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Jakarta Post

Insight: Is this country beyond repair?

A few years ago, Ahmad Syafii Maarif, the former chairman of Muhammadiyah, one of the two largest Islamic organizations in the country, said that the destruction of Indonesia is almost complete

Bahtiar Effendy (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sat, January 22, 2011

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Insight: Is this country beyond repair?

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few years ago, Ahmad Syafii Maarif, the former chairman of Muhammadiyah, one of the two largest Islamic organizations in the country, said that the destruction of Indonesia is almost complete.

The crux of his observation lay in the disheartening reality that the moral foundation of the nation’s strategic elites had diminished. In a period in which Indonesia was supposed to be heading in a better direction, to a decent and civilized way of governing, or to a brighter future, the social, economic, and political ills of the previous governments remain intact.

Corruption is rampant. Politics is regarded not as a vocation or calling, but a tradable commodity.

Public trust is perceived as an instrument to rule and not to govern. The list of these social, economic and political evils can be very long. A group of religious leaders were recently able to identify 18 of them!

What is alarming is that all of these ills are taking place during a time when democracy is widely acknowledged as the only rule of the game. All of these misdeeds are occurring in a period when democracy has become the only signatory brand of post-Soeharto Indonesia.

Is Maarif a pessimist? Many would perhaps say yes. But knowing how the Gayus fiasco climaxed, at least for the time being, one could not but agree with Maarif. How can this felon, whose legal case consumed public attention, whose attitude has been utterly disrespectful to the law of the land, and whose seemingly unlimited resources have disgraced law enforcement officials in an unimaginable and unprecedented manner, be punished with only seven years in prison and a Rp 300 million in fine?

Should this become a pattern, how a judicial mafia is treated, then there is no need to have such a high-profile body such as the Judicial Mafia Taskforce.

To our dismay, the fiasco does not stop with the sentence. After the verdict was handed down, Gayus H. Tambunan told the press that part of his case was orchestrated by the Judicial Mafia Taskforce.

Consisting of, among others, Mas Achmad Santosa, Yunus Hussein and Denny Indrayana, the latter being a special assistant at the presidential office, this body was formed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2010 in response to the growing public distrust in the country’s legal system and its enforcers. According to Gayus, the orchestration of his case included his sojourn to Singapore, efforts to link his tax-evasion case with three Bakrie companies, and his fake passport which involved foreign individual John Jerome Grice, who is also mentioned as a CIA agent.

Gayus’ shocking revelations do not stop at the points mentioned above. He also suggested that his case was indirectly linked to Antasari Azhar, the former chairman of Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), who is now serving a prison term for the murder of businessman Nasruddin Zulkarnaen.

Nobody knows for sure what actually happened, with the exception of those who were involved in the case. Given the circumstances described above, deciding which version of the case is believable is difficult. A statement issued by a number of religious leaders not long ago lamenting government lies on several issues, including President Yudhoyono’s promise to lead the fight against corruption, only strengthens the fact that trust is indeed a luxury in this country. Combined with many other cases in which the meaning of truth has yet to be disclosed, it is not an exaggeration to say that Indonesia has become a zero-trust society.

Of course, Yudhoyono is not the only one to blame. Certainly all administrators before him had their fair share to do with this matter. But the fact that Yudhoyono is now the presiding party, it is incumbent upon him to answer all questions directed to him and his government. The rule of the thumb in the practice of governance is simple: Newly elected leaders must bear the responsibility for the conditions they inherit.

The destruction, as suggested by Maarif, is almost complete. Many have seen the problems from the perspective that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. This is not because of the sense of pessimism the public has involuntarily developed over the years. Rather, the reality simply does not demonstrate, reflect or indicate any possible signs to seriously overcome the problems.

All of these calamities seem to work toward the destruction of this great state. The lack of seriousness on the part of the government coupled with the daily practice of power politics both at the national and regional levels, has only resulted in a despicable fiasco, such as the Gayus case, as well as in the absence of trust on the part of the public with regard to its rulers.

Should this condition persist, can anything be done to repair it?



The writer is the dean of the School of Social and Political Sciences at the State Islamic University, Jakarta.

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