DENPASAR, Bali - In a nation torn between an authoritarian past and growing
Islamic radicalism, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has held the
center. But while presiding over five years of respectable economic growth free
of major upheaval, Yudhoyono hasn't expanded that space. Despite his cool
approach, the center has shrunk like an ice floe in the nation's tropical
waters.
Yudhoyono - popularly known as SBY - beat incumbent Megawati Sukarnoputri in
2004 in Indonesia's first direct presidential election, the last piece of the
country's political reformasi following the end of president Suharto's
three decades of autocratic, military rule. SBY ticked all the right boxes for
the emerging democracy.
He was a general under Suharto, but his signature command was
in United Nations peacekeeping. He was the first to endorse a key post-Suharto
reform by resigning his military post to become minister of mines under
president Abdurrahman Wahid; under Suharto, generals regularly doubled as
ministers. SBY earned a graduate degree in the US, and, just before taking the
presidency, finished his PhD in economics. He ran on his reputation for
honesty, a forthright bearing, and Javanese bloodlines. Java, home to more than
half of Indonesia's 230 million people, still dominates national politics.
Empty suit
To some, SBY came across as an Indonesian version of Dwight Eisenhower, the
former general who served two terms as US president during the 1950s. As with
Eisenhower, SBY had also never before run for office before the presidency, and
detractors saw him as little more than an empty suit. While SBY had all the
right credentials, his resume lacked depth. It was hard to identify a
meaningful accomplishment in his career or find a big idea in his campaign
platform. In 25 years of public and military service, he'd barely left a
footprint.
After nearly five years as president, many of those same criticisms apply. No
policy or initiative stands out as a hallmark of his administration. More than
a decade since Suharto resigned in disgrace, there's been only incremental
progress on reformasi. Yudhoyono has reacted to rather than initiated
events. Ending the secessionist war in Aceh was a direct result of the 2004
tsunami. In the aftermath of that devastation, SBY's government rejected the
approach that Myanmar took with Cyclone Nargis last year and let international
aid workers enter the war zone, setting the stage for a negotiated settlement.
On corruption, the biggest issue facing Indonesia's economy, progress has been
incremental. There have been more prosecutions, including one of SBY's in-laws,
but no landmark victory and no change in the prevailing attitude among
officials that public service is a license for personal enrichment and that
bribery and connections are the best ways to succeed. As a result, domestic and
foreign investors still mainly shun Indonesia, and its long-term development
prospects remain bleak.
Enter the dalang?
Supporters would contend that SBY, like Suharto, conducts politics
Javanese-style, from behind the scenes, like the dalang manipulating the
archipelago's traditional shadow puppets with an unseen hand. Even in that
optimistic scenario, SBY's position center stage is under assault from all
sides.
On one side there's the military that held the lead role under Suharto. Reforms
separated the armed forces, known by its Indonesian acronym TNI, from the
police and drove it out of politics. TNI was rewarded with the resumption of US
military assistance by the George W Bush administration and a place outside the
glare of the spotlight domestically.
Now TNI lurks deep in the background. The armed forces remain in businesses,
legally and otherwise, and often beyond the reach of the law. The 2004 murder
of anti-military activist Munir Said Thalib - poisoned aboard a national
flagship carrier Garuda flight - carries the obvious fingerprints of the
military's National Intelligence Bureau, but its former deputy chairman, Muchdi
Purwoprindjono, was acquitted on charges of ordering the murder last month.
While the actual trial represents progress from the Suharto era, the acquittal,
like the murder on the eve of SBY's election, signals that the military remains
untouchable. Usman Hamid, Munir's successor at KONTRAS, the non-governmental
organization that investigates extra-judicial killings and other abuses, called
the acquittal "a serious step backward in democracy and rule of law in
Indonesia".
The military's opposite on the Indonesian political spectrum are the Islamists.
After decades of strictly controlled Islam under Suharto, Muslim extremists are
now conducting the loudest assault on the center. Indonesia has the world's
largest Muslim population, approximately 86% of its 230 million people, but its
founders consciously created a secular state. In elections, Islamic parties win
about one-third of the vote. But extremists want to convert Indonesia into an
Islamic state, and they have made some progress under SBY.
Terrorism vs Islamism
The Islamist advance has been masked by genuine progress in fighting terrorism.
Islamic militants bombed nightclubs in Bali in 2002, killing 202 people, the
Jakarta Marriott hotel in 2003, the Australian Embassy in 2004, and a pair of
popular restaurants in Bali in 2005. The second Bali attacks provided clear
evidence of suicide bombings.
In his finest hour, Yudhoyono convinced previously lukewarm Muslim clerics to
join him in denouncing suicide bombings, decisively leading public opinion in a
new direction. Late last year, the administration executed the first Bali
bombers without widespread backlash, and Jemaah Islamiyah, the group believed
to be behind most bombings, has been substantially weakened, according to
experts. But stopping Muslim terrorists is not the same as stopping Islamists
from threatening secular society. Indonesia's non-Muslim minority groups number
more than 30 million, roughly equal to the population of Iraq, and SBY arguably
hasn't stood up firmly enough for them.
Religion and the fight against corruption, meanwhile, combined last year to
have a sobering impact on the nation and its US$6.4 billion tourism industry.
Alcohol imports, along with other so-called luxury goods, have long been
subject to import limits - aimed at preserving foreign currency reserves – that
were routinely flouted, providing a steady stream of bribes for customs
officials. Since strict enforcement began, starting with imports to the resort
island of Bali, spirits have been low. What began as strictly a corruption
issue has taken on religious overtones. Muslim hardliners despise drinking, as
well as Western visitors, and don't mind seeing tourism discouraged, especially
in predominantly Hindu Bali.
Taking the law into local hands
More seriously, local governments throughout the archipelago have instituted
their own versions of Islamic law, in some cases enforced by local vigilantes
that call themselves religious police.
In Tangerang, site of Jakarta's international airport, women out after dark
without a male relative have been subject to arrest. This trend went national
with an anti-pornography bill that had remained shelved for two years passed in
October last year amid widespread objections and deafening presidential
silence. The bill ignores local traditions to enshrine Muslim extremist values
as the national norm, leaves vast scope for interpretation, and authorizes
civilian enforcement. Hardliners can declare anything they dislike pornographic
and take matters into their own hands.
Islamic hardliners have a history of such thuggery, grown out of Suharto's use
of paramilitary youth groups for his political dirty work. Ahmadiyah, an
offshoot of Islam that believes in a prophet after Mohammad, has been subject
to violent attacks after hardliners declared its followers heretics. Last year,
the government, which still meddles in religion, agreed with the hardliners,
sending Ahmadiyah believers into hiding.
Last June 1 on Pancasilia Day, which celebrates Indonesia's national philosophy
embracing tolerance of the archipelago's diversity, the National Alliance for
Freedom of Faith and Religion, which includes Indonesia's largest grassroots
Muslim organization, staged a rally supporting Pancasilia's commitment to
pluralism, including Ahmadiyah. A peace parade from Jakarta's National Monument
was about to proceed when members of the hardline Islamic Defenders Front (FPI)
attacked, wielding sharpened bamboo clubs. At least 70 people were injured,
including women and children, while 1,200 police looked on, conditioned not to
interfere in religious matters.
Two FPI leaders were later sentenced to 18 months in jail after a trial in
which the defendants and their followers openly intimidated witnesses inside
and outside the courthouse. "It seems like people are finding it hard to accept
diversity and the state does not even provide us enough protection," assault
victim and activist Muhammad Guntur Romli said during the trial. "Our sense of
security is now fading away."
Few Indonesians dare challenge Muslim religious leaders or those who wrap
themselves in Islamic robes, no matter how extreme. Because most Indonesians
tend to be easygoing and shy from politics - paving the way for decades of
Suharto's authoritarianism - or the fine points of religion, it leaves
extremists to set the agenda.
Meanwhile, SBY and his party have no agenda, other than holding the center. At
this stage he remains the best choice for keeping the presidential seat of
power warm for someone with a more ambitious agenda. But as SBY lets the center
shrink, the risk is that Indonesia's next leader and their agenda may be more
extremist and intolerant.
Longtime editor of investor rights advocate eRaider.com, Gary LaMoshihas
written for Slate and Salon.com, and works a counselor for Writing Camp
(www.writingcamp.net). He first visited Indonesia in 1994 and has been going
back ever since.
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