Barbarians in the House

Those acquainted with politics looked on in amusement. The majority of those who had held their representatives in something like reverence stared in bemusement.

The cacophony of the assembly turned ugly on Wednesday as the esteemed members of the House of Representatives nearly came to blows during a debate over the fuel price hike. Free speech and opinion veered toward a free-for-all.

A shouting match quickly turned to pushing and shoving as legislators tried to reach the House speaker, all the time waving their mobile phones about as dangerous weapons.

Surrounding the speaker's dais, their actions and taunts were more akin to professional wrestlers than learned gentlemen entrusted with the affairs of state.

That the whole thing was caught on camera and broadcast hourly on television only made the whole thing worse. The beneficiaries of the country's democracy were teaching their subjects all the wrong lessons.

Democracy is a learning process. Wednesday's outburst helped unlearn the civility of our nascent democracy. With life getting tougher by the day, a brawl in the most revered hall of Indonesia's democracy will only leave millions wondering whether democracy is worth the sacrifice.

No one said democracy would be easy. Mohammad Hatta, the first vice president, conceded in 1956 that "democracy needs practice ... there must be some practice for a nation not accomplished in this exercise at the national level".

Even great visionaries of the system such as American James Madison noted that democracies have always been spectacles of turbulence and contention. But what transpired at the House was not "practice". It was a process of implosion.

We hope Wednesday's embarrassment will not damage the people's trust in our democratic institutions. It would be good to remind ourselves of Plato's charge to remain faithful in the belief that the trouble with democracy was not due to the absence of the rule of law, but that the wrong people were running it -- those who had little virtue.

Virtue, honor and a code of conduct should be intrinsic among those who wear the House insignia pinned to their lapels.

Another late great politician of the 1950s parliamentary era, Mohammad Natsir, highlighted three errs made by Indonesia's legislators that undermined the democratic process.

The first was a decay of idealism that allowed pique and greed to rule. The second was a fading of the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior to accomplish one's objectives.

The third was the absence of a sense of justice that allowed the wrong man to be put in the wrong place.

Natsir's observations are as true today as they were when he made them 50 years ago.

The ends being sought by the legislators may have been noble, but the means by which they pursued them was not. Even schoolchildren can resolve their difference without having to resort to fighting.

Given the vibrancy of Indonesia's society, more contentious issues than the fuel price increases are likely to arise in the coming months.

Already perceived publicly with a cynical eye, without decorum, respect for dissenting opinion and a sense of duty the House will become an assembly of disorder and disaster.

And sadly, despite the unnecessary brouhaha, legislators still could not resolve their differences over the fuel price increases. So what was all the rage for?

Politics is the art of getting other people to do what you want without them knowing it. This sort of finesse defines great politicians.

Such savvy -- the kind that separates great politicians from the average seat warmers in the House -- is clearly still lacking among our legislators.