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Origins of the 'absurd public'
On the morning of Jan
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n the morning of Jan. 23 the National Police arrested Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) deputy Bambang Widjojanto. By lunchtime, live footage of activists and intellectuals condemning his arrest appeared while the hashtag #SaveKPK naturally propelled itself into the international buzz feed.
Ten years ago, demonstrations were almost a daily part of life in Indonesia's major cities. For many Asians, including some Indonesians, 'demonstration' is still a dirty word, a precipitation to unrest, riot and chaos. Certainly the picketers in front of KPK's headquarters were demonstrating with their placards, megaphones and speeches, but with some Catholic priests in attendance, they could not be linked to any possible public disturbance in Jakarta.
On the other hand, demonstrations in Indonesia can be made to order, such as when people protested the inauguration of Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama as Jakarta governor or during the Constitutional Court hearing on the 2014 general election's result. These protesters are usually dismissed as 'paid protesters', and the story goes that they'll be in for less than $5 (plus lunch).
Fortunately, the 'Save KPK' demonstrators were not dismissed as a mob-for-hire, but the Coordinating Minister for Politics, Legal and Security Tedjo Edhy Purdijanto called public support for KPK 'enggak Jelas.' Although his words were clear enough in Indonesian, albeit informal, the phrase created such a headache for Indonesian and foreign correspondents writing in English. How to translate 'enggak/nggak/ga/tidak jelas' into English? 'Random'? 'Unclear'? 'Murky'? 'Whatever'? (This newspaper settled for 'absurd'.) And how do we make sense of what he said?
The point was that Minister Tedjo accused the KPK of inciting public sentiment against the police. He said that the 'childish' KPK should have relied on the constitution rather than the 'absurd' public support.
It is interesting that he brought up the constitution, since in other parts of Asia officials talk about 'law' (as in the penal code) instead of the 'constitution' when denouncing civil dissent. He could have just threatened everyone to keep calm and mind their own business, but he did not. He could dismiss public support, but he could not condemn it.
His predecessors, especially in Soeharto's era, would usually blame the communists for such dissent, while reminding the media to report just 'facts and truth'. In fact, many of our neighbors still pressure the media while working 24 hours a day to delete unfavorable tweets and blog posts (Indonesians are having fun making the name 'Tedjo' into an adjective).
So how can Indonesians criticize the powerful without being censured? The short answer is possibly because we were not colonized by the British. Some Indonesians wish sometimes that it was the British who colonized these Southeast Asian islands instead of the Dutch.
That way we would speak and write English better, we would be in the Commonwealth and who knows, we might be less corrupt and violent than we are now.
The long answer is it has happened long before the Europeans came. Unlike in Sumatra, Kalimantan, southern Sulawesi and the Malayan Peninsula, Muslim sultans of Java could not completely erase aspects of Hindu, Buddhist and traditional religions from the courts and the kingdoms, and in fact integrated them into Islam.
Therefore, from Malaysian and Middle Eastern perspectives, Indonesian Islam may look impure. Malaysian fans of Indonesian pop culture are puzzled at how a Christian actor who portrays a Muslim character can stay Christian and complain how hard it is to identify a Muslim or a non-Muslim Indonesian.
My point is not that Indonesia is relatively liberal; my point is that because we are relatively liberal on Islam we are relatively liberal on religion in general. After independence, the first thing on Malaysia's agenda was to state the supremacy of Islam and the Malay race. Thailand and many former French Indochina nations built their national identities around Theravada Buddhism, just like the Philippines' public policy is still dictated by the conservative Catholic Church.
Communism monopolized power in Vietnam after decades of deadly rivalries between the Catholic elites and the Buddhist masses.
British historian Niall Ferguson believes that revolutions and civil wars in many parts of the world not colonized by the UK took place because continental Europe looked upon the French Revolution as inspiration and the French, Spanish, Dutch, Belgians and Portuguese taught the virtues of revolution to their colonial pupils.
The British enacted reforms in its white-majority colonies while they taught the virtues of conservatism elsewhere. Indeed, one legacy of British colonial rules is a series of draconian and rigid laws still in effect throughout Asia, even in democratic India.
The Indonesian revolution might have taken place because our founding fathers were inspired by European histories of revolutions, while the Malays happily welcomed back the British. Racial and religious riots in the 1960s are still cited by the governments of Malaysia and Singapore as the reason on why a free press, public debates and political oppositions are harmful.
On the other hand, despite the bloodshed of the Reform Era and our current distrust toward of the legislature, the majority of Indonesians renounce government monopoly of media, military rule and state religion. Our latest general election has proven that.
I jokingly told my ex-students that the British tried to colonize Indonesia, but they could not handle us. Perhaps because the Javanese synthesis of Hinduism and Islam made our thinking and outlook too random and unpredictable.
Perhaps it is what makes us tolerate Christianity better than Malaysia or any other Muslim-majority state. And the Dutch taught us not only revolution, but also liberalism.
When Spain controlled Netherlands four and half centuries ago, Spanish generals dismissed the Dutch rebels as mere 'sea beggars'.
The Dutch wore the derision with pride and won their independence. Now the coordinating minister has to face us, the nggak jelas public.
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The writer teaches English and Australian cultural studies at Uni-Bridge, St. Aloysius High School, Bandung.
