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Time for the young to take over
Persons with top-level management positions are usually in their 50s or 60s
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ersons with top-level management positions are usually in their 50s or 60s. But few months ago, my university friends and I were full of disbelief as we found out that our newly elected dean, impressively, was only 33. Pak Firmanzah rose against the seemingly impossible odds to beat other more experienced candidates to become the youngest-ever dean in the history of University of Indonesia’s Faculty of Economics (FEUI).
Because of his young age, at first many consider him to be green and lacking experience to lead the faculty — but so far he has proven the critics wrong. It has only been eight months since Pak Fiz — that’s how we usually refer to him — took charge as our new dean, but his hardworking attitude and attentive leadership style has made him a popular figure among us FEUI students.
My respected dean is not alone in this case. Recently, such an occurrence can no longer be considered as unlikely; up to this day we have seen a significant increase in the number of younger people who have been given huge responsibility to hold an important role in high level — and so far they have proven to us that they can perform the given task as well as the older and more experienced generation.
Another youthful high achiever is the person Firmanzah has to report to now, Gumilar Rusliwa Soemantri, who became University of Indonesia’s rector at the age of only 44. UI saw a significant increase of its universities rank from 287th to 201st this year among 4,000 universities that were evaluated, thanks to various internal reforms in UI that Gumilar encouraged.
Even more impressive is the achievement of Anies Baswedan, the rector of Paramadina University whose intellect earned him a place as one of the members of the so-called “Team 8”. Anies Baswedan was merely 38-years-old when he was appointed as the head of the university and despite his relatively young age today he is highly regarded as one of the brightest political analysts in Indonesia.
Young people are rising and we can see that this phenomenon happening in almost every sector in the world. In sports, this year many football pundits heaped praises on Josep Guardiola’s managerial ability as he rose to become the youngest UEFA Champions League winning manager ever. Only in his first season at the club, Guardiola, the former Spanish international who just turned 38 this year, successfully led his star-studded FC Barcelona team to win the competition, having beaten the veteran 67-year old Sir Alex Ferguson and his Manchester United team in the final.
In world politics, perhaps this year will be best remembered because of the historic victory of Barack Obama, who, despite the robust challenge by far older and more experienced persons like John McCain and Hillary Clinton during the election, won the US presidential election and at 47 became the fifth-youngest man in the US history to occupy the oval office.
Barack Obama seems to read the wind as he also entrusted several key posts to younger colleagues.
A more experienced economist like the 66-year-old Joseph Stiglitz was left out in the cold and Obama decided to choose younger faces like 48-year-old Timothy Geithner as his Treasury Secretary or 40-year-old Peter Orzag as his director of the management and budget office instead. Obama also appointed a young writing-prodigy named Jonathan Favreau, 28, as his speechwriting director — and a brilliant speech deliverer and bestselling author like Barack Obama definitely doesn’t trust an ordinary man to do that task, which allows the person to have a massive authority in controlling his words.
But unfortunately we did not have much choice during the last presidential election. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono certainly represented the older generation when he took oath as our President at the age of 60, and the same can also be said of his 67-year-old Vice President Boediono. Other candidates were very much the same and the youngest among them all was vice-presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto who, despite all of his youthful spirit and stirring speeches, was actually 57 and surely he will be a bit long in the tooth if he is to represent the younger generation in the 2014 election.
Indonesia is lagging behind on the regeneration and this has become a millstone around our neck today; you can just look to the last presidential election’s candidates or SBY’s ministerial cabinet formation and you will realize that both are still dominated by stale and old-timer politicians. We may have just finished our presidential election this year, but as we usher in 2010 and are gearing up for the next 2014 election we might well start considering rejuvenation.
Yes, the bitter fact is that Indonesia still highly depends on the older generation up to the present — the public are fed up of staring at the same old faces and are ravenous for younger generations to replace them.
In 2009, people like Firmanzah, Gumilar Rusliwa Soemantri, Anies Baswedan, Barack Obama, and Josep Guardiola have proven to us that young people are up to the challenge. In 2010, will there be more young people who emerge at various top levels just like last year? Or will this be the year of revelation for someone waiting in the wings to bring about the rejuvenation in Indonesia’s 2014 election?
The writer is a student at the University of Indonesia’s School of Economics.
