Moral and Political Philosophy
Written by Johanes Narasetu
Cover image Dasamuka by Bung Carol
Is forgiving a virtue? Yes. Should you forgive those who inflict you harm? Ideally yes. Can you really do that in front of the absurdity of raw and primitive power play from a Leviathan called the State? It is not easy, but the answer is still yes. However, what comes next following our forgiveness? This last question is a brief existential reflection on the unjust power play and manipulation of virtue which takes place in Indonesia.
I will first try to dive into an analysis of power and moral manipulation beneath Indonesia’s current governance, then elaborate what it means to forgive its barbarity, and close it with some justified attitudes that we can put beyond our forgiveness.
Power Play and Manipulation of Value
While ideally a State with its social structure must work in a hierarchy of excellence where individual merit is the primary determinant for success, such an ideal is not easy to apply, particularly in developing countries such as Indonesia. If you are in the know of what is going on in Indonesia’s public discourse surrounding Indonesian government’s public policy, you will easily grasp that values or morality is mainly controlled by those in power, namely, the government.
The claim about government supremacy over values is not without basis. Any public discourse in the virtual sphere, notably on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, which touches on sensitive subjects will have top-down communication from the Government and its supporters/buzzers with a predisposition that each public policy is good, and those who oppose it are not only wrong, but immoral and anti-State.
Take the subject of the regulation about the legal age for workers to take their pension money or the forced relocation towards the inhabitants of Wadas village to make a dam, for example. Any question from the people about its cause or any moral justification from the government is quickly faced with answers such as “it has been regulated in the law” in the case of pension money, or “Our intelligence has the tools to discern the fake news.” This is not including the number of buzzers on social media trying to labelise any oppositions either as anti-Indonesia or even criminals.
This top-down, patronising, and menacing communication is simply appalling. The State’s communication is visibly top-down, and its moral value is order above all. The reason why directives and order are liable is when there is information transparency and freedom of expression within the public sphere; something that is clearly absent in Indonesia at the moment with the government having the right to decide which information is liable and render what they deem unreliable punishable by law.
This is a perfect modern example of a tyrannical order, a barbarity.
To Forgive the State
Facing such a perilous situation where people need to be aware of what they can express for fear of criminalisation, it is entirely acceptable to believe that in modern times such as now, tyranny can still exist. It may not present itself in the form of explicit military dictatorship, but its corruption under the guise of democratic system and populist statesmen reeks all the same. You do not have to be explicitly nepotic to have your relatives sitting on a political chair. You are a dictator all the same when you force poor farmers to leave their house in the name of national development. Surely, you are stealing all the same even though your decision to rob people’s right over their own pension money, retracting from their own wallet, is legal by the law.
This barbarity is evil.
However, despite everything, I still would like to argue that forgiveness is possible. There might be no sense in trying to forgive a barbaric State, but this nonsensical act still does not diminish in value only because it is irrational. Forgiveness simply means cutting our ties with the wrong inflicted by others upon us so that we don’t keep on summoning hatred against those others.
Probably there is a reason why there is a sense of ‘giving beforehand’ from the English word for-give or the French par-donner. There is an idea of giving to others something that he or she may not deserve, but we give it anyway.
There might be a certain accordance between the wordplay of forgiveness and the psychological significance proposed by spiritualists across cultures, time, and places. The idea is that we forgive so that we cut ourselves free from the circle of hatred. Here there is a sense of mental or spiritual development not to let ourselves be consumed by our hatred. We forgive others for our own sake instead of for other people.
Christian approach to forgiveness also proposes something radical. While Christ forgives those who torture and crucify him, he ask the Father to forgive them even though none asks to be forgiven.
Despite the different point of view and different degree of forgiveness, one thing that is shared in common is that forgiving means acknowledging the harm done by others, and then cutting the risk of its vicious cycle by not submitting to our hatred and retaliation. We can actually apply this principle of acknowledgment and rejection of hate towards the harm orchestrated by the State. On the one hand, forgiving the State means rejecting hate and to retaliate to the harm it is producing against us. On the other hand, it is also a constant reminder that the State is not a dead political entity, but an alive one. It is run by people who can turn moral or barbarous all the same.
Therefore, forgiving the State simply means not falling into constant hatred against it by realising that its value can never be used to measure what is moral in our political action and disposition.
Confronting the State
Forgiving the State at the moment it displays barbarity either against us or others does signify a passive yes to its point of view, policy, and action. We can confront the State either by speaking up or revolt, and nothing is inherently immoral from either option. Whatever is bad is worth opposing, and everything human, the State included, is no exception.
This is why it is entirely possible to confront the State after forgiving its atrocity. We may refuse to let ourselves be consumed by hatred and drowned in bitterness towards the State, but it is by no means saying that we cannot confront it. Speak up if something is wrong. Put forward your concern in social media if you think that more people engaged in a conversation will benefit the pursuit of righteousness. Persuade others to be aware of who to vote for should you deem certain political figures hinder free speech and meddle with your human rights and personal space. Eventually, should any of these acts do not prove fruitful in the search of the ethical within the political institution, revolt; not a revolt with anger and hatred in mind, but revolt with a clear cause, to achieve the good which would otherwise be impossible should the same political figures remain in power over the State.
The idea of opposing the State is born out of a conviction that while it is moral to support the State, the State itself cannot determine what is moral. To confront the State also does not mean that we can revolt at any given time provided some dissatisfaction towards it. In my estimation, a good list of options is the one which considers every card in its deck, each of which is drawn after careful discretion. What this writing suggests is that as individuals, we also have the capacity to discern whether or not the State has turned completely immoral; and one of the signs when the State starts to go too far is the moment when it censors speech via its own law by using its own set of morality which suggests the State before all else.
Like it or not, the current Indonesia is leaning so much towards State supremacy-State morality which its citizens have to forgive before confronting. It is about time we realise that the call towards unity within the State does not necessarily amount to uniting under the State. This becomes more true especially because behind the political Leviathan called the State, there is a structured governance body regulated by human beings such as you and me.
Forgive them, then confront them.
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