How much politics is too much?

How much politics is too much?

JAKARTA (JP): "My mom has turned into some sort of a political
animal," complained a friend of mine as she entered my car, "I
call it newspaper politics."

"Is it so bad to actually follow what's going on?" I asked
her.

"I guess it shouldn't be. It just tires me to hear her talking
about it all the time. Besides, I care little about politics
anyway," she said.

"By the way, is Pak Harto still staying here?" she asked as
we passed Pertamina Hospital in South Jakarta, where former
president Soeharto received treatment on two occasions in July
and August after suffering a stroke.

"Jeez, where have you been? He left the hospital three months
ago," I said.

"Well, how was I supposed to know all that?" she said.

Unlike her mother, my friend, a soon to be medical doctor, is
politically diffident. She shuns newspapers and watches less than
two hours of TV per week.

It drives me crazy that when it comes to current affairs, we
sometimes have so little in common to talk about. But at the same
time, it is a great relief that we do not have to talk about what
most people talk about these days. Indeed, since the three-decade
ruler Soeharto exited the political stage in May 1998, suddenly
the word "politics" has become an affordable and much more
interesting staple in daily conversations. Politics is no longer
just a subject of discussion for a few learned individuals.

If it took the nation 32 years to scrap individual political
consciousness in order to develop a society of great economy, it
took a mere year and half to rebuild the virtue.

Just the night after the Oct. 20 presidential election, in
which Megawati Soekarnoputri was defeated by her long-term ally
Abdurrahman Wahid, I asked one of the office gofers if he was
proud that we finally had a President as a result of a real
election.

"I'm not proud at all, mbak," he said. "Personally, I would
rather be on the street burning tires right now... unless of
course mbak Mega becomes the vice president tomorrow."

Later, on the way to my desk, I overheard the lively debate of
a group of chatting janitors.

"If Golkar didn't swing their votes, it wouldn't have happened
this way," said someone.

"Yea, but the axis force had a lot to do with it," said
another.

I couldn't help but smile proudly. It seemed that endless live
coverage of the People's Consultative Assembly's General Session
led to intensive political education for everyone with access to
a TV.

But, like my apathetic doctor friend, everybody has their
limits. At some point, enough is enough. Her description of
newspaper politics is the most accurate way of describing my
mother, who spends her morning soaking up the newspapers and the
rest of the day trying to analyze them.

Sure, I'm proud that she keeps track of what's going on in the
country. The problem is, she never quits wanting to grab my
attention to tell me her political revelation of the day.

"Can you believe the guts that Baramuli has?" she would begin,
looking up from her morning papers. I would usually just make an
unintelligible grunting noise.

My lack of a response never bothers her; she always embarks on
a lengthy tirade about the country's newest great deeds or
misdeeds.

But as a person who regards democracy as a means to attaining
a nation's individual self-respect, this phenomenon should
inspire me.

After all, it was hard to believe that a group of brokers and
white-collar workers -- usually the most pragmatic and
politically dispassionate groups -- would threaten to strike over
a presidential candidate.

It made me wonder what were these people doing when the same
man was reelected president over and over again in previous years
when a presidential fray was nonexistent?

Now that we have a new government, there are less intrigues to
analyze over coffee, and certainly more time to make constructive
judgments.

As for my med-school friend, her late-night shift life
continues in the hospital emergency rooms. On weekends, we can
meet and have a not-so-glamorous but equally enlightening
discourse over how to increase one's potassium intake and, just
maybe, about the poor management of the country's public health
services.

-- Devi M. Asmarani