 Central Committee of, 316 dissolution of, 357 local elections (1957), 277 support of September 30th Movement, 325 violent annihilation of, 465 Plakat Panjang, 90, 91, 167 plakat pendek, 65 PNI number of parliamentary seats, 274 number of votes, 274 use of Marhaenism as ideological foundation, 420 victims of OPSUS operations, 422 PNI-led cabinet, 246 PNI-Masyumi coalition cabinet, 346 Poedjangga Baroe, 53 Sjahrir’s contributions to, 45 Poetoehena, J., 197 Poetri Hindia, 9 Polemic Kebudayaan (polemic on culture), 25, 26 police reformation, 533 political conservatism, 166 political debates, 246 political discussion restriction on, 376

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628 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

Political Federation of Indonesia, see Gabungan Politik Indonesia (GAPI), 48 political manifest (manifesto politik), 336 Political Manifesto (Manipol), 294, 295 political nationalism, 64 political parties, 241–51 failure, 269 larger share in decision-making process, 301 number of, 248 Sukarno’s view of, 243 Political Study Group, 34 politics of confrontation, 314 politics of independence radicalization of, 30 Poorten, Gen. Ter, 102 Pos Kota, 404 Poso, 556 PPKI, see Panitia Persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia PPKI (Perserikatan Partai-partai Politik Indonesia) (Association of Indonesian Political Parties), 48 Pramoedya Ananta Toer, 155, 262 exile, 449 Prawoto Manjusasmito, 323 Prayogo Pangestu, 500 Presidency times one can occupy, 511 President relationship withe air force, 324 Presidential Address 17 August, 294 Political Manifesto, 295 Presidential Decree formation of political parties, 241 No. 2 of, 295, 1959 Presidential Decree No. X, 128, 144

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Presidium Dewan Papua (Papuan Presidium Council), 565 pribumi economic progress, 497 primary health centres, 432 Prime Minister of RUSI, 139 primordialism, 220 print capitalism, 67, 77 print culture commercialized, 100 private institutions of higher learning, 433 private schools spread of, 12 priyayi administrative, see administrative priyayi functional, see functional priyayi Javanese, 13 Proclamation Day, 440 celebrations, 441, 442 Proclamation of Independence, 69, 121, 122–28, 174, 175, 287, 384 during fasting month, 157 fulfillment of promises of, 349 monuments for, 2 sixth anniversary of, 258 views on, 68, 145 Yamin’s view on, 3 progressive world (dunia maju), see dunia maju proportional system, 369 Protestant party, 298 provinces creation of new, 548 Provisional Constitution (1950), 243, 244, 287, 343 Provisional Parliament October 17 Affair, 341

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Index • 629

Provisional People’s Consultative Assembly (MPRS), 292 Provisional People’s Consultative Assembly, see Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat Sementara (MPRS) challenges posed by, 327 PRRI (Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia), see Pemerintah Revolusioner Republik Indonesia PSI formation of Liga Demokrasi, 298 leader, 280 support for inclusion of “escape clause”, 244, 245 PSII, see Partai Sarekat Islam Indonesia; Partai Sarekat Islam Indonesia, 48 PT Arun, 468, 470 PT Freeport Indonesia, 488 PT Indocement Tunggal Prakasa percentage of shares owned given to Yayasan Dharmais and Yayasan Dakap, 500 puputan ceremonial death, 89 PUSA (Persatuan Ulama Seluruh Aceh), 160 leader of, 238 Pusat Tenaga Rakyat (Centre of People’s Manpower), 108

Q Qahhar Muzakkar, 198, 221, 226, 227, 228, 230, 236 political outlaw, 231 traditional sense of honour, 229 Qahhar Muzakkar, Buginese sense of honour, 265

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Qur’an contextualization of, 399

R Rachmawati Sukarnoputri, 520 Radio Republik Indonesia (RRI), 435 radio stations role of, 436 Radjiman, 173 Radjiman Wediodiningrat, Dr, 114 raja conservative, 223 Raja Empat Islands, 475 Rajo Alam of Minangkabau, 57, 58 Ratu Adil Affair Bandung, in, 239 Ratulangi, Dr Sam, 477 rebels support from CIA, 311 reconquista Iberian Peninsula, of, 204 Red Net Operation, 473 Reformasi, 510, 515 death of students, 515 particpation of university students, 529 street demonstrations, 515 reformasi (political reformation), viii regio-centric view of history, 208 regional monetary crisis, see Asian financial crisis Reid, 164 rejection of Hatta’s worries, 117 religion definition determined by state ideology, 396 religious schools modernist, see modernist religious schools spread of, 12

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630 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

religious teaching communal character of, 385 Renan, Ernest, 67 Renville Agreement, 132, 133, 177, 204, 259 Republik Indonesia Serikat (RUSI or RIS) (Republic of the United States of Indonesia), 184 duration of, 198 government, 191 provisional constitution, 193 Republik Maluku Selatan (RMS) (Republic of South Moluccas), 197, 451 Republik Persatuan Indonesia (United Republic of Indonesia), 198, 236 Republik Persatuan Islam Indonesia (United Islamic Republic of Indonesia), 198, 230–31 Republika, 411 Residency of Pekalongan, 158 Resink, G.J., 82, 207 Retnodhoemilah, 8 revolution dynamics of, 151 revolutionaries, 323 Revolutionary Council formation of, 25 revolutionary diplomacy, 312 Riau Islands economic domination of Singapore, 317 rice delivery forced, 105 riots May 1998, 515 Risalah, 174 Rodrigo de Villa, 204 Roeslan Abdoelgani, 281, 296 Ronkel, Ph. S. van, 6

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Rosihan Anwar, 51 Round Table Conference (RTC), 137, 138, 189, 342 abrogation of agreement, 344 inclusion of West Irian, 301 RTC agreement, 138 Royal Decree (16 November 1938), 54 Rudini, 537 Rudini, Gen (Ret.), 426 Rukun Tetangga (Neighbourhood Association) Japanese Occupation, during, 107 Rumkoren proclamation of independence of Papua, 484 rupiah loss in confidence in, 415 RUSI, see Republik Indonesia Serikat Ruslan Abdulgani, 176 Russel, Bertrand, 313 Russian Revolution, 32 rust en orde (calm and orderly), 100 politics of, 45 Rustam Sutan Palindih, 96

S S. Nishima, 113 S. Takdir Alisjahbana, 110 Sabilillah, 156 Salah Asuhan, 263 Salman mosque, 406 Sam Ratulangi, Dr, 96, 153 Samandhoedi, H., 10 Samba communal conflict in, 552 Sampit massacre of Madurese, 552 Sanskrit terms use of, 394 Santa Cruz tragedy, 446, 493

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Index • 631

santri, 157 santri, religious students, 157 santrinization deepening of Islamic influences, 398 Sarekat Adat Alam Minangkabau (Adat Association of the Minangkabau World), 11 Sarekat Dagang Islamiyah (Islamic Trading Association), 9 Sarekat Islam (Islamic Assocation), 10, 16, 19 Central Committee of, 72 early history of, 74 issue of native militia during First World War, 24 Semarang branch, 19, 21, 32 Sukarno as member, 40 use of new media, 30 Sarekat Rakyat, 21, 32 Sarekat Sumatra, 48, 82 SARS effect on Indonesian economy, 542 Sartre, 205 Sartono, 299 Sarwo Edhie, Colonel, 449 Satelindo, 501 satellite communications, 436 Sayuti Melik, 322 schakel, 98 Schiller, 307 schools private, see private schools religious, see religious schools secular, see secular schools scientific terms translation into Indonesian, 110 scorched-earth policy, 103 Second Army Seminar of, 1966, 348 Second World War, 201 beginning of, 53

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secular schools, 405 spread of, 12 Security Council, 187 censure of Indonesia, 318 Committee of Good Offices, 132 Resolution (January 1949), 188 urging for end of hostilities, 136 Seinendan, 111 youth corps, 172 Sekber Golkar transformation of, 370 Sekolah Raja, 31 self-censorship Pancasila press, 382 Semarang, 93, 99 Seminar of National History, 208 Semaoen former leader of SI Semarang branch, 33 separatist movement, 197, 224 September 11 effect on Indonesia, 542 September 30 affair, 448 punishment for communists (PKI), 449 September 30th Movement, 325 Serui, 477 Seulawah, 265 Sewaka, 195 Shuhada Mosque, 400 Si Singamangaraja XII, 167 Siasat, 200 Sidik Djojosukarto, 267 Sigit Soeharto, 506 Silas Papare, 478 Siliwangi, 133 Siliwangi Division, 204 Silungkang, 92 communist rebellions, 33 Simatupang, T.B., 34, 137, 196, 341

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632 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

Singapore economic and fiscal domination, 317 Sino-Indonesian conglomerates control of large percentage of economy, 498 role of, 504 Sino-Indonesian Dual Nationality Treaty, 256 Sipadan dispute over, 444 sistem kekeluargaan, 395 sistem kekeluargaan (family system) manifest of Pancasila worldview, 388 Sitor Situmorang, 167 Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, 425, 499 Sjafruddin, 137, 236 Sjafruddin Prawiranegara, 134, 216, 232 opponent of konsepsi, 282 Sjahrir Hatta’s friend, 102 Linggajati Agreement, 149 Sjawa Hookoo Kai, 107 smuggling problem created by local commanders, 250 social changes economic growth, result of, 496 social mobilization impact during Japanese Occupation, 107 social revolution, 161, 194, 199, 221 East Sumatra, 165 Social Science Foundation, 521 social structural changes resulting in, 496 Socialist Party (PSI), 273 socialist society creation of a, 302

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socialization of ideology Japanese Occupation, during, 107 impact of Japanese Occupation, 107 socio-democracy Sukarno’s views on, 42 socio-nationalism Sukarno’s view on, 42 Soebadio Sastrosatomo, 323 Soedharmomo election as Vice-President, 409 Soedjatmoko, 280 Soedomo, Admiral (Ret.), 464 Soeharto announcemnt of government’s twin duties, 364 appointment of state minister to deal with population problems, 430 calls to be put on trial, 534 children’s business activities, 501, 502 course of democracy should be programme oriented, belief that, 392 election as Chief Executive, 365 election as President by MPRS, 371 ending konfrontasi, 325 emphasis on musyawarah and mufakat, 382 emphasis that Pancasila an open ideology, 404 fall of, 415 formation of foundation to foster Islamic propogation, 405 frustrating possibility of reemergence of Islamic political groups, 367 Independence Day speech, 363, 364 installation as Acting President, 362 lowest point of political legitimacy, 376 monodualistic nature of human beings, 385

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Index • 633

personal assistants, reliance on, 367 request for Sukarno to step down, 361 success in centralizing power, 413 support for re-nomination from ulama, 512 speech at opening of General Meeting of the Commanders of the Armed Forces, 381 state address of, 388, 1978 Soeharto’s relatives economic dealings of, 377 Soeharto’s yayasan strategic role of, 525 Soekiman Wirjosandjojo, 34 Soemitro, General, 375 Soemitro, Gen. (Ret.) Malari Affairs, on, 423 Soemitro Djojohadikusumo, 282 Soetatmo, 25 ideas counted by Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo, 27 Soetomo, 73 Soewardi Soerjaningrat, 23, 26, 49 change of name, 26, 49 Sorong, 477 Sosrokartono, 78 Soumokil, Dr Mr., 197 Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), 316 Special Autonomy of Papua, 566 Special Military Court, 449 special paratroopers (RPKAD), 449 special regions, 185, 194 speech levels Javanese language, 13 spoken language, 434 spontaneous migration social and economic discrepancies, cause of, 494

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Spoor, Gen., 135 Sri Paku Alam VIII, 422 Sriwijaya, 95, 207 starvation Japanese Occupation, during, 105 State Islamic Institute (IAIN), 432 state nationalism, 290 State of Pasundan, 186, 195 state universities province, in every, 432 STOVIA Malay as official language, 16 medical students of, 90 Strait of Malaka, 209 student activists critical of First Family’s economic ventures, 510 struggle for independence diplomacy in, 2 student organizations, 67 students P-4 courses, 401 study group of constitutional consciousness, 382 Subandrio, 361 Foreign Minister, 315 Sudharmono, 385, 424 Sudirman, Gen., 135, 137 Commander of Armed Forces, 149 revolutionary Commander of the Armed Forces, 346 sudra (peasantry), 24 Sukabumi Hatta and Sjahrir transferred to, 44 Sukarni follower of Tan Malaka, 175 Sukarno, ix, 44 arrest of, 43, 150 attack on colonialism, 311 background, 40, 41

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634 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

backing of marine and police, 422 Banda Neira, 44 biography, 80 blemished image, 362 clemency by Governor General, 44 confinement to Bogor Palace, 363 conversation with Madam Sun, 327 cornerstones of political thinking, 41 death of, 331 defence speech, 179 dialogue with Tgk Daud Buereueh, 266 displeasure with Luns Plan, 481 dissolution of Provisional Parliament, 341 division of world into Nefos and Oldefos, 303 emphasis on cadre formation, 39 emphasis on national unity, 242 eulogizing revolution, 3 exchange of opinions with Natsir, 82 exiled to Flores and Bengkulu, 44 formation of cabinet on basis of three programmes, 288 Great Leader of the Revolution, 292 historical trilogy, 43 Independence Address (1962), 312 Independence Day speech, 281 Independence Day Address of, 296, 1960, 360 influential leader, as an, 288 introduction of state recognition of a hero, 420 konsepsi, 282 Law of Revolution, 295 lecture on Pancasila, 313 Legge’s comments, 332 member of Jong Java, 14 Mentjapai Indonesia Merdeka speech, 272

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Mouthpiece of the People, 330 national unity, concern about, 43 notion of continuing revolution, 354 objection against formation of Malaysia, 315 offically opening Third National Sports Week, 233 Pancasila, 41 pilgrimage to Mekka, 247 Political Manifesto, 295 political rhetoric, 43 President for Life, proposal for, 305 process of impeachment of, 421 proclamation of independence, 121 recognition of Abdoel Moeis as national hero, 210 speech before UN General Assembly, 313 speech at Heidelberg, 306 symbol of national unity, 183 transfer of power to Soeharto, 362 tridharma, 271 usage of ngoko, 14 view of world forces, 314 view on the formation of Malaysia, 317 views on political parties, 220, 243 visit to Germany and Europe, 306 visit to People’s Republic of China, 312 visit to United States, 306 visits to U.S. and Europe, 306, 307 voluntary stepping-down of, 361 West Irian, issue of, 312 world leader, 313 world of conflict, 393 Sukarno-Hatta leadership, 278 Sukawati, 196, 223, 224 Sukiman, 230 second cabinet of, 245 Sukmawati Sukanorputri, 520

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Index • 635

Sulawesi, 93, 223 Sultan Abdul Hamid II, 195, 261 Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX, 282, 341, 359 plan to assassinate, 196 Sultan of Riau, 163 Sultan of Yogyakarta, 128, 177, 369 Sultanate of Aceh, 71 Sultanate of Banjarmasin, 60, 65 Sultanate of Deli, 163 Sultanate of Demak, 60 Sultanate of Ternate, 60, 63 Sultanate of Tidore, 76 Sumatra, 130 Sumatra, Governor, 103 Sumatra Thawalib, 56, 57 Sumatranen Bond, 46 Sumbawa, 60 Sumpah Pemuda, 47 Sumual, Ventje, 278 demand for full regional autonomy for East Indonesia, 278 Sunan Giri, 60 Sunda Islands, 223 Sunda Kecil, 120 Supersemar, 357, 369, 420, 441 ownership of Bank Duta, 500 Supomo, 115, 116, 389 Hegelian political philosophy, 389 Supomo, Prof., 213 Supratman, W.R., 47 Supreme Advisory Council, 289, 294 chaired by President, 294 formation of, 288 Supreme Court, 333 Supriyadi, 106 leader of rebel PETA battallion, 106 Surabaya, 93 British attack on, 130 colonial period, during, 73

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Surat Kepercayaan, 200, 201, 202, 210, 213, 217 Surat Kepercayaan Gelanggang, 321 Suryadi, 457, 459, 461, 462 Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, viii, 546 Sutradjo Petition (1938), 54 Sutan Sjahrir, 44, 50, 129, 140, 141, 142, 162, 165, 188 hiearchy of revolutionary goals, 142 neo-capitalism or socialism, 143 Suwardi Suryaningrat, 75 Syahkuala University, 468 Syamaun Gaharu, 234 Syekh Abdur Rauf al-Singkili, 61 Syekh Dr A. Karim Amrullah, 109 Syekh Thaher Jalaluddin, 12 Syekh Buhanuddin, 61 Syekh Ismail al-Banjari, 62 Syekh Nuruddin Arraniri Aceh, of, 62

T T. Nyak Arief, 161, 180 Tajus-salatin, 62, 85 Takdir Alisjahbana, S., 49, 50, 53, 110, 203 Taman Mini Indonesia, 377 Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, 500, 501 Taman Siswa, 49 schools, 99 Tan Malaka, 31, 52, 77, 78, 92, 99, 142, 146, 150, 162, 165, 179, 284 background, 31 career as international communist, 32 death of, 151 exile in Bangkok, 168 formation of Persatuan Perjuangan (PP), 147 Gerpolek, 148

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influence of Egyptian Islamic modernist ideas, 31 Marxist ideas of, 162 Massa Actie, 145 meeting with Sukarno and Hatta, 145 Netherlands, in, 32 praise by Hamka, 78 tanah air meaning of, 442 poetic notion of, 115 Tanah Karo, 238 Tanah Merah, 98, 476 Tanjung Morawa affair, 246 Tanjung Priok, 401 Tanjung Priok Affair, 454, 455, 456 tarekat, 91 tarekat Shattariah, 90 tariqah, 91 Tasikmalaya, 105 resistence against Japanese, 105 Teacher’s Training Institute (IKIP), 432 technocrats declining role, 505 Tegal, 158 telephone culture blooming of, 394 television availability, 435 Tempo, 411, 414, 507 banning of, 413 Tengku Mansyur, 165 Tenno Haika, 109 worship of, 109 Tentera Nasional Indonesia (TNI), 2 Tentara Pelajar (student army), 156 tentara pelajar (student soldiers), 210 Tentara Perjuangan Rakyat (TPR), 160 Tentera Sukarela Pembela Tanah Air (Voluntary Armed Defenders of the Fatherland (PETA)), 111

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Terauchi, Field Marshal, 104 Ternate, 60, 446 terrorists bombing activities, 546, 547 Teuku Nyak Arief, 152, 159 Teuku Umar Johan Pahlawan, 522 Teungku Cik di Tiro, 151, 152, 522 Teungku Daud Beureueh, 136, 151, 161, 237 Tgk Daud Beureueh, 227, 233, 235, 237 cessation of rebellion against central government, 467 confirmation as Governor of Aceh, 232 Thamrin, M.H., 48, 55, 97, 102, 170 Theys Hiyo Eluay arrest of, 566 Three Nations Commission, 132 Three Regions Affair, 199 see also Peristiwa Tiga Daerah Timor, 115 Tirto Adhi Soerjo, R.M., 9, 19, 74 Tjarda van Starkenhorgh-Stachouwer, 102 Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo, 23, 74, 75 fear for Sukarno’s fate, 40 opposed to Soetatmo’s ideas, 27 Tjokroaminoto, H.O.S., 10, 14, 20, 40, 74, 75, 77 TNI, see Tentera Nasional Indonesia Toba, 185 Toli-Toli, 92 Tonari-Gumi, 107 introduction, 107 trade greater role of, 497 trade unions leftist, 311 traditional communities, 221 traditionalist Islamic party fighting alongside Masyumi, 279

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Index • 637

transfer of sovereignty, 190, 225 from Japanese to Indonesia, 122 transmigration Papuan experience, 487 transmigration programme, 437 Tri Koro Darmo, 40, 46 tridharma, 271 trikora, 481 Triple A Movement, 108 tsunami disaster, 560 result of, 561 Tuanku Abdul Rahman, 315, 316 Tuanku Imam Bonjol, 5, 206, 262 Tuanku Mahmud, 152 Tufhat an-Nafis, 62 Tyuuoo Sangi-In (Central Advisory Council), 108

U UDT (Uniao Democratica Timorense), 490 ulama-uluebalang, 266 ulebalang, 152, 159 Umar Wirahadikusumah, 425 underground groups, 172 unitarism, 194 unitarist movement, 193, 195 United Nations Commission of Good Offices, 308 Sukarno’s plan to replace, 318 withdrawal of Indonesian membership, 303 withdrawal of Indonesia from, 303 United Nations General Council Sukarno’s speech before, 313 United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 311 Sukarno’s visit to, 306 unity importance of, 328 universal humanism, 322

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Universitas Islam Indonesia, 214 Universitas Nasional, 215 Universiteit van Indonesië, 212 universities national selection procedure for applicants, 432 university campuses domestication programme, 509 places of worship for Friday prayers, 400 university graduates number of, 251 percentage from madrasahs, 406 University of Andalas, 214 University of Indonesia (UI), 212, 375 University of Jember, 324 university students protests in Jakarta and Bandung, 376 Untung, Lieutenant Colonel, 325, 448 Unversiteit Negeri Gadjah Mada, 212 urban centres enlargement of, 497 USDEK, 297 Utrecht-school, 97

V van Leur, 95, 206 van Mook, H.J., 131, 198 divide and rule policy, 194 van Roijen-Roem Statement, 189 van Starkenourgh-Stachouwer, Tjarda, 102 Vasco da Gama, 307 Ventje Sumual, 278 vervolgshool, 97 Vietminh, 329 Vietnam, Dalat, 104 village definition, 380 village administration law (1979), 380, 395

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638 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy

transgression of 1945 Constitution, 380 village community loss of self-defence mechanism, 381 village democracy, 270 Visman Report, 102 VOC, see Dutch East India Company Volksraad, 27, 37 official opening, 28 volksschool, 97, 98 volksvertegenwoordiging (representative of the people), 24 Vorstendlanden, royal territories, 10

W Wahidin Soedirohoesodo, 8 Wang Gungwu, Prof., xi Wanggai, Thomas, 485 Wajo, 90 Wali Negara, 195 Wali Sanga (Nine Saints), 60 war of independence, 155 warasatul anbiya, 109 waqaf regulation, 405 Wawasan Nusantara, 443, 444, 519 West Irian, 249, 279, 326 cause of abrogation of RTC Agreement, 344 communist-backed labour unions, 283 conflict, 281 dispute, 266 Dutch Government’s planned reinforcement for, 298 Dutch refusal to return, 189 Dutch reinforcement of, 298 effect of campaign on inter-party conflicts, 343 issue of, 190, 191, 198

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Indonesia’s claim to, 279 Komite Nasional, 480 Luns Plan, 480 mining activities, 488 problem of integration, 475 process of inclusion into Indonesia, 412 radicalization of campaign, 304 radicalization of conflict with, 291 settling of issue, 300 Sukarno’s demand for inclusion of, 242 Sukarno’s politics of confrontation with the Dutch, 314 West Irian experience, 484 West Irian Jaya, 566 West Irian Jaya province formation of, 548 West Java Darul Islam’s earliest movement, 254 West Kalimantan, 196 West New Guinea Papua Barat, 480 West Papua, 115 Westerling, 154, 195 Western-educated intellectuals, 206 Western liberal democracy, 328 Wongsonegoro, 145 Widjojo Nitisastro, 374 Wild Schools Ordinance, 99 Wilopo, 246, 374 Wiranto, Gen. promise of military backing to President Habibie, 531 work force mobilization of, 105 mobilization during Japanese Occupation, 105

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Index • 639

World Bank classification of Indonesia, 496

Y Yamin, 117, 173 five periods of history, 209 Indo-centric view of history, 207 Yayasan Dakap, 500 ownership of Bank Duta, 500 Yayasan Dharmais, 500 ownership of Bank Duta, 500

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Yayasan Amal Bakti Muslim Pancasila establishment of mosques, 405 Yogyakarta, 369 kota pelajar, 213 Shuhada Mosque, 400 Young Group, see kaum muda Youth Congress, 46, 296, 296 Second, 47 Youth Oath, 4

Z zenith of nationalism, 201

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Reproduced from Indonesia: Towards Democracy, by Taufik Abdullah (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute 640 • Indonesia: Towards Democracy of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg >

THE AUTHOR Taufik Abdullah is Research Professor (Emeritus), Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI)/Chairman, Social Science Commission, Indonesian Academy of Sciences.

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