Adam Tyson, Leeds, UK
Anywhere you go in Indonesia these days there is bound to be a flurry of activism. Anyone that glances at the nightly news being broadcast across Indonesia will be well aware of this, with the explosive images in Papua being the latest.
For my part, I have just undertaken a period of field research in Sulawesi, during which time I had the opportunity to meet with a host of different organizations committed to fighting for the rights of marginal groups or communities.
There are no shortages of land conflicts between corporations and their surrounding communities (take P.T. London Sumatra in Kajang or P.T. Freeport in Timika for example), and activist organizations rarely fail to leave their mark on such cases.
While conducting research about these sensitive issues I try to follow one simple principle: To take the time to get all the different perspectives of each case before drawing any conclusions.
Thus I recently had to overcome a maze of disheveled roads to meet with rural community members, to ignore the jeers of protocol officers while waiting to meet with government officials, to get lucky enough to have an audience with corporate managers, and to spend a few days on the floor of a small, hot NGO office trying to get the facts straight.
As much as I admire the dedication of the various activist organizations, especially their willingness to reach out to remote communities who lack representation, I have some reservations about their methods.
Starting with the positives, however, a visit to any of the activist organizations will bring about encounters with well-informed and adamant individuals who are knowledgeable and bring a sense of passion to the issues that may be lost in some of the more stifled academic debates.
The atmosphere in most ""action first"" NGOs seems to breed a sense of unity in struggle and fosters a culture of activism that is quite interesting. From Jakarta to Pontianak to Makassar, for instance, one can see young men and women wearing Munir tee-shirts and announcing their solidarity with the victims of repression in Aceh and the marginalized indigenous peoples across the archipelago. To a certain extent this is understandable, representing a normal form of activist networking and the efforts to link remote areas by engendering a common solidarity amongst like-minded people.
A less desirable outcome of the ""action first"" NGO, however, is the growing tendency amongst its members to see issues as involving only victims and perpetrators, meaning that all the corporations are easily perceived as ""the enemy"" and the communities are always painted as the ""innocent victims"".
As a result a case will be looked at in narrow terms, and aspects that are important will be purposely left out. One example is the great hunger to reveal the displacement caused by a mining operation or a plantation, the infringement upon local rights, or signs of environmental degradation, while at the same time activists tend to intentionally ignore any positive outcomes that may result from the activities of the corporation, such as community development projects or handsome fees/taxes paid to cash-strapped local governments.
This example points to one of the unfortunate manifestations of the activist culture, which is the lack of balanced research. Most often the activist NGOs attach themselves to a specific community involved in a protracted conflict and cement their position on the side of the ""victims"". In doing so, they proclaim their enduring contempt for the ""collusion"" between government and corporation, and often refuse to even meet in the same room with such people.
This immediately alienates the activist and fosters a growing sense of mistrust between local officials and themselves. Nearly every time I met with an official from the government or the corporation I was received with an air of suspicion, and was tactfully asked what organization I was working with. When it became clear that my research was individual and not sponsored by anyone the official in question tended to relax and become more affable.
Thus I had the advantage of obtaining legal transcripts of the major trials involving the community and the corporation, of learning about the processes of relevant government regulations as well as accessing reports from the various mediation teams that have been set up to resolve these conflicts.
In this sense the activists are missing large parts of the story and will have a difficult time in sorting the facts from the accusations, and will continue to find it hard to decipher between all of the miscommunications and exaggerations that seem to perpetuate local conflicts.
Lastly, intervention in any conflict is a touchy matter. Vibrancy in the press and audacity amongst the activists has gone a long way in forcing corporations and government alike to be more accountable, which is undoubtedly positive. However the often soft language used by activists about the ""facilitating"" of marginalized communities often translates into much more direct intervention into local conflicts.
This has left a small number of NGO members on the local ""most wanted list"" as parties from beyond the borders of the land conflict engage in violent clashes with security forces and mobile brigades. Lives have been lost in many recent conflicts (for instance the land-reclaiming movement that spread through Indonesia in 2003 resulting in many casualties), and therefore NGOs that adhere to the slogan ""action first"" should be wary of ""responsibility later"".
The writer is a lecturer at University of Leeds, United Kingdom.
