DPA advises President
I was watching the 12:30 p.m. news on SCTV on Feb. 7, 2001, when, after incessant reports on nationwide mass demonstrations, this time raging in East Java, a sudden hopeful sign suggesting a reconciliatory rapprochement was aired. Unexpectedly it was reported that a delegation of the Supreme Advisory Council (DPA), under its chairman, Achmad Tirto Sudiro, met the President. The chairman was seen reading from a folder in his hands the DPA's advice, to which the President was seen listening attentively, but obviously in his well-known unique style.
The salient points of the DPA's advice caught in the report essentially covered two meaningful features. First, advising the President to act tactfully and reply accordingly to the House of Representatives' memorandum, and second, advising that a tactful and proper reply from the President would make the issuance of a second memorandum unnecessary.
Conspicuously, in its advice, the DPA opted to shy away from entangling itself in the controversial issue of urging the President to resign. By taking a wise reconciliatory attitude, the DPA clearly showed its statesmanlike stance vis-a-vis the confrontation between the pros and cons of political forces on one side supporting and on the other opposing the President to serve the full term of his tenure.
I couldn't help but heave a sigh of deep relief when I heard of the unexpected stance taken by the DPA, as it serves to prove that this country still has politicians with statesmanlike visions in the DPA. Hopefully, the DPA will help avert the country from being dragged into a holocaust sparked by the warring forces of the pro and con camps.
We must spare our children and future generations from such a disastrous fate. If the incumbent head of state has only four years to serve, can we not exercise tolerance in light of our experience of being subjected to a three-decade all-powerful rule of the past? This experience cannot be denied. I have the feeling (I don't mind if readers laugh at me) that our founding fathers in heaven like Bung Karno, Bung Hatta, Djuanda, Leimena, Mohammad Roem and others will unreservedly second the DPA's advice.
The founding fathers must have been fully aware of the fact that ever since this country gained independence, no government has fulfilled the pledge to give the masses a just and affluent society.
If there is one of the highest aspirations harbored by the people at the grassroots level, spreading to the far-flung outer regions of this great archipelago, it is this pledge that stands out which no government has been able to date to fulfill.
Although we can talk endlessly of, and champion reform and democracy, it must be realized that they are not an end in themselves. They are only the means to the end. The end for the people is to achieve a just and prosperous society. Hospitals, schools housed in adequate buildings, public health centers and comfortable transportation means for the lower classes are urgently wanted, to cite a few.
S. SUHAEDI
Jakarta