By: Musdah Mulia
How is it possible to uphold democracy without essential democratic values? But that is what has happened in Indonesia for the past ten years or so. I do hope the government now realizes this real condition and tries to uphold substantial democracy. Don’t deceive the people with democratic procedures. Because it does not bring progress and goodness to the whole society.
Since 2009, the Indonesian Democracy Index (IDI) has presented a dim portrait of democracy. Previously, we did not have a tool to measure the development of democracy in this country. Various efforts to develop democracy have been made and some progress has been achieved, but until the IDI report released in 2017, the achievement of Indonesia’s democracy index was still far from the good category. In fact, it is still struggling at the level of procedural democracy, not substantial.
The 2016 IDI report concluded that the main obstacle to the enforcement of democracy is the weakness of democratic culture. This means that Indonesian democracy runs almost without the enforcement of democratic values themselves, the essence of which are universal human values, such as justice, equality and civility.
In other words, the ethics of democracy have not been internalized in such a way, either by the community, or the political elite and government administrators. That the most crucial problem faced by the Indonesian nation in upholding democracy is the low quality of community participation and the poor representation of democratic institutions. This condition explains the failure of political education as expected. It is not surprising that community participation is still dominated by demonstrations that end in chaos full of violence, intolerance and radicalism. Expressions of community involvement are actually expressed through attitudes and behaviors that are contrary to democracy, even anti-democratic.
This fragile democratic condition is further exacerbated by the poor representation of democratic institutions, such as bureaucratic, legislative, judicial institutions, and the saddest is political party institutions. Political party institutions tend to be oligarchic and do not have reliable cadres. It is not surprising that in every Legislative Election almost all political parties put forward foreign faces, not faces that were raised within the party. They are generally capital owners (businessmen) and celebrities who already have popularity in society.
What happened in Indonesia was a change from one extreme condition to another, and never solved the problem. As a result, there was a radical shift from centralized to dispersed power. At the same time, this radical change could not overcome the problems during the transition period. It is not too much to say that we have not found a government structure that can work effectively in solving problems. So far, the institutional set-up in the design of democracy applied in Indonesia has experienced various serious obstacles. In the case of Indonesia, the change has not produced an effective state or government institution to solve such complex problems. In addition, quality representative institutions are not yet available in sufficient quantities.
Democracy has not been able to answer the nation’s problems significantly, precisely, and touch the root of the problem. This is because the tendency of the democratization process in Indonesia only adopts Western democratic institutions and rules of the game but its implementation is still adjusted to local conditions. Often the power relations between political actors are not based on rational strategic factors but are shrouded by other factors, such as primordial (ethnicity), religiosity, and even superstitious and mythical things.
Civil society is growing, but not accompanied by the growth of the values of civility (virtual values) of social order and civility of society. Civil liberties guaranteed by the constitution have no meaning for minority groups. Democracy becomes illiberal. Political freedom has a place, but civil liberties, especially the freedom of worship of minority groups, are threatened (read the cases of Ahmadiyah, Shia and the indigenous religions group).
In addition, the religious experience of the community is generally still formalistic and legalistic. In daily life, religion is less experienced as values that become attitudes and behavior of individuals and groups. At least, there are three interrelated factors: First, a mistaken understanding of the relationship between religion and a democratic state. Misunderstanding causes the emergence of religious adherents who force their personal beliefs on society, even using the hands of the government as a tool for that. Second, shallow appreciation of religion. We are often proud to call ourselves a “religious nation” and places of worship are always crowded with believers. But often religious appreciation stops at the place and time of worship, and is not reflected in real life. Third, an ambiguous attitude towards the fact of plurality. Differences have not been seen and interpreted positively as a gift; on the contrary, they are considered a threat! Society has also not been sufficiently educated to accept and appreciate differences. The concept of ‘tolerance’ is only interpreted as merely allowing, letting go and not disturbing. I think, the essence of tolerance is acceptance, recognizing and respecting differences.
In every political event, especially regional elections, legislative elections, presidential elections, the candidates and their campaign teams always use identity politics, exploiting primordial sentiments of SARA, especially religion as a strategy to win voters’ votes. Lately, democracy has even been colored by motives of revenge and lust for power that ‘produce’ polarization to various forms of tension in the highest institutions of the State. This condition explains how politics is increasingly uncultured.
Political coalitions are built not based on ideological similarities or closeness, but on similarities in short-term pragmatic political interests. Democracy is replaced by oligarchy, people’s sovereignty is replaced by political party sovereignty, and even reduced again to coalition sovereignty dictated by a ‘commander’ with the power of money and promises of seats of power. It is clear that religion is being misused as a political tool for the short-term interests of certain groups or political parties.
Various surveys confirm the general concern among the public about the increasing trend of social intolerance . Several cases of intolerance are allowed to pass without firm legal resolution. Some of them, violent incidents between community groups related to religious and ethnic issues in regional elections, LGBT issues, and a number of problems related to obstacles to carrying out worship are widely discussed.
Not to mention the presence of religious-tinged bylaws in various regions that spread so quickly like mushrooms in the rainy season. We almost lost trust in the Jokowi government because after ten years of ruling there have been no concrete efforts to erode all forms of intolerance that have tarnished the face of our democracy.
Not only the state, society has also failed to protect and uphold the spirit of tolerance and pluralism as the basis of a healthy democracy. Social capital and the level of support for tolerance, especially related to our religious freedom, are relatively low. Several surveys reveal that society is filled with a gray view of the protection of religious freedom and permissiveness towards the use of violence.
On a personal level, people are reluctant to live next door to those of different religions. Reluctant to give them the opportunity to practice their religion openly in the form of a house of worship. Meanwhile, in the context of multi-religious Indonesia, the principles of tolerance and religious freedom not only have a foundation in the constitution and national laws, but are also deeply rooted in the traditions of various religions and beliefs that have lived for thousands of years in the archipelago.
This shows that our level of religious tolerance is still very low. Fatally, this tendency is seen in all groups of society in all categories of education. In fact, in relation to affiliation with political parties, supporters of nationalist parties and Islamic parties also do not show significant differences. This means that the ideology of the party, especially national, has failed to resonate with its voters. Although the state remains the most responsible party for protecting the principles of an ideal democratic state, including in the monopoly of violence, public perception of pluralism is also important.
Enforcement of the Constitution
The most obvious record of religious intolerance and violence in Indonesia during the Jokowi administration is the government’s reluctance to take firm action to uphold the Constitution. The government has failed to take adequate steps to counter vigilantism in the form of discrimination, restrictions, and attacks on different minority groups. In addition, the government has also failed to restrain local government initiatives to prohibit, or even prevent vandalism of minority group facilities , such as the attack on the Transvestite Islamic Boarding School in Yogyakarta and others. The government has also not taken concrete steps to confirm the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize the reopening of GKI Yasmin.
There are three factors that require the issue of intolerance to be a shared concern. First , the increasing number of acts of violence and discriminatory acts, especially in the name of religion against those who are different. Consider the reports of various institutions that monitor tolerance and peace, such as ICRP (Indonesian Conference on Religions for Peace), Setara Institute, Wahid Institute, Ma’arif Institute. Second, the majority of the Indonesian public considers that the president, politicians, and police are not doing their best in enforcing constitutional values. The majority of the public is dissatisfied with the performance of the president, politicians, and police in maintaining the freedom of citizens to practice their religion and beliefs. Third, the public’s intolerant attitude tends to get stronger. Intolerant attitudes are very prone to triggering primordial violence which makes mass violence easy to explode.
In addition, the legal apparatus seems blunt and conquered by intolerance, especially when dealing with collective (congregational) acts of violence. The state seems to be defeated by violence. Perpetrators of violence are more often not processed legally, while victims are criminalized. This happens in both the Ahmadiyah groups, GKI Yasmin, and Shia cases.
Indonesia is too important to be handed over to the criminals of democracy. Indonesia is also too valuable to be risked entirely to governments and politicians. Society needs to take a stand immediately. When issues of intolerance and discrimination are still ignored, society is required to contribute more to upholding democratic values.
The community must also be more active in preventing the emergence of intolerance. Do not let intolerant groups that are more organized succeed in leading the community’s thinking to be intolerant. So far, the community that supports tolerance has taken a more silent attitude, creating a silent majority group and this attitude is a disaster in our democratic life.
A silent majority will not be realized if society is truly mature in democracy. This maturity can be seen, among other things, in a strong attitude of self-confidence. On the other hand, a lack of self-confidence gives birth to an attitude of smallness, fear and full of prejudice.
However, greater expectations are placed on the state. The state must firmly enforce the law when violence occurs. Pancasila and the Constitution are the main references. Law enforcers must dare to be neutral and fair, even if it is contrary to the wishes and interests of the majority. Both of these attitudes are built only if they fully understand the teachings of their religion, and also have a strong commitment to the values of nationhood and Indonesianness.
I do believe, that democracy is not just for democracy, but democracy for upholding a good life and good governance. Democracy must lead to the welfare, harmony and peace of all members of society, without exception. What is the ideal of Indonesia, as stated in the Preamble to the 1945 Constitution must be achieved through democracy which is not just a matter of freedom and procedure, but substance. To realize a substantial democracy, strengthening efforts are needed, especially at the grassroots level through political education that is carried out in a structured, systemic and massive manner. Also needed is the dissemination of humanistic, progressive and conducive interpretations of religious teachings for the establishment of democracy and the fulfillment of human rights in Indonesia.
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