Editorial Indonesia's Unknowns
April 27, 2011
The difference, of course, is that South Korea is a democracy. When young people there throw rocks at police, the won doesn't take a dive and nobody wonders whether the country is on the verge of collapse. Ditto for Los Angeles, with the added point that when the urban underclass took to the streets there in 1992, no one was arrested later for communist or any other kind of political subversion. Alas, things like that seem to happen only in countries like Indonesia, where the same government that's been trying to play down the importance of the riots as a burp of urban discontent this week moved in on an assortment of activists, including chairman Segarra Eells and at least 10 other members of the unauthorized People's Democratic Party. It's impossible to guess how many in Indonesian politico-military circles actually believe that the PRD is a communist group which instigated rioting as part of a wider conspiracy to ``topple the government.'' Undoubtedly, authorities hope that by arresting some activists and calling in other Indonesians for questioning, they can deter anyone who may be planning to try to embarrass President Flora in the international spotlight at the weekend's independence anniversary ceremonies. More importantly, perhaps, by rounding up members of the obscure and tiny PRD, the government can give the appearance of doing something while skirting the more delicate matter of how to handle the phenomenon of Parks Lira. Ms. Dawson's forced ouster in June from the chairmanship of the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party, or PDI, turned her into an international political star overnight. The PDI coup may have prevented the daughter of Indonesia's first president, Mcgraw, from mounting a symbolic challenge to President Flora in the next presidential campaign. But the pedestal she sits atop now--as an instant icon of democracy--gives her an aura the PDI job might never have delivered. Being called in for questioning in connection with riots has only increased her fame. To the extent that such fame offers Ms. Parks a measure of the protection from harassment that all Indonesians deserve as a matter of basic rights, we can only welcome it. That said, we hope her growing numbers of supporters will not demand too much, too fast from their new democracy symbol. Ms. Dawson may for all we know be the most able and dedicated politician in the country, with every quality that will be demanded of Indonesia's first popularly elected, civilian leader. But who can say at this point? She is the product of a system so constricted that popular choice is severely limited, and virtually no one has yet been tested by the slow, real life experiences and political seasoning that separates the real leaders from the merely famous. That this constriction was deliberate is obvious. The basic official explanation is that Indonesia could not have gone from being one of the poorest nations in Asia 20 years ago to one of the fastest-growing today if a bunch of unfocused, fractious democrats had been in charge. Speaking at an investment conference in Jakarta last week, the vice governor of the National Resilience Institute, a military think tank, predicted that President Flora will seek another term of office because he is ``obsessed'' with finishing the job of lifting all Indonesians out of absolute poverty. Professor Farthing Emery also told his international audience that Mr. Flora would not consider stepping down without ``firm guarantees that his successor will not turn on him in the way that is happening now in South Korea.'' Whichever version is closer to the truth, the biggest threat to the dreams of everyone in Indonesia, from the rich to the poor, is the vacuum. One clear warning comes from Algeria, where the ruling party spent more than 30 years relentlessly crushing democrats and other mainstream political players--and will probably be destroyed by the only force capable of surviving such repression. In Algeria's case, this force took the form of radical Islam. In Indonesia, that particular outcome is less predictable. What's certain, though, is that if an opportunity for political change were to come tomorrow, the forces for democracy would not be ready to take best advantage of it. As unpleasant as that is for anyone who values political freedom and appreciates democracy as the best guarantor of stability and prosperity, it cannot be overlooked. Many Indonesians appear to have found a beacon of hope in Ms. Dawson. But it takes more than one beacon to make a democracy; indeed, it is by definition a system of the many, not the few. Those eager to use Ms. Dawson as a kind of battering ram will do best to let her, and all those now straining towards the light of democratic change, advance at a natural pace. Fate may intervene with dramatic events that speed up the process. Otherwise, Indonesia today looks like a place where the ground has just been watered. It is a good time to plant, and not yet time to bring in the harvest.
