D+C Development and Cooperation (No. 3, May/June 2002, p. 24-25)

More than other countries in the region, Indonesia has been deeply hit by the economic crisis of 1997. Once an emerging 'tiger'country on the verge of industrialisation, the island republic in Southeast Asia has so far been unable to pull out of the morass of economic decline and political instability. The fragile democracy established after the Suharto dictatorship is in danger of being crushed once again.

Like no other Asian country hit by the region's financial crisis at the end of the 1990s, Indonesia is still suffering from its impacts. Worse, the deposing of President Suharto in May 1998, which was triggered by the crisis, mercilessly revealed upon what shaky foundations the country's economic development stood and still stands. And how deeply public life was - and is - undermined by corruption, nepotism and incompetence. The three changes of president since then have each brought promises of reforms and a fresh start. But in vain. The republic of 17,000 islands is marked by disorientation, impoverishment and violence. And it is geting worse.

The growing misery is obvious. Whoever visits Indonesia once a year, travels across the country by public transport, and looks around the slums of Jakarta, needs no statistics. The visitor notes everywhere what the data confirm. The number of child beggars has increased. The young, jobless men, who expect a few rupiah for their mostly pitiful guitar playing, appear to be an endless horde. The street traders outbid each other in trying to sell their junk, which no-one needs and ever fewer people can afford.

Social and economic decline
create a lost generation

The publicly visible impoverishment is the depressing facade behind which is emerging what a UNICEF survey calls the "lost generation". The children are the weakest victims of the Indonesian crisis, and their suffering will have negative impacts for decades to come which will inhibit every kind of development. One can argue about individual percentage points, but not about the trend which both the official figures and UNICEF sources cite: the infant mortality rate has almost doubled since the end of the 1990s. Half the children are growing up in insecure conditions and are malnourished. Ever fewer children are going to school because their parents can no longer find the money for books, uniforms, transport and extra sums for the underpaid teachers. This group of children provides the recruits for the growing army of child workers, the streetkids and the child prostitutes. Later, as adolescents, they are pushed into crime out of sheer need, are receptive to the radical slogans of fundamentalist groups, and allow themselves be hired for acts of violence and militant street demonstrations. The television pictures of such marches transmitted around the world have tarnished the country's reputation on a lasting basis.

The acts of violence and civil war-like conflicts between ethnic and religious groups, and the bomb attacks and assaults in the twilight zone of politics and crime do not represent the majority of the more than 210 million Indonesians. Most of them still cling to the principle of tolerance and peaceful coexistence which many generations have lived by. But amid economic impoverishment and the daily struggle for survival, this willingness to live together is becoming ever more susceptible to excesses and the militant calls of demagogues and 'simplifiers', especially from the Islamic sphere.

Almost 90 per cent of the Indonesians professes Islam, which gives the republic the greatest number of Muslims of any country in the world. But for historical reasons Indonesia is not an Islamic state. Because of its diversity of ethnic and religious groups it is established in its constitution as a secular state. The coexistence which is now more and more at risk was on the whole stable in the past. But this foundation has become brittle. The backdrop of growing impoverishment is becoming a breeding ground for radical groups which only up to a point have anything to do with religion. But in their fundamentalist interpretation they instrumentalise membership of a religious community and also misuse Islam.

There are more than 100 million Indonesians of working age, and according to official figures 40 million of them are unemployed. Of the total population, 50 million live below the poverty line. Thanks to large families and traditional mutual help, survival under these circumstances is more or less mastered. But it is living hand-to-mouth. Personal provision for the future is impossible, and saving for education and paying for health care remain a dream.

The gap between failing state facilities and private self-provision is growing ever bigger. The state is withdrawing more and more from its obligations to public welfare. Schools, hospitals and social institutions are caught up completely in a trend to privatisation. Only those who can pay are taken care of. For more and more people that means: because you are poor you must die sooner. Trust in state authority, in government and parliament, has clearly declined. The latest police actions in driving the lowest classes from their shanty towns and demolishing their huts, such as in Jakarta where the slums were eliminated, shows clearly: this is how the poor will be combated, but not poverty.

There is no lack of warning voices. One of Indonesia's noted Islamic intellectuals, Muslim scholar Nurcholish Madjid, summed up the situation at the annual conference of the Islamic mass organisation Muhammadiyah at the beginning of this year. "Indonesia is a really sick and immature nation which urgently needs enlightenment," he said. He described the deposing of President Suharto as an historic opportunity for an intellectual fresh start, and compared the then possibilities of reform in his country with Europe's Renaissance in the 15th century. But precisely this chance had been missed, talked down and destroyed. Nurcholish Madjid added: "But after four years, people see no significant changes. Everything remains the same, if anything with more messy and chaotic conditions in terms of society, the economy and politics."

Prof. Franz Magnis-Suseno SJ, an ethnic German Catholic university lecturer in Jakarta, and for four decades a critical commentator on political conditions in the country, notes: "Indonesia is in its greatest crisis since its existence."

When parliament removed the charismatic but chaotic President Abdurrahman Wahid from office in July 2001 and Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri was chosen as his successor, many people saw it as another chance to make a fresh start on the path to democracy. The eldest daughter of Achmed Sukarno, Indonesia's founder and first president, was regarded as the great hope for politics determined by humanitarian values. But since then Megawati has not fulfilled the people's expectations, neither by words nor visions nor political vigour. She appears to be more a figure who, with the aura of her father, embodies backward-looking notions of supposedly better times but does not have the stature to fight for reforms and democracy. In the few political statements she makes she clearly advocates one position: unqualified abiding by the principle of the unitary state, which Sukarno made the model of the fight for independence. She spoke out loudly against the separation of East Timor, annexed by Indonesia in 1976, which will become an independent state in May 2002. She also opposed a splitting off from Indonesia of Aceh, in Northern Sumatra, and Papua, the western part of New Guinea.

There the President is in consensus with the army leadership, of whose support she can be sure. After some confusion following the toppling of Suharto, the generals once again continue to have the say, and out of self-interest are blocking the democratisation process which has got underway but is slowed by constant setbacks. It is obvious that the power structures which developed during the three decades of the Suharto autocracy are still in place. The gap between the ruling groups in politics, administration, the judiciary and military and the people at large has widened.

No democracy
without economic growth

The Indonesian vicious circle is evident. Without internal political calm there is no economic recovery, and without economic growth rates of which broad sections of the population also get a share, no stabilisation of the beginnings of a democratic attempt at reform can be expected. The archipelago of 17,000 islands with its natural resources - oil, natural gas, tropical timber, precious metals, fish and agricultural produce - is potentially rich and capable of development. The country needs responsible politicians, a sound legal basis, an independent judiciary and functioning democratic institutions. But this brief description of the required basis also identifies the shortcoming - none of it can be sighted in the foreseeable future. Nurcholish Madjid hit upon the core of the problem when he said: "Corruption, collusion and nepotism have become our culture. It is very hard to exchange the existing corruption culture, which has been embodied in our lives for more than four decades."

The economic data and the total of Indonesia's state debts of US$ 140 billion tell a clear story about the country's plight. Less tangible but no less far-reaching is its intellectual and moral vacuum. Whoever visits Indonesia once a year notes the increasing disorientation in all sectors of private and public life. This characterises parliamentary debates just as much as the appearance of the NGOs. Warsito Ellwein, a longtime NGO activist, draws a gloomy picture of the current situation. "Many activists no longer know where they are going and have fallen into the trap of disorientation," he says. "The student movement is in the same situation. The political scene is very complicated." During the early post-Sukarno days a decline of state unity was feared. Separatist movements gained impetus. They are now once again being drastically halted with toughness and tried and tested brutality. What is looming, however, is less the territorial dissolution of the republic than much more the inner decay of the state, which no common ideas are now holding together. The atmosphere is that of 'every man for himself'.

The power structures are still feudalistic. From a long history of being told what to do by the colonial power, which the local elite knew how to turn to their own profit, the Indonesian people are still being ruled top-down. Those who have to bear the consequences of the government's paternalistic policy are not included in decision-making. Nowhere can it be seen that Indonesia will overcome its existential crisis in the near future. The next parliamentary elections are set for 2004. Whatever power struggles are taking place at present, either overtly or covertly, are aligned on the redistribution of sinecures, offices and positions after that. The delicate green shoots of democracy are in danger of being crushed underfoot again.