OPENING UP THE LANDSCAPE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE IN THE ERA OF GLOBALIZATION

OPENING UP THE LANDSCAPE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE IN THE ERA

OF GLOBALIZATION

Introduction

On June 1, 1945, before the horizon of United States independence, Ir. Soekarno

delivered a historic speech "The Birth of Pancasila" in front of the BPUPKI session. In the

speech, Bung Karno asserted, "Brothers and sisters, the consultative body that we will create

should not only be a politieke democratie consultative body, but a body that together with

the community can realize two principles: politieke rechtvaaardigheid (political equality)

and sociale rechtvaardigheid (social justice)." At first glance, Soekarno's statement above

seems to confirm Soekarno's claim as an opponent of the idea of democracy, however, when

we reflect on the statement, it has a fundamental meaning. That a democratic political order

will not bring meaningful changes in public life, when there is no collective will built

between the state and its citizens to realize the goals of a republic, namely realizing social

justice for every United States.

Although normatively and at the level of nation building, the raison d'être and

commitment between the republic and the public has been anchored in the goal of realizing

social justice for the people of United States, in the course of United States seventy-one

years of history, social justice has become a never-ending struggle as well as an ideal that

has never been achieved. Political moments of power circulation since 45, 65, 98 are often

seen as a reaffirmation of the res-public's commitment to realizing social justice, but in

reality after the change of power regime, social justice as a common goal is soon forgotten

after being used in an atmosphere of change as part of political rhetoric.

Study Focus and Perspective

In the process of the endless struggle to realize the ideals of nationhood towards

social justice, the United States nation has now been integrated into the vortex of

globalization. In this regard, this paper tries to discuss the dimensions of the discourse of

social justice as a social movement struggle when dealing with the conditions that are

present as a result of the globalization process.

The author uses the views of American leftish feminist intellectual Nancy Fraser

(2003) in her work "The Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics", to analyze the

problem of social justice in two progressive political constellations that are developing in the

era of globalization: First, the progressive political struggle based on redistributive justice as

a response to the acceleration of the global economy that gave birth to the neo-liberalism

order. Second, progressive politics in the form of a trend of recognition politics that gives

rise to new forms of political articulation such as ethno-nationalism politics, the rise of

religious political movements, gender politics and new social movements that present the

discourse of multiculturalism.

Redistributive Political Claims

Progressive political claims in the context of redistribution matters, questioning

how justice is viewed as a process of fair distribution of goods and resources, as well as

equal access for each individual. This redistributive justice claim has been discussed for a

long time by various views of political philosophy from socialist and social democratic

thought to sophisticated formulations from libertarians such as John Rawls (1971) and

Ronald Dworkin (1981) which synthesize individual freedom and social democratic

distributive equality.

The redistributive justice paradigm focuses on injustice from a socio-economic

perspective and departs from the analysis that the roots of social injustice first stem from the

unequal socio-economic structure of society. Social injustice in the redistributive justice

perspective manifests itself in the form of economic exploitation (the exploitation of workers

for the benefit of capital owners, the exploitation of natural resources for the benefit of

businesses and corporations without regard to public needs), economic marginalization

(when people are limited by conditions of minimum wages and no access to better economic

income for the people), and economic deprivation (when people live below the normal

material standard of living).

In the context of the latest globalization, the struggle to realize social justice-

redistribution comes to the fore when dealing with the aggressive penetration of neo-liberal

economics which has deepened the gulf of inequality and disparity in the global economy.

Fighting for social justice in the context of redistributive justice - i.e. a fairer distribution of

resources and goods and improving the standard of living for the public - becomes important

when dealing with the reality of a market economy without regulation, driven by private

interests and operating in the absence of commitment to the public (Wim Dierckxsens 2000;

Noreena Hertz 2002; Marjorie Majo 2005).

The main problem with neoliberalism's economic order lies at the heart of the logic

of neoliberalism itself. The idea of neoliberalism departs from a fundamental understanding

that economic market transactions between people are the only model that underlies all

activities and actions between people (B. Herry Priyono 2003). Every life dynamic and

transformation that takes place in the realm of human life can only be understood when put

in the perspective of the economic market transaction model.

In state life, this neo-liberalism view has a major influence on the state-market-

public relationship. The neo-liberalism discourse demands the performance and interests of

the market as the only benchmark in assessing policies rolled out by the government. As a

result, the state does not have any authority to control and interfere with the free market.

When market interests and public interests clash, the imperative of neo-liberalism demands

that the state favor the market. As a consequence of placing the logic of free market

transactions as the highest court and parameter of every existing social relation, the

interaction between the state and society must run through this trajectory. The logic of the

free market assumes the prioritization of the interests of each individual, not the collective

good or public interest. Society, in the neo-liberal view, is a collection of individuals.

On the basis of the above understanding, the governance relationship in the neo-

liberal narrative eliminates the public interest and replaces it with the interests of each

individual that can be satisfied in the supply-demand relationship in the free market. The

promotion of the common good as the embodiment of social justice in the principles of the

state is then lost, replaced by the fulfillment of individual interests through the expansion of

the free market regime. When the promotion of the common good is lost in the bond

between the republic and its public, then fundamental problems such as poverty, economic

marginalization, economic exploitation and economic deprivation experienced by the people

are no longer the responsibility of the state. The main responsibility of the state in the

discipline of the neo-liberalism power regime is to keep the free market running unhindered.

The discursive regime of neo-liberalism is the biggest threat to the basic principles

of the state to fight for social justice. In the discourse of neo-liberalism, the problem of

social justice is not eliminated but hidden from the public sphere by placing the parameters

of economic efficiency in free market economic relations as the foundation of the state-

market relationship. The lack of commitment to fight for the common good - as something

that is necessary to build res-publika ties - and the tendency solely towards the logic of

efficiency in the formation of the neo-liberal economic order, make the struggle to defend

redistributive justice an important goal of various social movements with a critical paradigm

in the era of globalization.

Political Claims of Care

Furthermore, the latest claim of progressive politics departs from the perspective of

the political struggle for recognition, although it is related to the new phenomenon of the

presence of the trend of identity politics, but its philosophical foundation is firmly rooted in

the idea of Hegelian philosophy. The issue of recognition is philosophically related to

Hegel's thesis on the construction of identity that is formed dialogically, through the process

of mutual recognition. Something is seen as a subject when it recognizes and is recognized

by other subjects.

Recognition of and from others is essential in the construction of identity. In the

relational relationship between subjects, an interactive relationship is built between one

subject and another equally and separately. In the current globalization scene, sociologically,

the struggle for self recognition is conditioned by trans-cultural interactions and intense

communication between cultural communities as a consequence of accelerated migration

between countries, the spread of global media and the free flow of information, as well as

the insistence on hegemonic mass culture as a result of globalization which raises political

resistance based on parochial and particular identities.

Meanwhile, the struggle for recognitive politics moves more at the cultural level,

the movement that fights for political recognition sees that the main fundamental problem

lies in social patterns of communication, interpretation and representation. Political

recognition in this context deals with the occurrence of cultural domination, the absence of

recognition and concern for others and the absence of respect and defamation of certain

groups and communities.

The articulation of this politics of recognition manifests in forms of new social

movements based on identity politics. Starting from the political struggle of women, the

struggle of transsexuals, the struggle for anti-racism, the struggle for autonomy for

indigenous people, the revival of religious movements, to the struggle for ethno-nationalism

and others. Recognition politics aims to counter cultural blasphemy and the loss of

care/recognition for the other. The goal of recognition politics is to resist the domination of

cultural codes from the dominant culture that marginalizes the expression of minorities, as

well as the stigmatization and stereotypes built by the dominant cultural regime against

various articulations of fringe cultures.

Politics of recognition is one of the leading perspectives of the struggle for social

justice discourse in the era of globalization. The imagination of liberation that is built in the

struggle for the politics of recognition aims to realize a world of multiculturality where

every particular identity is respected. In this context, every form of absorption, absorption,

and assimilation into the norms of the dominant culture is considered as forms of ethical

violations in the dimension of the struggle for recognition. In its practical dimension, the

struggle for recognition (politics of recognition) confronts the oppressive tendencies of the

domination models of racism, patriarchalism, religious fanaticism, to imperialism and

colonization of the dominant culture.

Various forms of politics of recognition have an emancipatory character by

radicalizing the liberative tradition rooted in the spirit of liberalism and marxism, or in the

terms of Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau (1985) in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy that

the struggle for identity politics seeks to combine the best moments in socialist and liberal

political traditions as an emancipatory political project of radical plural democracy.

However, there are also various expressions of recognition politics that encourage

exclusivity, intolerance and even forms of violence against others. This happens when the

struggle of an identity group does not open spaces for intersubjective communication and

has the pretext of marginalizing and excluding other particular identities.

Two Dimensions of Social Justice

Currently, social justice discourse in general is dealing with a new constellation that

divides social justice perspectives into two main matrices, namely social justice in the

perspective of redistribution and recognition. Interestingly, each of these social justice

perspectives has its own proponents, and in current philosophical discussions, the two

defenders of the social justice spectrum negate each other's positions. Supporters of the

struggle for social justice in the perspective of redistribution reject the thesis of supporters of

social justice based on politics of recognition and vice versa.

Supporters of recognition-based social justice reject the distributive social justice

paradigm because they consider distributive justice to be materialist, blind and responsible

for various forms of social injustice because there is no cultural concern for others

(misrecognition). Some adherents of the recognition justice paradigm such as Iris Marion

Young (1990), Axel Honneth (2003) and Charles Taylor (1985), - in United States one of

which is represented by the views of feminist activist Gadis Arivia (2006) - consider that the

distributive justice paradigm only understands social justice issues as limited to the

distribution of wealth, income and material resources.

According to proponents of politics of recognition, the distributive justice

perspective is not observant of particular identities that are marginalized in the real social

order. Meanwhile, adherents of the distributive paradigm see that those who champion the

politics of recognition are trapped in false consciousness, their arguments are counter-

productive because they are not grounded in actual socio-economic issues and reject

universal morality by being immersed in the ethics of relativity (Nancy Fraser 2003; 10).

The clash between the two tendencies of the social justice paradigm is also present

in the debate among feminists that takes place around gender discourse. Feminist activists

who see solutions through redistribution politics as a way out of the domination of

patriarchal regimes take a position at odds with feminists who fight for recognition of

women's identity as a way out of patriarchal regimes. Those who understand gender as a

social relation have non-negotiable views with those who see gender issues from the

hierarchy of dominant cultural codes (Nancy Fraser 2003; 11).

In relation to the clash between the two paradigms above, Nancy Fraser offers a

constructive view that seeks to go beyond the assertions of the two groups above. According

to Fraser, social justice from a redistributive approach is just as important as a social justice

perspective from the point of view of recognition (concern for others). By not negating

either of the two views on social justice, Fraser then offers a dual perspectivism analysis as a

benchmark for how social justice discourse is placed in the era of globalization.

Nancy Fraser's attempt to integrate the two perspectives of social justice

(redistributive justice and recognition justice) begins by discussing the basic discourse in

moral philosophy relating to issues of morality and ethics, rights and goodness, as well as

justice and the good life. Most discussions on social justice issues always place the paradigm

of redistributive justice from the perspective of Immanuel Kant's morality and the issue of

recognition in the ethical sense of Hegel. Normatively, the morality of redistributive social

justice is understood to bind each individual universally. Universally everyone has the right

to be treated equally, and justice itself is an imperative that binds everyone. Meanwhile, in

contrast to the issue of morality, ethics - in the Hegelian perspective - is more particular and

does not require each individual to be bound by universal moral values. Ethics is more based

on certain qualitative judgments and respect for the various kinds of cultural practices that

emerge in each cultural identity or community (Nancy Fraser 2002; 22-23).

For Fraser, as long as both redistributive and caring political approaches are based

on their original assumptions, the two approaches cannot be reconciled. The association of

redistributive justice with universally binding morality cannot be met with politics of

recognition, which is based on the ethical relativity and cultural particularity of local

identities and communities. To bring together the two models of politics of redistribution

and politics of recognition in a dual analysis of social justice, Fraser transforms the view of

politics of recognition from the perspective of ethical particularity to the issue of morality.

By understanding politics of recognition from the perspective of morality, we can

understand concern for others as a demand to respect each group in equal status in the public

sphere. For Fraser, recognition of the autonomy, relativity and particularity of the cultural

ethical values of each particular cultural identity only applies when these ethical values have

been tested on the basis of the equal status of each person as part of the morality of social

justice.

After understanding politics of recognition from the perspective of morality,

Fraser's move has consequences for seeing the issue of caring for others, not in the paradigm

of identity politics. According to Fraser, the political approach to care that has been referring

to the issue of identity politics has a fundamental weakness. First, by making political

identity the object of the politics of care, identity is interpreted as something authentic and

genuine so that it is impermeable to universal moral judgments. The interrogation of

universal morality towards certain cultural particularities is seen as a form of domination of

the power relations of enlightenment values towards the ethics of certain cultural identities.

Socially, this condition demands conformity (approval) from each individual or group

towards the cultural values of a particular identity.

For example, respect for certain cultures, ethnicities and religions in the paradigm

of identity-based politics of care has ignored the potential for oppression and exclusion that

these values have on members of certain groups or communities. Instead of encouraging

emancipatory politics, identity-based politics of care is blind to the possibility of new forms

of oppression in the name of the particularity of the ethical values of a particular cultural

identity. This model of approach can slip to cover up various forms of tyrannical veils and

forms of oppression against each person in the name of communitarian values. This

phenomenon is currently often seen in the form of recent expressions of religious revivalism

as an expression of identity politics. Most expressions of the rise of political Islam, the rise

of Hindutva politics in India and the Evangelical Christian political movement in some way

show this tendency. Where in the name of the sacredness of certain beliefs acts of

oppression, deprivation of basic human rights and violence are legalized.

Second, by promoting a politics of care based solely on identity, this approach

tends to emphasize the assertion of cultural identity over the importance of dialogue and the

equality of all people in the social order. This tendency can agitate for separatism and group

fanaticism. Politically, this trend has the potential to destroy democratic experimentation in

transitional countries and undermine civic and multicultural solidarity when each group

identity emphasizes factors of particularity. In United States today, the strengthening of

violent conflicts with ethnic dimensions, as well as the imposition of certain religious laws

in the era of democracy and decentralization politics, can be an example of the strengthening

of the factors of identity politics that can destroy civic solidarity.

After exposing the various weaknesses of the politics of care based on recognition

of identity, Fraser then transforms the focus of the politics of care from the issue of identity

to the issue of the status of each person in the polity order. For Fraser, the issue of the

politics of care is the question of whether each person is guaranteed to participate equally

(participatory parity) in the socio-political order. The politics of care in this approach is not

the recognition of the authenticity of cultural identity, but rather the respect for each person

or community to participate equally in the socio-political order. The politics of recognition

in the above sense meets the discourse of social justice, where the presence of the ability and

conditions of each person to participate in social and political interactions equally becomes

the main goal of the struggle for politics of recognition.

In the paradigm of recognition politics based on respect and struggle for the

creation of conditions of participatory equality in the socio-political sphere, the problem of

misrecognition arises when dominant cultural patterns that have been institutionalized tend

to inhibit and marginalize the expansion of equal participation of everyone who is a member

of the socio-political order. The struggle of the politics of care from Fraser's approach in

facing this challenge is to dismantle the oppressive cultural values that have been

institutionalized and tend to inhibit participatory equality and transform them with

democratic cultural values and patterns that can encourage it. (they aim, that is, to de-

institutionalize patterns of cultural value that impede parity of participation and replace

them with patterns that foster it). (Nancy Fraser 2002; 25).

In contrast to the identity-based politics of care, Fraser's approach to the politics of

recognition based on concern for the condition of equality of everyone in the socio-political

order has several advantages. First, by fighting for equal status as an important dimension of

recognitive social justice (care), this political struggle can avoid the traps of exclusivism,

separatism and the promotion of factors of particularism over strengthening social solidarity.

A recognitive political approach based on equal status can actually encourage continuous

intercultural and intersubjective communication between groups that experience the process

of oppression and defamation culturally and socially. The politics of recognitive justice that

fights for participatory equality actually encourages the strengthening of social solidarity

between citizens and contrasts with identity-based recognitive politics that encourages

separatism, exclusivism and fanaticism.

Second, the political approach of recognitive justice that emphasizes participatory

equality provides a way to test every claim of political articulations that demand recognition.

In the political paradigm of recognitive justice, political articulations that demand

recognition become legitimate only if their struggle promotes the goal of equality and

expansion of participation for everyone and does not promote a value order and culture that

can hinder the equality and participation of everyone in it. As one example, we can examine

this in the context of the recent trend of the rise of religious political movements. In the

perspective of the politics of cognitive justice, only religious socio-political movements that

encourage the importance of equality, wider social and political participation and the spirit

of inclusiveness have legitimacy as an articulation of the politics of cognitive justice.

Meanwhile, religious socio-political movements that encourage fanaticism and exclusivism,

as well as promote the institutionalization of discriminatory cultures are contrary to the

manifesto of the politics of recognitive justice and clash with the parameters of participatory

equality.

After integrating the politics of care as one of the important dimensions of social

justice, Fraser places both redistributive justice and care-based justice as two important

dimensions of social justice discourse as well as the basic principles of the struggle of every

social movement in the era of globalization. Nancy Fraser's main concept of social justice

stems from the importance of the participatory parity of each member of society.

Participatory equality as the essence of this social justice discourse then manifests

in two parts. First, in the context of redistributive justice, this requires the equal distribution

of material resources and goods so as to ensure the independence of the voice of each person

as a participant in the democratic political space. This is then referred to as the objective

condition of participatory equality. In this paradigm, redistributive politics seeks to

dismantle every form of material inequality and economic dependency built by the existing

structure of the political economy. The social arrangement fought for in redistributive

politics is to try to resolve various forms of economic exploitation, economic deprivation,

and economic marginalization faced by each person in the existing socio-economic-political

structure (Nancy Fraser 2003; 36).

Furthermore, in the context of recognitive justice, this requires the

institutionalization of cultural values that express equal respect for each participant in the

socio-political order and guarantee equal opportunities for each person to obtain a dignified

life. This is referred to as the intersubjective condition for participatory equality. Both

redistributive justice and recognitive justice paradigms are equally important in the struggle

of social movements to defend social justice in the era of globalization.

Public Space Held Hostage by Two Faces of Fanaticism

Nancy Fraser's thesis on the two dimensions of social justice can be used as an

important analytical tool to consider the reality of the discursive interaction of public space

in United States. After the fall of Soeharto, the current configuration of United States public

sphere is trapped in two tendencies that clash with each other but actually move us further

away from the goal of realizing social justice. The two destructive tendencies are the

strengthening of identity-based fanaticism vis a vis market fanaticism based on neo-

liberalism economic reasoning.

Identity-based fanaticism occurs when the goals of identity politics such as

strengthening communalism sentiments, promoting SARA issues and rejecting the nation's

multiculturality are entering the democratic political arena. The spirit of hatred towards "the

other", the promotion of group ambitions and the attempt to monopolize the interpretation of

nationality become concrete manifestations that destroy the bonds of national solidarity that

we hope to emerge on the horizon of the reformation. Fights and conflicts between fellow

nations that are stirred up by agitators who chant ethnic, religious, class and racial prejudices

go hand in hand with the strengthening of efforts of exclusion, marginalization and cultural

blasphemy against "those who are different" and often through violent means. The

experimentation of public space in United States today is a very clear sign of how the

recognition of political expressions of identity without criticism and examination based on

the basis of recognitive justice will actually give birth to factors of separatism, cultural

oppression of others and strengthening fanaticism.

Meanwhile, on the other hand, the pull of United States public space after

authoritarianism shows a tendency to strengthen fanaticism based on free market-

democracy, which actually creates undemocratic liberal conditions. The tendency of free

market democracy fanaticism is created when, as previously explained, the free market

becomes the highest court of every social relation and relationship between the state-public-

market in the political trajectory of liberal democracy. The collapse of the authoritarian-

erzatic regime of New Order capitalism has integrated United States into the vortex of the

worldwide liberal revolution. This liberal undemocratic condition is created when liberal

ideas about pluralism, openness and secularization contradictorily go hand in hand with

distrust of deliberation processes that include the aspirations of subaltern groups such as

indigenous peoples, women, the urban poor, farmers and others in the democratic political

process.

The political theater that has developed in United States shows a scene that is

identical to the tendencies in various countries that are emerging from the confines of

authoritarianism, namely the experimentation of procedural democracy paths in line with the

introduction and expansion of market economy agendas emphasized by international

financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. The privatization of state

enterprises, the immediate elimination of subsidies without considering the resilience of

society, and the facilitation of the exploitative will of global corporate interests over the

interests of citizens and indigenous peoples / bumiputera.

These two barbaric tendencies in the United States public sphere, namely identity-

based fanaticism and free market democracy fanaticism, have led to problems of injustice in

the United States public sphere stage in the democratization era. The process of procedural

democracy then runs amidst widespread inequality, inequality and injustice. Considering the

experience in Africa, as described by Rita Abrahamsen (2000) in Disciplining Democracy:

Development Discourse and Good Governance in Africa, neoliberalism has a very skeptical

view of the state and disdains the ideals of participatory democracy that grow from the

grassroots. Not only must the state be removed from its control over the free market, but it

must also be limited and sterilized from the demands of the people for justice. In this

context, in United States during the SBY administration we can read the reality of the state's

disregard for the demands of Papuans that the state review United States contract with

Freeport given the depth of environmental destruction that has been carried out by this giant

corporation and the minimal contribution made to the Papuan people.

Through his view of participatory equality, we can interrogate how the bourgeois

public sphere seeks to keep social justice issues out of the public sphere. We will try to

understand We will discuss how the two analysis approaches to social justice can be applied

to both social classes and identity groups to look at the problems of social injustice that they

have experienced. Furthermore, it will be described how the two approaches are effective in

looking at the practices of injustice that take place and are experienced for example by the

working class, women, in religious discourse, indigenous peoples and other examples in the

public sphere in United States.

Social Injustice for the Working Class

We first discuss how the issue of class struggle can be understood from two

dimensional models of social justice. In the understanding of Marxian analysis, class

differentiation is rooted in the structure of the socio-economic formation of capitalistic

society. The working class (proletariat) is everyone who has to sell their labor under the

arrangement of the capitalist production process that operates to generate personal profit for

the owners of capital. In this context, the struggle for social justice faces the problem of

exploitation, where inequality of distribution takes place because the working class is

exploited for the benefit of the owners of capital.

The solution to this problem of exploitation of the working class takes place at the

political level of redistribution and requires political-economic restructuring that can lead to

a more equitable distribution of goods, services and benefits in society. This condition can

first be achieved by strengthening the political consciousness of the working class itself. As

described by Vedi R. Hadiz (2005), the weak political power of the working class to fight

for their rights in United States is not only caused by the post-fordism capital circulation

process that allows capital to easily move across countries in a short period of time, thus

weakening the bargaining power of workers, but also by political factors. First, the

fragmentation of labor unions in United States means that working class power is not a

major political force in United States. Secondly, there is still no strong alliance between

working class unions and the main political parties in United States that can serve as a

canalization of working class agendas. In this context, the realization of redistribution justice

for the working class must consider the above conditions.

Meanwhile, the issue of class differentiation also does not escape the issue of

recognition justice. The working class experiences neglect and exclusion under the hierarchy

of hegemonic culture created in a capitalistic society. The spread of this hegemonic culture

that harms the working class can hinder the organizing and politicization of the working

class to claim their rights. The discourse of neo-liberalism, for example, produces the culture

that every individual is an entrepreneur in the free market. In relation to the working class,

the working class is an entrepreneur whose labor is their basic capital, while the wage they

receive is the profit they make on the free market, not the price the working class has to pay.

In the logic of the neoliberalism discourse above, a new hegemonic culture emerges, that the

working class must accept the wages available to them.

With this view, the new dominant culture produced by neo-liberal discourse hides

the problems of exploitation and economic deprivation in the world of work. The

disappearance of social justice problems occurs, not because these problems are missing in

the current configuration of economic globalization, but the problems of social injustice are

hidden and ignored from discussion in the public sphere under the neo-liberalism discourse

regime. In the context of working class struggles, redistributive politics must interact with

the politics of recognition to build a new, more just political-economic configuration while

deconstructing the dominant bourgeois culture and replacing it with building a new culture

that can promote better conditions for the working class.

Social Injustice in Gender Discourse

Gender issues can also be understood from the dual perspective of social justice,

both from the perspective of redistributive social justice and caring social justice. Both

dimensions of social justice play an interactive rather than exclusive role in analyzing

gender issues. Social injustice based on gender inequality stems from both the stratification

of socio-economic structures and hierarchical cultural patterns and codes that marginalize

women. According to Fraser from the perspective of redistributive justice, gender as a

division of labor based on sex differences is the foundation of the organization of the

economic structure of capitalism. Gender structures the division within the working class,

between well-paid professional-industrial workers dominated by men and low-paid workers

in the domestic sector dominated by women. From the perspective of redistributive justice,

the solution to the problem of gender inequality requires a process of socio-economic

transformation that can solve the problem of gender inequality.

Gender issues also relate to injustice with a caring dimension. The issue of gender

inequality also cannot be separated from the hierarchical dominance of the patriarchal

cultural system in society that marginalizes every feminine cultural code. The dominant

patriarchal cultural hierarchy permeates social interactions and influences government

policy-making and juridical products. In the United States context, some recent phenomena

related to the draft of anti-pornography and porno-action legislation and sharia local

regulations contain patriarchal cultural biases and offend justice concerns for women (a

discussion of this will be elaborated in the next section).

The reign of the patriarchal cultural regime in the public sphere results in the

subordination of women who come to the fore in issues such as domestic violence,

stereotyping and exploitation of women in the media in the name of capitalism, and other

forms of socio-cultural exclusion of women. In gender issues, redistributive justice interacts

with the paradigm of recognitive justice (care). However, it cannot be said that the analysis

of care-based gender injustice is a super-structural dimension of redistributive inequality-

based economic issues. Both recognitive politics and politics redistributive are independent

but interact with each other in dealing with social injustice from a gender perspective.

Social Injustice in Religious Discourse

The issue of religious discourse is one of the important issues in the perspective of

social justice, given that tolerance and respect for religious freedom is the main foundation

for other forms of tolerance. Conversely, forms of religious intolerance become the

archetype of various other models of intolerance. Intolerance is closely related to the issue of

recognitive injustice. Respect and struggle to defend equal status and emancipatory cultural

values can be created when respect and tolerance for the presence of religious freedom are

built.

What has recently been experienced by the Ahmadiyah congregation is one form of

cultural blasphemy committed by the dominant religious group, which is an example of the

manifestation of recognitive injustice. The attack on the group's places of worship, the

expulsion of residents of the Ahmadiyah congregation which was allowed by the state to be

an example of how freedom of religion as a manifestation of the creation of recognition-

based justice is still a problem in the fragility of our current public space configuration.

Those who adhere to the Ahmadiyah Islamic religious beliefs because of their conflict with

the mainstream majority of religions are not recognized for their existence and experience

exclusion from the public sphere. Differences in understanding and different thoughts

become an excuse to carry out acts of extortion and the removal of the main rights of a

group of people as citizens.

The issue of recognitive injustice experienced by religious adherents is also

experienced not only by the Ahmadiyah but also by various religions that depart from the

beliefs of indigenous peoples in United States. Until now, for example, the state has not

defined, respected and managed diversity as social capital for unity and development based

on diversity. Until now, Parmalim believers in North Sumatra, Sunda Wiwitan believers in

West Java, and Wetu Telu Muslims in Lombok have not been recognized by the state. The

loss of religious freedom and their existence as adherents of certain beliefs in this republic

appears concretely in problems such as obtaining a driver's license, family card, birth

certificate, ID card and so on. The cultural dominance of the five major religions recognized

by the state has drowned the respect for other groups. Here the problem of status inequality

then appears in the discourse of religion in United States, when there are certain people and

communities who become unequal due to the beliefs they hold.

The issue of recognitive injustice in the problem of religion in the public sphere

also has consequences in the context of redistributive justice. As in the case of expulsion and

blasphemy against Ahmadiyah followers as in the case that occurred in Lombok. They are

not only culturally blasphemed, but their right to seek economic income and a decent life

then becomes uncertain when they are evicted by certain groups of people and the eviction is

tolerated by the local authorities. In this context, we again see how the problem of

redistributive justice interacts with the problem of recognitive justice.

Social Injustice for Indigenous Peoples

The public sphere in United States harbors many problems of social injustice. One

of the victims of marginalization, exclusion and misrepresentation in the public sphere in

United States is experienced by indigenous communities. Until now, the state's recognition

of the existence of indigenous peoples and their sovereignty to manage the resources owned

by their regions is still a major problem in United States. Issues of redistributive injustice

and recognitive injustice overlap to threaten the existence of indigenous peoples.

One of the main problems faced by indigenous peoples today is the absence of state

recognition of indigenous peoples' institutions in managing natural resources in their

environment. In Nancy Fraser's social justice perspective, the main problem is not merely

the lack of recognition of group identity with all the traditions and local knowledge of

indigenous peoples. However, first of all, the institutions of indigenous peoples with all their

local wisdom must be respected because respect for local knowledge and cultural codes

paves the way for the fulfillment of social justice for each person as a member of the

community. The local knowledge and wisdom that grows in the community guarantees

justice for each person in obtaining food and living properly in their interaction with nature.

The dimension of social justice here can also be expanded because the local knowledge of

the community that fulfills this ecological awareness fulfills a sense of justice that can

maintain inter-generational sustainability (inter-generational justice).

Currently, the local wisdom of indigenous peoples' knowledge and traditions is

under siege by two major forces: the forces of the state that push for modernization-

developmentalism that defines development in a monolithic way and the interests of the free

market economy that pursues the widest possible material benefits and demands dominance

over other areas of life. Natural resource management that originates from indigenous

peoples' institutions and has social, cultural and spiritual dimensions is defeated by the

pragmatic interests of economics, politics and material benefits from both the market and the

state.

The issue of the defeat of indigenous peoples' aspirations when faced with the

dominance of market interests is evident in the case of the clash between the global

corporation Freeport and the Amungme tribe in West Papua. The Amungme tribe sees

nature and its surroundings and mountains as manifestations of mother earth. Nature is the

earth where they live, grow crops and distribute resources fairly among their own

community. While contrasting with the social consciousness of the Amungme people,

Freeport's global corporate interests understand the exploration and exploitation of natural

resources solely for the sake of the Amungme abundant material benefits in the name of

development (Hariadi Kartodiharjo and Hira Jhamtani 2006; 184).

In this conflict, the state, which is supposed to consider, listen to and fight for the

public interest, has instead sided with the interests of global corporations by extending the

work contract with PT Freeport and rejecting the proposal for a review from the public. Here

the state has lost its role as the guardian of public welfare and as an institution that must

ensure social justice. The state's role as a fair referee and to protect the community by

safeguarding the existence of their lives has proven to be unfulfilled in the case of neglecting

the needs of indigenous peoples. The existence of indigenous local knowledge that has the

potential to encourage the realization of social justice is marginalized by the power of capital

and economic interests and state power. Once again, United States post-reform public sphere

shows an anti-democratic character. The proceduralist democracy that has been championed

has proven to only hide the problems of inequality and blasphemy against the sense of

justice for every United States citizen!

Conclusion

A general interrogation of the mosaic of our public sphere shows that the

democratization process in fact produces participatory inequality of each citizen in the

public sphere. The public sphere built under the arrangement of free market democracy and

the hysteria of oppressive identity politics displays a political face that does not solve but

hides various problems of social injustice in the context of objective conditions

(redistribution injustice) and intersbujective conditions (recognition injustice). When this

happens, calls to build a politics of deliberation from the dominant group only become a tool

to legitimize political oppression, social subordination and marginalization and economic

exploitation of the public. Deliberation with status inequalities and barriers to full

participatory politics is only a process of consensus to legitimize those in power. For this

reason, in the final section of this paper I try to offer guidelines for future social movement

struggles to realize the utopia of social justice in United States. Below will be outlined some

important strategic steps to take, which are as follows:

First, Building a Subaltern Counterpublic:

The objective reality shows the face of United States public space is full of

exclusion, exploitation and marginalization of various groups and individuals as citizens.

This condition creates inequality in the status of each citizen and social subordination of the

dominant group to others. Efforts to fight for social justice can first be done by expanding

the democratic process by making the public space an arena for discourse battles as well as a

place for marginalized groups and experiencing social injustice to rise up, fight back and

present alternative discourses.

In the Subaltern counterpublic everyone who has had their sense of justice violated,

those who are members of the oppressed group seek, creating and circulating alternative

discourses as counter discursive as well as oppositional manifestos that articulate their

aspirations, interests and political orientations (Nancy Fraser 1992; 123). Currently, various

forms of social movements that advocate for subaltern groups in United States have emerged

and are involved in the contestation of discourse in the public sphere in United States.

However, this subaltern counterpublic-based political struggle is not merely a form of

celebration of difference and is trapped in post-modern ethical relativity. Given that many

expressions of identity politics are basically anti-egalitarian and anti-democratic. Subaltern

Counterpublic operates as a response to forms of injustice that emerge in the public sphere.

The alternative discursive that they strive for tries to synergize the struggle to expand

participatory democracy in line with the realization of social justice as the initial mandate for

the formation of the Republic of United States.

Second, Fighting for the Institutionalization of Social Justice Politics:

The effort to build the design of social movement struggles for the realization of

social justice is not merely the work of a theorist. This political project is a historical block

project of any social movement that involves consideration from both activists and

academics involved in the project. The next effort that must be made is how to

institutionalize the political work of social justice. For this, we must first consider several

layers of struggle at the local, national and global levels.

At the national level, for example, activists and intellectuals engaged in grassroots

movements must go beyond the assumptions of separation between social movements and

the dynamics of political society. Remembering that this is part of the trap of the bourgeois

public sphere that will continue to keep problems of social injustice below the surface. By

building connections between social movements, research institutions and democratic

political forces in parliament, at the level of civil society subaltern social movements can

creatively create opinion formation while at the level of political society they can be

involved in the formulation of political policies. According to Nancy Fraser (1992), the

connection between the areas of civil society and political society will form a strong public

to help build the configuration of the national political order.

Meanwhile, at the global level, the process of institutionalizing social justice can

move towards strengthening the solidarity of social movements and civil society at the

global level. This struggle is important, because with attention to the configuration of global

political power, this is a way to reshape the process of globalization. The question and

agenda that we should discuss together is what economic-political-cultural programs are

appropriate to bring the path closer to the realization of social justice. This certainly requires

attention, commitment and creative thinking from all of us.

Redistributive Political Claims