"I think conflicts among community groups will finish in two or three years` time. Let us just pray for it," Prof Taufik Ismail said in a seminar on "Cross Cultural Fertilization: A Cultural Strategy" at Paramadina University here on Tuesday.
He added that people need to adjust themselves to the new mechanisms before the situation becomes stable again.
"Violent incidents that have happened so far are still normal, as we have just entered a transitional period after almost 40 years of being under an authoritarian rule, followed by swift reforms," he said.
Because of the reforms, he said the government had changed several regulations in just a few months.
"We got everything that was banned by the rulers before; such as regional autonomy and freedom of the press, as a result of which all the mechanisms that were used to regulate us before have gone," he said.
Prof Taufik said, in view of that, people, for the time being, lost a reference point, which is the reason for the unrest and conflicts.
"The conflicts that have happened so far are vertical conflicts between different classes or between superiors and inferiors," he noted.
(T027/H-YH/INE/S012)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2012
