Jailed PRD leader: 'We want to empower the people'
Since March 21, when the radical People's Democratic Party (PRD) relaunched itself as a political party that campaigns openly, rightist groups and political figures have campaigned for its banning. They claim that the decision of author Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who was aligned with the pre-1965 left, to join the PRD proves it is "communist".
On April 11, Indonesia's minister for home affairs, retired general Syarwan Hamid, stated that the PRD's support for a boycott of the national election in East Timor meant that the government may consider banning the PRD again. PRD leaders have been receiving threatening telephone calls. Meanwhile, the PRD's membership has been expanding at a phenomenal rate. Below is an excerpt from the speech by jailed PRD leader BUDIMAN SUJATMIKO read to the PRD launch.
The PRD has from the beginning declared itself a party of struggle committed to organising resistance to the New Order dictatorship. Our aim has been to establish a popular multi-party political system. The intention has been to empower the people in the political, economic and social spheres. This is clearly stated in the PRD manifesto.
We want an end to a political life dominated by a tiny elite. In a popular multi-party system, the people must be the determining factor. How can that be achieved? We have shown the answer through action. We established a party as an independent vehicle for the people. We have demanded a political system that allows the widest possible participation of the people. There must be freedom of organisation and freedom for political parties. The course of political developments has confirmed the correctness and appropriateness of this program.
Thanks to the struggle of the people, pioneered by the students, the people have seized their freedom, although not in full because there are still the heritage and the remnants of the apparatus of the New Order and the dual function of the armed forces.
New parties are sprouting like mushrooms in the rainy season. That is a consequence of democracy. Only conservatives try to block this. We cannot step backwards. The PRD will stand in the front ranks of all those who fight against anti-democratic actions. The PRD is for total reformasi.
Popular democracy not only means providing the opportunity for the people to voice their aspirations but also stresses support for the aspiration of the workers, labourers, peasants and other elements of the working class. The PRD will continue the struggle for a form of democracy where popular control is continually strengthened. We will struggle to strengthen the parliament, so that the executive will not be able arbitrarily to implement policy. The PRD proposes the institution of the parliamentary [as distinct from the presidential] form of government.
But total reformasi will not guarantee justice to the people. By justice, we mean the provision of equal opportunities for all to realise their material and spiritual potentials. Democracy must be accompanied by social justice.
The basic philosophy of our party is popular social democracy. Popular social democracy is a war against the exploitation of human beings by others, in the form of capital's exploitation of labour or the exploitation that arises from patriarchal domination.
We can only achieve this through democratic forms of struggle, which requires a system of popular multi-party democracy. We need not just [political] reformasi but also a struggle to establish more just social relations.
We call for a social transformation in the life of Indonesian society, so that there is no longer a concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite. We will not accept a situation where the freedom provided under democracy only benefits the forces of capital.
Some people tie the struggle for democracy to the process of globalisation. This is usually accompanied by the call for international capital to be able to enter Indonesia as freely as it wishes. The PRD is not against foreign capital, but the PRD will oppose any flow of capital into the country that is not subject to the control of the Indonesian people.
We have seen during the last 32 years how this freedom for foreign capital has caused suffering for the people. The uncontrolled expansion of foreign capital into the country has resulted in the massive exploitation of natural resources and has caused great damage to the environment.
Our struggle for democracy is not in the service of the global markets. Our struggle is the empowerment of the people so that they themselves will control all the material resources of their world, all the resources in the womb of their homeland.
When the PRD speaks of popular social democracy, do not imagine, as the old regime slanders, that we are talking about communism of the kind once found in eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union or China. We are among the most fervent critics of state repression no matter under what ideological banner it takes place.
An ideology that is rooted among the people must be able to break all shackles that limit, repress, marginalise and keep humankind backward; and this must be able to be done justly, honestly, ethically, peacefully, in a modern manner and with tolerance. Ideological difference is a part of the mosaic of civilian society that must be protected. Popular social democracy imposes the task of protecting pluralism and the rights of other groups, no matter how marginal.
Popular social democracy is a form of democratic socialism in which pluralism is defended and the economy furthers the public interest and improves the social and cultural activities of society. It can only be achieved democratically. It needs a society where the free development of each individual is the precondition for the free development of all.
The building of popular social democratic society requires a struggle against the exploitation of human beings by human beings and against patriarchal repression and which fights the destruction of the environment that is done in the pursuit of economic growth. For the PRD, popular social democracy is the struggle to sustain and to develop human culture, to defend human rights and to build a just society in which humankind's economic activities are organised in a democratic, civilised and ethical manner. Popular social democracy is a system of values in which freedom and independence, equality and solidarity, human emancipation, social justice, environmental protection and peace represent an inseparable unity.
The PRD rejects the neo-liberal economics that stands behind globalisation. Neo-liberal economics turns Indonesia into no more than an object of exploitation, of our natural resources and cheap labour.
The people have suffered enough! The people's misery has gone on too long! Now is the time for the people to establish their sovereignty in politics, economics and culture. Now is the time for the people to determine their own destiny and the future of Indonesia. There can be no more delay!