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Indonesia's Political Symbols and Their Wielders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Herbert Feith
Herbert Feith
Affiliation:
Monash University
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Extract

A Striking feature of politics in Indonesia, as in some other new states, is the great importance of the government's symbolic activity—gestures, ceremonial, and ritual on the one hand, propaganda and indoctrination on the other. The Indonesian government of the post-1958 period allots immense resources to creating and maintaining particular attitudes and states of mind, in ways which often detract greatly from the effectiveness of its administrative and economic performance. This article describes this symbolic activity and suggests some hypotheses which may help to account for its importance.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , October 1963 , pp. 79 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1963

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References

1 I have argued the case for this periodization in Feith, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia (Ithaca, N.Y., 1962), 578ffGoogle Scholar.

2 See Paauw, Douglas S., “From Colonial to Guided Economy,” in McVey, , ed., 155–243; U.S. Economic Survey Team to Indonesia, Indonesia: Perspective and Proposals for United States Economic Aid. A Report to the President of the United States (New Haven, Yale University, Southeast Asia Studies, Special Publication, 1962)Google Scholar; Humphrey, D. D., “Indonesia's National Plan for Economic Development,” Asian Survey, 11 (December 1962), 12–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Economist Intelligence Unit, Indonesia (Annual Supplement; London, May 1963)Google Scholar.

3 See Legge, J. D., “Indonesia After West Irian,” Australian Outlook, XVII (April 1963), 13–16Google Scholar.

4 See Humphrey, , “Indonesia's National Plan”; and Guy J. Pauker, “Indonesia's EightYear Development Plan,” Pacific Affairs, XXXVI (Summer 1961), 115–30Google Scholar.

5 Both the speech and the catechism based on it are reproduced in Sukarno, Towards Freedom and the Dignity of Man (Djakarta, Department of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Indonesia, 1961)Google Scholar. See also Manipol-USDEK in Question and Answer (Djakarta: Department of Information, Republic of Indonesia, 1961)Google Scholar.

6 Sec, e.g., van der Kroef, J. M., “Javanese Messianic Expectations: Their Origin and Cultural Context,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, I (June 1959), 299–323CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Soemardjan, Selo, “Some Social and Cultural Implications of Indonesia's Planned and Unplanned Development,” Review of Politics, XXV (January 1963), 64–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Hirschman, Albert O., The Strategy of Economic Development (New Haven 1961), 24–28Google Scholar.

8 This concept of the political public is derived largely from the theory of mobilization presented in Deutsch, Karl W., Nationalism and Social Communication (New York 1953), 100–4Google Scholar, 240. There is some initial plausibility (and a great deal of convenience) in die working hypothesis that the Indonesian government's effective accountability is limited to the members of this public. I have employed this political public concept for the 1949–1957 period in Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia (see especially pp. 108–13), but would add that the usefulness of the concept is more restricted when applied to the more authoritarian situation of the post-1958 period.

9 This emphasis on the government's use of the Manipol-USDEK ideology should not obscure the fact that the various (legal) parties and groups also use it for their own purposes. Manipol-USDEK having become the language of all public political discourse, particular parties have seized on particular formulations of the ideology and made them dieir own. Thus repeated references to the Pantja Sila (Five Principles, including The One Deity) now characterize a group as being anti-Communist, whereas accusations of “pseudo-Manipolism” are typically made by Communists.

10 See Lasswell, Harold D. and Kaplan, Abraham, Power and Society (New Haven 1950)Google Scholar, 9ff., 244ff.

11 For some startling admissions of this, see A Year of Triumph, Address by the President of the Republic of Indonesia on August 17, 1962 (Canberra, Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia, 1962), 39–41Google Scholar.

12 Cf. Riggs, Fred W., The Ecology of Public Administration (Bombay 1961), 1046Google Scholar. and passim; also Riggs, “Prismatic Society and Financial Administration,” Administrative Science Quarterly, V (June 1960), 1–46Google Scholar.

13 See Hindley, Donald, “President Soekarno and the Communists: The Politics of Domestication,” American Political Science Review, LVI (December 1962), 915–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 The economic vicious circles are analyzed in Paauw, “From Colonial to Guided Economy,” and Humphrey, “Indonesia's National Plan.” I have described some of the administrative ones in “Dynamics of Guided Democracy.”

15 On skill groups, see Lasswell, Harold D., Politics: Who Gets What, When, How (New York 1958)Google Scholar, 97ff.

16 A Year of Triumph, 35.

17 On fixers, see Lasswell, Harold D. and Sereno, Renzo, “The Changing Italian Elite,” in Lasswell, Harold D., ed., The Analysis of Political Behavior (London 1947)Google Scholar, 158ff.