PEACEBUILDING IN INDONESIA DURING THE TRANSITION OF DEMOCRACY
Idham Badruzaman
Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
Abstract
Indonesia is a country with 633 differences in tribes and cultures (not to mention its sub-tribes), thus it has 633 reasons to be disintegrated both people and territory. However, there is a local wisdom in each region which ideally is functioned to be the fortress whenever conflict emerge in the surface. Unfortunately the local wisdom did not seem to work when the violent conflicts occurred in several regions in Indonesia during the transition of democracy which began in 1998, such as Christian-Muslim religion conflict in Ambon, Dayak-Madurese ethnical conflict in Sampit, and Aceh Free Movement-Indonesian military secessionist conflict in Aceh. The questions raised would be: 1) why the local wisdom could not be functioned well? 2) whether or not local wisdom had a role in resolving conflicts that occur during the transition period of democracy in Indonesia. This paper argues that the problem was because some local wisdoms were distorted during the dictator era of President Suharto, it did not work in the beginning of the transition of democracy, and it went back up again within the transition of democracy which enable them in peacebuilding and reconciliation.
Keywords: peacebuilding, transition of democracy, Indonesia, local wisdom
Topic: International Symposium on Social Sciences, Humanities, Education, and Religious Studies