'Don't repeat old habits after IMF cure'

The government has resorted to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help it through the currency crisis. Communications expert Wimar Witoelar says that realizing one's sickness is already half the cure.

JAKARTA (JP): There is no relationship between IMF and the inter-galactic trouble-shooting elite cops portrayed in the blockbuster movie Men in Black starring Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. But both conjure up images of expertise, mystery and above all ruthless effectiveness.

According to an Indonesian public opinion poll from the last few days, people are trembling over the specter of the IMF coming in to help extract Indonesia from its financial mess.

Dennis de Tray, head of the World Bank mission in Jakarta, actually does not agree that the country is facing a financial crisis, suggesting that "confidence crisis" is a better description. Whatever.

Problems, they say, come by the dozen. Indonesia is facing a crisis period. In fact, the worst in 30 years.

Many economists compare the IMF to a doctor. Some say that the IMF is a tough and uncompassionate doctor. Rizal Ramli says: "They are not saviors, but come to amputate our limbs."

Christianto Wibisono, however, says that when somebody is really sick, one should stop all bad habits like smoking and junk food addiction. And if you cannot help yourself with home cures, you have to call the doctor and do as the doctor says.

Indonesia's problems may be situational -- caused by financial speculation and withdrawal of funds from loan and currency markets. But they come in a setting of chronic inefficiency, corruption, collusion, nepotism, protectionism, cronyism, and above all the arrogance of power.

Economist Faisal Basri feels it is not yet time to call the IMF. We still have one more trump card left, he says. "Have the national leadership reform our system." Sure.

That is like the person in Chicago who did an appendectomy on himself. There are many opinions and second opinions, but in any case de Tray is right. We are facing a crisis of confidence in our financial leaders, who in this country are also the economic and political leaders.

We should not worry about issues like national sovereignty, or heaven forbid, pride. When the doctor comes, he or she does not care too much about your lifestyle, except where it has impact on your health.

The IMF could not care less why we have a permissive society which allows corruption. They just want the corruption stopped so we can regain our financial health. They cannot do their job unless we take medication and find the discipline to change our bad habits.

Reform has been slow in coming to Indonesia, and it is a fact of life that prosperity coupled with absolute authority has in fact delayed social reform in this country. This in turn has not been good for economic fundamentals.

When the power elite equates dissent with disruption, democracy gets sidelined.

When stability is interpreted as the suppression of initiative, business growth gets more and more centered and we get a situation of total surrender to a paternalistic system.

The crunch comes when the center loses its perspective because of total submissions made by the nation's political and economic players.

When prominent businessman William Soeryadjaya was forced out of his Astra International Corporation, the noted analyst Hartojo Wignyowiyoto said: "there cannot be two suns in the Indonesian sky", referring to the notion that William never made himself dependent on the power elite.

The fact is, Indonesian businesses have become beneficiaries of government largesse -- decreasing their value in the deal. Growing both in the private sector as well as the public sector, they were spoonfed by government protection, subsidies and collusive arrangements at the cost of national productivity.

It is easy to see how we came to a situation in which massive wealth accumulation has been matched with a decrease in production.

The announcements that "our economic fundamentals are good" became whistling in the dark and eventually were ignored by financial speculators who bet correctly against the rupiah -- winning them the biggest game in town.

And this is all because we would not face reality like the forest fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan, of which we were unaware of until Garuda 152 crashed and the smoke seeped into the skies of Jakarta a few hundred meters above our lungs. Now we have Malaysian fire-fighters fighting our fires and the Men in Black fighting for our rupiah.

The real issue of the IMF presence is not what Rizal, Chris, Faisal, de Tray or I think, but that the government feels it is time to call them.

When the government, for all its firm actions such as refusing jet fighters from the U.S., stubbornly defending wasteful national projects, and curtailing individual expression, calls for the intervention of the IMF "Men in Black" from the bastions of democracy and capitalism, then it means they know they are really sick.

And that is what matters. Half the cure comes in realizing the problem. It is better to call the IMF than, like Malaysia, to blame financier George Soros and threaten to isolate the country's currency from foreign speculators. The result only sent the ringgit sliding further down against the dollar.

This time our leaders are more sensible. Rather than ranting and raving they call in the IMF and let the experts do the job.

Remember, the doctors are coming because we called them. And now we must let them do their work, pay our bills someday and refrain from going back to old habits.

This may be the only way to reform our country's corrupt power structure and return confidence to our people.