Managing Politics and Islam in Indonesia

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THE UNRAVELLING OF SUHARTO’S REGIME 199Reformists within ABRI, who were keen to protect the military’s institutionalinterests and professionalism in an increasingly destabilised political climate,influenced Wiranto. They saw the need for peaceful presidential succession, andrecognised the necessity for gradual and negotiated reforms as a means ofreconsolidating their power within established institutional arrangements. Theyalso felt strong loyalties to their patron, Suharto, and knew the risks to their ownpolitical careers if they opposed the president. They, therefore, were unpreparedto take direct action against him. From the reformist camp was Wiranto’s socialand political affairs chief, Lt Gen. Bambang Yudhoyono. Bambang initiated aseries of dialogues and meetings with moderate community leaders, intellectuals,university hierarchy and students in order to sound out their views on politicalreformation, including presidential succession. 20Wiranto also was possibly acting on Suharto’s instructions as a tactical ploy todivide the student movement. It appears, to some extent, that Wiranto’s lenientapproach had as its purpose to drive a wedge between the student-led opposition.This could be achieved by offering student moderates the choice of negotiatedsettlement, whilst promising harsh action against radical students who chose totake their demands to the streets. In all likelihood, the holding of dialogues withABRI would dissipate the students’ resolve and energy to continue theirstruggle. 21 Meanwhile, dialogues with ABRI would quarantine the problem byrestricting it to the military’s security and order concerns.Thus, many student activists remained deeply suspicious of the military’smotives and feared that dialogue was simply a tactic to keep them off the streets.They mostly rejected Wiranto’s offer for dialogue, and Gen. Feisal Tanjungrefused the students’ requests for dialogue with the president. Feisal announcedthat the appropriate channel for them to express their wishes was throughestablished hierarchy (the university administration) and by conductingthemselves according to the protocol of polite observance (tata krama). 22Suharto’s rebuff demonstrated that the regime still would not countenance theparticipation of students outside of the formal mechanisms of New Orderhierarchy, which, in fact, ensured their exclusion from political participation.An outcome of the military’s restrained response to the student movement,however, was that student leaders and academics became emboldened vocally topress their demands on the state, as they tested the limits of New Ordertolerance. The approach by Prabowo’s Special Forces of direct repressionagainst student demonstrators, was in stark contradiction to ABRI’s publicposition of moderation, and further served to crystallise indignation againstSuharto’s New Order. In particular, the deployment of troops with liveammunition against students at the prestigious private Trisakti University on 12May, and the consequent killing of four students, sent the situation spiralling outof control. Speculation at the time was that Prabowo’s tactic was to createinstability and thereby prove that Wiranto’s lenient approach had failed to quellthe student opposition or to calm down political tensions. Officers serving underPrabowo later faced military tribunal for their alleged role in the kidnappings
200 MANAGING POLITICS AND ISLAM IN INDONESIAof radical activists, for which eleven soldiers, including several junior officers,were found guilty in a trial that lasted from December 1998 to April 1999. 23 By14 May, in Jakarta’s central business district, menacing black plumes of smokebellowed out of ransacked buildings as fires claimed an estimated one thousandor more lives—and the public mood swung more assuredly against Suharto’srule. 24Concluding RemarksDespite its fragmented nature, the student movement had articulated a broadlyshared desire for change, thus inspiring support from the middle- and lower-classsections of society. One of the demands aired by students had been the lifting ofcorporatist curbs on campus life and the return to independent student councils.More broadly, they called for the revocation of political laws and politicalarrangements that had excluded the vast majority of Indonesians fromparticipation in the formal structures of politics. 25 They declared that the politicalparties and the parliament had failed to channel the aspirations of the people and,therefore, students were filling the representational void by direct forms ofparticipation. By early April, more cautious reformers and public intellectuals(all with civil-servant status) at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), someof whom had criticised Suharto in the past, identified with the students and madescathing criticisms of the New Order political system. 26In the end, the escalation of anti-Suharto student demonstrations fromlate-1997 to mid-1998 was indicative of the failure of the New Order corporatiststructure to contain and exclude the political activism and participation ofstudents. Student demonstrations that had begun peacefully ended up by pitting across-section of society against the most repressive arm of the state, its securityforces. The desire for change could not be extinguished. Finally, internal divisionwithin ABRI made impossible a co-ordinated response to mass demonstrationsand the contradictory responses of reformists and hard-liners within ABRI onlyintensified opposition to the regime. 27FORMER ICMI LEADER IN THE VANGUARD OFPROTESTSThe Muhammadiyah Chairman, Amien Rais, was the most prominent nationalleader to express sustained support for student demands in favour of political andeconomic reform. As an outspoken academic at Gajah Mada University healready had a considerable student following. After his forced resignation as thehead of ICMI’s council of experts, he became one of the most visible symbols ofopposition against Suharto’s corrupt and authoritarian government and hispopularity soared among students. 28 Overall, ICMI had failed to co-opt Amien orsilence his dissenting voice over presidential succession, Suharto’s family wealthand other controversial issues. He could not channel his aspirations through the
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Managing Politics and Islam in Indo
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ContentsForeword viiPreface xAcknow
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viThe University Student Movement 1
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viiiWhile many authors have used a
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PrefaceThe book is the product of d
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Abbreviationsabangan Nominal Muslim
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xivFKLD Forum Komunikasi Lembaga Da
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xviKNPI Komite Nasional Pemuda Indo
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xviiiParmusi Partai Muslimin Indone
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xxWALUBIWMABYayasan AbdiBangsaYKPKY
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2 MANAGING POLITICS AND ISLAM IN IN
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10 MANAGING POLITICS AND ISLAM IN I
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24 STATE CORPORATISM AND INDONESIA
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38 STATE MANAGEMENT OF MUSLIM ASSOC
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Chapter 5The Capture of Muslim Inte
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MANAGING POLITICS AND ISLAM IN INDO
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Chapter 6Nahdlatul Ulama: Between I
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Tenggara. And later that month, he
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Chapter 7Intra-Elite RivalryIncorpo
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Page 170 and 171: MANAGING POLITICS AND ISLAM IN INDO
Page 182 and 183: Chapter 8Mobilisations and Counter-
Page 184 and 185: MOBILISATIONS AND COUNTER-MOBILISAT
Page 214 and 215: Chapter 9The Unravelling of Suharto
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Page 254 and 255: Chapter 11Conclusion: The Failure o
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Page 262 and 263: ReferencesBOOKS, MANUSCRIPTS, MONOG
Page 264 and 265: REFERENCES 243Dauvergne, Peter. ‘
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REFERENCES 249—‘Islam and Polit
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REFERENCES 251National University,
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REFERENCES 253Nasional (Bagian II),
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IndexABRIGolkar, 24, 26, 30, 34, 14
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INDEX 257education, 36-39, 47-9, 50
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INDEX 259Tanjung, Feisal, 114-17, 1
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