Corruption and Distribution of Income in Indonesia - Term Paper Example

Running Head: POST INDEPENDENCE INEQUALITY, CORRUPTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME IN INDONESIA Post Independence Inequality, Corruption and Distribution of Income in Indonesia [Name of the Writer] [Name of the Institution] Post Independence Inequality, Corruption and Distribution of Income in Indonesia Introduction Currently, a lot of issues have been raised due to the appearance and criminal activities of fundamental or radical groups in Indonesia that are associated with Islam. However, this kind of extremism is not a new occurrence in Indonesia. This country has experienced a large number of alterations starting from the activities of the Dutch, later on Japanese in World War 2 and then the time when Indonesia emerged on the map of the world as an independent state. Such types of changes were both because of the political and identity issues. The name of their religious conviction i.e. Islam has also played a significant role in the Indonesia’s identity and economic issues. The name of Islam has too often been used to promote an agenda as in the case of Indonesian politics bringing with it death, destruction and deception in order to establish an Islamic state with Sharia as the state law. It is uncertain if these agendas were sincerely to establish an Islamic state, or it is a propaganda tool used by governments to influence its people to respond in a certain way, or it is a bit of both. The Bali and Jakarta bombings are examples of death, destruction and deception where only time will reveal the truth. Analysis of Post Independence Scenario in Indonesia When the Japanese surrendered in 1945, young radical Muslims pressured Sukarno to declare Indonesia’s Independence, uniting Indonesian against the Dutch attempts of re-establishing a colony in Indonesia. The Ulama declared Jihad against the Dutch. Muslim militias under the command of the Ulama with the Dutch-Japanese trained Indonesian armed forces drove out the Dutch. However, this unity of people did not last long. (Scott, 2008) Muslim militias in the West of Java broke ranks with the government after the government accepted a ceasefire agreement with the Dutch to withdraw its forces to central Java. Kartosuwiryo, a Muslim Politian, continued to lead the breakaway group against the Dutch and eventually establishing their own government and state with the sharia as law. This group was later known as Darul Islam or the Islamic state of Indonesia. Darul Islam remained a thorn for the Indonesian government with many other rebel movements from other provinces like Aceh and South Sulawesi joining Darul Islam. There were many other Muslim leaders who although supported an Islamic state, were in favor of the Indonesian Republic and condemned the violence of Darul Islam (Bruinessen 2002). Darul Islam was finally crushed and went underground in 1962 after the capture of its leaders (Bruinessen 2002). It was later to surface again after the alleged communist coup attempt in 1965 and the downfall for Sokarno. It has been widely believed that Suharto’s advisor and intelligence chief, Ali Murtopo, cultivated a group of Darul Islam veterans and used them as pit bulls that he could unleash at any time against communism and any others he considered a threat. This demonstrated that extremist elements were very often generated by the governments in power and in this instance it was the government of the Republic of Indonesia. It is widely believed that the CIA played a role in this to prevent the spread of communism throughout Asia (Scott: 1985). Terrorism began to occur in the 1970s and the early 80s with arson and bombing of night clubs, movie houses and churches were due to Komando Jihad. The frequency of violence increased in the years prior to elections, providing a persuading effect of getting people not to vote for Muslim parties. The leaders of Komando Jihad were later arrested and proven to be Darul Islam veterans. They confessed to having close contacts with Ali Murtopo. Darul Islam veterans seemed to have had a genuine long term aim of establishing an Islamic state but saw ridding the country of communism a common aim (Bruinessen 2002). Indonesias Economic Performance Regardless of its political situation, Indonesia’s Economy grew rapidly in the three decades from 1977 until 2007 — so rapidly, in fact, that real gross national product per capita increased at the rate of 5.1 per cent per annum on average over this period — an outcome that very few other countries can match. With such rapid increases in incomes it is not surprising that Indonesia also made great progress in relation to basic indicators of the quality of life, such as life expectancy and infant mortality. Life expectancy at birth in 1970 was only about 41 years, but by 2007 it had increased to about 65 years — a truly remarkable improvement. During the same period infant mortality, the number of babies dying in their first year per 1000 live births, fell steadily from nearly 138 to about 43. (Head, 2009) Another important indicator of widespread improvements in material well-being is the level of school enrolments. Whereas only 71 per cent of primary school age students were enrolled in 1970, this fraction increased significantly during the 1980s to peak in 1994 at almost 120 per cent; meanwhile the percentage of secondary school aged children enrolled rose from only 6 per cent in 1960 to almost 50 per cent by 1999. Although the percentage fell back a little in the late 1980s there was further increase throughout the first half of the 2000s. In short, the standard of living of the average Indonesian citizen improved dramatically between the mid-1970s and the 2000s. The steadily increasing degree of integration of Indonesia into the world economy has played a very important role in this progress. This is very much in line with the experience of other developing countries that have chosen to integrate themselves closely with the world economy, such as Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. The period post independence created a stable country with economic growth and industrialization, but it was not peaceful. Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno was overthrown after he was seen as co-operating with communist and he forced Masyumi to dissolve itself. Masyumi and Darul Islam took part in a CIA-supported rebellion and mass slaughter of people who were labeled as communist (Bruinessen 2002) killing approximately half a million people (Scot 1985). President Sukarno was forced to step down and Suharto became the next President, ruling the country for 32 years. During his presidency, Indonesia was classified as one amongst world’s most corrupt countries. There were wide spread human rights abuses, corruption and nepotism. When President Suharto was forced to step down in 1998, his family was estimated to have an asset of between $15 billion and $35billion (International Center for Transitional Justice: 2008). Since the birth of the independent nation, the legal status of Islam in a multi ethnic and multi religious country has widely been debated. The Jakarta Charter which would have obligated Muslim Indonesians to live by Sharia Law was not added in the state constitution in the interest of national unity and because 90 percent of Muslims rejected the idea. So instead Indonesia was defined based on Pancasila, which reflected the cultural and moral values that were common to all the religious and ethnic communities in Indonesia (Bruinessen 2002). Mohammed Natsir, a prominent leader from Masyumi was disturbed by the fact that the Jakarta Charter was rejected by a majority of Muslims. He set up a missionary council known as Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia (DDII) in 1967 and concentrated on missionary efforts among Indonesian Muslims. DDII established close relations with Muslim World League, a Saudi propagation organization which saw Saudi money used in promoting the conservative form of Islamic teachings also known as Wahabi or Salifi Islam. Wahabi style Islam grew in popularity as with the aid of Saudi finance, students were able to travel to the Middle East and be indoctrinated with puritan Islam. However, this is still a minority of the Muslim population in Indonesia. With the influence of Wahabi Islam, DDII saw the expansion of Christianity in Indonesia a threat and a Jewish-Christian conspiracy against Muslims not just in Indonesia but also all over the world involving Christian Chinese Indonesian and liberal Muslim thinkers. These ideas were supported by influential elements of the Suharto Government, including General Prabowo Subianto, the son-in-law of President Suharto (Bruinessen 2003). Extremist groups like Darul Islam and others that were an off shoot or had similar ideology continue to demand that the Jakarta Charter be added in the state constitution (Bruinessen 2002). Violence apparently linked to Darul Islam and DDII continued to erupt in the 1980s with a riot in Jakarta’s harbour, the bombing of the Borobudur a symbol of the pre-Islamic past, and several banks own by Suharto’s Chinese business partners. The downfall of President Suharto was brought about by years of corruption, nepotism and the economical monetary crisis. Prices of goods and services rose radically making life more difficult in an already difficult situation for the ordinary Indonesians. Many Indonesians lost their jobs and riots and protests broke out throughout the country demanding the President step down. Ethnic Indonesian Chinese were targeted and many Chinese women were raped as an attempt to create chaos by elements in the regime as an excuse to divert attention from the Government and restore order. Similar methods of terrorism were used by the military during Aceh and East Timor’s struggle for independence (Scott, 2008). Similar chaos was created in the islands of Ambon and Moluccas in 2000. What apparently started out as a petty feud, developed into a civil war between Christians and Muslims. Laskar Jihad, a radical Islamic group with ideology similar to Darul Islam’s Saudi-Wahabi teachings responded to the conflict by declaring Jihad on these islands and sending more than 2000 well equipped fighters to these islands killing thousands (Scott, 2008). These fighters were armed with, machetes, knives, bombs and M-16 assault rifles, an American made weapon which was used by the Indonesian armed forces (BBC News :2003). It was a known fact that Laskar Jihad had strong ties with the police, military and political elite loyal to Suharto and his regime. The unrest was aimed to disrupt the investigation of Suharto for corruption and his army generals for the violence in East Timor (Scott, 2008). Laskar Jihad’s leader, Ja`far Umar Thalib had apparently studies in Saudi Arabia and Yemen and took part in Jihad in Afghanistan and apparently even met Osama Bin Ladin, but he did not consider him a good Muslim because the late Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz Bin Baz had issued a fatwa declaring Bin Ladin a rebel that no Muslim should follow. Thalib remained silent when the World Trade Center in New York was apparently attacked by Al Qiada in September 2001 and the group conveniently disbanded in 2002 and his followers ordered to go home, a few days before the Bali bombing (Bruinessen: 2003). Thalib was arrested for organizing the unrest but was later cleared of inciting religious violence (BBC News: 2003). Conclusion In conclusion, one has to question the timing of this violence and whether it is really attributed to Islamic ideology or was it linked to vigilante groups using Islam to legitimize its cause, especially when most of these groups have links to the Indonesian military and political elites. Perhaps, those who joined such organizations did have genuine intentions of wanting to have an Islamic state and wanting to have a moral and pure community, but it is highly likely their leaders were wolves in sheep clothing were intentionally leading their flock astray. The appearance of fundamental groups in the name of Islam is not a new incidence in Indonesia. Indonesia will continue to have extremist threats so long as there is foreign financial support for such extremist groups, and so long as there are rogue element in the military and in the home and neighborhood countries that are ready to develop and make use of such groups to produce anarchy in order to encourage a number of agendas. The Bali and Jakarta bombings may have been the largest, but it is by no means the first. Indonesia has seen many terrorist attacks post independence, many of which used the Islamic agenda to promote their cause, but have shown to have Indonesian military involvement. Hence, Indonesia has been experiencing tremendous changes since its independence and is still making efforts to come out from its existing political and economic crisis. It is also believed that one of the keys to getting the economy on the road to recovery is to encourage foreigners to come to Indonesia, bringing with them scarce capital in order to establish new productive enterprises. References Aspinall E and Berger M (2001), ‘The Break-up of Indonesia?’ Nationalisms after Decolonization and the Limits of the Nation-State in Post-Cold War South Asia, Third World Quarterly, pp 1003-1024. BBC News (2003), ‘Profile: Jafar Umar Thalib’, 30 Jan, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/770263.stm Bruinessen Martin van (2002), ‘The violent fringes of Indonesia’s radical Islam’ ISIM Newsletter 11 Bruinessen Martin van (2003), ‘Post-Suharto Muslim engagements with civil society and democracy’, paper presented at the Third International Conference and Workshop ‘Indonesia in Transition’, organized by the KNAW and Labsosio, Universities Indonesia, August 24-28. Chossudovsky, M (2003), ‘War Propaganda’, Fabricating and Enemy, 28 Janhttp://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO301B.html Head M (2009), ‘Former Australian intelligence officer faces jail over Bali bombing documents’, World Socialist Website (accessed 30 May 2009)http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/bali-m05.shtml International Center for Transitional Justice (2008) “ Former Indonesian Dictator, U.S ally & Mass Murderer, Suharto, 86, Dies’ http://www.ictj.org/news/coverage/article/1500html Scott. P (2008), ‘the United States and the Overthrow of Sukarno, 1965, Pacific Affairs, pp 239-264. Read More