The Rising Expectation Syndrome: a conflict situation

By Snake

Some may say it a heaven sent, others may view it differently. One thing for sure,  the United Nations in East  Timor: United Nations Transitional Authority (UNTAET) or  East Timor Transitional Administration (ETTA) has been doing and will do its role of  putting into order this once troubled nation.  But how long does it take, I think that  something matters.

Getting all acts together after UN is another thing.  One way may lead to another is a rational conclusion.  The people of East Timor through the perseverance of the Falintil  and the momentum of world opinion have somehow pushed this nation to a point that almost starts from the beginning. However, the point of no return that apparently is  ab initio can never be absolute.  Because of the so-called Rising Expectation Syndrome (RES) is very conducive and afflictive in the present environment.  With the rate of things are going, there are few indications which may just be insignificant to have an overall impact on the present effort but likely would  create a dent on any UN  magnum opus in the long term.

Nicolo Machiavelli once urged  in his immemorial adage "the end justifies the means" which exactly is the height of survival. This is a politico-sociological  philosophy that binds extreme radicals  to violate their sanity when it dictates for a revolution.   A priori convictions and mesmerized by a posteriori awareness provide the impetus for change.  This abstraction of change is in reality directly attacks  any form of civility but only countenances it when  such change has started to reap the benefits.

It may be sooner or later after the election next year in East Timor  when  RES will become pervasive.  This kind of affliction has its incubation period in the first place.  We may not even be sure when this becomes strongly resistant because everyone is eager yet to put this nation into order although sometimes affording redundancy with only few things accomplished. There is vast reconstruction concerns in  the immediate to almost  drowning the pristine consciousness of the people.  This can be safely said with people who are still living witnesses of various phases of nation's history specifically starting from the Portuguese colonization, the Indonesian Leviathan up to UN intervention.  It is also good to consider the younger generation who has only seen   one side of the picture leading to the encapsulation.

Generally, RES comes about when there is  transition especially when such change was intensely fought for by the people.  It  all points to reason that change is a suspensive condition that yields out a positive result.  Simply, it is by clear and convincing term, for the better.

In its historical context, the syndrome  is concomitant with change.   The Bolshevik Revolution in the last century was a revulsion of people against the threat of Industrial Revolution with the end in view of sharing with the wealth of production, thus adopting Karl Marx's phenomenal concept of communism.  We saw for a fact the accomplishments of capitalism had brought down the barriers of communism in our generation mainly because worsening living conditions in the communist landscape had forced majority of  believers to trade off such consciousness because of the relevance of  economic affluence and the promises of freedom. 

Among developing countries, every change creates its own hero and its own villain.  The exasperation of people wanting  of  a better life builds up almost naturally with the appearance of a leader whom they can identify their wishes and aspirations with and  thus creates a reciprocal obligation to be performed by the leader as the expectation syndrome is leaned on him.  Adolf Hitler adroitly manipulated such a consciousness in his time although he foundered into unimaginable defeat. Conflicts in Sierra Leone have intensified with a revolutionary cause.  Miloshevik's erstwhile Yugoslavia dumped him due to the rising expectation syndrome that worked against his hegemony which was translated  by his failure to govern and gain his people's confidence. 

It may be groups formed  which provide the necessary physical force to carry on the struggle.  In the Philippines, there was the Hukbalahap an acronym that stood for a cause against the Japanese invasion, and subsequently transformed itself as another insurgent group even after their primary mission has become moot and academic. 

This conflict scenario  is propagated by RES  that feeds itself with not only economic or political but also socio-cultural conditions.  East Timor was punctuated largely by a political urgency when it severed itself from Indonesian dominion.  Falintil, its physical force gets the credit for having persisted towards the nation's victory for independence.  Xanana Gusmao is the living symbol of that struggle and soon to be catapulted as the nation's first president in an up-coming election next year  can never be doubted. And yet the RES of the people is slowly taking notice.

The blue print of the United Nations in East Timor provides for the transition for self-governance.  With the  necessary  societal infrastructures being revved-up, some indications show that some people are becoming restless and even more impatient with results basically on labor and employment and even morality.  Of course the primary stakeholders  in forthcoming are the people themselves who had bolted against  Indonesian dagger.

In an article entitled "East Timor: Whose Future Is It Anyway?" by John McBeth reporting for Far Eastern Economic Review(Issue cover-dated November 9, 2000), he writes:

"IT'S BEEN MORE THAN A YEAR since the United Nations descended on the ruins of East Timor in a brave pioneering effort to rebuild a country from ground zero. By general agreement, the UN has achieved a lot, restoring the former Portuguese colony to life in the face of continuing violence and against a backdrop of years of neglect.

But among East Timorese, there has been frustration over the failure of the UN Transitional Authority in East Timor, or Untaet, to involve more local people in drawing up a comprehensive blueprint of what they want their new nation to be.

"We are not interested in inheriting an economic rationale that leaves out the social and political complexity of East Timorese reality," said independence leader Xanana Gusmao--East Timor's probable future president--in a rare broadside in early October. "Nor do we wish to inherit the heavy decision-making and project-implementation mechanisms in which the role of the East Timorese is to give their consent as observers rather than the active players we should start to be."

Precisely, that is what is being thought of as a very sensitive area which may bring about  the conflict situation through finger-pointing for any brouhaha after UN had long left the operation table.

Another is the pristine culture that some people would like to preserve as against the "freewheeling" culture and its vices.  "DILI, East Timor (AP)--Angry youths pelted U.N. riot police with stones Friday after a mob of 3,000 people chased four alleged prostitutes through the  capital's market and streets." This was a headline that came about a day before a UN Security Council Team was scheduled to  arrive in East Timor.

(November 10, 2000).

It would likely be that a generation gap is another factor that is fostered by educated people who are in a better position to view the real world comparatively.  The expectation would be very high from people who are already awakened by the lure of development.

On the one hand, let's not forget the vehicle of physical force that won the people's freedom.  It is initially a predictable force  at the start of the integration.  The integration may come so easily because basically they will form part as the nation's armed force and defense force.  But what is difficult though is the post-struggle consciousness of  the people who really took part in  the armed struggle because as of yet, they are still wearing the armor of invincibility for being heroic and by all necessity may act as the catalyst when the civilian government (to be created) founders at the take-off.  This is true not only to young nations but equally convincing  with developing nations afflicted with the same intensity of RES.  By that time, the military becomes a part of the power struggle if and only when  governance  falls short  than expected.

Such an inverse equation between RES over the actual delivery of  government translates into the amount of willingness of people to be governed.  This situation breeds power struggle so much so that  a group not necessarily growing from the residue of the past struggle may blow the wind of insurgency and gradually repeating the same cycle of struggle which may now be tainted not only by the  conviction of being independent but indispensably founded on ideological imperatives. Power begets power. The might wields that power and unleashes it when it is soon needed. 

This serves as a warning though.  The Rising Expectation Syndrome can not be faulted but must serve as a constructive indicator  for governance to do its best for its people abstractly  the common good.