M

odern Indonesians are generally bent on quick-fix remedies, preferring revolution to evolution, overhaul rather than maintenance and repair.

We create something wonderful, then we allow it to rot to such a state that we have to either abandon it or perform total renovation. Is this because Indonesia, to quote first president Sukarno, was born '€setelah digodok di kawah gunung berapi'€ (after being stirred in molten lava of a volcanic crater), and not as a child born under '€œsinar rembulan'€ (the light of the moon)?

Be as it may, several quick fixes have been carried out to mend the broken republic: Jumping from federalism (RIS) to unitarianism (RI) when the first system was marred by interference from the Dutch colonial administration that was determined to destroy the young republic; and then the transition from the parliamentary system to the presidential system, when the former resulted in the changing of government almost every year.

The shift from the Old Order '€” which had given rise to the nightmarish probability of a communist takeover '€” to the New Order was achieved by another quick fix of brutal repression.

General Soeharto, initially regarded as the nation'€™s savior, was allowed to become a tyrant.

He then had to be toppled by another revolution disguised as a reform movement.

The '€œsacred'€ constitution written by the revolutionary founding fathers in 1945 had to be amended, like a patient undergoing an immediate heart operation to survive.

We are now living under a system also born after being '€œstirred in the hot lava'€ of popular anger against the tyranny of the New Order.

Eventually Indonesians were again talking about the need for quick fixes amid dissatisfaction over  reformasi that gave birth to a new impetus for democracy and decentralization.

Thanks to the intense process of democratization and decentralization that characterized reformasi, a few political elites, like lawmakers, voiced strong objection to an '€œexcess of democracy'€. '€œOur people are not yet ready for democracy'€, they said. Some said decentralization gave birth to raja-raja kecil (little kings) in the provinces and far-flung regions.

But they conveniently forgot that in terms of the nation'€™s history, it was democracy and decentralization that saved the country. Before reformasi many studies had predicted Indonesia'€™s '€œbalkanization'€, or dissolution into several smaller nation-states.

Even the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) had pinned its hopes on this possibility, knowing very well that militarily its tiny forces would never be able to defeat the 1 million strong Indonesian armed forces.

They waged a war of attrition to weaken the republic to such an extent that it would be unable to progress.

In nation-building, standing still is equal to moving backward, because every other aspect of life moves forward; the pressure of population growth and the ever-increasing employment requirement do not slow down for a weakening economy.

Even in the post reformasi era, no less than then president Megawati Soekarnoputri warned of the possible breaking up of the republic if citizens did not work to keep it intact.

But make not democracy and decentralization scapegoats for the abuses of the well-tested formula; on the contrary, they are the saviors of the republic.

GAM discovered that after reformasi, the policy of decentralization had left the group practically alone in the fight for independence, as no other province was still pursuing this objective with the exception of Papua, which was of very little help in GAM'€™s struggle.

Democracy had galvanized the younger generation, which was eager to move forward.

Now, a new President has been elected from the ranks of ordinary citizens; a child who was not born '€œunder the moonlight'€, to paraphrase Sukarno again.

Those who are against democracy and decentralization forget or ignore the fact that these terms refer to a process.

Both cannot be achieved through quick-fix measures. Former president George Bush attempted quick-fixes in Iraq and Afghanistan with disastrous consequences, not only for these two countries and for the US itself, but for the rest of the world.

Modern Indonesians should consider returning to the tradition powerfully expressed in the saying: '€œbiar lambat asal selamat, tidak lari gunung dikejar'€ (let it be slow and steady, no need to chase the stationary mountain) and abandon the quick-fix mentality whenever growing pains arise in a well-tested process.

France also underwent chaotic political developments in the post war Fourth Republic, when Gen. Charles de Gaulle returned to power.

The first thing he did was  decentralize what had been a highly centralized system of government where everything was decided in Paris and when administrations often lasted just a few months.

Immediately after he helped bring about the formation of the Fifth Republic, transitioning France from a parliamentarian to a presidential system of government marked by considerable distribution of power, abuses emerged.

In one municipality, tens of thousands of non-citizen Algerian and Moroccan immigrants employed in auto-industry factories were given the right to vote to maintain the socialist majority in the local parliament. Mayors of small cities acted like little Napoleons.

Did this cause the French return to centralization? Of course not; they closed loopholes in the system that had allowed the abuses to occur. They confronted the challenges of maintenance as a reality. Revolution is exciting.

But revolution is also destructive, because by definition revolution destroys an old system to build a new one. You cannot repeat the cycle on a regular basis.

The Eiffel Tower was built with a bold revolutionary spirit but implemented by the patient planning of details. So was Borobudur.

Nation-building needs a well-chartered course for building the people'€™s capacity in tandem with the construction of infrastructure.

Revolutions don'€™t produce engineers, doctors and lawyers. Similarly, they don'€™t construct buildings and bridges, irrigation canals and ships.

Indonesians must learn to adopt this culture of maintenance and of gradual evolution.

Let the '€œrevolusi mental'€ be a battle cry to trigger this change, to be the catalyst of a bold about-turn to becoming alon-alon waton kelakon (slow but sure) and rejecting the quick fix of ad-hoc and provisory measures that tend to solidify into permanency until things get out of hand and a revolution is required to save the nation, yet again.