Academic Freedom in the “Anxious” Democratic State

Indonesia and communism are probably two things that we rarely find close to each other in the public discussion. Having the so-called "black history" with the communist party back in 1965, it still appears to be a "taboo" to Indonesians to carry out any communist-related topics up until today. There is a severe prejudice within the majority of Indonesian society that to talk about communism in public always means embracing the return of communist party to Indonesian political system. Sadly, this keeps happening even when it comes to the sense of non-political matters.

But let's put that aside for a little while and let's talk about the other thing we can tell about Indonesia.

Long story short, after a long struggle against the dictator regime ended, Indonesia is now often made as a role model for democracy in the region. What's really attracting from Indonesian democracy is that, after the constitution amendment in 2002, the country was finally able to conduct the very first direct presidential election. Of course this was even more dramatic to see, considering the political transitions it had experienced can give a significant contrast to the narrative of journey of Indonesian political system.

However, that is not enough to reflect the exemplary success of a democratic system. To say that the country has showcased a proper example of democracy would be too naive for this time.

The reason behind such argument would be relevant when we see the fact that there's lack of exposure on the violation of democratic freedom in Indonesia, especially on the academic freedom. In 1998, Human Rights Watch released a report entitled "Academic Freedom in Indonesia: Dismantling Soeharto-Era Barriers" in which it mainly describes about how strong the government restrictions and indoctrination towards students in the era of Soeharto's regime.

In a part of the report it tells us about book censorship policy through the presidential decree, PP no.4/1963. This decree was initially used to "filter" the content of publications in order to keep the public order, back in the era of Soekarno. However, amidst the time of what's believed as a coup attempt in 1965, the decree was eventually used to ban all communist-related books and other form of writings.

We may have thought for a second that the era of restriction on academic activities is already over years ago. In fact, we may have been wrong about that. Indonesia's academic freedom is still under oppression for some reasons.

As a matter of fact, up to the date, academicians are only "given" such a limited room by the system in Indonesia to openly study about communism (also most likely other sensitive topics). Having the fear of being violently intimidated by the surrounding organizations, many of the academicians would choose to stop their activities rather than to put their life in jeopardy.

Take these for size, In 10 May 2016, a Marxist school of thought conducted by the student press body (LPM) Daunjati Institut Seni Budaya Indonesia (ISBI) was suppressed and forced to be turned down by a certain organization. Also in 19 May 2016, a seminar entitled "Marxisme Sebagai Ilmu Pengetahuan" (Marxism as a Science) organized by the executive student body of FISIP UNPAD had to be cancelled due to the threat sent by a certain organization. And what becomes the most ironic thing was the book raid incident in Yogyakarta in which several publishers and book sellers were forced to surrender everything that has affiliation with communism to the state officials around the celebration of national book day.  

Seeing from that perspective we can see that there is a serious backwardness in our society which involves not only the freedom of education in Indonesia but the practice of democracy in Indonesia. And of course, it needs such a big attention from all that those kind of interventions and policies which are initially intended to calm down the so-called "anxiety" of certain groups of people do not actually work as wished. Instead, it kills the freedom for the academicians and the whole young generation to explore the knowledge without restriction, suppression, and political control. This is also to emphasize that our democracy system is not yet entirely fulfilled by the proper practice. In most of the case, the way of approach of some organizations towards the academic institutions and activities is considered violent and counterproductive to the conduct of democracy. 

With that being said, if we try take a look into a wider angle, there is a big question whether or not Indonesia is still in the track of democracy, or should we actually sacrifice science to get the signature democracy of Indonesia?