The Jakarta Post, October 31, 2005
Communal conflicts and terrorism
Riwanto Tirtosudarmo, Jakarta
The intention of the Indonesian Military (TNI) Chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto to revive
the territorial command is not a surprise at all. It is only a reflection of a long
established self image of the military as the nation's sole protector against security
threats. Putting it into the global context the announcement echoes the idea of war on
terror propagated by U.S. President George W. Bush after the terrorist attack in New
York in 2001.
Embracing Bush's fallacious ideology of the war on terror in the Indonesian context
however could be a dangerous undertaking for Indonesia's current fragile democracy.
To put it simply, the intention to revive the territorial military command will easily
morph into the reinvention of state terrorism committed by the Soeharto regime.
Reviving the military territorial command will only mean instituting a surveillance
mechanism; which grossly overlooks the interconnectedness of domestic and global
politics.
Conventionally, terrorism is a violent act seeking political recognition within a confined
nation-state's border. Today's terrorism however is embedded within the currently
celebrated globalize world. Terrorism should therefore be conceptualized in its new
meaning within the vastly growing interconnectedness of the world.
Studies conducted by the International Crisis Group (ICG) in Indonesia indicates a
loose connection between the communal conflicts particularly in Central Sulawesi and
Maluku with the terrorist network in Southeast Asia that is likely also linked to the
global terrorist network. Research on communal conflicts in Indonesia shows the
important role of ethnic entrepreneurs -- in many cases local politicians -- in
mobilizing the sentiments of people's attachment to ethnicity, religion and territoriality
to achieve their short term political and economic goals.
These studies also confirm that such mobilization will only work in a society where
horizontal inequalities exist between different culturally defined groups. While violent
conflicts in Kalimantan might be different in the involvement of religion from what
happened in Sulawesi and Maluku they share a common feature of the existence
economic and political inequalities between different culturally defined groups.
The increasing violence and terror in the current unabated process of global capitalist
expansion cannot be separated from the fact that there is more inequality between the
rich-north countries and the poor-south countries.
Citizens of the rich countries in the north will be increasingly threatened by the fact
that terrorist networks are embedded within the process of globalization itself. The
feeling of insecurity is becoming a worldwide phenomena -- in the north as well as in
the south -- although with not the same vulnerability and different reasons.
The 2005 Human Development Report released last month by UNDP in New York
provides the hard facts on the need of genuine international cooperation to reduce the
alarming global inequality. In this context, worldwide terrorism logically posits a
possible causal-effect relationship with the increasing inequality at the global level.
Prof. Juwono Sudarsono, the Indonesian defense minister persuasively argued that
"global security ultimately depends on broader-based social and economic justice,
and peace and security depends on domestic distributive justice -- that should start
with a greater commitment to social justice at home." (The Jakarta Post, Oct. 12-Oct.
13, 2005).
Social justice has indeed been the core political issue in Indonesia even before its
independence. Social justice was the ultimate goal that drove our founding fathers
when they decided to form the Indonesian nation. Social justice should therefore be
among the top priorities of Indonesia's political platform where other immediate goals
should be rendered.
Indonesia is a nationalist project that believes that all citizens are equal regardless of
their ethnic or religious background. In this regard the mushrooming political and
territorial claims based on ethnicity or religion in the guise of regional autonomy is a
serious setback for the realization of national goals. These ethnic and religious
resurgences reflect undercurrent of increasing inequality.
The peaceful political solution to arms conflict in Aceh evidently proved our ability to
avoid military means alone in resolving the protracted problem of inequality and
injustice experienced by the Acehnese. The problem that we are now facing with
terrorism should be seen in the new light of what Prof. Juwono has succinctly voiced
-- "a greater commitment to social justicee at home".
Previous experiences have given us a precious lesson on the counterproductive
effects when military power is used to resolve the perceived threats that are actually
rooted within the state's incompetence in providing distributive justice for the people.
Social justice should become the broader umbrella in which the crucial role of military
and security apparatus can be proportionally conceptualized.
The writer is a researcher at the Research Center for Society and Culture, Indonesia
Institute of Sciences.
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