Decentralization and Regional Autonomy in Indonesia: Implementation and Challenges

13. Regional Autonomy and Its Discontents: The Case of Post-New Order Bali

329 Regional Autonomy in Post-New Order Bali 329 13 REGIONAL AUTONOMY AND ITS DISCONTENTS The Case of Post-New Order Bali Martin Ramstedt INTRODUCTION Habibie’s 1999 governance reform — implemented and revised during the legislatures of Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati Sukarnoputri, and supported by international donor agencies such as the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the German GTZ (that is, Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit or Society for Technical Cooperation), the United Nations Development Programme, USAID, AusAID, the Asia Foundation and the Ford Foundation (see Holtzappel’s introduction to this volume and also Lubis and Santosa 1999, pp. 345–46; Turner and Podger 2003, pp. xi, 129; Schulte Nordholt and van Klinken 2007, p. 16) — projected great expectations of enhanced administrative efficiency and accountability, political participation and transparency as well as macro-economic stability and equity against the bleak backdrop of the complete collapse of Suharto’s rentier economy. Yet, at least for Bali, since decades one of the most developed provinces in Indonesia (see for example, Interim Consultative Group on Indonesia 2002, p. 2), the preliminary results of the still incomplete, if not inchoate, reform seem so far to have fallen rather short: “Regional autonomy has come to us too early, we are not ready for it yet”, said Mertha Ada, a cosmopolitan Theravada-Buddhist meditation master of Chinese descent-cum-traditional healer of modern illnesses with a large 329 13 D&RA_Indonesia Ch 13 9/16/09, 8:54 AM 329 330 330 Martin Ramstedt clientele of discontent urban middle-class Balinese, Javanese and international expatriates. He was echoing a common belief among Balinese elite that blames the general preoccupation with parochial interests for the increasing fragmentation of the Balinese community. The growing fragmentation or decreasing sense of solidarity would quite obviously be detriment to the commonweal priorities suggested by the opportunities as much as by the shortcomings of the decentralization process. At first sight, this belief seems to resonate with what has formed a major focus of attention for Pamela Allen and Carmencita Palermo (Allen and Palermo 2004; 2005), Michel Picard (Picard 2005), Henk Schulte Nordholt (Schulte Nordholt 2007) and Carrol Warren (Warren 2007): the prevalent obsession of the Balinese with their own distinctiveness and interests in the name of local identity (kebalian), local tradition (adat) and “true” Hinduism. Ada, however, was actually referring to what many consider the downside of the current governance reform in Bali: the controversial revitalization of the traditional village communities favouring the interests of traditionalist over those of modernist Hindu-Balinese as well as Muslim and Christian residents; the empowerment of the district governors and mayors to the disadvantage of the integrative power of the provincial governor; increased regional legislation burdening local citizens with all kinds of additional levies and rents; and the intensified rivalry among local political figures boosting intra-communal fragmentation and common loss of solidarity. Allen and Palermo as well as Picard, Schulte Nordholt and Warren, on the other hand, were noticing growing ethno-nationalist sentiments, provincialism, isolationism, if not downright xenophobia, projected towards the rest of Indonesian society as well as the outside world in general. They, however, failed to consequently contextualize this trend with the ongoing decentralization process in Bali and to thereby hone their analytical lens. In addition, they missed the fact that affluent Balinese with residencies outside of Bali, especially the versatile Balinese community in Jakarta, continue to play a role in local Balinese debates and politics. These Balinese migrants are generally very concerned about the protection of the Hindu-Balinese identity of their home island as they often experience discrimination from their predominantly Muslim neighbours. For them, Bali has remained at least a symbolical “home”, that is, an important reference point for continual identification within the larger Indonesian political context, especially at a time when local identity becomes a major motivational force for local politics which again may soon threaten to turn their new “homes” into alien places. It is true, in 2003, public obsession with Balinese tradition, identity or adat congealed in the slogan “Ajeg Bali!” exhorting the Balinese people to 13 D&RA_Indonesia Ch 13 9/16/09, 8:54 AM 330 331 Regional Autonomy in Post-New Order Bali 331 “Strengthen Bali!”1 It was spawned by unresolved grievances from the New Order period, general discontent with the 1999 reform legislation and common shock from the first terrorist bomb attack in October 2002. Projected against the chimera of an...