A good beginning

A good beginning

The dialog between the government and citizens, which was held
at the Jakarta Fair ground in Kemayoran on Saturday, has
attracted widespread attention. Such attention is natural
considering the number of participants that were involved and the
heterogeneous nature of the groups they represented.

As was reported by the media, the atmosphere that prevailed
during the dialog was notably open. All the speakers participated
on an equal footing, unrestrained by distinctions of hierarchy.
They freely voiced their aspirations, their criticism and their
hopes. The cabinet ministers representing the government accepted
the information, explained policies and defined the various
problems now facing the government, the nation and the country.

Equality has been achieved through a dialog led by neutral
moderators. The familiar air of formal briefings by bureaucrats
was dissolved in a mood of equality. Students were induced to
express their views, their criticism and their hopes in a civil
manner. The uneasy relationship between the government and the
community, that has so far been portrayed by various protests,
evaporated.

Obviously, this particular format of dialog is suitable only
for the beginning stages (of contact), to serve as an
introduction to further, more intense discussions with a greater
focus on problems, depending on their place on the scale of
priorities. To get the best possible results, further dialogs are
necessary, with participants selected according to the specific
problems to be discussed.

If this kind of dialog is considered effective, however, it
would be natural for people to ask why the People's Consultative
Assembly (MPR), which took such huge expenditures and intense
preparation to convene, did not do the same thing, in a similar
format, through a similar process and in a similar atmosphere.
And why were the problems -- including the various aspects of our
current crisis -- that now feature so highly on the dialog agenda
not touched at all during the MPR general session?

However, it is no use trying to turn back the clock of
history. The important thing is how to make sure that future
dialogs can be further improved and made more articulate, so that
no one will have the feeling of being left behind.

-- Media Indonesia, Jakarta