Victims of Abusive Phallic Power

A couple of weeks after Soeharto's resignation, the horror of the Jakarta riots screamed out of the dishonor, pain, and death of the victims of violence. The muted sobs and tears of Chaerul, 43, an ethnic Chinese father shook and shocked the deepest realm of our souls. He told the Human Rights Commission on camera how his wife and two daughters were burnt to death by a mob. He said, there is no sense for me to go on living. Or the story of Tini (not her real name) who saw her two sisters gang-raped in public then thrown to die into a burning building. A pattern of sexual abuse against ethnic Chinese women were reported around Jakarta during the May 13-15 riots.

In the next few weeks, we expect hundreds more female victims of sexual abuse will emerge; as they or their relatives find the courage to tell the world of their dehumanizing sufferings. Others will inter their shame with their bones, burying them in their family tombs of indignity.

Why are people capable of doing such beastly acts? Are Indonesians less human? I don't think so. Indonesians are no more or less human than other people. In fact, Indonesians are known as gentle and friendly people with a ready smile. However, for the last 30 years we have lived under a system that condoned abusive power.

In 1966 the Soeharto regime emerged victoriously from a violent power strugglewhich cost half a million human lives. The US and the West lauded the victory, because it was part of winning the Cold War. Subsequently, the "Free World" supported and cheered a regime that successfully rebuilt a shattered economy, at the cost of freedom.

Gradually military, political, and economic power was concentrated in the hands of a crony-group. They ruled the law. They crushed dissents violently. They gagged opposing opinions by closing critical newspapers and magazines. No other economic, political, social, or religious power center was tolerated; they were all undermined and destroyed. They evicted people by force from prime land to make space for their symbols of a privileged life: golf courses, expensive condos and shopping malls. Petty criminals, a nuisance to their life style, were shot on sight.

As a result, a practice of power abuse permeated our society. Gradually people began to believe that power is might, might is right, and abusive power is all right. In the end, we all looked up in fear and awe to the symbol of this concentration of power: Soeharto who masterfully practiced abusive power with a big smile. People follow the leader.

High school students highjacked public buses to go to school and settled disputes in gang wars on Jakarta's streets. Mobs beat pickpockets to death in public without legal consequences. Greedy businessmen and government officers colluded and looted the Government's coffers and our natural resources with immunity. Abusive power culminated in the social violence of the riots.

The riots have exposed the most powerful expressions of might in human societies: military and male sexual prowess. During the riots, we have seen plenty of their phallic display and abusive practice on Jakarta's streets: gun turrets on tanks and the rapes of ethnic Chinese women. I ponder, why didn't the guns stop the rapes? Are the guns going to ensure that there will be no more rapes? Are we all going to submit to the rule of law? Our lives as a civilized and humane society depends on affirmative answer to the last two questions.

Anugerah Pekerti

June 12, 1998