Hysteria: A fruit of repression

By Rahayu Ratnaningsih

JAKARTA (JP): Several recent incidents in this country have made me ponder; what's happening to our people and society? What's got into the population that makes them so vulnerable to the syndrome of collective hysteria which serves no purpose whatsoever?

It's still fresh in our memories how they descended on supermarkets to buy large quantities basic ingredients such as milk, cooking oil and rice leaving many shelves empty for weeks. Then they rushed the ATMs and withdrew their money from certain rumor-plagued banks. Millions of them have been traditionally rushing train or bus stations every year on the Idul Fitri Holiday to go back to their villages leaving Jakarta a ghost town for a week or so.

The most recent outbreak was when the government, "out of the blue", on a clear scorching day, announced the disproportionate hike in fuel prices. It shouldn't have been very hard to predict what effect that announcement would have on the people who have been bled dry for months in an attempt to survive the savage economic crisis.

In circumstances where public confidence toward their system of governance and the figures behind it, has worn awfully thin, our people, who are traditionally easy to ignite with rumors, either unfounded or "semi-official", descended in droves on every available gas station. Mile-long queues of public or private vehicles decorated every road in Jakarta.

How our people can succumb to this non-sequitur? It may be understandable that in these hard times saving 15,000 or 20,000 for fuel is really significant, especially for public transportation drivers, but is it not clear that the costs of the attempt to save money come close to exceeding the saving itself? It is very simple logic, really, but how our people could miss it is beyond my comprehension.

Insisting on buying the fuel that day might have saved you 15,000 (let's say 30 liters x 1200 = 36,000, minus 21,000 old price of the same amount of premium gasoline, equal Rp 15,000). Unless they had with them a large container, that's all they could save maximum in one day before the increase.

However, the struggle for that gain is painful and involves sitting in gas guzzling traffic jams for ours on end. So apart from the long line to the petrol pump that takes at least one hour, they also had to face the consequences of the collective frenzy; a total block of mobility for at least another two, three or four hours, something that significantly depletes the coveted fuel they had just agonized themselves over.

Frankly, then, it's quite probable that by the time they reach home that afternoon they had spent an equal amount of money to what they saved, and expended a great deal of time, energy and frustration in to the bargain. For public transport drivers, this is compounded by the fact that they had to abandon their passengers and spend more time in the traffic, thereby receiving less income that day. So, what saving did they make?

It's incredible how counter-productive this mass hysteria is. When people rush the banks in fear of their bankruptcy, their very act could cause this bankruptcy, which in calmer conditions would be unthinkable. Even the soundest bank can be broken when it's rushed due to baseless rumors. The same applies to the fear of price increases that made people hoard foodstuffs; the act itself could be construed as the main source of price rises that would otherwise have been minimized. And now, the fuel rush!

It's clear that our people are now paying the costs for the inefficient and ineffective governance over the last 30 years. However, it's also clear that, ultimately, in every society, the people deserve the government they have. We deserve the government we have. We deserve the kinds of high ranking officials who say one thing one day and withdraw or rephrase it the next day.

The same ones who withdraw a decree on the very day it's meant to be implemented; the ones who repeatedly propagate constitutionalism and Pancasila self-servingly and selectively; who regularly come up with unintelligent, sometimes laughable remarks, unaware that our people are no longer a bunch of ignoramuses. It is true though there are still many underprivileged who will temporarily worship their leaders for feeding them a free lunch for two weeks. Many say that our current cabinet minister are funnier than Srimulat, our funniest group of comedians.

Our students shall inherit this failure in the years to come when they leave university. They'll have to face the uncertain future before their eyes. Are they going to get a decent job or will they just end up being another statistic on the list of our educated unemployed? More urgent than that, are they going to have public vehicles take them to and from school for Rp 100? It was a tough daily struggle for them before the bus fares hike since few public vehicles drivers would let them ride in or even on their vehicles.

Yet when they voice their anxiety, they're told what a cardinal sin they've committed by being involved in "practical politics" when they're main duty is studying. We, in fact, should question the effectiveness of our education system if our students remain silent amid the rampant injustice, inequality, violations and mismanagement of the country they try to study in.

Today more and more people are probably fed up with being apolitical or politically correct. Political correctness has brought about stagnation among our people. One simply can't expect a country to be successfully run with a political literate or a propaganda fed people. So yes, even a priest needs to be "political" and one assumes that was what led Father Sandyawan to do what he did, and rightly so.

Can anyone really be completely apolitical? It very much depends on how politics is defined. Is talking about and fighting for social justice being political? Is speaking up against gross violations of human rights in society a manifestation of political mindedness? I think so, however at least we can distinguish being political in a bureaucratic sense and "political" in an altruistic sense.

No concerned citizen can be absolutely free from being "political". Men are political animals by nature. They have to strive for their political rights at all times. It is, hence, quite unacceptable for our ministers to blast the students or Romo Sandyawan as being inappropriately political, in accordance with their "duties and responsibilities", backgrounds or "job descriptions".

This is what we have as a nation: a people who are politically ill-empowered due to decades of systematic conditioning and repression, who resort to riots, rushes and panic instead of using their persuasive power and institution, which understandably have long been sedated, to solve their problems, anxieties and dissatisfaction. There are only two options: changing or dying.