Indonesian Democracy: What to Do with Political Violence?
- DOI
- 10.2991/icsps-17.2018.6How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- democracy, collective violence, political violence, peace education
- Abstract
Perhaps the most common things to witness in Indonesian style of democracy are religious conflict and violent action that follows as the aftermath of the conflict. Across the country from burning churches in Aceh province to Poso riots, Indonesia is flooded with rigorous conflict and violence. Some might say that these are the consequence of the old government of New Order; other might claim that this series of struggles are part of our democracy learning process. Whatever the explanation, it is clear that democracy is questionable; is it truly the best form of government? The paper proposes that every form of government has its own merits; however, democracy appears to be the most beneficial although it comes with a price. Indonesia is indeed democratic, though the dominating top-down system seems to be still in existence. The paper depicts collective violence in Indonesia since the downfall of the New Order up until the Reformation era. It then explains the causes of collective violence and finally provides realistic suggestions and recommendations for us - the government and the people - to accommodate these conflict and violence. The paper suggests that political violence and religiously motivated attacks are treatable - if not avoidable - and peace education is imperative to accommodate them.
- Copyright
- © 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - Elyzabeth B Nasution PY - 2017/11 DA - 2017/11 TI - Indonesian Democracy: What to Do with Political Violence? BT - Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Social and Political Sciences (ICSPS 2017) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 31 EP - 33 SN - 2352-5398 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/icsps-17.2018.6 DO - 10.2991/icsps-17.2018.6 ID - Nasution2017/11 ER -