Flowers in the Wall by David Webster

Author:David Webster [Webster, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Asian, India, World History
ISBN: 9781552389577
Google: 1RdBzQEACAAJ
Publisher: University of Calgary Press
Published: 2018-01-11T05:00:00+00:00

14

All about the Poor: An alternative Explanation of the Violence in Poso

Arianto Sangadji

In December 1998, a violent conflict thought by some to be “ethno-religious” in nature erupted in the kabupaten (regency or district) of Poso in Central Sulawesi province, an eastern part of the archipelago of Indonesia.1 Unlike most other regencies in the country, Muslims and Christians each formed about half of Poso’s population of 400,000 prior to the violence. The two groups fought along religious lines. Murder and the burning of property (houses, mosques, churches, public buildings, and vehicles) were common. As a result, around 1,000 people were killed and hundreds were wounded during the first three years of hostilities (1998–2001). Some 79,000 Christians and Muslims were displaced from their villages and around 8,000 houses burned.

In 2001, a government-led reconciliation process began, at which point the violence took on new forms. Until 2006, it took the form of sporadic deadly attacks on mostly Christian targets. Kidnappings, shootings, and bombings were common during this time. Since 2007, Poso has been engulfed in deadly tensions between the Indonesian security forces and Islamic militia groups; both sides have suffered losses. The militias are officially reported to have links with global or regional terrorist groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah, al Qaeda, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Why has Poso suffered violence? This chapter lays the groundwork for an alternative to mainstream interpretations that highlight ethno-religious affiliation as the major feature of the conflict. I argue that in order to gain a better understanding of the violence, we need a class analysis. For this reason I will look at the violence in the wider context of the historical development of capitalism.

The Context: Capitalism, its Crisis, and the Fall of the Suharto Regime

Like other outbreaks of communal violence across Indonesia in the past decade, the violence in Poso should be situated alongside the historical development of capitalism in the country. This is important because the vast majority of studies have ignored the link between violence and this modern system of exploitation.

First, I would argue that a major characteristic of capitalism’s growth in the archipelago is its unevenness. Historically speaking, this unevenness means that some regions have more highly developed capitalist social relations than others. Java, for instance, was well developed under Dutch colonialism compared to the outer Indonesian islands. This unevenness can also be considered from the view of the comparative development of economic sectors. For example, the vast majority of the population remains engaged in agriculture, with manufacturing and other modern service sectors lagging behind. This implies that the bulk of the population is best characterized as part of a reserve army of labour, since the agricultural sector is mostly associated with a subsistence economy and low productivity. The “reserve army of labour” simply means people who are working outside capitalist social relations but who are subordinated to the capitalist system. The active working population is limited. However, under the law of uneven and combined development, despite the fact that there

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.