Democracy without education: Quo vadis?

Democracy without education: Quo vadis?

Nirwan Idrus, Executive Director, Indonesian Institute for
Management Development (IPMI), Jakarta

The euphoria about democracy in Indonesia lasted a few years.
Reality took over and democracy is no more. One begins to hear
the longing for the New Order of the Soeharto regime. Some say
that the cleanliness of the major roads around Jakarta was a
sense of pride. Footpath vendors were not to be found alongside
these major roads.

But now? There is no law and order, they claim. Corruption is
uncontrollable. There were rampant corruptions in Soeharto's
time, but they hasten to add, not as ludicrous, giddy and
shameless as they are today, as if to say that corruption was
more orderly, more organized, more restrained and more
structured.

Now everyone seems to be in a hurry, fearing perhaps that
Armageddon will stop them from capitalizing on the plight of the
poor and accumulating the illegal wealth that everyone else is
vying for. The clearest picture of this is on Jakarta roads. The
lesson foreigners quickly learn about driving in Jakarta
particularly and in Indonesia generally, is that nobody waits for
anybody else and that this egoistic actions are directly opposite
to what they read about Indonesians before they set foot in this
country.

While many are still on cloud nine about democratization,
others are wading in the bitter wake of its failures. The reality
it would seem is that Indonesia is a long way from democracy,
even though the rhetoric and abuse of the word democracy
continue.

While senior officers in government and in private
institutions in democratic countries would voluntarily step out
of their positions if investigated for criminal offenses, in
Indonesia even those who are already convicted refused to
relinquish their positions.

Such is democracy in Indonesia. Moves are reportedly afoot to
write in rules and regulations into various acts so that such
shameful situations will not recur. Many people are skeptical
that this will amount to anything.

The re-election of Sutiyoso to the governorship of Jakarta is
yet another example of questionable democracy. Allegations of
money politics were ripe about this election. Apparently no proof
was found by authorities about these allegations and the election
is therefore unassailable. Never mind about the people
demonstrating for days outside the City Council, or a lot of
other criticisms thrown at the election.

Some people will claim that the rallies and criticisms in
Jakarta over whatever issues, are the very evidence of democracy
at work, and that this sort of thing was absent during the Orde
Baru. Proponents of democracy will say that Indonesia has gone a
long way towards democracy in the last four or so years.

Surprise, surprise, and then one is told that the rallies
themselves were staged. The demonstrators were paid by figures
known and unknown. One gets more confused when one is told that
those who alleged money politics may even be recipients of
unclear funds. The convolution continues.

Villagers, even those in the middle of paddy fields, are
watching all the above live on their TV sets. They listen to the
oration by various people claiming to be students and they
watched experts explaining the essence of democracy, politics,
economics and many other things.

Although half of what they heard were gobbledygook, their
emotion is fired up. They would themselves engage in discussions
about democracy, impressed by what the TV experts had said. Some
continue to wonder why so-and-so was called a doctor when his
claimed area of expertise is economics and not medicine. Yet
still others wonder what they are going to give their families to
eat when dawn breaks the next day.

Aspects of democracy can also be seen in the central
government's effort to decentralize through the laws on regional
autonomy. However discussions are unending about the extent that
those in the know claim that regional autonomy has not worked.
These include a ministerial level government official who was
tasked to get regional autonomy implemented.

The process for university autonomy awarded to the four larger
state universities in the country have been undertaken, but the
spirit was missing. Although the Bogor Institute of Agriculture
(IPB) is still to elect its new rector, all the four universities
will clearly have elected insiders persons as their new rectors.

When one knows that an outsider finds it heavy going in
changing the entrenched paradigm of an institution, what chance
is there for an insider to even scratch the surface of change? Of
course those institutions will claim that democracy has been put
in place.

But have the people exercised their democratic rights? Were
they able to put their thoughts into the ring and be fairly
considered? Were they able to do so without fear of
repercussions? Did they put their thoughts without having been
paid, whether in money or kind, by those who have vested interest
but were afraid to be counted?

Democracy is about openly exercising one's rights in arguing
one's point, asserting the point to others and accepting one's
defeat if the point did not finally win. Logics play an extremely
important point here. It is a discipline that one gets by
learning about it and practicing it.

How do we implement democracy when the power of logics in most
Indonesians is simply not there -- they have not got the
instructions about logics, they have not been exposed to logical
discussion and arguments and that they have been culturally
conditioned not to be inquisitive and argumentative.

They were simply not taught to be so in schools or that they
were not educated to the level that would ordinarily begin
analytical and logical training. World Bank figures showed that
70 percent of the Indonesian workforce only has primary school
education. Various regional and international surveys have also
showed that the level of education in Indonesia leaves a lot to
be desired.

Even our physics teachers have problems passing the tests at
the higher secondary school level, while physics is one of the
foundation for modern technology and society. Our locally
graduated engineers are below par compared to those from
neighboring Southeast Asian countries.

Their curricula are considered unnecessarily irrelevant and
the learning method anachronistic. While primary school pupils in
New Zealand or Australia are let loose on a individual self-
directed learning process about particular topics on which they
were to write an essay on, Indonesian university students are
still being hand-held by their lecturers and are still learning
almost by rote.

Masters and PhD supervisors in overseas universities are
reportedly refusing to supervise research students from
Indonesia, because they are so dependent on their supervisors,
while research degrees are meant to be training for independent
research.

Exacerbated by the big number of school-age children not at
school for one reason or another, plus the questionable quality
of the teaching and learning, facilities and teachers at schools
and universities around the country, little if any foundation for
logics and thus democracy is laid. So can we claim that we are a
democracy or even, that we are going through the process?

Various developments over the last four years, from the
destruction of company properties by people claiming to be their
rightful owners and newly freed from claimed oppression, to the
incessant and senseless killings based on ethnicity and religious
differences, spell misunderstanding and ignorance about
democracy. Good education is pivotal in changing all these and
good education is the most basic requirement for a democratic
society. Democracy without education has nowhere to go.