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