Dating back to around the 4th millennium B.C., this belief system is a fundamental concept that has influenced the shape of Southeast Asian states.

Considering its historical embeddedness, any revelation that local wisdom is being used in policymaking, a supposedly exclusive domain of logic, should not be surprising at all. In fact, The Economist, oft described as the poster boy for rational choice theory, has been consistent in highlighting the persistent use of local wisdoms, with its latest focus on the rising popularity of the Javanese sultanate that lays its claim to tradition across the nation.

Hence, whatever happens in public life today is not divorceable from the local wisdom that serves as its presupposition. It is local wisdom that is the bedrock of Indonesia’s public life. Further, it seems plausible that any public policy, from conception to implementation, is contingent on its synchronicity with local wisdoms. Without this synchronicity, any policy may well be ineffectual, to say the least.

Thus far, as far as I can confirm, there has been no clear hint that we are taking local wisdom seriously. Instead, most, if not all, reform initiatives dismiss its analytical potential. Worse, such knowledge is thin on the ground, so It is no wonder that social thinkers with the knack to perform scholarly probes are perpetually in short supply.

Embellished with American Ph.Ds in political science, the highbrow “Tim Tujuh” (team of seven) is a case in point as the “chosen ones” to independently engineer the post-Soeharto election system. Curiously, Tim Tujuh is venerated for blindly replicating America’s electoral model, including idiosyncrasies such as the Electoral College, and even has been pushed to do so.

The same holds true for the short-lived Constitutional Commission that supposedly delivered a brand-new constitution to foment Indonesia’s then-blooming democracy. Instead of figuring out Indonesia’s endogenous social structure, the elitist commission was too occupied with debating some alien theoretical lens devoid of any practical judgment. It is no surprise that no one even bothered to chart what lessons could be learned from the commission.

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