Goodbye, DPR! It's been nice knowing you

Mochtar Buchori, Jakarta

Now that my tenure as a legislator (a member of the House of Representatives) is almost over, I feel that I should tell you frankly how I feel about you.

I have decided to leave you, but not because I don't like being with you. Nor am I doing this because I feel that you have not been treating me well enough. I enjoyed being with you immensely, especially during the first year of my tenure. However, as time went on I gradually realized that I could never be a good member of your institution. You are designed to be a home for politicians, and I am simply not a politician. I feel that I could never become an effective politician, no matter how hard I tried. My heart is just not with you. It is somewhere else. All this time I feel like a strange duck in your pond. I am quite sure you know it, and I feel clearly the public distaste for pseudo-politicians like me.

Do you know that I always feel confused when I take part in debates or hearings? I feel that many of my honorable colleagues frequently make comments that do not always relate to the core issue being discussed. Too often, I feel that many of us talk just for the sake of it, not for the sake for clarifying matters. Sometimes some of us start to talk before having an idea what he or she is going to talk about.

I grew up in a different environment. In my old habitat discussions were entered into to clarify problems, not necessarily to solve them. Sometimes discussions were held just for the sake of getting a better understanding of problems. I did not realize that orators have a different view about it. According to William Hazlitt (1778 to 1830), the business of the orator is " ... not to convince, but to persuade; not to inform, but to rouse the mind; to build upon the habitual prejudice of mankind, ... and to add feeling to prejudice, and action to feeling."

My dear DPR! I'm just not a follower of this school. To me, "Prejudice is the child of ignorance", as Hazlitt put it in 1839, or a mere "vagrant opinion without visible means of support", as Ambrose Bierce (1842 to 1914) phrased it. I am a person with a different bent. My inclination is follow Stephen Decatour's advice, which he wrote in 1816 in Fiat Justitia, pereat coleum (Let justice be done, though heaven perish). My toast would be, "May our country be always successful and, whether successful or otherwise, always right."

You might as well ask me why I entered your chamber in the first place. Well, it's a long story with some delicate political entanglements. I would rather not disclose it here. Suffice it is to say that I felt then that I could become an academic-cum- politician like the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. But I was mistaken! I did not realize at that time that it takes years of hard, intellectual labor and the right political connections to become a respected politician like him. I had neither his academic record nor his political connections. In hindsight I realize how big a fool I was to even dream of ever becoming someone remotely resembling Moynihan.

There was still another consideration. I thought at that time that it would feel nice to be a member of a political elite. Who would not? You are a member of an elite of 500 people in a country of 200 million people. You got a handsome monthly allowance. And, in a way, you wielded power. But as time went on, this feeling of self-importance evaporated. Gradually I began to feel that in my case there was really nothing to be proud of. I was not even elected by the people. I was merely selected by my party. I no longer felt proud to be a member of the DPR. I even began to feel embarrassed when people recognized me as a member of the national legislature.

I am telling you this, not because I have a distaste for you as an institution. On the contrary, I have always had high respect for you, and also high expectations of you. Especially as you have shown convincingly to the public that you have the ability to transform yourself from a rubber stamp institution to one with the determination and power to correct the wrongs of this country, of which there are so many. It is a pity that you are not sufficiently persistent and consistent in this regard. I feel it is stigmatizing that some of us -- DPR members -- were caught in degrading acts of corruption, public lying or resorting to casuistry to hide ignorance.

In 2000 I described myself as a "reluctant politician". My initial reluctance to join you was primarily caused by my inability to be a good debater. And this is because I never learned the art of debating. What I have learned in my life is how to become a good participant in academic discourse. This does not mean that I always find political debate annoying or academic discourse fascinating. I do enjoy good political debate or a good speech when there is one. I hate academic dialog that is superficial, lacking elegance or pedantic. I always love the speeches of my honorable colleague, Sutradara Ginting. He can be so elegant and moving at the same time. On the other hand, I dislike the "academic discourse" that sometimes takes place in sessions to evaluate a doctoral thesis. It can sometimes be so boring, full of trivialities and pedantic.

But beautiful and fascinating speeches, debates and discussions have been a rarity in your chamber. More often than not, they are a show of political strength -- an exhibition of political shrewdness rather than wisdom -- and a demonstration of group solidarity. This kind of climate made me lose interest in whatever you are trying to accomplish. At times this kind of climate made me think of Neil Kinnock, who said in June 1976, "Loyalty is a fine quality but in excess it fills political graveyards." I think that one pearl of wisdom to remember about loyalty is to try to limit it. "To go beyond it is as wrong as to fall short." This is Confucius' wisdom, according to James Legge.

My decision to withdraw from your company was prompted by two unmistakable signs. First, I have become increasingly lazy to attend meetings called for by my commission. And I have to force myself extra-hard to attend plenary meetings. The second sign is that I have become ill more often, and have more frequently been hospitalized.

Before I became a member of the DPR I had been hospitalized only three times throughout my 73 years. But since I became a DPR member, every year I had to be hospitalized, and in 2003 I was hospitalized even three times. My doctors told me that if I wanted to regain my health, I had to change completely my lifestyle. If I did not, I would have to retire -- not only from the DPR, but from life itself.

My dear DPR! I want to part from you in good spirits. I wish you much luck and success for the next five years. I do hope that for the next stage in your history you will not have to accommodate too many people like me: Old, worn out and silent, afraid to sound and look foolish.

The writer is a House member who represents the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).