Lesson (not) learned
We regularly read the Jakarta Post and have been for a very long time. From time to time we criticized it, so it is only fair if we praise them when they wrote something nice.
It's about the Bank Century bailout scandal that now has turned into a circus.
Towards the end of the editorial, the paper wrote:
"If there is one valuable lesson from Century, it is the sad revelation that Indonesia is being led by a bunch of politicians who are opportunists at best and incompetent at worst."
Ouch.
Well said, Jakarta Post.
So now the next question is:
Who put this opportunists and incompetent bunch there?
Oh wait:
We have a democracy now. A free and fair election.
Oh no! We elected this people! It's our fault!
Note to self: Do not forget about this when voting next time. Do not forget. Do not.
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Source: The Jakarta Post: Editorial: The fallout of the Century
posted by Indonesia Anonymus | 3:39 PM
7 Comments:
My hope is that we can learn from our past mistakes. It's all part of growing up and remember we are a big heterogeneous nation so it is not as easy as, say, Singapore or Malaysia to manage. (So would it be better to break up our republic into smaller ones? like the soviet union. look how much better the ex-soviets now in the course of just 1 decade after the fall of soviet union compared to wreck they were inside the iron curtain)
Talk to any Singaporean or malaysian or any foreigner for that matter, and they will tell you their politicians are the most corrupt and incompetent. My greek friend recently complained to me and it seems Greece is going south, their economy is literally destroyed in large part because of mismanagement and massive corruption by their politicians and their cronies (sounds familiar?), couple years ago another ruski friend told me the same thing about her country.
Ours is not an isolated problem. It is not 'Indonesian' but human in general. Talk about greed, lust for power and money, ambition, etc.
Guruh,
Excellent point. Thank you.
It's an old age question "How do we solve world's problem".
The common answer these days usually revolve around 'education'. I doubt this alone will solve the problem. Those politicians and dictators that do bad things are not stupid.
Educating the voters to vote the good government is definitelly a way forward. The question is how are we going to get good government (therefore good governance)?
Most voters picked SBY because he looks good on photo. "Nobody is good, so we just pick the good looking one", people said to me. No offense to SBY, he is a good leader regardless.
Anyway, I believe a good government is a 'public servant'. They serve the public, not themselves. Gee, this is difficult, who wants to be servant anyway?
We need a change of heart, not just in the head...
Rusdy,
You made a good point: "We need a change of heart, not just in the head."
And yes, we share the same opinion as yours: people who run for public office these days probably do not think of it as 'campaigning to be a servant'...
One of my most favorite posts!
I think we have too many people and too diverse to be ruled by politicians.
Kamil, thank you.
About being ruled by politicians, we think as long as we maintain democracy, we will be ruled by politicians. There is no other options, is there? Unless we want to be ruled by say generals, or religious leaders...
I think being a politician is a career choice, at least in the context of rightist/capitalist democracy. To be a politician is to be able to rule, and to rule is to attain personal gain. Long gone are days of mythical poor and solitary kings and queens who want nothing peace.
But there are also "other" kind of democracy, that is a little bit more down to earth with the concept of leadership not seen as mastership, but rather as someone who take charge in resolving the complexity of diversity for the sake of collective/common gain. In this context, the title "politician" might change to, say, "organizer" hehe.
My two cents worth!
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