Reconciling Indonesia: Grassroots agency for peace
... Legal actions do not even give relative independence from power and do not always offer a useful direction of reconciliation. What is more, in the opinion of others, one cannot speak of a universal 'reconciliation toolkit' (Bräuchler, 2009) through which a 'standard' democratic society can be achieved: there is no 'peace from IKEA' (Mac Ginty 2008: 145). It is essential that the transitional justice tools are Western world products, and are not entirely universal, and what works well in one cultural and social circle will not necessarily be beneficial for a society at different latitude and longitude. ...
... This observation is sustained by the existing literature on violent conflicts in Indonesia (e.g. Bertrand 2004;van Klinken 2007;Davidson 2008;Bräuchler 2009;Barron 2019), which shows that these conflicts are rarely binary but rather comprise multiple parties and stakeholders whose engagement and influence differs and often alters as the conflict progresses. 7 Peace is a communal outcome shaped by the interests of diverse parties who may choose to test its endurance and elasticity if doing so appears to advantage their position. ...
Indonesia has a large number of civil society militia organisations that profess to safeguard peace and security in society. Generally associated with specific ethnic or religious groups, these civil militias police their territories and threaten (and sometimes apply) violence in order to discipline wrongdoers. Their actions influence social order and peace, and while many are usually low profile and have limited impact, actions that bring maximum effect are crucial for their fame and reputation. We consider such actions as performances in which their perspectives on order and peace are presented and invite acceptance (or rejection) by society. This is done in ways that emphasise cultural or moral elements over the potential for violence. Using examples from Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Java we consider the effects of such public displays in shaping everyday peace.
... While there is sizable academic literature on Indonesia's religious violence and Islamist radicalism (e.g., Bertrand [2004]; Sidel [2006]; van Klinken [2007]), studies and scholarships on strategic approaches to conflict resolution and peacebuilding to minimise the violence and radicalism are still limited, though there are a few notable exceptions (e.g., Brauchler [2011Brauchler [ , 2016). Most scholars of Indonesian society do not pay attention to this subject. ...
This article aims to examine the rise of religiously-inspired violent extremism and Islamist militancy, which challenges democracy and civic pluralism in contemporary Indonesia. Additionally, this article offers possible ways of resolving conflict and building peace and dialogue with the radicals and Islamists in this archipelagic country. Following the political reformation in 1998 that marked the end of the New Order rule, violent conflict and Islamist radicalism broke out in some areas of Indonesia. There have been numerous types of violence in post-Suharto Indonesia, each with different roots, objectives,
factors and histories. This article, however, focuses solely on religious violence and Islamist militancy, and it examines models, approaches and practices of conflict transformation and strategic peacebuilding that are suitable for Indonesian society. This article emphasizes the role of law and justice, local power capacity, and some aspects of religion, local tradition, and culture as focal resources for building peace and resolving violent conflicts.
... 19 Her last sentence underlines what all of these "bottom-up" approaches for justice by civil society still need: for the state to take formal measures. On reconciliation in Indonesia, Bräuchler (2009) shows convincingly the need to have "alternatives" for meaningful reconciliation at community levels. While these "alternatives" are useful, they are not good enough if they do not lead to the state acknowledging the truth and taking responsibility. ...
The article examines both civil society initiatives that seek to address the mass violence of 1965 and 1966 and the state's responses to them. Unlike other political-transition contexts in the world, a transitional justice approach is apparently a formula that state authorities have found difficult to implement nationally for this particular case. The central government has, through its institutions, sporadically responded to some of the calls from civil society groups and has even initiated policy reforms to support such initiatives. Nevertheless, these responses were not sustained and any suggested programmes have always failed to be completed or implemented. Simultaneously, however, NGOs and victims are also voicing their demands at the local level. Many of their initiatives involve not only communities but also local authorities, including in some cases the local governments. In some aspects, these “bottom-up” approaches are more successful than attempts to create change at the national level. Such approaches challenge what Kieran McEvoy refers to as an innate “seductive” quality of transitional justice, but at the same time these approaches do, in fact, aim to “seduce” the state to adopt measures for truth and justice.
... There are a number of perspectives on grassroots movements as an outcome, specifying the conditions that lead individuals to engage in collective action (e.g., Hinkle, Fox-Cardamone, Haseleu, Brown, & Irwin, 1996;Wright, Taylor, & Moghaddam, 1990;Wright, 2001). Research in sociology and political science has documented qualitative and archival evidence suggesting that grassroots responses can be an integral part of a broader social movement toward peace and reconciliation, and that such restorative efforts have been effective in promoting forgiveness (e.g., Bräuchler, 2009;Kuriansky, 2007). However, this evidence is thus far only correlational. ...
In the political arena, grassroots movements often emerge that express remorse or push for a collective apology in response to ingroup wrongdoing. Often this comes independently of (or as a counterforce to) official responses by the political leadership. Research has not yet clarified the effect of such public expressions of remorse on intergroup forgiveness, nor has it explicated their role in a collective apology. We propose that grassroots gestures of remorse by collectives of the offender group may enhance intergroup forgiveness among victim group members because they exert a particularly powerful influence on perceptions of prototypical group sentiment. Four experiments (Ns = 434, 204, 600, 278) varied information about the provision of a leader apology and the grassroots public response to an intergroup transgression. Results show that grassroots responses can enhance victim group perceptions of offender group remorse, as well as subsequent feelings of forgiveness toward the offender group. In contrast, leader apologies generally failed to increase perceived remorse or promote intergroup forgiveness. Patterns were largely consistent across varying forms of grassroots responses (i.e., sorry demonstrations, letter-writing, social media buzz, public opinion polls), diverse transgression contexts (i.e., racial violence, carnage during combat, symbolic insult, ethnic conflict), and among different national groups. Results illustrate the potential power of grassroots remorse for promoting intergroup forgiveness.
... 29 Thankfully, as Indonesia's innovative transition gave way to stagnationthe 28 A key development occurred when, in 1989, the International Labor Organization passed its Convention 169, the first international instrument to reject the assimilationist approach to indigenous populations. 29 It has also been seen as an important, if problematic, mechanism for reconciliation (Davidson 2007;Bräuchler 2009). ...
This Element argues that after twenty years of democratization, Indonesia has performed admirably. This is especially so when the country's accomplishments are placed in comparative perspective. However, as we analytically focus more closely to inspect Indonesia's political regime, political economy, and how identity-based mobilizations have emerged, it is clear that Indonesia still has many challenges to overcome, some so pressing that they could potentially erode or reverse many of the democratic gains the country has achieved since its former authoritarian ruler, Soeharto, was forced to resign in 1998.
... Creative thinking is an ability owned by individual to formulate problem solving (Sternberg, 1988), in other words, an individual with good creative thinking ability will make such individual also has a good ability on solving the problems they face (Gee, 2003). Piaget (as cited in Bräuchler, 2009) stated that education main purpose is to create human beings who are capable in doing new things, not only use the previous generation's creation. Meanwhile Ginsberg and Opper (as cited in Hadzigeorgiou, Fokialis, & Kabouropoulou, 2012) said that the second purpose of education is to build understanding and how the students are able to verify and not easily accept what have been done. ...
Creative thinking ability development is needed to be implemented by every educator including lecturers to their students. Therefore, they need to seriously act and design their learning process. One of the ways to develop student’s creative thinking is using discovery learning model. This research is conducted in physics education study program in 2016 with students who took learning and teaching class as research subject. From the research analysis result and discussion, it can be concluded that discovery learning model can encourage students’ creative thinking ability in learning and teaching strategy subject.
... Some notable studies that break away from tradition and highlight local pursuits of truth and justice are those of by HeonikKwon (2006), BirgitBraeuchler (2009), and Alexander Laban Hinton (2010). ...
Truth commissions and trials have been applauded as the way to move on from a violent past. Yet, some post-conflict societies managed to move toward reconciliation without the presence, or the effective presence of such formal institutions. This article discusses a number of lessons learned from Maluku, where reconciliation took the interdependence path. Taking on an interpretive, emic approach, it elaborates on the sites and mechanisms of interpendence. It argues that interdependence can be as viable as truth and justice procedures in bringing about reconciliation.
... Therefore, the resolution of the conflict must be owned by the people. However, as in any other armed conflict, the local level is neglected despite the fact that the grassroots are usually the most affected by conflicts, and it is they who should be the main actors in collective reconciliation efforts because they understand the broader structural and sociocultural concerns and context in which the violence is embedded (Bräuchler 2009). The UN is aware of this, and during current Geneva talks Syrian women and civil society representatives should contribute to the talks. ...
The protest movements in the Arab world have taken different trajectories and have resulted in different political outcomes. And so we ask: What is so specific about Syria? Why does the violence continue? What has been done and what has not been done to end it? And mainly: what should be done?
... Recent work on the state of authority in Indonesia suggests that the integrity of government and the power of the courts remain weak due to the influence of established elites and subservience to local interests (Schulte Nordholt & Van Klinken 2007;Bräuchler 2009;Aspinall & Mietzner 2010). Aspinall (2013, 50-51) points out that Indonesia has a deep architecture of 'political authority…anchored in profound material inequality' and is built on a relatively fluid and cross-cutting framework of patronage and clientelism. ...
In this article we argue that efforts in Indonesia to improve access to justice for the disadvantaged would greatly benefit from a pragmatic approach that takes local circumstances of custom, values and social relations into account at least as much as legal reform and bureaucratic transparency. We maintain that in post-Suharto Indonesia ‘justice’ can be conceptualised as the inverse of injustice and is manifested in terms of sovereign interests. Ideal justice, such as associated with rule of law implementing programs, assumes a functioning of government and judiciary that might bring about such results. Building on our own research as well as on the articles in this special issue we argue that engaging with the role and meaning of justice should involve solid ethnography of justice-seekers' life-worlds, understanding of the strategies and institutions that provide justice, and paying attention to the networks and interactions that connect actors in an ever moving field.
This study revolves around the configurations of Dou Mbawa [People of Mbawa] in Bima, West Nusa Tenggara, eastern Indonesia, mapped onto the three main sociocultural-religious groups of Muslims, Christians and Parafu [followers of local beliefs]. It focuses on the Raju ritual as a ‘text’, representing social structures and dynamics of religious tension among the Dou Mbawa, which has been understudied in the existing works of literature. The central position of the Raju ritual is highlighted, as it is born from the cosmological worldview and simultaneously practised by all three religious groups annually. Such interwoven ambiguities occurred in the life of the Dou Mbawa, involving ideology, authority and agents or actors (religious elites), generating tension and confrontation that have led to Raju’s transformation from religious expression to cultural adaptation. Using ethnographic data generated from 2019 to 2020, this study argues that a Raju ritual is a political act that merely reflects the ideology of its supporters and shapes their capital bases and communicative actions to respond to social segregations.
Contribution: This article shows how the Raju ritual promotes cohesiveness and harmony for a religiously diverse community by creating a shared ethnic identity and exercising it as a cultural adaptation.
The chapter examines the Saudi government’s approaches and strategies of counterterrorism, especially since the reign of King Faisal (r. 1964–75). It examines the Kingdom’s initiatives of counterterrorism, anti-terrorism, and violence deterrence by highlighting their programs, policies, and measures related to strategies and tactics of counterterrorism, as well as examining their strengths and weaknesses or limitations in combating terrorist acts, ideology, and actors. This chapter puts emphasis on the Saudi government overall actions in countering terrorism as a mean of ensuring the security of the state as whole. The chapter aims to present facts and information about the Saudi government’s uneasy attempts at fighting terrorism hoping that international societies or communities are aware of the Kingdom’s long struggle in the combat of extremist and terrorist threats.
Official spaces for peacebuilding, reconciliation and coming to terms with the past are still very limited in Indonesia, giving the matter of creative peacebuilding and resistance enormous urgency. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, authors in this special issue look at the creative ways in which the Indonesian grassroots deal with continuing and new crises, including resource exploitation and the neglect of indigenous rights, communal violence and the exclusionary character of the revival of tradition, and increasing radicalisation and changing security landscapes. This article introduces some key concepts, including peacebuilding and creativity, moral imagination and transformative justice, and the main pillars of creative peacebuilding discussed in this special issue, namely culture and tradition, arts and media, and deradicalisation.
Although legal and political discourse on the resurgence of the adat have developed significantly since the 1998 Indonesia Reform, attention to the mental health of the Indigenous Peoples of Indonesia, the adat community, remains low. On the other hand, psychological analysis of adat mental health also focuses less on how the socio-legal dynamic of the adat community should be considered. Using the case of adat revivalism in the post-authoritarian Indonesia, this chapter shows that the continuing development project and the reluctancy of Indonesia’s government to recognize adat community, has threatened many communities and their members’ mental health. This chapter also identifies opportunities to enhance the adat community’s well-being through their common practices and local knowledge.
This article examines the historical background behind the recent reinstallation of Loloda’s kingship in North Halmahera, Indonesia. This marginalized group of people reignited their mythic narratives to renegotiate their centrality and power as a region, strengthening both their ethnic and cultural identities in the process. Through the narrative of the Kie Romtoha (Five Mountains), the activists placed Loloda alongside the four other mythic centres of Maluku called the Kie Raha (Four Mountains) and promoted the myth of Jou Tolo, a royal ancestor, to conform with the royal origin stories of the Kie Raha states. This article illustrates how the Loloda people were not only able to rise above their societal position by rearticulating these myths, but were also able to utilize these stories to facilitate religious reconciliation in modern times, despite there being a painful history of division between Muslims and Christians within this community.
Since the downfall of Suharto's dictatorial regime in 1998, Indonesia has witnessed a surge of various Islamist groups that have potentially threatened the country's religious tolerance, civil Islam, and civic pluralism. Moreover, it is suggested that the rise of Islamist groups could likely transform Indonesia into an intolerant Islamist country. However, this article asserts that the Islamist groups are unlikely to reform Indonesia into an Islamic State or Sharia-based government and society, and are unable to receive the support and approval of the Indonesian Muslim majority due to the following fundamental reasons: the groups' internal and inherent weaknesses, ruptured alliance among the groups, lack of Islamist political parties, limited intellectual grounds of the movement, the accommodation of some influential Muslim clerics and figures into the central government body, and public opposition toward the Islamist groups.
Since 2001, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been fighting domestic terrorism and adopting policies and strategies in countering radicalism and terrorism. How effective are these policies, strategies, and tactics in combating terrorist ideology, reducing the number of terrorist activists and sympathizers, as well as preventing terrorist acts in the Kingdom? Although the government’s roles and efforts in counterterrorism programs are fruitful and advantageous, further strategic actions are necessary.
Cambridge Core - Human Rights - Adapting International Criminal Justice in Southeast Asia - by Emma Palmer
When democratization took place in 1998 after three decades of authoritarianism in Indonesia, transitional justice became one of the agendas for the country. With the nature of compromised political transition, transitional justice brought together the interest of the elements who wished to challenge the repressive regime, and those who wished to distant themselves from the old regime in order to return to politics. As the result, transitional justice measures were successfully adopted in the beginning of political transition but failed to achieve its goals to break with the old regime and bring justice to victims. Today, after twenty years since reformasi, elements of the politics are consolidated, including those coming from the old regime. Transitional justice is undergoing a period I refer as “post transitional justice”. The main character of this state is the extensive roles of civil society. I argue in this paper that civil society, in particular the human rights groups, have important roles since the beginning of the transition in setting the agenda for transitional justice until today when state-centered mechanisms failed and led to post-transitional justice situation. These groups shift strategies to work from below and from the margins, which give strong character for post-transitional justice in Indonesia.
What do Indonesia’s democratisation efforts look like when examined from the lens of human rights? Using the 1965 violence as a case study this article analyses human rights and justice reform after the end of the Suharto regime in 1998. We argue that despite the initial push to adopt international human rights principles and transitional justice mechanisms in Indonesian law, human rights reforms have stagnated. Explanations for this include the weakness of the human rights movement preceding 1998 and efforts by parties implicated in past violence to block justice initiatives. Through a close analysis of recent efforts during the Joko Widodo presidency to address past human rights abuses we highlight a further shift away from support for international justice measures towards what have been labelled “Indonesian” justice measures. Although there is certainly a place for the use of culture-specific justice mechanisms, we argue that these new initiatives are instead underpinned by an instrumentalisation of ideas of culture to shield perpetrators from accountability. By highlighting the history of the use of ideas of culture to justify authoritarianism and reject so-called liberal values, we demonstrate why the latest trends are further evidence of an illiberal turn in Indonesia.
In Indonesia, human-rights groups initiated various efforts to address the 1965 mass violence and to push for state’s acknowledgement of the past injustice. For the last decade, these groups used a different approach by working with local governments at regency levels. This chapter examines the case in Palu and Solo, two regions where two non-government organizations and victims have attempted to formalize their initiatives for truth and reconciliation with their local governments’ policies. Wahyuningroem assesses the different outcomes of the two cases, and identifies the potential for expanding the approach to other areas in Indonesia in order to make a stronger case for national truth and justice efforts by the state.
This article examines the role of interfaith women in “religious peacebuilding” and post-peace accord reconciliation in the Moluccas (Maluku) in eastern Indonesia, particularly in Ambon city. For more than three years, beginning in 1999, violent conflicts between Christians and Muslims broke out in this region resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries. In a response to this violence, women from both religious groups worked together to bridge gaps, air tensions, build trust, and reconcile conflicting parties. Despite threats from religious militant groups, their peacebuilding work continues. In 2002, the Peace Accord was signed in part due to their efforts. Since creating peace needs more than a negotiated peace agreement, this article focuses on their peacemaking work before and after the signing of the treaty.
en Given the frequent failure of internationally established reconciliation tools, traditional conflict resolution mechanisms are increasingly integrated into transitional justice programmes in order to locally root peace. However, traditional justice mechanisms can be highly ambivalent; they can be, at the same time, inclusive and exclusionary, thus promoting peace or triggering new conflict. In Eastern Indonesia, where the author has conducted extensive field research, local actors took up these challenges and try to adapt local justice mechanisms so that they can cope with mass violence and the reintegration of conflict parties and society. Social engineering is promoted as one solution to the problem. This article looks at various conceptualisations and implications of social engineering – from a top‐down authoritarian to a bottom‐up participatory approach – and discusses how far this controversial concept and the deliberate adaption of local traditions to new challenges should be taken into account in future peace research and work as well as in anthropological debates.
Favoriser la paix par l'application de l'ingénierie sociale aux phénomènes locaux
fr Compte tenu des échecs fréquents des outils de réconciliation employés à l’échelle internationale, les mécanismes traditionnels de résolution de conflits sont de plus en plus intégrés dans les programmes de justice transitionnels afin d'enraciner les processus de paix au niveau local. Cependant, les mécanismes traditionnels de justice sont parfois très ambivalents; pouvant être en même temps inclusifs et exclusifs, favorisant ainsi la paix ou au contraire déclenchant de nouveaux conflits. En Indonésie orientale, où l'auteur a réalisé de vastes recherches sur le terrain, les acteurs locaux relèvent ces défis et tentent d'adapter des mécanismes locaux de justice de manière à pouvoir faire face à la violence de masse et à favoriser la réinsertion dans la société des personnes impliquées dans des conflits. L'ingénierie sociale est envisagée comme une solution potentielle aux problèmes. Cet article examine diverses conceptualisations et implications de l'ingénierie sociale, allant d'une approche autoritaire descendante à une approche participative ascendante. L'auteur tente de déterminer dans quelle mesure ce concept controversé et l'adaptation délibérée des traditions locales aux nouveaux défis devraient être prises en compte dans des recherches et travaux ultérieurs sur la paix, ainsi que dans les débats anthropologiques.
This chapter explores the ways reflexive practice guided two anthropologists through methodological and ethical concerns. In their research, Sakti and Reynaud both examined the ways societies deal with legacies of violence, albeit on different sides of the globe—Sakti in Timor-Leste and Indonesia, where she explored social repair among a conflict-divided community, and Reynaud in Quebec, where she explored experiences of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement alongside Algonquin survivors. As this chapter illustrates, their understanding of reconciliation as ongoing trust building or rebuilding (Govier and Verwoerd 2002) transpires not only in the way they conducted their studies, but also in how they considered issues of positionality and ethics. They argue that putting into practice their understanding of reconciliation was key to making their fieldwork ‘successful’.
Cultural approaches to reconciliation, those based on ‘traditional’ practices for peacemaking, have attracted the attention of scholars looking at post-conflict regions in Indonesia. Numerous observers have pointed to the revitalisation of the Tobelo adat notion of hibualamo in the province of North Maluku as a successful example of this approach. This paper disputes those conclusions and explores local strategies for peacebuilding and reactions to these strategies in post-conflict North Halmahera. I compare grassroots understandings of ‘reconciliation’ with those of the local elite behind this revitalisation effort. I also debate the concept of reconciliation as it has been applied to the region. Applying the concept of reconciliation, with its connotations of a positive peace, to the post-conflict situation in North Maluku is more of an idealistic view of the potentialities for peace than an actual reflection of reality. I suggest it is more appropriate to describe the situation as one of coexistence or negative peace.
This article aims to examine two major issues: (1) religious roots of reconciliation and forgiveness, which are often unfortunately forgotten in the academic discussion of peacebuilding and peace policy-related issues, and (2) Christians' and Muslims' attempts to quell interreligious violence and prevent renewed outbreaks in the conflict zone of Ambon of the Moluccas (Maluku) in eastern Indonesia. More specifically, it discusses the role of Ambonese Christian and Muslim leaders in the process of interreligious peacemaking and reconciliation. A comparative study of conciliation within Islam and Christianity, the piece investigates factors underlying Christian–Muslim collaboration for establishing peaceful settlement in the region. Unlike most previous analyses and studies, which have tended to undermine the contribution of religion in the conflict settings of Ambon, the article shows that religious identities, discourses, and actors have contributed to and also enhanced the chances for peace and reconciliation. Why and how Ambonese Christian and Muslim leaders were willing to unite to fight against religious extremism and eagerly pursue pacification becomes the central question of this article.
This paper analyzes the relationship between local oligarchs and the emergence of political dynasties in Indonesia and the Philippines. In particular, this paper employs an oligarchic theory to examine political behavior of local oligarchs in Banten, Indonesia and compare it with the case of the Philippines. Sets of literature argue that political dynasties in Indonesia are less prevalent than in the Philippines. In addition, unlike in the Philippines, the use of coercive power to gain political power is considered uncommon in Indonesia. However, recent developments show a salient trend of the emergence of family dynasties and the increasing use of violence undermining Indonesia's democracy.
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