At the foot of Mount Manglayang, in a small village in Sukabumi, West\nJava, lives a farmer named Falah. He is no longer young, but his face is\nas calm as a paddy field after harvest. He has never seen the physical\nform of the US dollar; indeed, if presented with a hundred-dollar note,\nhe might turn it over and ask, \u2018Is this a lottery coupon?\u2019<\/p>\n
Falah lives with his wife and three children. They find their daily\nmeals of cassava, sago, and occasionally rice from their own fields to\nbe sufficient. His side dishes consist of tofu and tempeh, but he\nensures they are made from local soybeans. This is not due to\nparticipation in an anti-globalisation seminar in a five-star hotel, but\nbecause he believes imported soybeans involve too much \u2018laboratory\ninterference.\u2019 For Falah, local tempeh is more reassuring than temini\nthat originates from genetic engineering and multinational corporate\nPowerPoint presentations.<\/p>\n
Yet, life is ironic. While Falah may not know the dollar, his sarong\nis made in China. His t-shirt, his songkok, and perhaps even his\nunderwear have crossed the South China Sea before reaching the village\nkiosk. Interestingly, these goods can now be purchased by small-scale\nimporters via Alibaba using QRIS in Rupiah. It feels incredibly\nmodern\u2014simply scan, click, and finished. It is as if the dollar has\ntaken early retirement.<\/p>\n
Falah does not understand that behind the seemingly nationalist QRIS\ntransactions, the global trade chain continues to move according to the\nlogic of foreign exchange and international exchange rates. While the\nRupiah is used for retail transactions, the structures of imports,\ninterbank payments, trade balances, and cross-border conversions still\nrevolve around the dollar and the world\u2019s strong currencies. The digital\nworld is skilled at dressing up; people feel they are not touching the\ndollar, even though the dollar remains the \u2018invisible foreman\u2019 in the\nwarehouse of global trade.<\/p>\n
It is at this point that President Prabowo Subianto\u2019s statement\nbecomes interesting to read, rather than being dismissed as a logical\nerror. When he stated that villagers do not use dollars, many reacted\nlike a fire alarm in a macroeconomics seminar. Social media boiled, and\nanalysts rushed in with graphs. Some seemed intent on checking the\nRupiah exchange rate while simultaneously checking their blood\npressure.<\/p>\n
However, perhaps what Prabowo was discussing was not merely the fact\nof monetary transactions, but rather providing a direction for a more\noptimistic national psychology to achieve the goal of a civilisation\nbased on self-reliance. This is a different matter. Our problem today is\nthat we too often read political speeches like reading photocopied\nreceipts\u2014everything must be literal, detailed, precise, and directly\naligned with quarterly BPS data. As a result, this nation often loses\nthe ability to understand directional signals.<\/p>\n
If taken out of context, the phrase \u2018villagers do not use dollars\u2019\nsounds like a sentence that would make an economics professor bite their\ncalculator. But viewed in its entirety, the statement emerged during the\ninauguration of thousands of \u2018Merah Putih\u2019 Village Cooperatives. This\nsuggests the President was speaking about the ambition of \u2018money\ncirculating in the village, production growing in the village, and\nconsumption met by the village.\u2019 In other words: community-based\neconomic independence, which has long been a shared aspiration.<\/p>\n
It must be admitted that this direction is not wrong. The problem is\nthat political speeches are often like instant noodles: the hot water is\npresent, but the seasoning is missing. This grand narrative is not fully\nexplained to the public by his aides. Consequently, people hear the\nsurface without understanding the framework. Even the President\u2019s\npolitical aides and communication experts, who should be translating\nthese ideas, are often busy acting as well-dressed television\ncommentators.<\/p>\n
To be honest, Indonesia has lived too long as a nation that feels\nindependent, yet its kitchen still depends on imported ships. We speak\nof sovereignty while queuing for foreign soybeans. We deliver speeches\non nationalism while wheat, sugar, machinery, medicine, and even sewing\nneedles still wait for the dollar exchange rate to smile first. This is\nwhy criticism of Prabowo remains important, because economic reality is\nstubborn. When the Rupiah weakens, fertiliser prices rise. When the\ndollar surges, the price of instant noodles performs a somersault.<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/village-dollars-1780928473", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }