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