The other day a colleague found herself in the
position of having to defend herself to members of a committee she belongs to
after having been called “a bad Democrat” by the Chair of the Democratic party
in her town for her voting practice on that committee. “I was just so
angry,” she told me, “and I don’t know why it bothered me so much, or why I
thought it was imperative that I defend my ‘honor.’ I had nothing to
apologize for; my committee certainly did not think less of me and understood the
stand I took, but boy, the notion that a bunch of people representing my
party had decided that because of something they didn’t agree with they
were going to declare me as 'no good . . ' well, it still pisses me
off.”
I started
thinking about this, this way that some groups can decide who’s a “good” or
“bad” member, and how members willingly buy into this on a large scale, as I
was writing the next-to-last post about Dar Islam and its advocacy of an “Islamist
State.” And how the original intent of
this group has been perverted and twisted to serve the specific will of a few
power-hungry politicians who have no real interest in sticking to the letter of
Sharia Law but who understand the Pavlovian-like response that most people have
to being called an unworthy member of a group that has given them, in the past,
some measure of identity and comfort.
If you asked
the average Acehnese citizen if they want the Sharia police breathing down
their necks, or if they want this new Sharia 2.0 implemented, or if they felt
that they themselves were good and devout Muslims, they would say heck no to
the stoning, the veil mandates, and the countless prohibitions of anything that
remotely resembles art or fun, and they would say yes I am a devout and pious
Muslim. Even the Aceh punks, who were
arrested a few months ago for wearing Ramones-like clothes, playing music,
dancing and sporting very snazzy Mohawks, regularly attended Mosque and stated
that they were extremely good Muslims. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Sbne-qCNzU; http://www.cvltnation.com/freedom-choice-punk-vs-sharia-documentary-now-showing/ )
Former
provincial governor Irwandi was in the position of losing either way when he
was presented with the Sharia resolution.
He didn’t sign it, but he did not come out against it either. He
couldn’t win-- the ulema (religious community) has everyone repeating the same.
. . well . . . catechism, if you will: “if
you’re against Sharia law, you’re against Islam” and nobody wants to be accused of that. (Zaini, the current governor,
signed it.)
For some
reasons these challenges (actually just name-calling, like “You’re a bad
Democrat”) are surprisingly effective in producing knee-jerk reactions that
usually take the form of showing the accuser just how [progressive, pious,
loyal, conservative, vegetarian, etc etc etc] we really are—including those of
us who normally couldn’t care less what “they” think of us.
The push for
Sharia law by de Tiro’s group in 1942 was the one way he knew of that would
(non-violently, he hoped) separate the Aceh constitution from the Indonesian
constitution. If Aceh and Dar Islam
could get Sharia recognized as the law of Aceh then it would be independent
with no ties constitutionally to Indonesia/Jakarta. Instant independence. The freedom was economic and social as much
as it was religious. In
1970 Jakarta was appropriating most of the profits from petroleum extraction in
Aceh. Dar Islam, revived again, wanted the profits to stay where
they were.
Currently
the ex-GAM/Partai Aceh politicians are pushing Jakarta further and further to
see how far they can goad the administration. The Sharia police may be causing
quite a kerfluffle around the province right now, but it’s my opinion that if
Jakarta really saw some inherent danger in what was going on as far as
excessive trampling of human rights, they’d come in and squash this
“resolution” like a bug. (Not because of
any worship of human rights, but because of the perception that Aceh was in
fact making and enforcing its own edicts when it has no legal power to do so.) The first foreigner who gets arrested for not
wearing a veil . . . the first non-citizen to be caned . . . and the Sharia
police get sent back to the barracks without supper. It’s just not enough of an issue right now
for Jakarta. Sharia law is NOT the legal
purview of Aceh, no matter what it says.
Aceh is autonomous, not independent.
But waving
the Sharia banner gives these candidates the sheen of being “pro independence”
which speaks to average citizens who remember the conflict. Problem is, their leaders do not. The ex-GAM
leaders have no idea what went on during the majority of the 30-year
conflict—they were all in exile in Sweden or Malaysia. Hasan de Tiro was exiled in Sweden for 30
years , Governor Zaini and his vice governor were in exile for the majority of
the conflict , de Tiro’s second in command was also exiled, Nur Djali, the
former head of BRA (the ministry for ex-combatants), was also out of Aceh. The list goes on.
All these
combatant leaders had no idea what was really happening on the ground—no
feeling for what regular people (or regular foot soldiers) were going through
because they were only in touch with their higher ranking members. If they had been in the field they would have
had more of a sense of fairness when the dust settled and the MoU was
signed. It was nothing for them to let
19,000 of their 22,000 members twist in the wind in the hinterlands, without
job prospects, without pensions, without government positions . . . because
(and this is the kind view) they just did not have any idea of how much these
people gave up to continue the revolution on
their behalf.
And it was
bad enough that they didn’t know what their own people needed and wanted, they
didn’t have a clue about what was happening in Jakarta. In Jakarta, as in other large political
communities, it’s a marker’s business.
These ex-GAM “leaders” did not understand the effects that political
will in Jakarta would or could have on Aceh.
They came back with nothing to trade, no markers to call in. No one owed them any favors, and in a very
short time they owed many.
Remember, former
governor Irwandi was seen as a “traitor” because he was not interested in the
“Sharia Law or bust” method of getting the best deal for Aceh. Unlike his colleagues, he did have some
contact with Acehnese during the conflict, and was exiled in Malaysia only briefly
(after spending some time in prison in Aceh until he escaped when the 2004
tsunami hit). But he had a better idea
of how politics operated in Jakarta, so he knew what might work better. But this moderate approach was seen (or spun)
as a “sellout” and a capitulation.
But even
with his minor understanding of the workings of Jakarta’s political machinery,
Irwandi could not fully understand how to set up a mechanism to appropriately
compensate or reintegrate the majority of ex-combatants into the fabric of
Aceh’s economy and social structure. Jakarta sent millions per month in
economic appropriations and allocations to Aceh, under the condition that what was not spent was returned to Jakarta. One
of Irwandi’s campaign promises was to compensate ex-combatants—and in fact the
BRA was set up to do just that, with a $40 million budget. Hardly any of it was appropriated, the rest was spent incorrectly, and the remainder, plus the monthly Aceh stipend, was returned to
Jakarta. No one in that group of Irwandi
and all his favorite high-ranking GAM people, for all their rhetoric, could
figure out how to set up the appropriate apparatus to compensate these men or
provide social services—they just didn’t have real-world experience. And it was far too much to steal, even for
them . . . so back it went, and BRA folded, a well-funded but
abject failure.
Now
this is pure Sara-based theory, backed up by absolutely nothing. I want to make that very clear.
But!
I
believe that this whole mess ties in to Probowa and his desire to have Aceh in
his pocket in order to win the presidential election.
Why? Beside the fact that he’s a vicious maniac
with no scruples?
He
will promise Partai Aceh, “if you vote for me and I get in, I will promote
Sharia law and you will be able to do what you want to do.”
This
would be a form of independence in
principle . . . but since what PA wants is true independence, and Sharia is
only the vehicle and not the destination, this may backfire.
For
one thing, what is to keep Probowa from going back on his word?
And
how will “true” Sharia affect Aceh’s economic resources that Jakarta is so fond
of appropriating? Speaking of which,
what self-serving politician in his right mind is going to grant independence
to its one true cash cow? [Think of now-independent Kosovo and its diamond
mines that are still controlled by Serbia.]
At the
end of the day Aceh will still not be independent, and it will have bought
itself a repressive system that nobody, not even the clergy, truly wants. Ratcheting up this issue just to gain
political points only makes regular citizens suffer.
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