Local Governance in Timor-Leste - Secretaria de Estado da Arte e ...

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Timorese communities. Such concerns continue to be expressed within the villages.For example, an elder in Venilale who had served as a bureaucrat and important localleader during the latter days of Portuguese rule and throughout Indonesian occupationdescribed nahe biti boot 33 as an older form of democracy, and one that should havebeen granted greater respect:If we nahe biti boot inside the house, we put there tobacco and betel nut and we chewand smoke and talk until it is over. Everyone has to talk. There is not one personsilent. I am used to this. This is democracy. This democracy is much better than thedemocracy we copied from foreign countries...The democracy that we did in 2001,we chose the members of the parliament for the Constitution [the ConstituentAssembly]. Everyone raised their hands, followed [Mari] Alkatiri and the ones thatcame from Mozambique... We closed our eyes and we supported Fretilin but weknew that this was wrong for our country. Why is it that before we were under theforeigner and it wasn't good, under the Indonesians and it wasn't good but now wewant independence. Why don't we use the democratic system from before?This is not to romanticise traditional institutional structures, however. Throughout themajority of villages in Timor-Leste lisan is highly patriarchal, so the statement that"everyone has to talk" would be more appropriately re-stated as "every man has totalk". Varying from one place to the next, women often have no right to speak duringthese ceremonies, which is of central concern to the pursuit of democratisation andequality of citizenship and political participation. Equally, notions of class andhierarchical leadership are deeply embedded within lisan, as only those of the higherclasses hold the 'ritual words' that are essential to maintaining traditional leadership.But then, neither have liberal forms of democracy always ensured equality ofcitizenship—particularly when limited to its procedural aspects.Moreover, while statements such as that of the elder quoted above are commonlyheld, they should not be taken as a static representation of culture or tradition. Inparticular, these sentiments vary across generations, and this elder's adult son, forexample, holds a different view. While he states that lisan, the uma lulik and the33 Nahe biti boot – a ritual for dealing with situations that consists in sitting together to discuss.Literally translates as ‘laying the big mat on the floor’.113
spiritual significance of the ancestors must be respected, he also dreams of a futureTimor-Leste that accords greater weight to modern ideas of democracy and the rule oflaw:I don't want something more traditional, I want things to be decided according to thelaw. But how do you accelerate that? We can kill people's spirits, because some oldpeople who are still with the traditional ways, and we go on with the modern way wecan kill them. So does this mean we should wait for them? That needs a lot ofdiscussion.This variation across age groups was an important theme that emerged duringfieldwork, repeatedly highlighted where father and son, or uncle and nephew wereinterviewed. However, while this generational divide is indicative of importantchanges taking place at the local level, these positions should not be taken as polesapart. Common across every interview was the view that both modern and traditionalideas of socio-political legitimacy were important and have their place—that they canand should "walk together". Sentiments varied concerning how this was to beachieved. While it is clear that the ideals of democratisation and human rights cannotsimply be met through traditional institutional structures, it is equally clear thattraditional institutional structures continue to be extremely important withincommunities, and should form the bedrock for building the political institutions of thestate.While lisan is central to people's understandings of themselves and how they shouldrelate to each other, it would be a mistake to underrate the importance of modernideas of democracy. These ideas are often not fully-formed, and beyond the advent ofregular elections there were many different ideas with varying levels of sophisticationaround what democracy means and what it should provide. However, everyone Ispoke to held it to be valuable. In many cases, the Timorese people's emergence fromcolonial rule and struggle for independence is intimately tied up with their conceptionof themselves now as an independent, democratic nation. For example, one lia-na'inin Ainaro argued that democracy is what they fought for, but that the power of lisanand protection from the ancestors is what had allowed them to achieve independence.Together with independence, both lisan and democracy were proudly claimed by114
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Local Governance in Timor-Leste:The
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COPYRIGHT STATEMENT‘I hereby gran
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are some important points of tensio
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the Canossian sisters in Ainaro—M
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2.6 The Issues of Cross-Cultural Re
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LIST OF FIGURESFigure One: The Deve
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Tara banduUma kainUma lulikXefe Ald
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within, I had failed to recognise t
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anthropology of development (Shephe
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prefer the term 'local' to recognis
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evolve around ideas of traditional
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institution that is considered to b
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the case given the emphasis on cond
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Within these increasingly murky pol
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1.3 Case Study SitesVenilaleVenilal
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The reasons for choosing Venilale a
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and influences can have on the loca
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played out since decolonisation. Th
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geographically 'outwards' from uma
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CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWO
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2.1 FieldworkFieldwork was conducte
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marked differences in people's idea
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interactions between modern and tra
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then asking for advice on who else
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answer specific questions about how
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Every conversation and every experi
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discussions. This took a little tim
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crucial to the research question—
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CHAPTER THREE: CONCEPTUALISING POST
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epresentation through democratisati
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of coordination between these diffe
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equally problematic, as this succes
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government, and Huntington noted th
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Westernise. Equally, the specificit
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which individuals both shape and ar
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expanded this understanding to incl
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within a society. As Remmer puts it
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Page 79 and 80: provided by public policy" (Fukuyam
Page 81 and 82: Gramsci's account of hegemonic powe
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Page 89 and 90: The centrality of these kin-based g
Page 91 and 92: 4.1 Formation of Political Hybridit
Page 93 and 94: While the rule of the liurai was in
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Page 99 and 100: did not make life any easier for th
Page 101 and 102: governor, but slowly seats were inc
Page 103 and 104: The movement towards decolonisation
Page 105 and 106: As the politics reached gradually b
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Page 111 and 112: outrage across the world. Following
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Page 119 and 120: these other factors reveal a more c
Page 121 and 122: SECTION TWO: EXAMINING LOCAL GOVERN
Page 123 and 124: hold spiritual and ritual responsib
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Page 131 and 132: The centrality of the liurai house
Page 133 and 134: As discussed previously, one of the
Page 135 and 136: order to meet their communal requir
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Page 145 and 146: democratisation has been seen to er
Page 147 and 148: Party politics has been one such po
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Page 151 and 152: Within this hybrid political enviro
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Page 155 and 156: authority figures in the aldeia, su
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Page 159 and 160: kain), it is taken to the xefe and/
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xefe suku explained that the cost o
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that there is a combination of soci
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SECTION THREE: SHAPING LOCAL GOVERN
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automatically become part of the lo
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ecent Shadow Report to CEDAW, which
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Governance must be for something, a
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power within Timorese communities.
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Such structural constraints, howeve
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Across every suku in Venilale and A
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was built for their most remote ald
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While community members may attempt
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networks that use such animistic ri
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strongman, who operated in Venilale
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the community are captured or diver
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strongman specifically uses institu
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CHAPTER EIGHT: BRINGING IT BACK TO
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communities have created various fo
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However, while incoming resources c
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of fundamental importance in consid
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APPENDIX A: LIST OF INTERVIEWEESVEN
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APPENDIX B: MAP OF TIMOR-LESTESourc
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APPENDIX D: POLITICAL MAP OF SUBDIS
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BINNS, T. (2006) 'Doing Fieldwork i
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CHESTERMAN, S. (2002) 'East Timor i
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DEGNBOL-MARTINUSSEN, J. (2002) 'Dev
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Lincoln, Y. (Eds.) The Landscape of
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GRENFELL, L. (2006) 'Legal Pluralis
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HOWARTH, D. (2000) Discourse, Bucki
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LANDMAN, T. & HAUSERMANN, J. (2003)
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MERRY, S. E. (1988) 'Legal Pluralis
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OSPINA, S. & HOHE, T. (2001) Tradit
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RUDOLPH, L. I. (1965) 'The Modernit
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THAKUR, R. & VAN LANGENHOVE, L. (20
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WORK, R. (2002) 'Overview of Decent
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