Failed state

Armed gangs rule the capital city of Dili in East Timor. Mobs put public offices and private homes to the torch whenever they feel the urge to do so. Government warehouses are looted with impunity.

The situation has so deteriorated that foreign troops have been called in to help the beleaguered East Timorese government. This is the second time foreign troops have been called in this year to help restore order. Earlier, troops from New Zealand were flown into Fiji to help discourage a coup attempt by a rebellious military faction.

In East Timor, the current problem appears to have begun when 600 soldiers from the western part of the country were ordered dismissed by the prime minister. The soldiers withdrew in force, their arms in their possession.

Suddenly the government of the world’s newest nation seemed untenable. Sensing that, mobs began a rampage of looting and burning. The violence has carried on, despite the presence of foreign troops, that many foreign nationals have evacuated from the Timorese capital. Filipinos working in Dili have begun trickling back home.

Until the incident involving the dismissed soldiers happened, East Timor seemed to have become a country that has discovered its peace.

There was not much social conflict to speak of in this relatively simple community. There were no fanatical ideological movements nor sharp religious differentiations. The population was poor and backward, but independence has given the new government control over East Timor’s ample natural resources.

I suppose the leaders of East Timor did not suspect chaos would break out to the extent it has – and that once it has broken out, the troubles seemed to go on and on, driven by some perverse impulse.

When it appeared that the formal authority had no means to assert itself, all the dark impulses that normal political order holds in check are suddenly unleashed. There are many studies in sociology and social psychology that try to explain mob behavior and the tendency of societies to suddenly break down into an episode of chaos. None of these studies suitably equip us to avert such phenomena.

But the sad events in East Timor hold lessons for us, nevertheless.

Not too long ago, all the world celebrated the birth of this new nation. It was a new nation gifted with charismatic leaders. Many countries in the region rushed to help East Timor gain its bearings in the community of nations.

Every new nation is fragile in many respects. The new authority might not be universally accepted by the population it rules. Or, even if it is, a political culture of adherence to the formal procedures in the conduct of national affairs may yet to evolve.

Sometimes, even in countries of long standing such as is the case of Somalia, the existing institutions of governance deteriorate in the face of sustained challenge from the forces of disorder. The national state in Somalia, under the stress of famine and internal strife, simply succumbed. For nearly two decades now, there is no real effective sovereign authority in that forsaken country. Instead, armed gangs controlled by rival warlords, enforce their will by the barrel of the gun.

Somalia represents the textbook case of what, in the literature of political science, is referred to as a failed state.

It might be too early to declare East Timor a failed state. But, to be sure, the government of this new nation will require the support of international armed forces deep into the foreseeable future to restore order in this new nation.

There is no civil war in East Timor. No organized force is trying to take state power from the sitting government.

But while there is no civil war in East Timor, the state is incapable of enforcing rule either. There is rage in the streets, but not over any definable political cause.

The miniscule apparatus of repression by which the state enforces its will and ensures order has fragmented. Without that apparatus, there is great temptation to defy the rules of the social order.

This is what is happening in the streets of Dili: armed gangs roam and loot at will. They fire at anyone who attempts to stop the rampage. The armed forces have become completely unreliable.

Unless the international community steps in, deploying troops to control the insane violence that broke out, the orgy could go on and on, drawing strength from its own descent into chaos. The Australian force now in East Timor hoped that its mere presence would impress the armed gangs and restore sobriety in the streets. That has not happened yet: observe the footages showing the Australian troops watching helplessly as a mob storms a government warehouse and loot everything that could be carried away.

Those who have tried very hard the past few years to split our armed forces and undermine the state’s capacity to enforce rules should observe the events in East Timor more closely.

It might be reassuring that we have, comparatively, a more developed civic culture that East Timor. The events of the past year also show that the mass of our population is not quite ready to oblige false messiahs with uncertain political goals.

But ours, too, is a more complex society with strong undercurrents of social tension that could be sparked off by a wrong turn of events. We saw that in the events surrounding what we call "Edsa Tres."

In the metropolitan area, we have very large pockets of poverty where despair breeds like a plague. We are a nation dealing with active rebellions: armed groups that are bent on magnifying religious, cultural and income differentiations. All these armed groups are waiting for a cataclysm that would offer an opportunity for them to march to power.

In a word, although we have a more sophisticated state apparatus, we are also a society beset with numerous tensions simmering under what could be a very thin veneer of orderliness.

Let us not test the effectiveness of the political order by undermining it constantly, eroding its legitimacy for the sake of factional ambitions and continuously cultivating movements of blind rage.