The Evolutionist Anthropology of Ali Moertopo:
Agency and Coercion in Developing a
Pancasila Society in Indonesia
Greg Acciaioli
Anthropology & Sociology
The University of Western Australia
<gregory.acciaiol@uwa.edu.au>
Anderson's PARADOXES OF
NATIONALISM
 1)
Objective modernity vs.
subjective antiquity
 2)
Universality of occurrence vs.
unique content in each occurrence
 3)
Political power vs.
philosophical poverty
 Requirements:
 Altered sense of memory
 New framework of time:
 Homogeneous
 Empty
 Calendrical
Colonial institutions of power
effecting
shift of consciousness
 CENSUS
Abstract quantification/serialisation of persons
 MAP
Inscription of political space

 MUSEUM
Genealogising of cultural history
 Technology of print:

Newspapers

Novels

History
 What Anderson neglects:
 Sense of primordial origins demands a PREHISTORY
 Anthropological account of cultural evolution from origins
Indonesia’s nationalist project
 PANCASILA as national civic philosophy

Monotheism

Humanitarianism

Indonesian Unity

Leadership through consensus/representation

Social Justice
Pancasila in academic disciplines
 PANCASILA Economics: Mubyarto
 E.g. key role of cooperatives
 PANCASILA Anthropology: R.M. Koentjaraningrat
 Cultural diversity supporting unity
 Developmentalist rationale: Raising isolated tribes to the same
status as the societies of other ethnic groups -- ‘to general
societal standards of health, education and economic
development set by the government’
From suku terasing to suku-suku bangsa
yang diupayakan berkembang
 PANCASILA Cultural Evolutionism: Ali Moertopo
Lieutenant General Ali Moertopo’s career as
an arch-nationalist and imperialist
 Soldier in independence war
 Prominent role in ‘intelligence’ section of the armed forces
 Opsus: Special Operations unit linked to the army
 Oversaw the ‘referendum’ of integration of Irian Jaya into Indonesia
 ‘Act of No Choice’ (George Aditjondro)
 Participation in the ‘Confrontation’ (Konfrontasi) with Malaysia
 1974: Suspected of being the ‘pupper master’ (dalang) behind the violent
Malari demonstrations against the visiting Japanese PM
 1975: Promoted to chariman of the state intelligence coordinating body
(BAKIN)
 Prominent role in 7 December 1975 invasion (Seroja campaign) of East Timor
 Suharto’s personal assistant
 Honorary chairman of the board of directors (and co-founder) of the Centre
of Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
 Chinese and Catholic think-tank of extreme statist-nationalist leaning
 Member of the organising committee of GOLKAR
 Suharto’s government party
 One of the architects of the ‘Floating Mass’ concept: depoliticisation of rural masses
 1978-1983: National Minister of Information
 Appointment to the Supreme Advisory Council
Ali Moertopo as public intellectual:
Emphasis on the ‘strategic’
 1973: Basic Thoughts on the Acceleration and Modernisation of
25-Year Development (CSIS)
 Statist-nationalist economic policy based on modernisation
theory
 Two pillars to modernisation:
 Guaranteed state security
 Improved standard of living for Indonesian nation
 Social and cultural obstacles to needed economic growth rate
 Tightly controlled interaction with the outside world needed
 State ideology to be applied ‘to every aspect of life, to every
government institution and state organisation, as well as to all
levels of urban and rural society’
 Transformation of value system necessitated: ‘Modernisation
thus entails changing those norms which are no longer
functional, or which hinder change. Change should be
comprehensive…This requires that the model of the Pancasila
state be clarified and the principles of Pancasila applied to every
aspect of life, to every government institution and state
organisation, as well as to all levels of urban and rural society.’
 Planned social and cultural change necessary
Strategies of Culture (Strategi
Kebudayaan) [1978]
 Pancasila as the teleological realisation of a process of cultural
evolution that has characterised Indonesian society from its
archaic or `antique' beginnings
 BASIC CONCEPT in Moertopo's Framework
 Culture (Kebudayaan) as ‘[the process of] developing a
continual struggle in order to secure the victory of the process of
humanisation and avoid the process of dehumanisation‘
 Culture encompasses: mental attitudes, values for life, ways of
thought, ways of working, logic aesthetics, ethics
 Culture not a transcendental force (a la Kroeber)
 Power of human resource potentials: agency
 Power of choice: strategising
Resonances of Moertopo’s
concepts with New Order
 Culture as process of development (perkembangan) realised in
struggle (perjuangan)
 Fruition of spontaneous cultural development (perkembangan) in
New Order-guided Development (pembangunan)
 Parallel to `national culture' in Indonesian Constitution (UUD):
National culture as `heightening the degree of humanity of the
Indonesian people' (mempertinggi derajat kemanusiaan bangsa
Indonesia)
 Idiom of war in term ‘Strategy  Gr. stratos (troops) + Gr. agein
(lead)
 Active, transitive verbal forms: membudayakan (culturalise,
make part of one's culture)
 Parallels to V. Gordon Childe and Leslie White (‘symboling’)
Aspects of understanding culture
(I): Relational dimensions
1) relations with one's fellow human beings
2) relations with surrounding natural world
3) relations with God
 In its spontaneous development Indonesian culture
emphasise 1) and 3)
 Modern state in its ‘national resurgence’ bring an emphasis on 2)
Aspects of understanding culture (II):
Universal Elements of Culture
according to Koentjaraningrat
(following Kluckhohn (1953))
English version:
Indonesian version:
 1) The religious system & religious ceremonies
 1) Sistem religi dan upacara keagamaan
 2) The social system & organisation
 2) Sistem dan organisasi kemasyarakatan
 3) The system of knowledge
 3) Sistem pengetahuan
 4) Language
 4) Bahasa
 5) Art
 5) Kesenian
 6) The system of livelihood
 6) Sistem mata pencaharian hidup
 7) The system of technology and equipment
 7) Sistem teknologi dan peralatan
Aspects of understanding culture
(III): Universal Elements of Culture
according to Moertopo
 1) the knowledge system (sistem pengetahuan)
 2) the technological system (sistem teknologi)
 3) the economic system (sistem ekonomi)
 4) the social system (sistem kemasyarakatan)
 5) the linguistic system (sistem bahasa)
 6) the religious system (sistem religi) (SK: 12)
 [7) the literature system (sistem sastra)]
Aspects of understanding culture
(IV): The SUBJECT of culture
 SUBJECT of cultural development:
 INDONESIAN NATION (BANGSA INDONESIA)
 Archipelagic Society (Masyarakat Nusantara)
 `Our land and Sea' (Tanah Air Kita)
 ‘Archipelagic design’ of local cultural evolution
 Basic `AQUA CULTURE'
 (vs. `TERRA CULTURE' of other continents)
Aspects of understanding culture (V): The
Task of Development (Pembangunan):
Culturalisation
 Task of Development: `culturalise (membudayakan) the Indonesian nation’s inherent
aqua culture’
 Intersection of trade routes--> Open Culture
 Potential for ACCULTURATION (Akulturasi)as strategic process
 Acculturation:
 the process of intercultural exchange between two societies, involving persistent and
interpenetrative change and accommodation over a prolonged period of time. The term
usually is applied to contact situations where one society possesses a more complex
culture and dominates the intercultural process (Voget 1975: 861)
 Complementarity with Enculturation (Enkulturasi)
 Creative refashioning of transferred cultural elements in local image
 (Contemporary parlance: localisation (vs. globalisation))
 Akulturasi / Enkulturasi nexus insures priority of active human agency within
refashioning culture
Stages of Cultural Development
I Pre-historic period (Zaman pra-sejarah)
 Radical discontinuity: Distinguished at highest level of contrast with all subsequent periods
II Ancient Indonesia (Indonesia Purba): Functional consistency of constituent elements
 Knowledge about the natural world
 Indirect evidence through technology
 Sailing, Agriculture, etc.
 Technology
 Subsume livelihood/economic system
 Farming, Animal Husbandry, Coinage, Defence (Bow & Arrow)
 Social System
 Descent: Patrilineal, Matrilineal, Parental (=Cognatic?)
 Division of Labour
 Proto-democratic political system
 Language and Literature
 Oral literature: aphorisms, poems, proverbs
 Art
 Linked to religious expression
 Magic, Sacral observance
 E.g. Wayang
 Religious System
 Originary Monotheism: Prefiguration of 1st principle of PANCASILA:
 `One Great God': Tuhan yang Maha Esa
Stages of Cultural Development
Endogenous development of indigenous forms > acculturative subjection:
Identity and agency of the ‘archipelagic subject’
ZAMAN PENGARUH HINDU
 Hinduisation of wayang: Acculturation/Enculturation
 Kerajaan as political system
 Domain organisation of society: simplified caste hierarchy
 palace rulers (ksatria)
 religious functionaries (pedanda)
 common people (rakyat)
 Major effect on religion and art
 Little influence on knowledge, technology, economy
 Despite acculturation, basic continuity of archipelagic culture and society
ZAMAN ISLAM
 Kerajaan  Kasultanan
 Literature: Islamisation of wayang
 Introduction of Islamic literary forms: babad, hikayat, etc.
 Pedanda  Ulama
 Rise to prominence of fourth domain: traders (pedagang)
 Complementing the continuing three domains
 `Shift of atmosphere', not a transformation
Stages of Cultural Development
 ZAMAN HINDIA BELANDA (i.e. Dutch Colonialism)
 A transition of greater discontinuity
 Clash of dissimilar cultures
 Greater impact on material dimensions of culture: economy
 Not absorption/refashioning, but DUALISM
 ‘Juxtaposing’' contact outdo `associative' and `conflictive' contact
 I.e. Plural society (Furnivall)
 Emergence of economic or livelihood as separate dimension of culture
 7 elements of culture now apparent
Stages of Cultural Development
 KEBANGKITAN NASIONAL (National awakening)
 New awareness (kesadaran baru)
 Onset with Indonesian Youth Oath of 1928: NATIONALISM
‘We, sons and daughters of Indonesia, declare that our homeland/sea
is one, the homeland/sea Indonesia
We, sons and daugher of Indonesia, declare that we are one nation
(i.e. people), the Indonesian nation
We, sons and daughters of Indonesia, declare that we speak one
language, the Indonesian language.’
 Culmination of Movement of cultural development: Aquatic
Confluence
 `converged in the national estuary of unity, nationalism, and Unity in
Diversity' (bermuara pada kesatuan, nasionalisme, Bhinneka
Tunggal Ika)
 Hegelian assertion: Self-consciousness of unified nationhood as
a cultural subject
Teleological fulfilment of Cultural
Subject in Era of National
Resurgence / Awareness
 Culmination in New Order: not just a regime, but a culminal
phase or process in Indonesia’s cultural ‘development’
 Realisation of (spontaneous, unconscious) development
(perkembangan)as (planned, conscious [aware]) Development
(pembangunan)
 Emphasis upon (previously neglected) empirical, scientific
cultural dimensions
 Knowledge
 Economy
 Technology
Moertopo’s schema as New Order
and Javanese expression
 Ali Moertopo's emphases as typical of New Order ideologues
 Focus on (unifying) cultural development and avoidance of (conflictual) politics:
 1945 Constitution’s mandate to government to develop national culture (Art. 32)
 `National cultural development is acknowledged as being the basis for national development in
general. Indonesia gives priority to the development of national culture to enhance cultural
identity and national unity as outlined in the constitution and the state ideology.' (Soebadio)
 ‘Local genius’ = shared archipelagic culture
 Taman Mini Indonesia Indah
 `Archipelagic Culture' as focus of Bajau Exhibition to celebrate `Year of
Indigenous Peoples‘ (1993)
 Despite activist emphasis on agency, cultural subject is NOT the individual,
but the nation
 New Order regime acts for the people to realise awareness
 Corporatist and Statist: State acts for/as the ‘Cultural Subject’
 Javanist orientation:
 Mentalitet
 Humanisasi
 Division of material and spiritual dimensions of culture: lahir/batin
The Uses of Anthropology: A
Cautionary Tale
 Evolutionist rather than Evolutionary model (Toulmin’s
distinction):
 Teleology
 Master plan lies in or above history
 Hegelian?
 Parallels to other Western evolutionist social thinkers
 Herbert Spencer & John Lubbock in 19th century Britain
 Ideological functions of anthropological models
 `In the aggregate, evolutionists worked to realize a specific goal:
a society rationally managed, populated by a citizenry imbued
with altruistic motives, a society that expressed the forces of
history they identified' (Kuklick 1991: 106)
 Nexus of Moertopo’s anthropological framework and
(imperialist/statist) policy actions as a cautionary tale for
anthropologists
 Imperialist and Coercive Uses to which anthropological schemas
can be put