Indonesia as an autopilot state

Indonesia, an autopilot state?

My talk today examines the possibility of classifying Indonesia as an autopilot state. I would like to say that, yes, Indonesia is running on autopilot to some extent. The phrase ‘to some extent’ implies that such autopilot mode does not necessarily encompass the whole dynamics of human life within a state. In other words, there are some parts of human life that run with the state’s intervention and some that do not.

Before going any further, let me explain the outline of my talk. It behoves us, first of all, to agree on what the term ‘state on autopilot’ means—otherwise, the talk would be futile since we have got different definitions of it. Afterwards, we will compare the idea of the autopilot state with a number of examples taken from the three dimensions of human life in today’s Indonesian society, namely the economy, politics and law. Finally, there will be a conclusion drawn from the analysis.

Let us imagine an aeroplane. Suppose that an aeroplane is a republic. The pilot and the co-pilot then would be the president, the vice president—in short, the government; the flight attendants represent the state bureaucracy and the market; and the passengers are the citizens. Now, according to German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, we ought to distinguish two aspects: the System and the Lebenswelt. The System comprises the state bureaucracy and the market, while the Lebenswelt refers to the world of experience lived by the citizens.

Having this metaphor in mind, let us proceed to two kinds of situation. If the pilot strictly controls everything, then the aeroplane is a model of totalitarian state. On the other hand, if the pilot gives up everything to the mechanisms of the bureaucracy and the market, then the aeroplane is a model of liberal state, which is primarily based on a laissez-faire principle. 

Therefore, when we claim that the Indonesian government is on autopilot, we are actually saying that the government does not intervene at all in neither the System nor the Lebenswelt. In other words, the passengers cannot feel the presence of the pilot; the flight attendants are the only channel through which they express their opinions.

However, one may ask: Is such situation true?


Unfortunately, there have been no clear-cut answers to the question. We can but take some instances with the hope of seeing the direction towards which this nation is heading. 

As for the economy, in January the government boasted Indonesia’s improvement in Moody’s credit rating, which previously stood at Ba1 and now stands at Baa3, making it among the investment-grade countries. Presidential spokesperson Julian Aldrin Pasha was quoted as saying that ‘Moody's rating of Indonesia is clear proof that this country is not run on autopilot’.

Despite the good news, one should remember that credit rating deals only with the System, particularly that of the market. It does not concern itself with the Lebenswelt, the real life world as experienced by the people. Consequently, it is pointless to say that Indonesia’s credit rating has been upgraded, or that according to the Central Statistics Agency the year 2011 saw an impressive growth of Indonesia’s economy which stood at 6.5 per cent, or that Indonesia’s 3.7 per cent inflation rate is the lowest in the Asia-Pacific region. All these figures are meaningless if the citizens do not reap a real benefit from it. 

Meanwhile, in the legal sector, one can see that there are growing piles of cases of human rights abuse that have never been resolved, among which is religious intolerance. More and more conflicts in the name of religion occurred in several parts of the nation. The dispute of GKI Taman Yasmin church in Bogor, the murder of three Ahmadis in Banten, and the persecution of Shiite community on Madura Island all serve as examples of the absence of the government from its duty to protect the minorities. Ironically, when the citizens were hoping that the government would come to their aid, the president limited himself to expressing concern, in lieu of taking a bold stance on the issue.

That is why the society has sometimes to put some political pressure on the System so as to be heard by the bureaucracy and the government. A good example of this is the fuel-price increase which was planned for 1 April. Albeit marred by violence, the rallies have successfully urged the House of Representatives to renegotiate the plan. As a result, there has been a better public policy in which the rich are forbidden from buying subsidised fuel.

We can conclude that a state is running on autopilot if it lacks communication between its components. In the Indonesian context, there have been cases in which effective communication was established and in which the state fails to listen attentively to people’s aspirations. And that is precisely what the civil society should do: to speak out and act whenever the System is seen to head towards the wrong way.

The text was presented at the preliminary round of speech competition at the Faculty of Law of the University of Indonesia, Depok, in April 2012.