Sunday, September 04, 2005

War against corruption

In his article, Dr. Nadirsyah Hosen, a prominant Indonesian Muslim scholar, wrote that:

"Corruption is closely linked to the way in which governments conduct their affairs, and, therefore, also to the growth of governments' economic activities."

This should be mostly connected to long discussion how to end corruption in Indonesia. My question should be:

"If Indonesian people really wants to end corruption, then we should be able to look at the 2004 General Election's result. Indeed, could we see this people's will at the House of Representatives?"

Then as my first "postulate": I doubt that the Indonesian people really wants to end rampant nationwide corruption. I myself am an Indonesian, born in Indonesia, grew up in Indonesia, and will be back to Indonesia once my job in Germany finished. I feel what the people think, they want a "just prosperous society". But how to build it, they will answer, "it depends on the government.". Again government should be a "fairy tale godfather"?
I won't deny important role of leadership here. A strong good leadership will build a strong good trust. Be this trust to the government, to the people, and vice versa, this would be a fundamental capital of government-people relationship. But unfortunately, I couldn't see this in Indonesia.
Now we have democracy, even one of the most complicated election in the world. The people should vote three times in 2004: first, the members of House of Representatives and DPD (Provincial Representative Assembly). Second, first round presidential election. Third, second round presidential election, once the first failed to pass only one pair candidate elected by 51% of voters. The issue of clean government was already discussed many times, but, as we could see now, it had small impact. The people doesn't want it as top agenda, as their interests will depend of their own cronies.
Like in other Asian cultures, Indonesians spend most of their times in their big families. Also when unemployment in Indonesia reaches 30 millions this year, the government could say but this is not a crisis, because avary (big) family will take care of its (unemployment) members. That's why, if one of your crony has a good position, his other family members will be at least very proud.
What still missing from this culture is the awareness, that the ability from the big family to support the whole family is very limited. In the Western countries this role is taken by the state with social state concept, whose prerequisite is a clean, strong bureacracy, but in Indonesia the state is still not able to build that.
This is the first challenge to Indonesians, if they realize that cronies woulb be not enough to support all their relatives, so that they should adapt themselves to think a little bit selfish: let the state be trustful enough and the people keep this trust while transforming themselves to an information society.

1 comment:

Nadirsyah Hosen said...

check this out:
wwics.si.edu/topics/pubs/asiarpt100.pdf