Introduction
p. 11-16
Texte intégral
1This book is the direct outcome of a panel on Timor-Leste entitled «How to build a new nation?» and organized in September 2007 in the framework of the EUROSEAS Congress in Naples1. Among the more than 40 panels held, Timor-Leste’s had been remarkably dense, with 20 presentations given by American, Australian, Brazilian, East-Timorese, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish researchers. At the time of this congress, the major event of 2006, which two years after continued to be called “the crisis”, was still foremost in people’s minds, conversations, and researches. While other events or forewarning episodes had taken place before that date, no doubt that the crisis of 2006/2007 had finally prove to be a turning point, for the country itself, and maybe even more so for international actors.
2Though presented at first as a United Nations’success story, especially when the territory was under UN management from October 1999 (withdrawal of the Indonesian army) until 20 May 2002 (independence of the country), the unity of Timor-Leste was then in peril, deceiving the expectations that had prevailed during the resistance years. Its climax was the conflict between “those from the West” and “those from the East” (“Loromonu-Lorosae” or Firaku-Kaladi), and a violence which caused a wave of internal refugees (around 150,000 IDP-Internally Displaced People). Beyond the causes and effects of this political and military crisis which had then spread to civil society, the “crisis” had also directly or indirectly revealed a certain number of dysfunctions, notably the deficiencies of the UN preparations of independence and of the capacity of East Timorese governing bodies to manage and organize the country.
3The year 2007, though quieter, remained however very tense because of the elections-presidential, then legislative-which changed the political landscape of the country. During the EUROSEAS congress of 2007, the Fretilin, the party historically representing the fight for the independence, had recently lost its majority to a coalition and a new Prime Minister who had been appointed on 8 August 2007: Xanana Gusmão, former leader of the resistance, who had just given up his position as President of the Republic in favor of José Ramos Horta, colaureate of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for his role as defender of the people of East Timor. The fourth government formed by Xanana Gusmão was then confronted to the necessity to find an issue to the 2006/2007 crisis and, at the same time, to the necessity to set up new ways of exercising power. Most of the articles published in the present book integrate in their analyses these two main constraints by exploring different themes and angles, even if it could not be foreseen in September 2007 that the country would a few months later narrowly avoid a new political drama.2
4The first part of this book presents some fundamental elements in historical perspective to understand the "difficult transition toward a new nation". Nuno Canas Mendes goes back to the “formation” of Timor-Leste, forever tied to Portuguese and Indonesian colonization, but also to “cultural roots” and to the means used during pre-and postindependence period to promote a collective effort around the idea of “nationalism”. It also shows to which extent the formation of a State’s identity is a multi-dimensional and a long-term process, and how the viability of a State is connected to its ability to answer basic expectations: safety, justice, and socio-economic welfare.
5While exploring the causes of the dysfunctions of the State, Christine Schenck focuses her article on the needs assessment mission, carried out by the World Bank in 1999, as one of the major factors explaining the difficulties met today in the construction of the East Timor State. She shows that, by that time, this mission concentrated more on meeting basic needs than on the construction of the State and, moreover, that the different Timorese components – local populations, chiefs of suco, and even Timorese leaders or experts – contributed so little to this work that the latter “did not feel in the driver’s seat.” In conclusion, she points out how negotiating statehood was initially largely an international affair.
6“Reconciliation” is one of the main challenges of nation building, between Timor-Leste and Indonesia, but also between Timor nationals themselves, notably between pro-integration and pro-independent individuals. Henriette Sachse bears witness to the role that the media played in Timor-Leste’s nation building. By focusing her article on the “Casa de Produção Audiovisual” (CPA), created and managed by the Jesuits, she underlines the involvement of this institution, in particular through the series entitled “História ba Futuru” “history for the future”, in the reconciliation process and the building of peace. Aimed at contributing to “the quest of a common perception of the history of the country”, the episodes broadcasted on television on a weekly basis, address periods and pages of the country’s history.
7The second part of the book deals with socio-cultural identities and factors. Paulo Seixas analyzes the crisis of 2006 as a founding moment of the Nation, and as a “first ritual war”, post independence, during which the core cultural problem of Timor-Leste was revealed: Translation of Traditions. With this crisis, several pasts were brought to the front stage and put into discussion, which ultimately led to violence. This violence, as evidence of a crisis, has to be discussed in itself in order to translate it, the only way of creating a future.
8The crisis of 2006 and more precisely the conflict "Lorosa'e/Loromonu" constitutes the main core of David Hicks’article. The paper examines and assesses the distinction as an authentic verbal model of Timorese socio-political identity, and to question the extent to which it is sociologically and politically viable. By doing so, this article overviews the geographic, historic, “ethnic”, and “sociological” contours of this distinction and questions the use of the conflict for political purposes.
9Alex Loch analyses through three dimensions (“tradition”, “modernity” and “catholicism”) the parameters of state building on national and local scales, especially at the level of the village, a fundamental element in a country where more than 80% of the population lives from subsistence farming in rural settings. He emphasizes how these three dimensions cohabit on a daily basis, without excluding each other, and how one of the challenges to build “an imagined modern community” is to integrate traditional concepts and catholic values because, in case of a crisis, if a choice of priorities must be made, it would be as follows: “First the house, then the church and finally the modern state”.
10From his side, Lúcio Sousa examines viewpoints from the so called “periphery”, i.e. from the countryside far from Dili. His paper intends to discuss the place and role of traditional political – ritual officialdom in the context of the new nation. The mountains and its inhabitants tend to be neglected, and depicted as inaccessible, peripherical and passive in opposition to the active role clamed to be played by the central State and the Church. His observations rely on ethnographic fieldwork made among the Bunak of East Timor in a small village in the mountains of Bobonaro, near the border with Indonesia. It presents the way local identity is constructed through a preserved tradition of oral history which depicts the region as the centre and origin of the world and the renewed practice of community rituals.
11Politics, legitimacy and electoral processes constitute the third part of the book. Rui Graça Feijó studies the results of the elections of 2007, presidential and parliamentary, as the outcome of five years of the first political cycle of the country. In spite of a serious crisis that paralyzed much of the country in 2006, the attachment to constitutional procedures during this electoral period (3 votes in 3 months), were demonstrated by numerous elements such as: the number of voters, the calm which surrounded these elections, the plurality of the parties represented etc. In this sense, if a number of challenges remain for the political actors, the electoral cycle of 2007 may be interpreted as a clear sign of progress in the consolidation of democracy in Timor-Leste.
12In the context of the dynamics of the presidential pools in 2007, Kelly Silva’s text discusses the claims and dispute for political legitimacy in the East Timorese state-building process. The paper presents the sociological and moral principles under which political authority is sought by East-Timorese local elites from the main political parties. This work has been undertaken mainly through ethnographic observations of the electoral rituals – rallies, radio and television broadcasts, newspaper coverage. It shows the prevalence of value-ideas such as suffering, dignity and recognition in the repertoire of East Timorese contemporary political culture.
13Coming back to the International community’s institutional top-down understanding of conflicts, which appears significantly different from the “Timorese experience” of violence, Sara Gonzalez-Devant offers an analysis of the role of the crisis in the nation-building process. Approaching the conflict not as Timorese state-failing but rather as Timorese society engaging in nation-building can help avoid both mystifying and over-rationalising the 2006/07 crisis.
14After these analyses on the anthropological, historical and political backgrounds of the emerging of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, and on the factors of socio-cultural identity of the country, the fourth part of this book: “Tracks for the construction of future” offers the occasion to reassess the recent changes in perspective of present and future projects and prospects. Frédéric Durand’s text: “Crisis and uncertainties as a sign of a lack of Timorese society project” studies the main elements of the rhetoric used during the time of the accession to independence and the first years of the new state. It often recalls political declarations made by the international community about Timor in the 1970’s. In this context, the concepts of “viability” and of “poverty” that have regularly been associated to Timor-Leste’s need to be questioned. Similarly the importance and the impact of international aid has to be reviewed not only “positively”, but also as a possible factor of destabilization. The four main crisis faced by the country between 2002 and 2008 can also be analyzed in terms of ideological contractions between the political leaders, naïves visions from international experts and a lack of real East-Timorese project of society for the future.
15To further deepen those questions, Jacqueline Aquino Siapno’s paper “Human Safety, Security and resilience: making narrative spaces for dissent in Timor-Leste” focuses on who is reading, representing, interpreting, and producing knowledge in Timor-Leste, and about whom and what, notably through the analysis of political speeches and declarations. It shows the really wide gap that often exists between state ideals and everyday reality. Those “ideals” are disconnected from local knowledge, local methods of governance, cosmologies, paradigms, etc., and they might create more problems than improvements, as they may mainly benefit an exclusive elite and depend on an external “rule of experts”.
16The last article of this book: “Thinking Tourism in the sustainable development era in Timor-Leste: a tourism policy emerging from the grass roots level”, by Christine Cabasset-Semedo, comes back to tourism policies and main factors and actors of tourism activity. This sector, though considered by all successive governments as a means to develop the country’s economy and to fight poverty, nevertheless received little attention for years, when the focus was mainly put on the country's image and on attracting foreign investment. Her article shows that small entrepreneurs, and a number of private initiatives, especially those coming from the districts, can become essential players in the emerging tourist industry of Timor-Leste, particularly in a context where the gap between Dili and the rest of the country has severely increased during these last few years.
Notes de bas de page
1 European Association for South-East Asian Studies, see http://www.euroseas.org/platform/en/content/5th-euroseas-conferences-naples-2007
2 On 11 February 2008, the rebel leaders Alfredo Reinado and Gastão Salsinha organized a joint attack in Dili against President José Ramos Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão. Alfredo Reinado was killed during the operation while José Ramos Horta, wounded in the stomach, had to be hospitalized in Australia where he stayed for several months of convalescence.
Auteurs
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Christine Cabasset-Semedo
Christine Cabasset-Semedo holds a PhD in Geography and Planning (Paris-Sorbonne), she's part-time university lecturer in several French universities, and works also as an expert and adviser on tourism. For the last 15 years, her academic research focused on different aspects of tourism and notably: socio-economic integration, spatial concentration/extension, contribution to national unity… Her main field surveys were undertaken in Southeast Asia, and particularly in Indonesia and Timor-Leste, topics and countries on which she published many articles. For the past ten years, she visits almost annually Timor-Leste. Her 2007 and 2008 missions to enhance teaching of tourism at the National University of Timor Lorosa'e were supported by the France Embassy in Indonesia and East-Timor. Contact: christine.cabasset@free.fr
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Frédéric Durand
Frédéric Durand is Associate-Professor in Geography at University Toulouse II-Le Mirail, member of the CNRS Center for Southeast Asian Studies in Paris (UMR 8170), and currently Director of the Malaysia-France University Center in Kuala Lumpur. Author of more than ten books on Southeast Asia, the Malay World and Indonesia, he published four books on Timor: a geo-historical atlas of East-Timor in 2002 (translated into English in 2006), an history of Christianism in East and West Timor (in 2004), an history of cartography and travel to Timor Island (in 2006), and a study on contemporary situation in the country (Timor-Leste in search of reference marks. Economic and political perspectives, and regional integration 1999-2050), in 2008. Contact: durand@univ-tlse2.fr
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