I am still in Jakarta finishing off university work. Unfortunately an old illness, adhesive capulitis (frozen shoulder) has returned to hit me in the right arm. This is preventing me from doing any extended typing, as well as being generally a pain – in all senses. So I have had a bit less time to get out and meet contacts but I did speak at a discussion organized by PRAXIS, another organized by the Workers Accuse Alliance and attended the public launch of a new party PAPPERNAS.
PRAXIS
Last week, I was guest speaker at an event organized by a group called PRAXIS, a loose network of several NGOS, mostly smaller ones, and local single issue activist groups. (There are literally thousands of these active day – fragments of active dissent.) PRAXIS seems to act as a kind of resources secretariat for some of these, but it also organizes monthly forums.
The organization is headed by a student activist from the 1970s, Sylvia Tiwon, who has been based in San Francisco after she was forced to leave Indonesia. She is a lecturer at University of California (Berkeley) but visits Indonesia at least twice a year. Meanwhile, in the PRAXIS office, things seem to be managed by Wilson. Wilson was a leader of the PRD in the 1990s. He left the PRD around 2000 and has worked in different NGOs since then. It was Wilson who organized last week’s event.
About 40 people attended. There were several ex-PRD members as well as Dita Sari, Joko and Marco from the PRD. But the majority were from different trade union, student and NGO groups. The ex-PRD members included Mugianto (Mugi), who was based in Australia for a while in the 1990s. Now he is the director of an NGO working around the issue of the disappeared students of 1997-1998. Garda Sembiring, also a former PRD member and political prisoner 1996-1999, was there. He is involved in a group campaigning for the rehabilitation of the victims of the 1965 anti-Soekarnoist and anti-Communist purges.
I spoke on the relevance of the ideas of Pramoedya Ananta Toer to contemporary politics. Much of the discussion revolved around the issue of the national question, not in relation to Aceh or Papua, but in relation to Indonesia itself. Anti-imperialist consciousness did not at all develop during the Suharto years (1965-1998): the political profile of imperialist governments, international financial institutions and multi-national corporations was low, despite their big role in the economy. (Foreign debts soared during these years.) The Suharto family, its corporations and the military hogged all the profile. This is now changing as the profile of the IMF has grown, along with its influence, and anti-people policies are more easily identifiable as coming from outside the country, and then implemented by an acquiescent regime and parliament. In addition, as a feeling grows that economic recovery after the 1997 Asian financial crisis is impossible, so does a sense of national crisis, a crisis of national existence as a nation with equal standing in the world. The idea of an unfinished national democratic revolution, which the bourgeoisie is incapable of leading – Pramoedya’s basic proposition – is of increasing interest to people.
Another issue that was raised was done so by Dita Sari. She asked why did people think that recent discussions over a possible united front electoral response failed, despite being able to agree with a basic platform. Some of the people present were also from the Popular Workers Association (PRP) who were involved in these talks. Wilson, who is also a member of the PRP [NOTE: I received a note November 2006 from Wilson that he is now not a member of any political organisation.], and also Hilmar Farid, a non-party Marxist intellectual who was also present, were also part of this failed negotiations. But not much further discussion took place. There was also interest in comparisons between Indonesia and Latin America, especially Bolivia and Venezuela.
WORKER DISCUSSION
I accepted an invitation to give a presentation on Indonesian labour history to an educational discussion organized by a trade union alliance, Alliansi Buruh Menggugat (Workers Accuse Alliance.). Recovering the working class’s and peasantry’s own history is a fundamental part of the political struggle in Indonesia. Under the Suharto dictatorship, the writing of all history was under the control of the Armed Forces History Centre. Generations of young people who have grown up during the 1970s, 80s and 90s have lost 90% of their sense of Indonesia’s earlier history, The murder of 1 – 1.5 million people on the Left and the banning of all of the Left’s writings, including the banning of all writings by Sukarno, the most popular pro-Left writer meant that there was absolutely no alternative histories available to that offered by the Armed Forces History Centre people.
Most workers therefore do not know that the workers’ movement in the 1950s was able to unilaterally occupy and force the nationalization of around 80% of the modern sector of the economy. After Suharto took power in 1965 many of these nationalized companies fell into his or his friends’ hands while the bigger ones, such as Unilver and Philips, were returned to their foreign owners. Mass campaigning spearheaded by the labour unions also forced the Indonesian government during this period to repudiate the remaining massive foreign debt to the former colonial power, The Netherlands. A review of this history led to a lively discussion of comparison with the contemporary situation.
PAPERNAS LAUNCH
I attended the public launch of the Preparatory Committee of the new National Liberation Party of Unity (PAPERNAS). It was a very spirited event, with the hall crowded out with more than a thousand members of the Poor Peoples Union, an organization led the PRD. It is worth comrades going back and reading the 1998 article in Links # 9 (“Indonesia: organising the mass struggle for real democracy” – interview with Marlin). This gives a good insight to the political culture among the urban poor. They are semi-proletarian layer, deeply impoverished, exploited at every turn by both capital and the state, with both strong individualistic as well as collective tendencies. The latter comes from their neighbourhood rather than workplace.
It was clear that they had already had a lot of political discussion as they responded energetically (applause etc) to political points that went beyond issues that related to their immediate demands, such as critiques of broad national economic policies. Their immediate demands often relate to being expelled from their homes (if they are squatters), making sure they get their “poor cards” which get them a cash payment from the bureaucracy; getting into hospital without paying and myriads of other fights with the bureaucracy. But it was clear that their political consciousness had gone beyond that. Apart from anti-imperialist critiques of national economic policy, they responded enthusiastically to discussion relating to the plight of people in the villages. Many of the urban poor have only recently left the rural areas or still have family there.
The 1,000 plus people attending were mainly supporters from close in to Jakarta. But even so arranging transport for them to the venue would have been an enormous financial burden. Most proletarians and even more so the pauperized semi-proletarians usually have no excess money at all. On a day-to-day basis, this restricts their movements greatly, let alone being able to get to events across this huge city. In this case, they all saved for months beforehand to have the money to hire the old mini-buses that brought them to the venue, but their savings would have still fell short of the amount needed. Drinks and some little food also had to be supplied.
This points to one of the big issues for a small party like the PRD, whose membership and support base are from the very poor: how to raise funds. They must rely on donations from middle class sympathizers. But now they are trying other methods also: providing catering to construction workers, for example. It is a huge struggle.
See earlier post on PAPERNAS.