Dictatorship to Democracy Overnight in Indonesia

Hadiwinata/Christoph Schuck (Eds.), Democracy in Indonesia: The Challenge of Consolidation (Baden-Baden: Nomos-Verlag, 2007), p. 46-47.

The transformation of institutions can threaten the dethroning of a dictator’s grip over a nation, either leading to a brutal crackdown on citizens or the introduction of new inclusive policies. To dictators, citizens who are eager for change can be the death knell of an oppressive regime. For Tunisia, former president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, like many other rulers, eventually faced this threat. In 2011, the culmination of oppression and brutality led to the self-immolation of the young Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi. This triggered a multitude of protests that spread not only throughout Tunisia, but among other nations which came to be known as the Arab Spring. Countries experienced the Arab Spring in several ways, some of which were positively transformative, others which were unfortunately not. This paper examines the institutional transformations that occurred in Tunisia in respects to why the change took place and how it has affected the country. Specifically, Ben Ali’s authoritative rule, what problems were associated with the transition, and the aftermath of the revolution.

The main problems do seem to be on the surface but actually the problem that really big moral communities exist in Indonesia are so damaged. The humanitarian crisis that is very influential to the development of the Indonesia future now this fact impressed ruled out by the apparatus of Government. This would lead to its nation will be worse and is seen low by other Nations.

After Suharto ended his long dictatorial reign in 1998 there was a substantial increase in religious and ethnic conflict in Indonesia. Author Jacques Bertrand claims religious and ethnic conflict defined Indonesia’s national model. This resulted in three critical junctures during Suharto’s retirement of his sovereign rule. The three critical junctures defined Indonesia’s “terms of citizenship, and give meaning to the structure and procedures of an institution” (Bertrand, 20). When Suharto left as dictator, major political and social changes consumed Indonesia, which threatened the Indonesian realm. The people of Indonesia struggled to define their sense of nationalism.

Even though, in some region the violence has been occurred in small scale, but this Southeast Asian archipelago of 17,000 islands has effort to keep their ‘Bhinneka Tunggal Ika’ or unity in diversity. What makes Indonesia so unique is the diversity doesn’t come from the migration of other nations rather than mixture of thousand ethnics, languages, cultures, traditions, local religions and six world religions have co-existed for centuries. Therefore, in the future, the challenges of Indonesia are both maintaining global existence and national integrity at the same

People of Indonesia of that time was struggling and fighting for their independence. This is also how many “foreigners” think about the political status of the Southeast Asian countries. This was true about fifty years ago, but is completely changed now, by an extraordinary democratic transformation, as mentioned by Obama. The peaceful power transfer and the direct leaders’ election of Indonesia during these years bring the country “a dynamic civil society”, “political parties and unions”, and “a vibrant media and engaged citizens”. By discussing the successfully democratic transformation, Obama helps the “foreigners” gain information about what the real political status is in Indonesia, which enables them to rethink what they used to think about the Southeast Asia might have changed totally.

In my Rel 240 class, Introduction to Southeast Asia, I have learned many Interesting things from lectures, broadcasts, videos, and the textbook. For example in the video “Indonesia at the Crossroads”, I learned about how activists seek to return to their country back to its original way. More specifically they wanted to go back to the old traditional and moral values after period of rapid of economic growth. Another aspect of the video that intrigued me is seeing all the Christians and Muslim and other faiths living side by side in harmony. It’s a great thing to see such a thing because there is major conflicts and clashes between religions in other parts of the world that often leads to bloodshed. Another great thing that i noticed is that the Christians and the Muslim activists got together to try and return their country back to its moral roots and values and try to implement a democratic System.

Indonesia was founded due to the awareness of Indonesians that they shouldn’t look at the differences (Religion, race, and language) that they have, They thought this thing was very important at that time considering the needs to free Indonesia from colonialism that is not in accordance with the human rights; that needs then become a strong base to make a nation, which then called Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia (NKRI) (Unitary States of Republic Indonesia). While achieving that goal, there were a lot of struggles that the Indonesians faced, because it’s not an easy thing to unite the differences that every individual

In 2014 Indonesia’s new President, Joko Widodo, planned to end government corruption and improve the economic reform. Indonesia currently struggles with extreme poverty, inadequate infrastructure for the rapidly growing nation, and economic and social reform issues. It has implemented a 20 year development social and infrastructure revision plan beginning in 2005 and projected to end in 2025.

With the presidency of Sukarno, had the unifying struggle in order to just secure the Indonesia's independence; and that was the reason behind that the divisions of the society in Indonesian began to appear with the incorporation of regional differences in terms of customs, religion, the impact of Christianity and Marxism, and fears of the domination of Javanese political. To follow the colonial rule, Japanese occupation as well as the war against the Dutch, the new Indonesia actually suffered from severe poverty, a disastrous economy, low educational and skills levels, and obtained the authoritarian traditions. In addition, the challenges to the authority of the Republic were consisted of the militant Darul Islam who then waged a guerrilla struggle in opposition to the Republic from 1948 – 1962. (Taylor 2003)

The population of Indonesia since the year 2014 is mostly Urban (53%) which just tops the Rural (47%) population. The rate of urbanization has a 2.69% of annual rate of change between the years 2010-2015. Since 2014 this are the major urban areas; Jakarta (10.176 million) which is the capital of Indonesia, Surabaya (2.834 million), Bandung (2.513 million), Medan (2.182 million), Semarang (1.614 million), and Palembang (1.454 million). The information above is important but in this paper the main objective that I will be discussing is the political system, economic data, factors that keep are present that have the population growing and or regressing and the relationship between the United states and Indonesia.

Indonesia was acknowledged to be an independent country from Netherlands in 1949, and has experienced sharp downturns as well as booms within their business cycle. In the 1960 's Indonesia 's economy rapidly declined due to political instability, the government was too inexperienced to understand and maintain a stable economy, thus resulting in a major economic recession where inflation was at 1000% , there was minimal foreign investment and domestic factories were working at minimum capacity. Albeit after President Sukarno 's dismissal, The New Order Administration regained economic stability which lead to a swift decrease in inflation as well as a rise in foreign investment

Indonesia’s first President, Sukarno, was a highly respected for his pivotal role in Indonesia’s fight for independence, but his consolidation of political power and old way quickly swayed the people’s support, and forced his resignation. In the years following an unruly parliamentary democracy, General of the Army’s Strategic Reserves, General Suharto began to take the reins of power in his own hand. Suharto was appointed president from 1967 until 1998 and ruled Indonesia with his "New Order" government. He was well respected in his position until a severe financial crisis struck the country. Although Suharto helped to modernize Indonesia into the 20th century, the failing economy and call for democracy finally forced him

I argue that the state is a relatively weak player in delivering public policy in contemporary governance. I make this argument with reference to a program implement after the 1997 economic crisis in Indonesia. Djiwandono (2006) concludes that the economic crisis in 1997 was caused by the combination of weak domestic economic and inefficiencies financial structures and “contagion” forces from external. Specifically, the combination of external shock starting in Thailand in 1997 and the weak Indonesia banking system soon resulted a systemic banking crisis (Omori, 2014). Data shows that Rupiah depreciated 80% in just less than 12 months, economic growth slumped from 7-8% annually to negative growth of approximately 14%, inflation hiked from single digits to 80%, reversed capital flowed by $22 billion, unemployment rose by 5 million and poor people doubled from 12% to close to 25% (Djiwandono, 2006). On January 15, 1998 Indonesian government launched a program known as an “Economic Recovery and Reform Program” or “IMF-Plus Reforms Program”. This was a broad program which consisted of some specific programs such as currency stabilization (Rupiah in term of Dollar), hyperinflation prevention, banking restructuring, structural reformation, private foreign debt settlement and assistance programs for the poor (Ministry of Finance Republic of Indonesia, 2013). The aim of the program is to seize the decline of Rupiah, to restore market lost confidence in government, to deal with

This paper would first present three possible theoretical reasons on why the two countries diverged in their democratic path. A review of existing evidence to assess whether these reasons are valid would then be explored. This paper would then argue that, among the many possible reasons, the fundamental difference between the two countries was the reduced role of military in Indonesia due to an internal military conflict and upfront ‘bargains’ and the heightened role of military in Thailand due to their deep monarch relations. The paper would then conclude and suggest next steps to be taken to further investigate the issue.