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Ask fervent democracy wallahs about the need for participation in society and a gleam will inevitably appear in their eye. Ivan Pavlov himself would be proud. Ask them specifically about optimum levels of participation, however, and a glazed expression counters the gleam. This is not so clear. Probe further and ask about homegrown methodologies for participation and a gray funk takes over their demeanor, shoulders droop and then hunch as they ponder: How do Indonesians participate in their democracy in a way that is purely homegrown?

This line of questioning came up recently in a discussion with a senior official from the Ministry of Communication and Information who was lamenting the behavior of students for aping (his word) Western ways of making their voices heard. That is, through stone-throwing, destruction, challenging authority, in short, partaking of violent demonstrations. It was only afterward that I thought there was something amiss in his assumptions.

First, do demonstrations in the West always end in fighting? Overwhelmingly, no. Demonstrations have etiquette — to coin a phrase, demo-etiquette — that includes a shared understanding of rules and regulations that are enforced by police and demonstration marshals alike to ensure that they do not turn violent. Indeed, much training for both marshals and police goes into this. Of course violence does occur when the rules are broken, and chaos is not unknown.

By contrast, in Asia it is not uncommon to see demonstrations end in anything from sporadic fisticuffs to death. Why is this? In Indonesia, some believe it is the penchant for “rent-a-crowds.” Many demonstrators are not true believers in the cause for which they are on the streets. Many just want a few thousand rupiah, T-shirts, drinks and the nasi bungkus that goes with it. It can be a lucrative business, and all you need is a good pair of lungs and strong legs to stand for a long time. So I have to disagree with my friend from the ministry on this first assumption about protests.

What about his second assumption, that demonstrations are indeed a Western phenomenon recently introduced from outside?

While the late President Suharto was successful in suppressing the use of demonstrations as a vehicle for dissent, another friend remembers in the late 1950s watching the storming of the British Embassy on the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle, and British oil workers’ private houses when it seemed that the West was a legitimate target for homegrown opprobrium. Demonstrations have been around in this country for a long time, and the ability and willingness to join like-minded colleagues and friends to march for a cause is not specific to the West at all. So much for the second assumption.

But just for the sake of argument let us say that demonstrations are not Indonesian enough to be condoned as a legitimate channel for local dissent. Then what would the homegrown institution of participative dissent be? A Gandhian, nonviolent action? Asian yes, but not Indonesian. The m u syawarah ? Surely both Arabic in origin and much more valid in a rural setting where villagers can thrash out points of contention while the men smoke and pontificate and the women stay at home. Not an ideal model for large-scale dissent.

In some parts of Indonesia where the p e la g a nd o n g cultures allow for villages to help each other through common ties, or in Central Sulawesi where a communal dance is an opportunity for men and women to hold hands, move in a circle and say anything they like, critical or otherwise, there are local customs for participation that are indigenous to Indonesia. But could variants become a vehicle for grievances to be heard? How could these be adapted for use in the cities, where many more people can be roused around a subject that has nothing to do with ethnic or village matters? Perhaps the Indonesian vehicles are out there and I am not aware of them.

One area where Indonesia has copied Western models of participation and has been spectacularly successful is the use of democratic elections. This has been the case at both the national and regional levels. Most recent elections have been truly exemplary.

This is even more exceptional as Indonesia is coming out of a recent history of election-fixing that was anything but participatory. Elections are a great opportunity for participation. The results of a well-run election say something real about society.

Returning to the earlier question of just how many people you need to call participation legitimate, if surveys have anything to say about it, the answer is remarkably few. Surveys generally sample a very small percentage of people to be declared statistically valid, particularly if the pool of potential respondents is big and the selection of those few people is done at random.

Indeed, we elect people to represent us because we cannot or do not want to be at every meeting where things are discussed in which we have a stake. Imagine everyone in Indonesia turning up at the House of Representatives to have their views aired on any topic. Chaos would ensue and even less legislation would get passed.

Thus it is not really about numbers per se, but about systems. Does Indonesia have systems in place to allow for optimum, if not maximum, participation? In some ways yes, in other ways no. For elections, yes. In the case of village meetings, musyawarahs and regional planning meetings, maybe not. As democracy backers are adept at pointing out, when civil society is asked to participate at all, usually it is men who have the largest voice, the most limelight, the greatest influence. Women, half the population, hardly get a look in. Children and young people, unless they are married and thus eligible to vote, are rarely asked their opinion.

In terms of participation, then, demonstrations are even more democratic than elections, as they exclude, in principle, no one. So the next time you are stuck in a traffic jam caused by a noisy man with a megaphone, do not be too dismayed. It’s participatory Indonesian democracy on the move, even if your foreign car is not.



Keith Hargreaves is director for business development and communications at Strategic Asia, a Jakarta-based consultancy promoting cooperation among key Asian countries.