Idealism and reality

Idealism and reality

Aside from the festivities and merrymaking that so many people
from all walks of life enjoyed while celebrating the 58th
anniversary of Indonesia Day, other events took place with more
of a thanksgiving theme. These included collective prayer
gatherings in mosques and special occasions serving public
relations objectives on TV and in the newspapers.

SCTV sponsored a writing contest, offering an award of Rp
500,000 to each of the five winners, with the subject: What is,
in your opinion, the greatest problem faced by the country?.

Then a biting caricature appeared in The Jakarta Post of Aug.
15, picturing a birthday cake to mark the celebration of the 58th
anniversary of the Independence Day. Lamentably, a despicable
scene shows up on the picture: Big rats are eating away large
chunks of the cake, while the number 8 in the 58-candle display
carries the image of a time bomb. Needless to say that the somber
message of the caricature is crystal clear.

Obviously, the editorial of the Post of Aug. 15, under the
caption Our 58th Independence Day, also carried a poignant
warning to the political elite so as to "refrain from making
insensible moves in the year ahead pending the start of national
elections".

A conspicuous question reads: What's your sense of patriotism
of Independence Day? In a country corroded by a string of multi-
dimensional problems, does a sense of patriotism still have
relevance? It is encouraging to discover that the comments of the
respondents revealed that the sense of patriotism is not yet
extinct (the Post, Aug. 17).

Suddenly, as if awakened from a leisurely slumber, neglectful
of the irksome realities of mundane life, it was so shocking to
watch an entirely different scene: A program on medical care
under the title Gesundheit (a German term for Good Health) on
Metro TV on the morning of Aug. 20. Incredibly, cardiological
surgery can now be performed immaculately by robots directed from
another place at long distance.

Watching the show of the ongoing meticulous process of heart
surgery by the robots, instantly one becomes aware of the
fabulously marvelous jobs performed by the surgeons and the
medical world. Such a show of accomplishment is shocking for the
observer watching such spectacular images of advanced
technological modernity, while it feels like we are living in a
country that exists at a backward stage, separated by a gap of
many generations.

S. SUHAEDI, Jakarta