Gus Dur warns on social apathy

JAKARTA (JP): Moslem scholar Abdurrahman Wahid has warned against the development of human resources for the sake of national development alone, citing a growing social apathy as the result of obsession with this goal.

The improvement of human resources for the sake of physical development alone would turn people into mere components, akin to other instruments of development, such as natural and capital resources, he said yesterday.

Abdurrahman addressed 200 youth activists attending a reception to mark the 25th anniversary of the inauguration of the Cipayung Group, an influential student group comprising several nationalist and religious-based organizations.

He compared today's approach to human resource development with that of the New Order administration.

"During the early years of the New Order, we said we needed people with determination and high morality. Now we say the nation is in need of quality human resources," he said.

Abdurrahman said the shift in the approach to human resource development was indicative of a shift in values. He said people did not now place as much importance on ideals, a willingness to sacrifice, a common view or social solidarity, but were more concerned with the skills needed to survive.

Development

Abdurrahman, better known as Gus Dur, said people now believed "the most important thing is that the wheels of development roll on, and that there should be as many skilled people as possible."

"Members of this high quality workforce will then be put into an invisible machine, slotted into their respective positions and all move according to a market mechanism that will breed a product of its own," he said.

Social apathy was the result of this approach, he said. "This approach will create a socially-ignorant society," he concluded.

Such human resources policies would, for instance, remain apathetic to the point of ignoring monopolistic practices.

He cited the United States, Singapore, and Japan as countries with high quality human resources but also with the "symptoms of social apathy."

"They neglect their minority, such as the homeless, whose numbers are great," he said.

He suggested Indonesia learn from these countries and called for a more integrated and holistic approach to human resource development. "It should not be only for the sake of national development," he said.

Meanwhile the Cipayung student group warned the highly centralistic government is nurturing social, political and economic injustice.

Indonesian people were losing their wisdom and maturity -- the quality they were most proud of -- because they could no longer bear the country's worsening injustices, the group said in a press statement.

"There is a worrying tendency that elements in this society can easily discredit others, that these people can resort to violence," they said.

"This is perhaps because the injustices are so bad they surpass the people's limits of tolerance. The recent outbursts of violence were expressions of their frustration at this structural unfairness."

The group referred to the recent spate of religious and ethnic violence that happened in Situbondo, Tasikmalaya and Sanggau Ledo.

The political statement was signed by the five student organizations that make up the Cipayung group: the association of Catholic Students, the Association of Islamic Students, the Christian Students Movement, the Nationalist Students Movement and the Islamic Students Movement.

The Cipayung group pointed out that the government had often not shown common sense in handling social matters, and coercively used laws and regulations to justify its actions.

"People who used to be apathetic and passive now become aggressive and anarchic when facing certain conditions," the group said.

The widening social, political and economic disparities were ironic because they were rife when Indonesia enjoyed economic success and political stability, they said.

"Politics and economics are concentrated in the hands of an elite few and some consider this as something normal in a process of development; this is indeed ironic," the statement said. (08)