ABRI officer says openness cause of Indonesia's dilemma
JAKARTA (JP): The openness that Indonesia is pursuing is creating a dilemma as the society is not entirely ready for it, a senior military official said yesterday.
"On the one hand, the government has encouraged responsible openness, but on the other hand, the members of society are not yet ready for it," said Maj. Gen. Hari Sabarno, an assistant to the head of the Social and Political Affairs at the Armed Forces (ABRI).
Speaking on behalf of ABRI Commander Gen. Feisal Tanjung at a teachers' congress, Hari noted that certain groups of people are still demanding greater openness without considering others' interests.
"As a consequence, we are frequently finding provocative news reports in various publications. Such reports can endanger national unity," Hari said at the fourth day of the 17th congress of the All Indonesian Teachers Union (PGRI).
He added that if not well managed, openness could be like a boomerang.
The general called on teachers to prepare students to understand the responsible openness now being pursued by the government.
"This is one of the challenges facing teachers in enhancing the quality of Indonesian manpower, so they will be able to translate and accept openness in a professional manner," Hari told some 11,000 teachers from all over the country.
Besides the openness issue, Hari also listed other challenges that must be addressed by the congress.
Ideology
He noted that certain people are now questioning Pancasila as the nation's ideology as well as way of life, although there has been a national consensus to accept Pancasila as the sole basic principle. "In questioning Pancasila, they mask themselves with scientific research."
Then there are also people who criticize the government in the name of democracy "as if there is no democracy at all in Indonesia." These people, he said, are mostly those who received basic education on liberal democracy, which is actually not suitable for Indonesia.
"We have experiences on liberal, parliamentary as well as guided democracies, but none are suitable for us until we feel comfortable with the Pancasila democracy," he said.
However, references about the Pancasila democracy are very few, and therefore PGRI is challenged to provide books on it so students will have a clear and unified perception of the democracy based on Pancasila.
Another challenge for teachers is the current economic practices which have deviated from the principle of the familial spirit as stipulated in Article 33 of the Constitution.
"This is because we cannot free ourselves from the mechanism of a global market economy. This is another challenge for PGRI to make its economics teachers write textbooks on Indonesia's economic philosophy," Hari said. (11)