Goodbye, DPR! It's been nice knowing you

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).