Page 16 - SCANDAL AND DEMOCRACY

Introduction:

Understanding

Democratic Consolidation

While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the
short run, it is among the most fragile.
—Madeleine Albright, speech delivered at the conference “Towards a
Community of Democracies,” Warsaw, June 26, 2000

In May 1998, as the Indonesian capital of Jakarta smoldered from days of rioting,
arson, and gunfire, the aging autocrat President Suharto resigned after more than
three decades in power. With the nation slipping toward bankruptcy and separatist
revolts simmering in remote provinces, his vice president, Bacharuddin Jusuf (B. J.)
Habibie, took office, named a new cabinet, and promised democratic reforms. Less
than two weeks later, sixty supporters of the once-outlawed Alliance of Independent
Journalists (Aliansi Jurnalis Independen, AJI) gathered to discuss preventing a return
of authoritarian media controls, a defining issue not only for these journalists but for
the entire reform movement.
In marked contrast to the secrecy once required to avoid police raids, organizers of
this gathering invited television crews to film their proceedings, and a top official from
the once-feared Ministry of Information served as a speaker. In another sign of a new
era, when these journalists later marched from the ministry to the state-sponsored
Indonesian Journalists Association, instead of arresting them, the police led the way.
While the mood of this forum reflected the euphoria sweeping the country, many
were still wary. The editor of the English-language Jakarta Post , Susanto Pujomar-
tono, posed a critical question: Had the movement for press freedom triumphed just
because Suharto was no longer president? He reminded his audience of the dashed
expectations of 1966, when General Suharto, after deposing his autocratic predeces-
sor, had lavished special attention on the media before shifting to the repression that
marked most of his tenure. The lesson, Pujomartono said, was that though Indonesia
was once again entering a new era, the media could rely on neither laws nor the gov-
ernment’s “pity” to safeguard their future. Journalists, moreover, were still haunted
by the ghosts of long repression and deference to the fallen regime.
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The head of AJI, Lukas Luwarso, echoed these concerns, pointing out that news
outlets in this heady climate were behaving just as they had three decades earlier,
openly rebuking the outgoing regime. Yet history had shown the Indonesian press to
be no sturdier as a pillar of democracy than a pile of wood tossing about in the ocean.
Given its freedom, he said, changing metaphors, the press bellows abusively before
silently bowing in the face of pressure. Citing yet another metaphor favored by the
publisher Jakob Oetama, he compared the press to a crab who quickly retreats when