It looked like a self-fulfilling prophecy for Sartono when he composed a song titled Pahlawan Tanpa Tanda Jasa (Heroes without medals) which later was named the teacher’s hymn and has for over three decades been played in ceremonies to commemorate National Education Day every May 2.
Now 74 years old, Sartono, who worked as a part time music teacher until his retirement, will spend the rest of his life without a monthly pension, let alone a decent reward for his service to the state. In conjunction with National Education Day, a radio station conducted a fund-raising program on Monday to help Sartono, who now lives in the East Java city of Madiun with his wife, an elementary school teacher, to ease his economic burden.
The charity, however, will not liberate Sartono from his economic difficulties, let alone the millions of teachers who also have to bear the brunt of the ironic bureaucratic and education systems. Teachers, despite their great responsibility of educating the young generation, are almost certainly not the top brains that the nation needs to generate superior future leaders, and therefore are not well paid. There are stories of teachers who have to work as motorbike taxi drivers to survive.
Perhaps due to the poor prospects of teaching, university graduates usually prefer work that offers higher remuneration than the education sector.
The government has claimed to have done a lot to help improve education quality, especially when it raised education spending to 20 percent of the state budget in 2006, albeit reluctantly, as mandated by the amended Constitution in 2002. However, the controversy dragged on as the hike mostly covered teacher salaries — the bulk of spending, which means the actual education budget, only slightly increased.
Education has remained a non-priority sector, regardless of its huge budget, therefore it comes as no surprise that the state has failed to provide decent rewards for its teachers.
Sadly, the gloomy story of Sartono, one of the country’s heroes without a medal, and the whole national education system was overshadowed by the death of al-Qaeda terror group leader Osama bin Laden during a US Navy Seal secret operation in Abbottabad near the Pakistan capital of Islamabad, also on May 2.
For Americans and many of the world’s population, Bin Laden was a villain for his campaign of terror and for causing people to fear the name of Islam. Bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks in the US in 2001 and was held accountable, directly or indirectly, for a series of bomb attacks targeting Indonesia over the past decade.
For whatever reason, Bin Laden’s anti-West crusade constitutes a crime against humanity as it has killed many innocent people and, more importantly, hijacked the divine concept of jihad, which is why he hardly won support here in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country.
Not all people in Indonesia consider Bin Laden a villain. Some may glorify him due to his fearless fight against the US. Take for example the Islam Defenders Front, a hardline Muslim group known for its resistance to nightclubs, LGBT and religious freedom, which held a mass prayer to pay homage to Bin Laden on Tuesday.
Bin Laden’s demise came on the heels of a series of acts of terror, including a suicide bombing inside a mosque in the Cirebon police compound, book bomb attacks and the discovery of explosives planted in Serpong, Banten and Cirebon.
It is very unlikely that Bin Laden’s death marks an end to acts of terror in Indonesia and across the world, particularly because his ideology of terror, al-Qaeda network and lots of terror cells have remained alive and received funding.
The fear of terror attacks will remain as there are radicals who glorify, or at least sympathize with, Bin Laden and will carry on his efforts to realize his dreams by the use of violence.
The challenge facing Indonesia is therefore to combat radicalism, a battle that it appears will be a difficult one to win.
Critics have long attributed radicalism in the country to the government’s failure to act against radical groups and individuals. Also, law enforcement has been unable to deter radicals. To make matter worse, certain political elites have refused to condemn acts of radicalism, sending a message to the public that they are protecting the radicals.
That the majority has remained silent has also encouraged the radicals to steal the show and make their cause heard, and perhaps accepted, despite their minority in number.
The combination of weak law enforcement and public apathy will certainly turn Indonesia into a fertile ground for radicalism. If nothing changes, sooner or later the country will lose its widely acclaimed moderation.
It is the absence of the state that has also given room to attempt to form an Islamic state which has been evidenced in the long-time, unrestricted maneuvering of the Islamic State of Indonesia (NII) movement. It has managed to recruit new members from all walks of life, ranging from politicians to artists, unnoticed. The group has even raised public funds to finance its propagation.
These series of events preceded the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit, which Indonesia is hosting. It is very unlikely that the visiting delegations will raise questions related to the current development in Indonesia as this would breach diplomatic etiquette, but for sure the country’s commitment to democracy as the basis of its socioeconomic transformation will be made the subject of international scrutiny.
— Dwi Atmanta
