For Indonesia, Inertia Is a Bigger Problem Than Extremism
 
Philip Bowring International Herald Tribune
Friday, January 25, 2002
JAKARTA Stop worrying about danger. Worry instead about inertia.
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Contrary to the reports of newshounds scenting Al Qaeda in all corners of the Muslim world, Indonesia is mostly peaceful. The threat is not Islamic extremism or national breakup. It is not even descent of a young democracy into chaos that invites authoritarianism. The problem is that six months into her presidency, Megawati Sukarnoputri is showing her true self. As a symbol of national unity, of tolerance, of goodwill to all, she is doing fine. As leader of a government facing huge tasks, she lacks vision, drive or ability to communicate.
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She affects a hands-off attitude that lets problems fester. Her cabinet, initially lauded, vacillates in the execution of mostly sensible policies.
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For sure, very nasty things continue in corners of the country - in Aceh, where secessionist violence is unabated, and in the Moluccas and Sulawesi, where endemic Muslim-Christian conflict has been fanned by interests using Islam as cover for other goals.
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For sure, too, President Megawati's stumbling response to Sept. 11 gained no friends in Washington. She missed a chance to show off Indonesia's secular credentials and gain support against Acehnese secessionists. Coming from a secular nationalist tradition, the leader of the world's most populous Muslim country was inhibited by her own shortage of Islamic credentials. She also lacked the self-confidence to turn it to advantage, as did Presidents Vladimir Putin and Jiang Zemin.
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However, Sept. 11 has made Indonesians more aware than ever how different their religious and cultural traditions are from the Islam of the Taliban or the ideology of Al Qaeda.
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Aceh is a long-standing regional secessionist problem. The Moluccas and Sulawesi are local communal issues. Neither has natural links to Afghanistan or the Middle East.
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The government has probably been right to ignore and not confront jihad rhetoric from a few zealots. Attendance at anti-American demonstrations in Jakarta has been pitiful.
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The largest Islamic political party has recently split over the extent to which the state should identify with religion.
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Although the recent arrests in Singapore have suggested that fanaticism is rife in Southeast Asia, extremism is more likely to flourish where some Muslims feel that they are an oppressed minority than in a secular state where they are the majority and where interpretations of Islam are almost as varied as those of Christianity in the United States.
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The real worry is the indecisiveness of central government faced with assorted challenges to its authority.
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These challenges are not surprising. The nation is still trying to adjust to multiparty democracy and a new center/region power balance.
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The center is often reluctant to try to define the fuzzy limits in its favor. Hence its economic program has been set back by a regional thwarting of the high-profile sale of a state cement enterprise and by locally decreed minimum wage rises.
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Mines and plantations are being disrupted by illegal operations and local taxes. Price increases badly needed to prevent the budget deficit from getting out of hand are being delayed.
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Doubts swirl about the seriousness of efforts to punish the more blatant Suharto era crooks. Rumors abound that the groups which raped the banks in 1998 are buying back assets at fire sale prices from the government.
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Drift is particularly disappointing because the president faces little near-term opposition. Parliament is noisy and prone to outbursts of nationalism, but she has majority support. The major parties are too preoccupied with internal squabbles or mired in scandal to line up against her. A direct presidential election in 2004 should work in her favor. Popular grumbles about disorder do not mean that Indonesians want a military regime. The resource-based economy is resilient enough to keep growing at 3 percent without new credit or government stimulus.
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Resilience, tolerance and compromises have helped Indonesia through the worst of times. Fundamental change was essential after President Suharto, and the banking collapse was always going to be disruptive. The country has muddled through better than could have been expected.
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The lack of a sense of urgency suggests that problems will be kept from boiling over - but will not be resolved. Several issues will come to a head in the coming weeks which will give the president an opportunity to stamp her mark on Indonesia's course. Most watched will be the government's sale of Bank Central Asia, once the centerpiece of the Salim group, the largest Suharto-era conglomerate. How it manages the sale, and who (if anyone) wins will say much about whether the president wants to be more than a figurehead, or whether cabinet inertia creates a vacuum for sleaze.
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A wrong outcome would not be a catastrophe, but it would be a signal that more muddling through, rather than a big rebound, is the best that can be expected.

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