Goodbye, DPR! It's been nice knowing you<\/p>\n
Mochtar Buchori, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Now that my tenure as a legislator (a member of the House of
\nRepresentatives) is almost over, I feel that I should tell you
\nfrankly how I feel about you.<\/p>\n
I have decided to leave you, but not because I don't like
\nbeing with you. Nor am I doing this because I feel that you have
\nnot been treating me well enough. I enjoyed being with you
\nimmensely, especially during the first year of my tenure.
\nHowever, as time went on I gradually realized that I could never
\nbe a good member of your institution. You are designed to be a
\nhome for politicians, and I am simply not a politician. I feel
\nthat I could never become an effective politician, no matter how
\nhard I tried. My heart is just not with you. It is somewhere
\nelse. All this time I feel like a strange duck in your pond. I am
\nquite sure you know it, and I feel clearly the public distaste
\nfor pseudo-politicians like me.<\/p>\n
Do you know that I always feel confused when I take part in
\ndebates or hearings? I feel that many of my honorable colleagues
\nfrequently make comments that do not always relate to the core
\nissue being discussed. Too often, I feel that many of us talk
\njust for the sake of it, not for the sake for clarifying matters.
\nSometimes some of us start to talk before having an idea what he
\nor she is going to talk about.<\/p>\n
I grew up in a different environment. In my old habitat
\ndiscussions were entered into to clarify problems, not
\nnecessarily to solve them. Sometimes discussions were held just
\nfor the sake of getting a better understanding of problems. I did
\nnot realize that orators have a different view about it.
\nAccording to William Hazlitt (1778 to 1830), the business of the
\norator is " ... not to convince, but to persuade; not to inform,
\nbut to rouse the mind; to build upon the habitual prejudice of
\nmankind, ... and to add feeling to prejudice, and action to
\nfeeling."<\/p>\n
My dear DPR! I'm just not a follower of this school. To me,
\n"Prejudice is the child of ignorance", as Hazlitt put it in 1839,
\nor a mere "vagrant opinion without visible means of support", as
\nAmbrose Bierce (1842 to 1914) phrased it. I am a person with a
\ndifferent bent. My inclination is follow Stephen Decatour's
\nadvice, which he wrote in 1816 in Fiat Justitia, pereat coleum
\n(Let justice be done, though heaven perish). My toast would be,
\n"May our country be always successful and, whether successful or
\notherwise, always right."<\/p>\n
You might as well ask me why I entered your chamber in the
\nfirst place. Well, it's a long story with some delicate political
\nentanglements. I would rather not disclose it here. Suffice it is
\nto say that I felt then that I could become an academic-cum-
\npolitician like the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. But I
\nwas mistaken! I did not realize at that time that it takes years
\nof hard, intellectual labor and the right political connections
\nto become a respected politician like him. I had neither his
\nacademic record nor his political connections. In hindsight I
\nrealize how big a fool I was to even dream of ever becoming
\nsomeone remotely resembling Moynihan.<\/p>\n
There was still another consideration. I thought at that time
\nthat it would feel nice to be a member of a political elite. Who
\nwould not? You are a member of an elite of 500 people in a
\ncountry of 200 million people. You got a handsome monthly
\nallowance. And, in a way, you wielded power. But as time went on,
\nthis feeling of self-importance evaporated. Gradually I began to
\nfeel that in my case there was really nothing to be proud of. I
\nwas not even elected by the people. I was merely selected by my
\nparty. I no longer felt proud to be a member of the DPR. I even
\nbegan to feel embarrassed when people recognized me as a member
\nof the national legislature.<\/p>\n
I am telling you this, not because I have a distaste for you
\nas an institution. On the contrary, I have always had high
\nrespect for you, and also high expectations of you. Especially as
\nyou have shown convincingly to the public that you have the
\nability to transform yourself from a rubber stamp institution to
\none with the determination and power to correct the wrongs of
\nthis country, of which there are so many. It is a pity that you
\nare not sufficiently persistent and consistent in this regard. I
\nfeel it is stigmatizing that some of us -- DPR members -- were
\ncaught in degrading acts of corruption, public lying or resorting
\nto casuistry to hide ignorance.<\/p>\n
In 2000 I described myself as a "reluctant politician". My
\ninitial reluctance to join you was primarily caused by my
\ninability to be a good debater. And this is because I never
\nlearned the art of debating. What I have learned in my life is
\nhow to become a good participant in academic discourse. This does
\nnot mean that I always find political debate annoying or academic
\ndiscourse fascinating. I do enjoy good political debate or a good
\nspeech when there is one. I hate academic dialog that is
\nsuperficial, lacking elegance or pedantic. I always love the
\nspeeches of my honorable colleague, Sutradara Ginting. He can be
\nso elegant and moving at the same time. On the other hand, I
\ndislike the "academic discourse" that sometimes takes place in
\nsessions to evaluate a doctoral thesis. It can sometimes be so
\nboring, full of trivialities and pedantic.<\/p>\n
But beautiful and fascinating speeches, debates and
\ndiscussions have been a rarity in your chamber. More often than
\nnot, they are a show of political strength -- an exhibition of
\npolitical shrewdness rather than wisdom -- and a demonstration of
\ngroup solidarity. This kind of climate made me lose interest in
\nwhatever you are trying to accomplish. At times this kind of
\nclimate made me think of Neil Kinnock, who said in June 1976,
\n"Loyalty is a fine quality but in excess it fills political
\ngraveyards." I think that one pearl of wisdom to remember about
\nloyalty is to try to limit it. "To go beyond it is as wrong as to
\nfall short." This is Confucius' wisdom, according to James Legge.<\/p>\n
My decision to withdraw from your company was prompted by two
\nunmistakable signs. First, I have become increasingly lazy to
\nattend meetings called for by my commission. And I have to force
\nmyself extra-hard to attend plenary meetings. The second sign is
\nthat I have become ill more often, and have more frequently been
\nhospitalized.<\/p>\n
Before I became a member of the DPR I had been hospitalized
\nonly three times throughout my 73 years. But since I became a DPR
\nmember, every year I had to be hospitalized, and in 2003 I was
\nhospitalized even three times. My doctors told me that if I
\nwanted to regain my health, I had to change completely my
\nlifestyle. If I did not, I would have to retire -- not only from
\nthe DPR, but from life itself.<\/p>\n
My dear DPR! I want to part from you in good spirits. I wish
\nyou much luck and success for the next five years. I do hope that
\nfor the next stage in your history you will not have to
\naccommodate too many people like me: Old, worn out and silent,
\nafraid to sound and look foolish.<\/p>\n
The writer is a House member who represents the Indonesian
\nDemocratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/goodbye-dpr-its-been-nice-knowing-you-1447893297",
"image": ""
},
"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}