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Hopes and doubts over state defense program
More than 180 people in light blue military attire marched in an asynchronous pace while entering the main field of the Defense Ministryâs training and education division in Salemba, Central Jakarta, on Oct
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More than 180 people in light blue military attire marched in an asynchronous pace while entering the main field of the Defense Ministry's training and education division in Salemba, Central Jakarta, on Oct. 22 to attend the launch of the ministry's state defense program. They are the first recruits of the ministry's ambitious project that aims at evoking nationalism with the recruitment of 100 million citizens within the next 10 years.
Yet, for such a massive program, the ceremony was quite humble, despite being led by Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu. Since its introduction to the public, the program has received many criticisms.
Military experts have questioned the urgency of the program, accusing it of being an attempt by the military to drain the state budget. Another major concern is over the adoption of a military approach in the training program that may instigate horizontal conflict.
In his speech during the ceremony, Ryamizard responded to his critics, explaining that the program was a follow-up to President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo's Revolusi Mental (mental revolution) initiative, which he then translated as a program that could handle any imminent threats to national security.
'Our weapons systems are still lacking, but having 100 million people who are ready to defend the country can be a strong deterrence for foreign countries that plan to threaten our sovereignty,' the minister argued.
And the threats do not come from global players only, according to the minister.
'The biggest threat is the brainwashing attempts [of] communism, apart from global threats ['¦] because if you want to destroy a country, you have to destroy its ideology first,' he said in an exclusive interview with The Jakarta Post.
The program, Ryamizard said, would prepare Indonesia for this psychological war as it was arranged to counter the enemies' brainwashing attempts by evoking the spirit of nationalism through military indoctrination. Yet, he defended the program as not being mandatory military service. 'It is voluntary and most of the material will be delivered in classes.'
As a start, the Defense Ministry has formulated a curriculum that will be used as the foundation to train Indonesians to defend the state, which is currently being introduced to relevant parties for final input before officially launching it to the public on Nov. 12.
The head of the ministry's training and education division that is in charge of the process, Maj. Gen. Hartind Asrin, said that under the curriculum participants would mainly learn about the four pillars of country ' state ideology Pancasila, the 1945 Constitution, the concept of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI) and the national motto of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity) ' as well as knowledge of the Sistem Pertahanan Semesta (Sishanta, Total Defense System).
As part of the program, participants will also be provided with simple intelligence-gathering skills as they will be trained to gather and digest information before forwarding it to either the police or military institutions.
'Participants of the state defense program are expected to become agents of the state,' said Hartind.
Having learned the basic lessons, Hartind explained that participants would later be given subjects that aimed at increasingly nurturing their love of the country, as well as their willingness to sacrifice for the country.
Considering the diversity of the participants, the Defense Ministry is also therefore preparing a package of additional material, which will include lessons on, for example, local wisdom that will be adjusted to the needs and situations of respective regions.
'We will provide material on counter-separatism for participants from Papua, for example, as the region is prone to separatist movements,' Hartind said.
He elaborated that additional materials would also include more advanced intelligence skills for citizens living in border areas to enable them to delve into problems faced by their respective neighborhoods.
A participant from the first batch of the program in Jakarta, 31-year-old Afrinal, cited strict discipline and nationalistic values as being among the lessons provided during a workshop held in a military training center in Sentul, West Java.
'The activity starts at 5 a.m. and ends at 10 p.m. Most of the material is given in classes, including knowledge on archipelagic outlook and Indonesian history. We are trained outside the classroom when the lecturers do not show up,' he told the Post.
Afrinal and the other 180 participants undergoing the one-month training in Sentul attended classes in one giant room from Monday to Friday with breaks on the weekends.
In addition to Afrinal and his Sentul classmates, as many as 4,500 citizens from the country's 45 regencies joining the first batch at different camps throughout the country are being prepared to become main trainers, who will take the lead to pass on the program in their respective areas. The ministry is aiming to recruit more than 6,000 individuals to be frontline coaches to deliver state defense education to their fellow citizens.
Besides such groups of trainers, the ministry will particularly involve regional administrators throughout the archipelago, from heads of villages to governors, in the program to become supervisors.
No matter what, the state defense program is intended for any citizens, regardless their backgrounds, age and profession, who are called to join the long-term process of defending the state from any threats.
Hartind grouped the prospective targets into three clusters: students, employees and the general public based on their neighborhoods. He explained that his ministry would adjust the materials as well as the methodology according to the audience.
For kindergarten students, he exemplified, the program would run for one year when students engaged in field trips to military-affiliated organizations in order to expose them to an initial knowledge of state defense.
'Unlike kindergarten students, all other students from elementary schools to universities participating in the program will undergo a five-day training session in one of our training camps,' Hartind said. 'For this, we will collaborate with the Education Ministry to prepare teachers to conduct the training for students.'
In addition to the Education Ministry, the Defense Ministry, with 65 ministries and state institutions, will prepare members to train civil servants on defending the state as well as the interests of their respective institutions. The Defense Ministry will issue certificates for all graduates that, in the long run, will be useful as additional requirements to find jobs.
The Defense Ministry will also extend its service to private companies, as long as companies have budgets to run the program, according to Hartind.
The Defense Ministry itself has disbursed Rp 45 billion (US$3.3 million) this year to fund the program. The program is not expected to burden the ministry's budget in the long run because local governments will be required to foot the bill in the coming years.
'While the Defense Ministry will be the frontline leader to execute the [state defense] program, many parties will fund it collectively,' Hartind emphasized.
He cited Presidential Decree No. 95/2015 on national defense in responding to calls from relevant institutions, including the House of Representatives Commission I that supervises military affairs, to improve the design of the program, including the funding mechanism.
Commission I chairman Mahfudz Siddiq said the Defense Ministry had yet to thoroughly elaborate the program before his commission. According to the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) politician, Defense Minister Ryamizard only briefly mentioned the ministry's plan to run the state defense program during a hearing held earlier this year to discuss the ministry's budgeting.
'We have not discussed it again. As the program has been officially launched and will run systematically, we therefore suggest the Defense Ministry initiate a bill that will comprehensively and specifically regulate the program, including the financing mechanism,' Mahfudz said.
However, problems remain despite claims over the legality of the program, as well as the availability of participants, the curriculum and the budget. Less than a week after the launch, participants in Yogyakarta and Palu, Central Sulawesi, resigned from the program, citing a lack of clarity and coordination from the organizing committee to defend their decision.
The resignation of these participants has confirmed analysts' suspicions about the program's lack of preparation.
'It is like a quarter-baked pancake. When you eat it, it can give you a stomachache,' military observer Mufti Makarim told the Post.
Mufti considered the program as a strategy of Ryamizard to create new source of income for his ministry. Ideally, he argued, the program should be under the Education Ministry as it was meant to build the nation's character.
'I believe the Defense Ministry stole the opportunity from the Education Ministry's lack of action in running the program,' he said.
The military approach of the training was another concern for Mufti as it narrowed the action of defending the state.
'The dimension of defending the state is broad. You don't need to know how to march to defend your state. It really depends on people's competency and skills,' he said.
T. Hari Prihatono from military watchdog Pro-Patria Institute echoes Mufti's argument, calling the military approach 'too conventional'.
He also questioned the ministry's claim that the program was not militarization.
'Even if it is true, why do they have to do it in a provincial military battalion headquarters?' he asked.
This military-style training, Hari said, could lead to social conflicts as the participants were trained under a system that was prone to violence. The program, he added, was also prone to misuse, as it was not governed by any specific law.
The misuse, according to Hari, was not only about budget embezzlement, but was also related to irresponsible actors that misused the training for their own interests.
' Nani Afrida also contributed to reporting
