Politics and the Press in Indonesia

Understanding an Evolving Political Culture

Angela Romano

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136133787
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Australische & ozeanische Geschichte

This book explores the evolving political culture in Indonesia, by discussing the country's dominant political philosophies, then showing how those philosophies affect the working lives of ordinary Indonesian citizens. It focuses in particular on the working lives of news journalists, a group that occupies a strategic social and political position.

1 The ‘authentic’ Indonesian character

For many decades, the agenda and space permitted for public debate and media activity in Indonesia was influenced by the ideology that the national character had given birth to a negara integralistik (an integralistic nation). The integralistic nation is a system of institutions, practices and ways of living that encompasses, protects and yet also transcends the interests of all individuals and groups (Hariyati 1995: 1). Integralistic philosophy is derived from a selective study of the ideas of Supomo, a leading scholar of adat (traditional laws, customs and cultures), who was also a key contributor to the national Constitution written in 1945 (Bourchier 1993; Simanjuntak 1994). Supomo drew inspiration from organic political theorists such as Georg Hegel, Baruch de Spinoza, Adam Müller and pre-WWII Japanese ‘family-oriented’ ideologues. He envisaged the model integralistic nation as an organic whole, with rulers and the ruled linked in harmony and all groups joined in unity by ‘the spirit of mutual cooperation, [and] the spirit of familial solidarity’ (Supomo 1945: 113).

Bourchier (1996: 31–41) and Reeve (1985: 4–6, 212) trace the impact of Dutch organic scholars – particularly the ‘Master’, Cornells van Vollenhoven – on Supomo, other colonial-era legal experts and the wider nationalism movement. A major channel for this Dutch influence was the law faculty of Leiden University, a centre for adat study, where many nationalists, including Supomo, studied during the late colonial period. The Leiden law faculty followed an organic philosophical tradition, which in turn stemmed from the German romantic, anti-liberal, anti-individualistic scholarship of the early 19th century. This tradition rejected French Enlightenment theories and concepts of social contract in favour of monist, collectivist, corporatist approaches to law and governance (Bourchier 1996: 22–6). Van Vollenhoven, a legal anthropologist, concluded from his cataloguing of Indonesian traditional customs that a consistent characteristic of ethnic groups across the archipelago was a coherent and consistent familial culture that prioritised (i) communal over individual interests, (ii) strong links between man and nature and (iii) dispute resolution through conciliation and consensus (Bourchier 1996: 26–30; Reeve 1985: 5). This glorification of communitarian ‘Indonesian’ culture as being different to that of Western, liberal culture suited the Javanese priyayi (petty aristocracy) background from which many of Indonesia’s leading nationalists hailed (Reeve 1985: 8). It should be noted that the culture that the Javanese priyayi came to define as ‘Western’ culture was in fact French Enlightenment culture, in contrast to German and Dutch organic culture, and that the priyayi were a politically influential but a numerically small class. The distinction between Indonesian and Western culture was thus not so simple as many priyayi legal experts claimed.

Contact with the Japanese in the earlier decades of the twentieth century reinforced these organic, collectivist philosophies, particularly among the generation who would subsequently form the Indonesian armed forces. In the 1930s, the Japanese provided role models and some tactical support for Indonesian nationalists (Bourchier 1996: 54–9). Following the 1942 Japanese invasion of Indonesia, which led to the Dutch promptly fleeing the archipelago, the occupying Japanese military administrators established a system of governance suited to organic principles. This included closing the legislature, imposing censorship, banning independent political activity and enlisting the support of prominent political and religious leaders as heads of new Japanese-created organisations. Prominent Indonesian proponents of familial, communitarian philosophies were appointed to significant positions within the Japanese bureaucracy, including a key advisory council, Panitia Pemeriksa Adat dan Tata Negara (Committee for the Examination of Adat and State Administration) (Reeve 1985: 61–5).

Almost every social grouping on Java was organised into corporatist organisations representing industries, youth, women and sports (Kanahele in Reeve 1985: 78). The council was headed by Supomo, who worked closely with the Japanese administration. More than one and a half million men were inducted into programs providing military exercises and anti-Allied propaganda, with 25,000 trained to fight in the Heiho auxiliary service alongside Japanese military personnel (Ricklefs 1981: 192). This instilled a vast number of men with a respect for obedience, uniformity and force (Kahin 1952: 107), and Japanese militarism still flavours many modern Indonesian institutions and policies. It was especially evident during the New Order in the military-style discipline of the Indonesian education system, the language and command of obedience, taboos on asking questions, anti-individualistic philosophy, neighbourhood associations, corporatist social organisations and government regulation on intellectual activities (Mangunwijaya 1994: 84–5).

As Japanese prospects of victory waned, the military occupation organised two important committees in May and June 1945 to prepare for the transfer of power and to draft a constitution. The Japanese appointed 70 Indonesians to the Badan Penyelidik Usaha Persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia (BPUPKI, the Investigating Committee for the Preparation of Indonesian Independence), which wrote the 1945 Constitution. Some theorists have characterised the proceedings and the resulting Constitution as being Japanese made, being conducted at the point of Japanese bayonets (e.g. Nasution 1992: 90–1; Simajantak 1994: 76–80). Others more moderately suggest that the Japanese administration did not interfere greatly in the proceedings, but helped to determine the outcome through judicious selection of BPUPKI members (Bourchier 1996: 75).

Supomo’s vision

The debates of the BPUPKI plenary session had far-reaching consequences on the ideological foundations of the Indonesian state.¹ The debate on organic political philosophy in the session typified the historic struggle between paternalism and pluralism in Indonesia (Mahfud 1993: 41). However, in the New Order years, state ideologues often quoted the organic-style speech of Supomo as if he were the sole contributor to the constitution (e.g. Hariyati 1995; Sudharmono 1986; Wahyono 1988) or as if the opposing or competing perspectives were non-existent or of marginal importance.

Supomo (1945: 110–111) described the three main typologies of political systems as:

• liberal systems based on social contract, following the theories of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Herbert Spencer,
• class-oriented systems based on a dictatorship of the proletariat, following the theories of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and VI. Lenin, and
• organic or integralistic systems in which the whole community forms an organic unity, based on the theories of Spinoza, Hegel and Muller.

Supomo dismissed the liberal system as imperialistic and exploitative (Supomo 1945: 112). He rejected parliamentarianism as being based on a false philosophy of individualism, which assumed that all community sectors had the same value and that society could be based on numbers (Supomo 1945: 119). He said that class-oriented systems made ‘the state an instrument through which one group (one class) might oppress other classes’ (Supomo 1945: 111). He found the organic system appropriate to ‘authentic’ Indonesian consciousness, community spirit and social institutions (Supomo 1945: 113).²

Supomo argued that Indonesia was characterised by a ‘unity of life, unity of servant and master,³ that is between the external and the internal, spiritual world, between the microcosmos and the macrocosmos, [and] between the people and their leaders’ (Supomo 1945: 113). This organic conceptualisation specifically rejects individualism and the idea of ‘social contract’ as the basis of protecting individuals. Supomo went so far as to argue – admittedly with limited success (Mahfud 1993: 41; Nasution 1993: 67) – that the Constitution should not contain safeguards of human rights and civil liberties. He believed that such provisions would create a dualism between state and individual and between rulers and the ruled that would violate social solidarity (Supomo 1945: 114; Yamin 1959: 315). The incarnation of popular sovereignty was described as not the parliament, but the president, who should have the quality of the Ratu Adil (Just King) (Supomo 1945: 120). Supomo believed that the head of the nation should not be elected, because elections are based on individualism, but should be like a raja (king), president, Burmese adipati (governor) or German führer, who were ‘one in spirit with all the people’ (Supomo 1945: 119).

The overall shape of the 1945 Constitution was guided by Supomo’s logic, although other BPUPKI members⁴ proposed different models of governance and asserted the need for rights to express opinion, to organise, to associate and to vote. It allowed elections and expressed commitment to the principle of popular sovereignty, but vested most power in the president and a super-parliamentary congress, the Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat (MPR, People’s Consultative Assembly). A final compromise on the differing viewpoints regarding rights was reached through Article 28 of the Constitution which provided not ‘rights’ but ‘freedoms’ by stipulating that: ‘The freedom to associate and to assemble, to express thoughts orally, in writing or the like will be prescribed through statute’. Although the inclusion of such a passage should have ultimately subverted Supomo’s underlying logic, a critical reading of Article 28 shows that the freedom it provides is illusory, because ‘it empowers the government, or those who create the laws, to neuter those basic rights’ (Nasution 1993: 67; also Mulya Lubis 1993: 158–9).

The world view of organic philosophers

Since this book considers journalism’s positioning within the wider political system, it is useful to examine the world view of the theorists and systems that Supomo perceived as harmonising with Indonesia’s own national character. Supomo’s rejection of socio-political dualism follows Spinoza’s monist philosophy that all elements of the universe originate from one substance and are thus unified with no possibility of dualism between body and mind or God and nature (Simanjuntak 1994: 133–4). Also influential was Spinoza’s argument that societal security depends upon reaching consensus so that community life does not depend upon human strength and passions, but rather the will of all; consequently all individuals must submissively surrender their rights to the sole authority of the state’s sovereign power (Simanjuntak 1994: 134–8). Such influences are reinforced by the theories of Müller, who similarly found that all private life was part of the state and that the state represented the dynamic and enduring kingdom of community aspirations (Simanjuntak 1994: 141–2). Müller was also significant to Supomo because of his perspective that liberalism reduces human relations with the God-willed universe, and fails to develop autonomous individuals (Hariyati 1995: 4).

Simanjuntak (1994: 11–13) argues that specific emphasis should be placed on the contribution of Hegel to Supomo’s thought. The Hegelian ideal of ‘ethical life’ requires individuals to transcend self-interested activities that serve themselves or their loved ones so that they instead serve ‘the universal’, or in other words, the community interest. In Hegel’s tripartite division of society, the family and civil society encompass elements of the universal but are less rationally developed than the state because they serve self-interest and physical need, while the state is supposed to be totally dedicated to serving the community. Family life represents unconscious ethical life, with family members’ unification and work activities motivated by nature, love and passion, which are associated with divine law, rather than reason, rights or ‘ethical’ human law (Hegel 1977: § 451). Agricultural life was similarly described as a mode of subsistence ‘which owes comparatively little to reflection and independence of will’ and its success rests on the basis of the particularity and immediacy of family relationships and trust (Hegel 1941: § 203).

Above the family and subsistence agriculture, civil society revolves around economic relations between individuals, who act in social cooperation because of mutual need. Hegel classified the relations of production and exchange as involving a higher level of public service than family relations. Marketplace relations represent higher consciousness and selfhood through human creativity, freedom, individualism and law and order, because they require reflection, intelligence and the social mediation of needs, resources and labour (Hegel 1942: §§ 199, 204, addition 129). Hegel envisaged that labour would be organised into ‘corporations’, which, under the surveillance of public authorities, would protect the interests of their members while also ensuring that members’ efforts were directed towards the universal, common good (Hegel 1942: § 252).

While the business sector provides the material base for a universal subjectivity, the automatic mechanisms of the market are deemed insufficient to serve the totality of human relations. Individuals involved in pursuing private gain are unlikely to have the time, inclination or dedication to devote themselves totally to the larger life of the universal community. Hegel proposed that the state balances, unites and regulates the familial agricultural and civil estates, binding all subjectivities together, not on the basis of immediate feeling, economic needs or the relations of production, but on the interests of the community as a whole (Hegel 1942: §§ 257–8, addition 152). In this formulation, the bureaucracy is the ‘universal class’. The rational, fully ethical civil servants should be supported by an adequate salary from the state that claims their industry, so that they may act without reference to private emotional or economic interests (Hegel 1942: §§ 205, 303). Hegel allocated the landed gentry a special role in political life, because although civil service posts should be based on merit (Hegel 1942: § 291), their inherited wealth made them more independent and therefore more able to dedicate themselves entirely to the affairs of state (Hegel 1942: §§ 305–7, addition 181). This formulation attributed social inequalities – inequities in class positions and access to resources – to the inherent inequality of human beings in nature (Hegel 1942: § 200).

Supomo’s final inspiration was early 20th century, right-wing, military-feudal Japanese nationalism. The army rather than political parties directed Japanese political life of the time (Radek 1934: 33–4; Tanin & Yohan 1934: 184). The bureaucracy established corporatist, mass organisations as umbrella bodies for military, cultural and sporting organisations as well as organisations to mobilise women, youth, journalists and other social sectors. Citizens were expected to show filial piety and loyalty to the emperor, relinquishing all rights and authority to the national leader (Japan Ministry of Education 1937: 47–8). Japanese theorists argued that the ‘inherent character’ of Asian culture rejected the ‘unwholesome self-interest’ of liberal societies, emphasising self-sacrifice, patriotism and harmony of the individual with national goals (Japan Ministry of Education 1937: 49). Such a system saw a restriction on political freedoms, contempt for elections and parliamentary democracy (Ikki 1958: 21) and a perception that citizens were ‘fundamentally one body’ with the state (Japan Ministry of Education 1937: 47).

A clear pattern arises in the familial, organic, corporatist doctrines described above. Although Supomo was inspired by right-wing sources, political ideologues who revived the integralistic concept during the New Order denied that the philosophy was connected to totalitarianism. Supomo himself lauded the negara totaliter (translating literally as ‘totalitarian nation’) throughout his BPUPKI speech. New Order theorists attempted to suggest that Supomo did not intend to refer to totalitarianism but in fact meant totalitas, the totality – a national unanimity that avoids dualism (e.g. Hariyati 1995: 2; Silalahi 1993: 66; Sirait 1997: 14, 128). Several critics argue otherwise (Anto 1995: 19; Rahmanto et al. 1998), with some finding that significant sections of Supomo’s BPUPKI speech reproduce the wording, rhetoric and discourses of texts by key Nazi German and totalitarian Japanese ideologues on law, society and the state (Bourchier 1996: 57–8; Nasution 1992: 103, fn 85; Simanjuntak 1994: 117–22).

The ‘experiment’ with liberal democracy

The use of the term ‘integralistic’ ceased after the BPUPKI completed its activities, and the word did not re-enter political discourses until the birth of the New Order (Simanjuntak 1994: 5, 232). During the revolutionary struggle that followed when the Dutch colonisers refused to recognise Indonesia’s 1945 declaration of independence, practical politics deviated from the Constitution because ‘theories of government tended to be overshadowed by the facts of war with the Dutch and the internal troubles of the Republic’ (Reeve 1985: 87). After the Dutch finally ceded power in 1949, the new Indonesian constitutions of 1949 and 1950 strengthened parliamentary democracy and added new rights to strike and demonstrate. Myriads of groups and political parties emerged over the country representing a multiplicity of political perspectives, and the collectivist, integralistic perspective was ‘pushed rather rudely to the political sidelines’ (Reeve 1985: 95).

During the turbulent period of liberal democracy in the 1950s, the multiparty political system proliferated to such a degree that at one stage as many as 43 parties existed. The failure of any one party to produce a majority led to a series of short-lived governments based on weak coalitions between the parties. The 17 cabinets that operated between 1945 and 1959 – with an average lifespan of eight months – lacked the direction and continuity required to develop the economically debilitated nation. Socio-political conflicts and tensions also arose from cleavages between and within groupings of the predominantly abangan nationalists, the santri Muslims and the priyayi class as well as other socio-religious and ethnic confli...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Politics and the Press in Indonesia
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• A note on spelling
• Introduction
• 1 The ‘authentic’ Indonesian character
• 2 The organic New Order state
• 3 The era of ‘reform’
• 4 The enigma of the Pancasila journalist
• 5 Professional image in the community of journalists
• 6 Print professionals and ink coolies
• 7 Professional affiliation: politics and the PWI
• 8 No woman, no cry
• 9 News sources in the political labyrinth
• 10 Information broking in the public sphere
• 11 The envelope please
• 12 Journalism in a transitional culture
• Notes
• Glossary
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index