How much politics is too much?<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): \"My mom has turned into some sort of a political
\nanimal,\" complained a friend of mine as she entered my car, \"I
\ncall it newspaper politics.\"<\/p>\n
\"Is it so bad to actually follow what's going on?\" I asked
\nher.<\/p>\n
\"I guess it shouldn't be. It just tires me to hear her talking
\nabout it all the time. Besides, I care little about politics
\nanyway,\" she said.<\/p>\n
\"By the way, is Pak Harto still staying here?\" she asked as
\nwe passed Pertamina Hospital in South Jakarta, where former
\npresident Soeharto received treatment on two occasions in July
\nand August after suffering a stroke.<\/p>\n
\"Jeez, where have you been? He left the hospital three months
\nago,\" I said.<\/p>\n
\"Well, how was I supposed to know all that?\" she said.<\/p>\n
Unlike her mother, my friend, a soon to be medical doctor, is
\npolitically diffident. She shuns newspapers and watches less than
\ntwo hours of TV per week.<\/p>\n
It drives me crazy that when it comes to current affairs, we
\nsometimes have so little in common to talk about. But at the same
\ntime, it is a great relief that we do not have to talk about what
\nmost people talk about these days. Indeed, since the three-decade
\nruler Soeharto exited the political stage in May 1998, suddenly
\nthe word \"politics\" has become an affordable and much more
\ninteresting staple in daily conversations. Politics is no longer
\njust a subject of discussion for a few learned individuals.<\/p>\n
If it took the nation 32 years to scrap individual political
\nconsciousness in order to develop a society of great economy, it
\ntook a mere year and half to rebuild the virtue.<\/p>\n
Just the night after the Oct. 20 presidential election, in
\nwhich Megawati Soekarnoputri was defeated by her long-term ally
\nAbdurrahman Wahid, I asked one of the office gofers if he was
\nproud that we finally had a President as a result of a real
\nelection.<\/p>\n
\"I'm not proud at all, mbak,\" he said. \"Personally, I would
\nrather be on the street burning tires right now... unless of
\ncourse mbak Mega becomes the vice president tomorrow.\"<\/p>\n
Later, on the way to my desk, I overheard the lively debate of
\na group of chatting janitors.<\/p>\n
\"If Golkar didn't swing their votes, it wouldn't have happened
\nthis way,\" said someone.<\/p>\n
\"Yea, but the axis force had a lot to do with it,\" said
\nanother.<\/p>\n
I couldn't help but smile proudly. It seemed that endless live
\ncoverage of the People's Consultative Assembly's General Session
\nled to intensive political education for everyone with access to
\na TV.<\/p>\n
But, like my apathetic doctor friend, everybody has their
\nlimits. At some point, enough is enough. Her description of
\nnewspaper politics is the most accurate way of describing my
\nmother, who spends her morning soaking up the newspapers and the
\nrest of the day trying to analyze them.<\/p>\n
Sure, I'm proud that she keeps track of what's going on in the
\ncountry. The problem is, she never quits wanting to grab my
\nattention to tell me her political revelation of the day.<\/p>\n
\"Can you believe the guts that Baramuli has?\" she would begin,
\nlooking up from her morning papers. I would usually just make an
\nunintelligible grunting noise.<\/p>\n
My lack of a response never bothers her; she always embarks on
\na lengthy tirade about the country's newest great deeds or
\nmisdeeds.<\/p>\n
But as a person who regards democracy as a means to attaining
\na nation's individual self-respect, this phenomenon should
\ninspire me.<\/p>\n
After all, it was hard to believe that a group of brokers and
\nwhite-collar workers -- usually the most pragmatic and
\npolitically dispassionate groups -- would threaten to strike over
\na presidential candidate.<\/p>\n
It made me wonder what were these people doing when the same
\nman was reelected president over and over again in previous years
\nwhen a presidential fray was nonexistent?<\/p>\n
Now that we have a new government, there are less intrigues to
\nanalyze over coffee, and certainly more time to make constructive
\njudgments.<\/p>\n
As for my med-school friend, her late-night shift life
\ncontinues in the hospital emergency rooms. On weekends, we can
\nmeet and have a not-so-glamorous but equally enlightening
\ndiscourse over how to increase one's potassium intake and, just
\nmaybe, about the poor management of the country's public health
\nservices.<\/p>\n
-- Devi M. Asmarani<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/how-much-politics-is-too-much-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }