REFRESHING PANCASILA - AGAIN

 

 Notes from next door:  Indonesia’s Five Commandments under threat              

 

Senior presidential advisor Professor Hariyono is a worried man: “We’re in a battle for the soul of Indonesia.  This is serious.

“Although the main political parties, the military and religious organisations support Pancasila (the five principles underpinning the national ethos), millions want the Republic to be a Caliphate controlled from the Middle East.”

Hariyono is deputy chief of the Badan Pembinaan Ideologi Pancasila (BPIP- Pancasila Ideology Development Agency), a recently-created government bureau.  It’s charged with promoting and protecting the principles embedded in the Constitution of the country with the world’s largest Muslim population.

These are belief in one God, a just and civilised humanity, national unity, democracy and social justice.  They sound uncontentious – though not to those who want the nation of 273 million run by unelected clerics, and who are getting their views widely heard in the media.

Historian Hariyono, who along with many Indonesians has only one name, was hand-picked for his present job. He’s been seconded to Jakarta from lecturing at Malang’s State University in East Java where he wrote a 233-page book – Ideologi Pancasila.

 

He doesn’t shy from awkward questions, including whether he’s politically independent – a position he asserts. Head of the BPIP governing board is former president Megawati Soekarnoputri (2001-04), daughter of first president Soekarno.  She also chairs the nation’s leading political party, the nationalistic Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle.)

Along with almost 300 staff, Hariyono’s job is to ‘assist the President in formulating policy directions ... carrying out coordination, synchronization, and controlling the development of Pancasila’.

As with all grand attempts to boil noble abstracts down to tangibles, the nation’s moral code has been misinterpreted, dissected, abused and ignored.  Now it’s being refreshed under the urgings of President Joko Widodo in a bid to sideline extremism.

 

 

In Sanskrit panca is ‘five’ and sila means ‘foundation’.  The word elbowed its way into public consciousness on 1 June 1945 when used in a speech by Soekarno. The war in Europe had just ended and the Pacific conflict was heading to a close when the Indonesian revolutionaries planned the recovery of their homeland.  

The country was then the Japanese-ruled Dutch East Indies, to be proclaimed as an independent Republic a few weeks later on 17 August.

To try and unify the 6,000 occupied islands and 300 different ethnicities, Soekarno said a nation free of colonialists and invaders should start with a philosophy.  Drafts were written by the Revolutionary Council of founding fathers (no Mums), a ‘fusion of Javanese thinking with Eastern and Western values.’

But how to handle the spiritual side? With mainly Muslim Java as the most populous island there were fears of a theocracy dominating Hindu Bali, Christian North Sulawesi and Christian islands in the East and shattering integration. 

So the non-specific deity clause headed the list and the government prescribed six religions – Sunni Islam, Christian (meaning Protestant, a Dutch-era division), Catholicism, Buddhism and Hinduism. Confucianism was included, removed in 1979, and reinstated in 2000.  Citizens have one approved faith stamped on her or his ID card.

Making all religions monotheisms with a holy book, a prophet and an ethical code required some theological gymnastics. The contortions need another column.

Zealots wanted seven words included in the preamble to the Constitution known as the Jakarta Charter: Dengan kewajiban menjalankan syariat Islam bagi pemeluknya, meaning Muslims are obligated to follow Islamic law.  The sentence was dropped to maintain national unity; the push to get it re-inserted comes and goes, but has never vanished.

Now the gas is being turned up, according to Hariyono.  Pushed to say specifically who is behind the move apart from ‘dark forces’ he would only reference the Islamic Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS -Prosperous Justice Party).

The PKS is alleged to have close ties with the now banned hardline Front Pembela Islam (FPI – Islamic Defenders Front), which is against the ‘pluralism and liberalism’ it sees in Pancasila.  

With just 50 seats in the 575 member Legislative Assembly, the PKS is no match numerically for the mainstream parties which have coalesced behind Widodo effectively leaving the country without a firm opposition voice in the parliament.

Instead, it’s the mutterings of dissatisfaction articulated among the nation’s most religious, particularly in West Java. Said Hariyono: “It comes down to how much people know about Pancasila, how they see God and what they are told.”

Last century Pancasila was taught at all education levels with an exam pass necessary to stay studying.  Pedoman Penghayatan dan Pengamalan Pancasila (Guidelines for the Appreciation and Practice of Pancasila, or P4).  Enthusiasm waned with the movement for reformation and democracy early this century following Soeharto’s fall in 1998, and the compulsion was scrapped in 2003.

“Is the deity a dictator or a benevolent being? Apart from those hostile to democracy, there’s much ignorance and distortion in the community,” said Hariyono.

“That’s partly because Pancasila is no longer taught in schools.  It needs to be in the curriculum. And we hope to make it there this year. But the politics are difficult. ” He rejected suggestions Pancasila has become a secular state religion.

The Ministry of Religious Affairs ensures freedoms are constrained. There’s no space for atheism – considered a synonym for banned Communism - or the traditional beliefs (kebatinan) which pre-date Islam and now labelled ‘cultural practices’.  Shia Islam, the majority religion in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan and Bahrain, is banned and followers are sometimes the victims of vigilantes.

Pancasila once had the status of tablets of stone. However, it was written by politicians so lacked the mysticism needed to appeal to the masses steeped in the spirit world. Like many aspects of Indonesian culture, the origins of Pancasila are the stuff of myth and magic. 

 

The story spread that the document was unearthed by Soekarno in a field behind the Pegangsaan district in Jakarta where he proclaimed his nation’s independence.  He denied the tale but gave it lasting power through metaphors: ‘I’m just a Pancasila digger from Indonesian homelands, and I dedicated five pearls that I took back to the Indonesian people.’

 

Pancasila’s prestige slumped when used by the authoritarian second president Soeharto. What started as statements to stabilise became sentences to fracture.

Australian political philosopher Dr David Bourchier has written that Soeharto’s government represented itself ‘as the saviour and guardian of Pancasila (which) enabled the regime, with the assistance of its substantial security and intelligence apparatus, to accuse its leftist and liberal opponents of being anti-Pancasila and thereby un-Indonesian.’  

The same tune is now being played by the Widodo government banging drums to ensure all know Pancasila is an instrument of the state and needs to be understood in its original form, words to bond all faiths and represent the people’s aspirations.   

Disparaging Pancasila is illegal with offenders facing up to five years in jail or half a billion rupiah (AUD 48,000) fine. In 2018 FPI head Muhammad Rizieq Shihab was accused of insulting the tenets, though charges were later dropped when he fled to Saudi Arabia.

This year 51 long-standing employees of the Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK - Corruption Eradication Commission) have been sacked for failing to pass a civics exam which included questions about Pancasila.  Critics claim the test has been used to purge the Commission of efficient investigators pursuing the politically powerful.

In his Pancasila Day 1 June speech (an event Widodo initiated in 2016) the President said Pancasila was a blessing from God  ‘achieved through contemplation, struggle of thought, and inner clarity of the founding fathers of Indonesia … the foundation of a united, sovereign, just, and prosperous Indonesia.

 

‘It is our duty and responsibility to ensure that Pancasila is always present in every corner of life, heart and mind.’  He also suggested it could combat Covid-19, though failed to explain how.

Widodo is a man of contradictions, as his Australian biographer Ben Bland has written, more a lukewarm democrat than a despot.  The mild-mannered seventh president and former furniture trader tends to be a can-do guy in contrast to his can-talk predecessors, more interested in infrastructure than concepts.

Fine for building ports, roads and railways, but little help when dealing with real or perceived threats to an incorporeal ideology.

 

Said Hariyono: “Pancasila has been allowed to drift to a point where it’s not related to daily life. The values must be in tune with our culture.  Now it’s time to be rejuvenated. We need P4 back in the classrooms for the future of our nation.”

 

 

 

 

 

First published in Australian Outlook 25 June 2021: https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/indonesias-five-commandments-under-threat/

THE PRICE OF RICE CAN BE STRIFE

 

 DUNCAN GRAHAM                             Facing a taxing time in Indonesia

There are no EFTPOS machines on the benches of Indonesia’s traditional markets. All deals are cash, rupiah notes grubby from the soiled roots of shallots pulled hours earlier.

Some markets are undercover with separate counters.  Others are makeshift, sellers staking space on pavements, latecomers spilling onto streets. Crowds are so dense social distancing is impossible.  Masks are optional and used by around fifty per cent.

Despite the virus risks, the daily pre-dawn pasars are hugely popular because shoppers want their meat hot and vegies field-fresh.  Taste trumps hygiene.

Traditional markets are for the thrifty, not the fastidious.    Their habitat is air-conditioned superstores where shrink-wrapped produce from far away carries check-out codes.

That makes it easy for the bureaucracy to take tithes, impossible with the stallholder grannies who add, subtract and multiply faster than a calculator, calling out the figures so customers know all’s fair. Buyers needing a receipt should bring pen and paper. 

But such is the desperation to halt the nation’s slide toward deficits that legislators now want to slug the poor with a GST. Details of the proposed imposts are vague though figures of five to 12 per cent are tossed around.

When the global financial crisis crippled Indonesia late last century nine essential ingredients known as sembago were price controlled and free from excise.  They included rice, sugar, cooking oil, chicken meat, eggs, milk, corn, kero (now replaced by LPG - elpiji) and salt.

Bean-counters claim the exemption denies the government around Rp 30 trillion (AUD 2.7 billion) a year in lost revenue, though adding charges to the basics will ramp the COL.

Inflation is the nation’s nightmare, the fear of triggering violent disorder.  Any change which adds financial burdens could muster millions shouting they can’t afford to eat. In the past, manipulated mobs have blamed ethnic Chinese merchants controlling supply chains. They get accused – usually without evidence – of warehousing commodities to create shortages.

An estimated 27 million (more than the population of Australia) live below the poverty line, defined by the Asian Development Bank as Rp 302,735 (AUD 30) per person per month.

When the Republic was proclaimed in 1945, becoming a reality four years later after the Dutch quit fighting the anti-colonialists, the new nation’s founders promised an equitable society. That worthy ambition has been trashed.

The differences are stark and worrying. Melbourne Uni Indonesian expert Professor Tim Lindsey has written that ‘the four richest billionaires in Indonesia have more wealth than the poorest 40 per cent … gross national income per capita is just AUD 5,115, lower than Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, and neighbours Malaysia and Thailand.’

The US-educated Finance Minister Dr Sri Mulyani Indrawati, 59, has served under two presidents.  She quit her first term in 2010 to join the World Bank Group in Washington as a managing director after infuriating oligarchs by investigating alleged fraud.

She was bought back to Jakarta in 2016 by present President Joko Widodo with the brief to mend the economy. It’s the biggest in Southeast Asia but lacks discipline.

Indrawati is widely regarded as smart, clean and competent, but she’s not a politician and works in a system where corruption is well embedded and altruism in short supply.  The proposal to trim tycoons’ profits will earn her much enmity.

Her plan includes targeting those earning five billion rupiah (AUD 465,000) plus a year by lifting their liabilities from the current 30 per cent to 35.  This is the cohort with the clout to avoid its legal obligations by hiring creative accountants, paying off amoral officials and threatening the rest.

Salaried staff in big companies with modern wage systems start with a five per cent trim.  Workers in small local industries who get paid in notes avoid the impost. So do family restaurants and food stalls, though international chains like McDonald’s add ten per cent to every serve.

Economists regularly call for the scrapping of fuel subsidies which benefit owners of shiny new Mercedes alongside those kick-starting rusting Hondas.  Premium grade petrol is about AUD 0.80 a litre mainly through pumps owned by the state-owned company Pertamina. Past attempts to drive prices closer to costs have been judged too risky.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reports Indonesia has the lowest tax ratio in the region, even below the average in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The need for reform is being prodded by the pandemic.  Officially it has so far killed 54,000 from two million confirmed cases and severely wounded the economy. In one day this month 14,546 citizens tested positive.  Indonesia’s population is 11 times larger than ours so that’s the equivalent of 1,322 new cases in Australia in 24-hours.

 

The budget deficit topped six per cent of GDP last year, double the limit allowed in the Constitution. Foreign debt is growing fast following five years of massive spending on necessary infrastructure projects and reported to be above AUD 558 billion. In an online media conference, Indrawati acknowledged Covid cases would impact growth, particularly in Java and in this year’s second quarter

The government has shied from lockdowns, arguing that millions survive from day-to-day with petty trading so restrictions on doing business would do more damage than the pandemic.  Instead confusing ‘micro-community activity restrictions’ have been announced and supposedly in place till 5 July. Implementation is fitful.

There are some welfare programmes. Basic healthcare is free and so are the mainly Chinese vaccines, though distribution is slow and patchy. Cash handouts and vocational training schemes are available for those who’ve lost jobs. 

In a video from her department Indrawati claimed the proposed taxes would apply only to undefined ‘premium products’.  She said this would mean the burden would fall on the rich.  Not so.  They also use the traditional markets, sending maids into the chaos to do the shopping. 

  First published in Pearls & Irritations, 25 June 2021: https://johnmenadue.com/facing-a-taxing-time-in-indonesia/

POLIS WITH GLASS JAWS FEAR HITS BY WORDS

 

                                          Lampooners beware –politicians’ dignity is precious

A cutting cartoon by Cathy Wilcox in The Age this month had a figure looking like Scott Morrison in the first frame saying: ‘And Jenny said to me, you have to think of this as a father first.’

In the second the PM adds: ‘And I thought: Don’t be ridiculous.  These girls don’t look anything like my daughters.’

Though there are no names most readers would assume the reference is to the ‘Biloela Family’ the ‘unlawful maritime arrivals’ who’ve been in detention on Christmas Island since 2019 at a reported cost of AUD 6.7 million.

The slightly hidden message is that Morrison doesn’t recognise Tharunicaa and Kopika Murugappan  as equal to Lily and Abbey Morrison, though all four girls were born in Australia.

The Murugappans and their supporters think Biloela in South Queensland is their home.  The PM believes the kids should be in Sri Lanka, a country they’ve never visited but the land of their Tamil parents Priya and Nades. 

There are many interpretations of Wilcox’s commentary.  The most charitable suggests the PM can’t see similarities because his children are adolescents and bigger than the pre-schoolers, or he can’t identify with non-Anglo names.  The more troubling reading is that the leader of Australia is not colour-blind, so by imputation a racist and uncaring – libels indeed.  

The award-winning veteran cartoonist wouldn’t expect her door to be kicked in by police if Morrison his colleagues seized on the second analysis and claimed it denigrated the PM and his office.

But that fate could await cartoonists and commentators plying their trade in Indonesia. A draft version of changes to the Kitab Undang-undang Hukum Pidana (Criminal Code) under consideration by the Parliament has severe penalties for anyone insulting the Republic’s elected representatives.

The top fine is AUD 18,000 and 42 months in jail for insulting President Joko Widodo’s ‘dignity’, with extras if the real or imagined slur stirs the public to react.

Although the proposed penalties have angered human rights activists, revising the Criminal Code is long overdue.  Indonesia has been an independent nation since 1949 yet still uses much of the Wetboek van Strafrecht voor Nederlandsch-Indie, the Criminal Code introduced by the Dutch colonial administration in 1918.

Among many prohibitions the Indonesian Code criminalises consensual extramarital sex, promotion of contraceptives for adolescents, abortion, drug use and blasphemy.  Revisions have been regularly proposed since 1958 but so far no massive shake-up.  Women’s groups, civil rights activists, lawyers, medicos, religious organisations and others jostle to get their voices of concern heard in an increasingly conservative legislature.

Blasphemy is the all-purpose weapon, loaded by anyone with a grudge announcing a rival said something unpalatable, then fired by those fearing mob rule. (There’s no space here for antipodean smugness.  Although federal blasphemy laws were repealed in 1995 the offence apparently remains in some states.)

Blasphemy was spectacularly used to jail Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (aka Ahok) for two years in 2017 after an edited video of a speech he gave was used in a massive campaign to destroy his reputation.  As a target Ahok was a godsend – an ethnic Chinese Christian, boss of the huge city workforce that’s mainly Muslim.

Fundamentalists believe Muslims should not be supervised by people of other faiths.

Before being brought down Ahok was known as a clean and efficient administrator, though brusque.  As vice-governor he inherited the top job when Widodo resigned as governor to successfully contest the 2014 presidential election.

When Ahok was being slandered by radicals, Widodo didn’t speak up for his former colleague and friend.  This dismayed the millions of supporters who’d dressed the President in cloaks of human rights and democracy only to find they didn’t fit.

Widodo is no longer the humble furniture trader from a small inland town but part of the oligarchy that controls the nation of 273 million through great wealth and patronage.  He’s good at practical things like building roads, rail lines and ports, but indifferent to abstract matters, leaving these to his party’s chair Megawati Soekarnoputri.

The nation’s fifth president (2001-2004) and daughter of founding president Soekarno is the nation’s iron-fisted matriarch.  She who must be obeyed is reportedly supporting moves to sack long-standing employees of the Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (Corruption Eradication Commission) for allegedly failing to pass civics tests. 

In the past, the KPK has been spectacularly successful in prosecuting politicians with their hands in the public till.  Several have been members of Soekarnoputri’s party. Once the nation’s most trusted agency, the graft-fighter has been slowly neutered by staff and law changes since Widodo won a second five-year term in 2019.

Without a champion, the defenders of democracy are having a hard time – as shown by  

The Economist’s Democracy Index. The 2020 report ‘In Sickness and in Health?’ labels Indonesia a 

‘flawed democracy’ edging deeper into the mire.

 

The Index has five categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation, and political culture. Based on their scores, countries are classified as full or flawed democracies, hybrid or authoritarian regimes.

Political scientist Fadhilah Fitri Primandari, a senior researcher at CoronaNet Research (an international project collecting government responses to Covid-19), claims the government’s approach to democratic practice is too narrow.

‘The Indonesian public is largely excluded from policymaking processes … the Omnibus bill on job creation was drafted without significant public consultation, and with the National Police tasked with monitoring controversy and actively dissuading opposition to the bill. Protests following the bill’s ratification were met with repression.’

This year the government banned the hardline anti-pluralist Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defenders Front) which now threatens to reappear under a new name.

Added Primandari: ‘Such events have impacted people’s willingness to engage with politics outside of elections and to criticise the government — vital features of a strong democracy.’

A poll last year by Indikator Politik Indonesia showed almost 70 per cent of respondents thought citizens were becoming more fearful of voicing their opinions.  That includes professionals, like academics, journalists - and cartoonists.

 

First published in Pearls & Irritations 16 June 2021: https://johnmenadue.com/lampooners-beware-politicians-dignity-is-precious/