Seth Mydans, Jakarta – Perhaps the most telling insult to Indonesia's armed forces, people here say, is that mothers no longer encourage their daughters to marry a military man.
"They used to tell us: 'Marry a soldier. You'll have money and prestige,'" said a young woman who recently graduated from college. "Now not so much. We are all hearing too many bad things about the military."
From the earliest years of the nation, half a century ago, there was no prouder profession in Indonesia than to be a member of the military, a "son of the revolution" and "guardian of the nation." Manipulated by former President Suharto into a mainstay of his 32 years of rule, the armed forces became Indonesia's most powerful and privileged institution, effectively running the country, from small villages to major government ministries.
And in the service of the president, as well as their own personal and economic interests, they employed the force of arms with impunity. As the joke had it, if someone steps on your toe in the bus, you say to him: "Are you a member of the military? If not, please get off my toe."
The shift in popular perception has been swift. With the forced resignation of Mr. Suharto nearly two years ago and the powerful momentum of a nationwide reform movement, the military is retreating in disarray from its commanding position in society. And like any cornered fighter, some officers are snarling in dangerous defiance.
On Sunday, President Abdurrahman Wahid is to return from a two-week foreign trip during which the country's most prominent general, Wiranto, refused his demand to resign as coordinating minister for security affairs. The general's defiance touched off rumors of a coup. And while that now seems unlikely – with the general and the president expected to talk out the situation face-to-face – the resistance of parts of the military to civilian command is now an open issue.
The humiliation of a once-proud – once-arrogant – institution poses serious risks for Indonesia. A scattered and fractious archipelago of 210 million people, it has relied on its armed force of 350,000, rather than on democratic processes, to maintain national unity.
More than ever today, many political analysts agree, there is a need for security forces to calm the explosions of religious and ethnic conflict that have spread in this time of national transition and weak central government.
While the current military may not be able to play that role, it also cannot be recreated or pushed out of public life overnight. "It's dangerous to ask the military to completely withdraw from the political arena," said Amien Rais, the speaker of Parliament, who has been an advocate of military reform. "We must give it time."
With its top generals branded war criminals abroad and facing human rights investigations at home, with the president taunting restive officers as "cowards," and with the history of their abuses literally being exhumed from mass graves, Indonesia's military is at its lowest point. "In the country's contemporary history the military has never been so humiliated and disrespected by civilians," said Hermawan Sulistyo, a political commentator.
While some officers remain defiant, some are offering elaborate statements of contrition. "I would like to apologize for past military violence and I call on the people to stop condemning the military," Maj. Gen. Agus Wirahadikusumah, a regional commander, said recently. "Give us a chance to restore our image and if necessary troops who are used to the practices of the past regime will have to be brainwashed."
Indeed, the gap between generals like this and the poorly trained, poorly paid soldiers they command is a deep one, said Dewi Fortuna Anwar, a political analyst who was a top aide to former President B. J. Habibie. "Most of the people on the ground have a very narrow interpretation of nationalism," she said. "For a lot of them, nationalism means going around with a red-and-white band around their head and doing horrible things to people." Red and white are the colors of the Indonesian flag.
Many other officers express bewilderment, said Salim Said, a prominent expert on military affairs. Criticized from all sides for doing what they believed to be their job, pressed to withdraw from politics without a thank you, they now are uncertain of their mission.
Oddly, he said, little has been done legislatively to redefine the proper role of the military; the institution has been expected to create its own reforms. "I had dinner with a general last night," Mr. Salim said, "and he told me: 'What is important for us is the confidence to do our job. We need to know what is allowed and what is not allowed today. Because we do not want to end up like our superiors who were doing their jobs in East Timor and then were accused of human rights violations.' "
Allegations of military abuses in East Timor are at the heart of the military's problems today, although they are not the first or the only arena in which the military faces criticism.
Last week, separate investigations by an Indonesian government panel and by the United Nations found five top generals – including General Wiranto – at fault for the violence and destruction that followed East Timor's vote for independence from Indonesia last August.
Mr. Wahid immediately called on General Wiranto to resign. The general says he wants to make his case directly to the president before deciding what to do, and the president has begun to talk vaguely about promising him an eventual pardon if he is tried and convicted of war crimes.
But looking around them as they face this challenge from a newly confident civilian government, military officers have found few expressions of public support.
What is most dangerous, say some local analysts, is the possibility of a backlash by at least some elements of the military as they realize how isolated they have become and see their economic power and social privileges threatened.
Indeed, many analysts believe that disaffected officers may be instigating much of the current unrest in an attempt to preserve their local power or destabilize the central government.
And yet, unpopular as it may have become, the military remains an essential fixture in Indonesian society. Juwono Sudarsono, a major symbol of reform as the country's first civilian defense minister in 40 years, noted recently that the civilian government was still not ready to take over the broad political and administrative functions the military has performed.
In an interview, he called the armed forces "the most organized, or at least the least disorganized, of all the disorganized elements in society." Earlier, he warned publicly: "If civilian leaders are not able to develop a healthy and independent political life, then we will sooner or later return to a military-dominated role just like in Pakistan and some African states. "So objectively, as an observer and not as a minister, I have to say that at least for the next 10 years turmoil is still unavoidable here, although it would not be as frequent and severe as we expected."
Even with the constitutional and legal status of the military still unchanged and its powerful regional commands still exercising local control, its influence has been steadily whittled away over the last year or more.
Its parliamentary voting bloc has been cut in half, to 38 seats. Its abuses in the provinces of Aceh, Irian Jaya and elsewhere have come under investigation, along with its role in political killings and kidnappings here in Jakarta.
And Mr. Wahid has acted to undercut to power of the most politically aggressive service, the army, by appointing naval and air force officers to a number of key posts, including the armed forces chief of staff.
In a move three weeks ago that crystallized the shifting balance of power, Mr. Wahid fired the military's spokesman, Major General Sudrajat, who had frequently been critical of his policies.
In one of his last, injudicious statements, the general had posed what seemed to be a direct challenge to civilian authority, asserting that the president "does not have the right to interfere in the affairs of the military."