Human Rights and National Amnesia

Politics is a matter of humanity. Politics is not only revolves around power. When concerned with the politics of power, then power it should be celebrated in order to humanize humans. There, political merahimi human beings freedom of speech, of expression, and freedom from fear. Emancipatory political project is paved with universal human values​​. Without the universality of values​​, political power only exacerbating the line defect itself a political face. 

Politics is supposed to cause people to love life as she blends with other human beings. There, politics becomes a struggle to give birth to the common good. However, the real politics are often present in his form of the most violent. Lucian W. Pye in his book Asian Power and Politics (1985) writes, the ugly face of political power is often caused by the nature of the primitive (primitive power). The power of the primitive is a series of violent aggression and brute force to intimidate, which is associated with robberies, shootings, kidnappings and looting which negate the effectiveness of the civil authority. 

Lately, our society is beginning to explore the history of the reform period filled with primitive power behavior. People seeking justice forced the country to re-investigate the involvement of military actors in the shooting of students at the University Trisaksti and kidnapping people in May 1998 tragedy occurred because the imposition of the May 1998 tragedy is outrage incident with racial violence, sadistic and brutal. This event is a human rights violation. 

In ahead of the 2014 presidential election, violations of human rights into a sexy topic in political power. It is associated with certain military actors allegedly involved in cases of human rights violations are actively involved in practical politics and the 2014 presidential election in a political context, the tragedy in May 1998 on suspicion be selling presidential election politics. The goal is to delegitimize certain figures in the 2014 presidential election. 

Political skepticism is often played in the context of a power struggle. However, far exceeds the political context of power, violations of human rights in Indonesia is very important to talk about. This relates to the truth in the political history of the country. In the perspective of the victims, the people's right to know the truth behind the events of human rights violations, including the May 1998 incident here, the political history of the nation should side with the right. 

Siding with the true history is humanism. Poets from Czechoslovakia, Milan Kundera once said, "humanism is a human struggle against forgetting". Fragments of history that is not written correctly to form a fragile civilization. There, the public will continue to be haunted by the emergence opresor-opresor humanity. It happens because of the pieces of history that are not complete and the perpetrators of crimes against humanity did not judge. 

Justice is the face of humanism. In humanism, every human being has a right to life, liberty and happiness. Therefore, any action to eliminate these rights have to deal with court proceedings. It applies to the perpetrators (by commission) and intellectual actors (by omission). 

Related tragedy in May 1998, the perpetrators are still at large. Public demands that intellectual actor should also be tried. Here, the state must be present to open the historical truth behind the incident. The government should not be allowed and leave the people in ignorance and deception constantly. 

Leaders must demonstrate a firm stance regarding Human Rights violations. In the midst of the people who thirst for justice, firmness leaders also must be presented in a pro stance for justice. In this case, the attitude of "Pontius-Pilatisme" (washing hands) over the bloody events of May 1998 will only create a collective memory that is dark in the community. 

The search for justice in the May 1998 Tragedy alarm is a weak rule of law. When placed as a legal political footwear, then chaos is growing as a time bomb democracy. The leader is a democrat (democratic man) if true would make friends with justice and truth. Therefore, the leader must be the first person in defending people persecuted by human rights opresor-opresor. And, of justice for the people when the leader has the political courage to investigate and prosecute any human rights criminals. Let the court that proves a person is involved or not involved. Law can provide a sense of justice. There is no justice without due process of law! By doing so, he and the nation will escape the burden of a dark history. 

Thus, not only political power and seek to understand the extent of the general election, but sincere faith for justice and a better civilization. State as a political institution must bring justice in a society with a legal system that is fair as well. Without a fair legal system, people just attending a stateless (stateless society). When the state fails to present a fair law, then the state building slowly collapsed. Our nation will suffer from what is said by theologians Desmond Tutu as a "national amnesia"