A grassroots celebration

A grassroots celebration

This year is monumental for the Republic of Indonesia, which will reach 50 years of age in August. And it seems the world will be celebrating to. The anniversary committee has announced that several other nations have expressed interest in taking part in the celebration because Indonesia was one of the first nations to gain independence after World War II.

Indonesia's turbulent revolution, which inspired oppressed people worldwide with new hope of independence, was a movement involving people from all levels of society, with the grassroots providing the courage, energy and drive to carry through on the vision of the archipelago's revolutionary leaders.

For this reason, as the organizing committee chaired by former minister of environment Emil Salim has announced, the celebration's theme is "expressing gratitude to God for independence by strengthening ties with the grassroots level of society".

With this theme, the nation will celebrate its independence anniversary with festive events and religious activities predominantly managed by people living at the grassroots level of society, especially those in rural areas. In short, it is to be a celebration by the people for the people in gratitude to the nation's leaders for bringing about and maintaining the nation's independence by the grace of God.

The theme, which President Soeharto underlined in his speech before the House of Representatives on Jan. 5, reminds us that the feeling of gratitude toward the populace for the success of the independence movement is genuine on the part of the nation's leadership.

The republic was set up by the people, the military was born from the womb of the populace, and it was the people who fed the troops during the guerrilla war for independence. General Sudirman, the father of the Armed Forces, who led the fight, while he was suffering from serious lung trouble, sought refuge among the people in the rural areas during the peak months of the warfare, between December 1948 and July 1949.

Given this history, the public is sure to warmly welcome the committee's decision, although some people are bound to ask whether enough has been done to respect the people's constitutional rights and to wipe out the craze for social status which has gravely widened the gap between the rich and the poor over the past 50 years. Another question also likely to surface is: Just how successful has the government been at developing the spiritual and cultural sectors in order to counter the negative impacts of rapid modernization?

There are 27 million Indonesians still living under the poverty line -- some of whom exist on a stone age level -- while a few hundred others are vying with each other to build posh living quarters and extravagant golf courses for the few thousand who can afford them.

All of this seems to indicate a decrease in the people's sense of social solidarity and a tendency toward moral decay of the populace as the nation nears its 50th independence anniversary.

This has not gone unnoticed. The fruits of independence we have experienced thus far, have also make our populace, especially the younger generation, more critical and outspoken, but by no means less patriotic.

Therefore, we sincerely hope that the nation's current leadership, many of whom are members of the 1945 Generation, will continue to make every effort to guarantee the people's constitutional rights by giving everyone a greater say in the country's future. In this way, the love everyone born and raised in this archipelago feels for the nation can be harnessed, as was the courage of the grassroots in the revolutionary period, to carry the nation to greater successes.