Indonesia: A nation without sense of urgency

Anand Krishna ,  Jakarta   |  Thu, 09/04/2008 10:14 AM  |  Opinion

It was not pleasing to hear prof. Jeffrey Winters of Northwestern University, U.S., criticizing us on local television here that we, Indonesians, lacked a sense of urgency.

Many considered his observation unfriendly. One of our high officials remarked cynically, "What do bule (slang term for white people) know about us?"

Well, my dear Tuan Pejabat (Mr. Official), the so-called bule do know about us. And for that matter, so do Chinese, Japanese, Indians, even Africans and Middle Eastern people.

What better evidence can there be of their knowledge about us than the volume of literature written by them about our culture and heritage -- and the success stories of their entrepreneurs in this country?

Compare their success stories in our country with the success stories of our (non-white skinned) people in their countries.

Sorry, Tuan Pejabat, but they are more knowledgeable about us than we are about them.

Some time back, I was in the neighboring country of Singapore to attend an important conference. And, there was this man dressed very simply, who sat through my entire presentation, taking up his seat with the rest of the audience.

At the end of my presentation, when he rose to congratulate me, one of the organizers introduced us.

"He is our Minister for ...."

Wow! Our ministers here, when invited to a conference, would normally stay only to hear themselves speak. After the opening or closing ceremony, they would immediately disappear. No wonder most of them have no idea whatsoever of what is happening in real life. They live in castles of their own imagination. Blame not our scholars who do the same, for they just follow suit.

Instead of listening to other speakers at the conference, we would rather play golf, socialize with friends or even accompany our wives to go shopping. Of course, at taxpayers' expense!

Recently, a lady told me she was being offered a "sure" seat in parliament, of course at some cost. The middleman who made the offer said, "It is not much, you can afford it. You can make much more than that in four years."

So, then the lady asked, "Why four years, I thought the seat was for five years?"

The middleman explained, "Look my dear lady, you actually need no more than one year for the return of the investment. The second year is to save something for your rainy days. The third year is to help your kids and kin. The Fourth year is to show your appreciation to your would-be supporters in the next election. But, the fifth year must be kept dry. No hanky-panky. You must work for your constituency to ensure their votes again."

I feel our present parliamentarians did not have such a fine middleman to advise them. That is why even during their last years in office, they still pay no attention to what is going on outside.

Back to our sense of urgency: On Aug. 28, 2008, a young maiden in her twenties, Istiqomah, was beaten up by a group of radicals in the courtroom, witnessed by police personnel, attorneys, et cetera.

Surprisingly, these radicals are being defended by some of our best lawyers, in the name of professionalism.

I shall try to "connect" myself with one of them and initiate an imaginary dialogue ....

"Why Sir?" I ask.

"I am a professional. They are my clients," he replies.

I try to convince him they were not on the right side. What is his priority, what is his urgency? Defending a client for the sake of professionalism, or saving the country from disintegration. Clearly, those radicals have crossed all limits.

To this, he says, "Well, my client says the same thing about you guys -- that you have crossed the limit. They are trying to save the country too."

So the famous lawyer had no sense of urgency to ask his own conscience as to how they were trying to save the country?

Was it by yelling "Kafir!" (infidel) in the court room?

Was it by intimidating people sitting beside them, yelling "Keluar! Bonyok! ..." (Get Out! We Will Smash You!)?

Was it by asking others in the courtroom to show their ID cards, maintaining that non-Muslims were not supposed to attend the hearing of their supremo?

My dear Mr. Attorney-at-Law, where is your sense of urgency? What is your priority? What if your child, your daughter or your sister was maltreated in the way Istiqomah was maltreated that day?

You are right Prof Winters. We do lack a sense of urgency. Our religious leaders are busy organizing interfaith dialogues in the five stars, but are not bothered about what radicals are doing on the streets, supported by our corrupt officials and politicians without a conscience.

The other day, they again displayed a show of force by circling around Jakarta on motorbikes without helmets. They challenged the authorities in the name of their human/religious rights, saying "Our cap is our religious identity".

I was so relieved to hear the newly elected Constitutional Court chief Prof. Mahfud MD say he did not agree with religious based bylaws that have now become popular in several districts.

He has some sense of urgency, for he knows the religious-based bylaws may disintegrate this nation. But aside from him, who else has a similar sense of urgency?

Our ministers? No, they are too busy partying and spending lavishly on the weddings of their children, nephews and nieces.

Our representatives? No, they are too busy jalan-jalan (out and about) to make full use of their remaining time in office.

The supremos of our political parties? They are busy contesting for seats.

But, do not despair. We still have our "selves" to respond to Prof Winters' challenge.

Let us develop the necessary sense of urgency to deal with the problems faced by our nation.

The writer is a spiritual activist (www.anandkrishna.org; www.californiabali.org, www.aumkar.org).

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Morgan (not verified) — Tue, 09/16/2008 - 9:07am

I'm sorry, I can't help to comment on spiegel's and mixed expat's comments, which are unneccesary and irrelevant and hold very little to no truth in them. They seem to be attacking people of certain race & religion (in this case, the chinese & christians) which is the main reason why we have such problem in Indonesia.
Do you know dear young sirs, that we have poor chinese that live in a dirty alleyway in jakarta kampong as well on the streets? And if you ask them, they would like to be called 'Indonesians', rather than your degrading 'chinese-indonesians'. they have lived here all their lives and for generations and hold indonesian citizenship, must you still divide them apart from the rest of indonesians?

There are poor people, rich people, regardless of their races. It it very stereotypical to say the rich are of certain races and relligions. It proves that you do not know of our country as much as you claim. Please stop the prejudice & hate mongering, the very least thing our country needs.

Another expatriate (not verified) — Wed, 09/10/2008 - 4:20pm

I have different experience from Mr. Jack Spiegel. I see Indonesians, regardless of their origins, races, and religions, work and grow together (one of their strengths as a nation). They live up their principle (I think the English translation is “Unity in diversity”). Occasionally, however, they would often encounter misleading comments that insidiously attempted to “divide” from within.

Unity & cooperation is a necessary condition for stability and thus development. Mr. Jack’s comment was unwarranted and divisive

Mixed up Expat (not verified) — Wed, 09/10/2008 - 12:25pm

I agree with Jack Spiegel to a large extent. The problems of Indonesia go back a very very long time. They result from having a ruling elite minority who are basically interlinked to their colonial masters in a country which is very rich in natural resources and strategically positioned. Just look at Africa which has the same problems.

Currently the Chinese ruling elite are linked through Singapore banking system and they in turn control the governing national elites.

Within such a system the average Indonesian doesnt stand a chance. One should read history to understand who is controlling whom and why the system as it is, will not be changed unless the majority of average Indonesians start organising themselves to put serious pressure on the ruling groups.

The Indo Chinese elites need to start respecting the Indonesians and treat them with with basic human dignity, as these are the people who providing the riches for the Indo Chinese to enjoy. The sad part is that most of the Indo Chinese are Christians.
My experience here is that the ex-colonial expats and the ruling Indo Chinese are trying to re-inforce the belief that Indonesians are incompetent, un-intelligent, lazy, servile and cannot get out of the bad situation they are in, UNLESS they depend on them (western expats & Indo Chinese). This is patent BS - just look at mainland China.

In my humble opinion, having worked with Indonesian technical experts in oil & gas & IT in the middle east and elsewhere, most average Indonesians are very intelligent, very hard working and most importantly trustworthy people.

I really feel sorry for the poor, especially the womenfolk have to put up with such a mess.

Mr Anandkrshina, I am sorry, I cannot agree with what you are saying in a general but will agree strongly that it applies to the ruling Indonesian elites. People like you must organise the average Indonesians to build up confidence in themselves that they can bring about change and build a country which is fair & productive to all citizens (at least majority of them).

Nadya (not verified) — Wed, 09/10/2008 - 1:46am

I believe that part of the solution is to improve the quality of our education system and content in order to train students to be more global-minded in their thinking process. But that's just one issue that has to be addressed. The sad thing is that corruption is too deep entrenched within the government for such a long time and now we are all facing an uphill battle to deconstruct and rebuild the nation. Nevertheless, on the positive side, Indonesia is a country of hundreds of millions of people with an enormous potential...we can do it, but patience is needed.

Jack spiegel (not verified) — Tue, 09/09/2008 - 7:45pm

Hi, my name is Jack I'm from the US, and my wife is from Jakarta. don't even know where to begin..when I first visited jakarta with my wife I was thrilled to be there, the sights, the sounds, the people, everything...until I started to read some of the history of Indonesia. I have to agree with the Professor, Indonesia seems to be in no real hurry to CHANGE anything they do, or how they do it. I see a lot of racial discrimination between Indonesians and Local chinese. Some Chinese claim to be high christians, but yet, treat local indonesians and their maids like dirt. Local Indonesians don't like the chinese, local muslims don't like them either. Your government is weak, they let a crook (ex pres. Suharto) escape with a lot of your money, the streets are crumbling, buildings are falling, sewage out in the streets, it's a nightmare. I feel sorry for your country. I think one of the main problems in Jakarta is your ineffective government, it's lazy, full of nepotism, egotistical, and bullish. Indonesia is a beautiful country with beautiful people, with crooks and liars in high positions, until you all fix your government you will always be seen in the world as a defunct nation, full of corruption and despair.

Erlin Sarwin (not verified) — Tue, 09/09/2008 - 3:27pm

Agree with this article. Not only do majority of Indonesians have lack of sense of urgency, we are also very ignorant and defensive.

Some examples:
Lapindo mud got worse and worse over a few months without clear execution of policy on how to manage the lives of the people impacted there and without any strong law for the company that caused that.

We got angry when Malaysians claimed our batik, our dances and our songs, yet we, as a nation, do not appreciate what we have and take these for granted. Even after all these claims have happened, there is no clear effort from the government to protect our cultural herritage. Being defensive, angry and violent will not solve any problem!

With illegal logging and complaints from other countries about the ruins of our forrest, we protest back saying that what we do with our resources is not their problem, instead of looking back and finding the best policy to protect the environment while still protecting the people's livelihood.

It's really sad!

DesPegler (not verified) — Tue, 09/09/2008 - 2:01pm

Unfortunately, as has been indicated, there is no desire for officials to change anything. There is only one agenda and that is corruption.

Pay to get your position and reap the benefits afterwards. Most citizens have got used to the idea and see paying of illegal fees as necessary to get things done.

Indonesia has many laws and is frequently (well, actually quite slowly) introducing new ones. They never get enforced. Just a few days ago, here in The Jakarta Post was a picture of street kids begging from a police car. I'm sure I'm right by saying that begging is illegal in Jakarta?

Here in Semarang, the police just aren't interested in upholding the simplest of laws. Witness helmetless motorcyclists passing the police posts at every major intersection that joins with a housing area. It's just too much trouble for them.

I also believe that the vast majority of people have accepted the chaos that is Indonesia. With SBY lacking any will to make changes, the future is bleak for Indonesia.

Jeremy James (not verified) — Mon, 09/08/2008 - 7:16pm

I have lived in Indonesia and I feel I am at least more aware of Indonesia than most Indonesians are of my home country.

To me, as an individual, it seems clear that the creation of a 'just' society is one that depends on everyone acknowledging the rule of law. A law that is based on protecting people rather than punishing them. A law that is separated from religion and to a greater extent politics. You can prosecute as many corrupt officials as you like, the disrespect for law that exists in Indonesia is evident in every street, most notably from my experience in Police Officers stopping you for 'lunch money'.

I doubt Indonesians will ever think beyond 'their kampung', 'their city' or 'their race' long enough for a real nation to ever truly be 'awoken'.

Diederik Zwager (not verified) — Mon, 09/08/2008 - 4:48pm

Maybe it is time for a national awakening?

It is unfortunate that despite the best efforts of the Netherlands, other EU countries, Australia, Japan, etc to try to instill a sense of urgency the majority of the politicians and the people just "don't get it". The results of environmental havoc, overpopulation, pillaging of natural resources will one day catch up with the Indonesian people. That will not be a pretty sight.

James Waworoendeng (not verified) — Sun, 09/07/2008 - 12:29pm

I appreciate the writer's support of Winter's remark , the absence of a sense of urgency. However, the recent remarkable successes of KPK to bring to justice corrupt central bank directors, judges and legislators proved that we have the will and capacity for reform. Cleaning up the branches of government is urgent and is a priority, as this will pave the way for a just and progressive society.

I also appreciate Krishna's attention about Prof. Mahmud view of religious bylaws. It is a misplaced effort to legislate religion, government's sole role is to protect faith community to exist within the corridor of laws.

You ended your article with a call not to despair. Indeed we should not because Indonesians has the capacity to solve our problems. We must rise to the challenge, and we must build with what progress we have achieved thus far. Yes, keep faith and do have a sense of urgency.

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