Ten Utopias for the Indonesia of Frans Seda, 1926-2009

Frans Seda was born in the late colonial period, where the ideology of the ethical policy was the dominant discourse among supporters of Dutch rule. It was based in some sense on a divine or historical mission of the Dutch people that they should educate or lead the Indonesian people towards a mature and strong position in the modern world. Not political or economic gain, but the development of the Indonesian people was the proclaimed goal of this last phase of more than three centuries of complicated and often unbalanced relations between the two societies. Education for the Outer Island, including Flores, was entrusted to the Christian Churches. Seda's father was a teacher within the Catholic Governmental system. Frans Seda himself was not a passive consumer: he took the top of the opportunities offered to him. He went as the first of his generation to Muntilan in Java, to join the the best secondary education available. Colonialism has a good side: nations do not live isolated, make profit not only through trade, but also through exchange of ideas. Of course, the system has also many dark sides and Frans Seda joined the fight against colonialism in the period 1945-1949.
That other ideology of the period was nationalism. In 1926, the year Frans Seda was born, Sukarno graduated as an engineer in Bandung and joined the nationalist movement. Nationalism is in our short exposure here the second ideology. It stated that a nation should not live under a stranger king but should have its own national elite to lead the nation. It is quite well known that many nations flourished under stranger kings. Even our Dutch society was lead by the Oranje family, coming from France and Germany rather than being truly Dutch in origin. The nationalist movement was not strong in Flores and Sukarno was between 1934 and 1938 in Ende, Flores, in exile but not in detention. Later Seda would for a short period embrace nationalism, but never in a narrow sense.

A third overall discourse about an ideal world was the Catholic ideal of the Kingdom of God as represented by the Catholic Mission in Flores, which was much more than only a religious and spiritual movement. It was more or less a pseudo-state, in the general formulation of the time 'a perfect society' in itself, that recognised another society, the secular state. But especially in Flores much of the new social state was ruled by the clergy and Catholic rules. The old villages had been removed to new establishments along the trans-Flores road that was built between 1910-1926. Dutch colonial officials were small in number and the foreign mission personnel was about ten times that of Dutch administrators. The colonial officials even showed some envy saying that 'the mission seems to have nearly unlimited resources´ (Steenbrink 2007:102).

 Drawing above is by medical doctor Mathieu Wertenbroek, eating in the parish house of SVD missionaries, earlu 1950s.

The 4th ideology that dominated Indonesia between 19425 was the dream of Japan's rule of a Greater East Asia co-Properity Sphere. It had some elements of anti-colonialism, but in fact it was a new and even harsher foreign rule.

The period 1946 saw a tragic struggle between the old colonial power and two nationalisms in Indonesia. The new colonial ideology was that of a Dutch Commonwealth with semi-independent states in Indonesia that still would accept guidance from The Hague. Especially in the homeland of Frans Seda this was quite strong: the State of East Indonesia was the only one where already a constitution was written in 1949, where a parliament had started and where some kind of new feeling of unity was among the elite that this was a good initiative. But it was not general among the Indonesian population and definitely not among all elite. Frans Seda himself was living in Java and had a broader vision on Indonesia than the Dutch missionaries or the traditional feudal rulers of Flores and the other islands of the East. The State of East Indonesia with its capital in Makassar was short-living, already broke up in March 1950 in favour of a strongly centralist united Indonesian Republic. 

The radical or half-way nationalist ideas were in fact not really new ideologies, but just modifications of the pre-war ideas. A new and fifth ideology was that of a state based on 'Islam' or rather on shari'a rules. This was even for some time included in a draft of the 1945 Constitution (the famous seven words that 'Muslims had the obligation to live according to shari'a' whatever way it may conceived). In West-Java and South Sulawesi a movement for an Islamic State, Darul Islam, began, that only could be defeated in the early 1960s. But the drea,m of an Islamic State would continue: in the 1950s it split the first chosen parliament of 1955. After the Soeharto regime collapsed in 1998 many regions accepted rulings that section of shari'a law should be applied. Most radical in Aceh but in about 10% of all over 450 districts of the whole vast country.

The sixth ideology of Communism had its roots in pre-independence Indonesia. There had been efforts for a Communist rule already in the 1920s (small uprising in West Sumatra and in Surakarta), but in the 1950s the Communist Party and trade union became a very strong movement. Bishop Soegijapranata of Semarang kept good relations with Sukarno who was quite permissive as to the Communists, but bishop Djajasepoetra of Jakarta (1952-1970) and Ignacio Kasimo were strong against any cooperation with the Communists. They could not accept a division of rich and poor in society and the dream of a revolution of the proletariat. Sukarno coined compromises like NASAKOM for Nationalism Agama (Religion) and Communism, working together in a specific Indonesian construction. It would not work.

Another compromise that was not fit to work was the construction of the non-bloc ideology of non-aligned countries: non Western, not Communist. If we would call this a seventh ideology, we should at the same time concede that it was not successful. Nations must be independent, and at the same time cooperate. In 1955 Sukarno's international status rose high because the Bandung Conference was a meeting of fresh independent states like India, Egypt, Indonesia. Indonesia, or at least Sukarno sought inspiration in Asian-African solidarity against 'the West'. Slogans like New Emerging Forces became popular. But this was too poor for the complex reality. What about (Communist) China: was it just an imitation and ally of European Communism? Was it something different? The seventh ideology only was a negative one and not really powerful.

We should mentions here as number eight the Pancasila ideology, promoted by Sikarno since mid-1945 as the solution for the debate about an Islamic or secular character of the Indonesian state. Pancasila has known many faces since then. The Catholics and Protestants saw it as a guarantee against an Islamic state. Minister Alamsyah even once bluntly stated that 'it was a gift of the Muslims to the non-Muslims', because it accepted the religious basis of the state through the recognition of belief in the One and Almighty Divinity as one of the five pillars for Indonesia. It has national solidarity, democracy in its set of values. But in the later Soeharto period it was also used for the lack of criticism: the national feeling should not be hurt or spoiled by opposition parties or even open criticism of the government! In 1985 Pancasila was even declared to be the basis for all social and political organizations and so it became nearly a civil religion. Catholic spokesmen have defended Pancasila, from Driyarkara to Mangunwijaya and Magnis Suseno, but although it is still officially the real basis of the Indonesian state, it is not without challenges.

In the Soeharto period, 1965-1998 the central goal of the country was more and more formulated as 'development' and some kind of a philosophy of development and clear economic results became the national discourse. Soeharto accepted from parliament and congress the title of Father of Development, where development stood for availability of electricity, clean water, better and more rice, primary schools for all children, beginning of industry, stable economy through low inflation. Should we see this as a low key, no nonsense ideology? Frans Seda was the architect of IGGI and the return of IMF to Indonesia in 1966-1968, the beginning of the flow of foreign capital to the country. But it was development through government planning from above. Seda was also member of Bappenas, the national office for development planning, but this was in the beginning, early years of the New Order. In 1969, as a student of Nijmegen University, I joined the protest against the visit of Frans Seda to Nijmegen University. Firstly, because the psychological faculty facilitated the screening of thousands of prisoners; secondly, because New Order regime would become a hidden neo-colonialism, too strong Western influence on the restart of Indonesia after the disastrous last decade of the Sukarno rule. Looking back, we should ask whether there was another possibility and we should praise the realism of Frans Seda who helped to rebuild Indonesia economy in such a short period. Also development ideology has its dark sides, but definitely also bright perspectives and the decade of government involvement of Frans Seda, 1964-1973 must be seen as a period of many good decisions (working as minister for plantations, finance and finally transportation).

Finally, the new ideology after the abdication of Soeharto in 1998 became decentralisation, blossoming of smaller units of government. 'A government close to the people' with Dayak people ruling the Dayak provinces and the same for all regions. Many observers consider this period as a possibility for local administrators to imitate the corruption of the central government under Soeharto.
In this periodization not enough attention has been given to non-government organizations. Frans Seda has continued his work for the Catholic Atma Jaya University and many other Catholic and religiously neutral development organizations. I consider it as a surrogate for the Catholic Party and the Catholic trade unions of Pancasila that were banned between 1973-2000. He did not put all his hope on the national state or the local government: they should facilitate, but also give much freedom to private enterprise and after serving the nation as a minister and embassador the the European Union, he worked also a a private entrepreneur, besides continuing his social, and political activities.

Frans Seda was an outspoken Catholic. He was Catholic by birth and by social upbringing. He was known by all as a Catholic and did no effort to hide this. He never entered into strict religious debates: sermons and theology were for the clergy and he was obedient in these field to church leaders. But in his activities he was an open minded man who cooperated with all religious denominations and who did not like to foster the boundaries between the confessions. In this sense he was a truly nationalist Indonesian.