Keep elderly employed: Soeharto
DEMAK, Central Java (JP): President Soeharto launched the National Day for the Elderly yesterday with an appeal to the nation to try to keep people past retirement age in gainful employment.
"By proclaiming this National Day for the Elderly, we hope there will be a new awareness among people about the plight of elderly people, particularly retired people," Soeharto said at the ceremony in Pucang Gading village.
"Elderly people" are defined as over 60. The official retirement age in the civil service and many private companies is 55. Retirement age in the military is 48.
In talks after the ceremony, Yunus Rusdi, an 80-year old participant from Southeast Sulawesi, urged the President to run for the election after his current term ends in 1998, saying that he believed that he was fit enough for the task.
Soeharto, who turns 75 next week, replied: "The most important thing for me is to complete my term until 1998. What happens after is up to the People's Consultative Assembly."
"But you should know that I'll be 77 then, and that is old. I'll be elderly," he said, to laughter from the crowd.
The President also launched the National Foster Parent Movement which aims to mobilize people to finance the schooling of some four million children from underprivileged families.
He also inaugurated an old people's nursery home in Semarang, a number of low-cost apartments and houses in Semarang and Jakarta, and a new relay station of the state-owned TVRI network.
This was the first time that Indonesia has marked a national day dedicated to its senior citizens, a move considered overdue given the demographic greying of the population.
According to a University of Indonesia study, elderly people accounted for 5.5 percent of the population in 1990. The ratio is expected to grow to 7.4 percent in 2010, and by 2015, it is set to reach 10 percent: a staggering 24.4 million people.
Soeharto underlined the need to change people's perception of the elderly because the average life expectancy has dramatically changed, from 46 years in 1969, to 63 years in 1994.
"When the average life expectancy was 46 years, our image of the elderly was that of an ill person, powerless to do anything useful.
"But now, we find many people in their 60s and 70s who are healthy and active," Soeharto said.
"Given their improved health, educational level and welfare, the elderly people still have the potential to actively participate in development.
"In some professions, experience that comes with age make the elderly even wiser, which benefits their respective professions," he said.
He said the tens of thousands of members of the civil service and the Armed Forces who retire each year bring with them immense experience and know-how that can still be put to good use.
He said for some people, going into retirement could be considered the start of a "second career" in life.
"By changing our attitude towards the elderly, we not only take care of them and elevate their dignity as human beings, but we also assign them a role that is beneficial to the entire national development program," he said.
The President also addressed the question of how best to look after the elderly, stressing this responsibility rests with their children and family.
"This is not the West where children part company from parents as soon as they are grown-up.
"We have to prove that there never will be neglected parents in Indonesia. No Indonesian children should do that to their parents," he said.
The President said the nursery homes that have been built by the government in several cities are strictly reserved for those whose children are too poor to support their parents.
May 29 was chosen as the National Day for the Elderly in tribute to Radjiman Wedyodiningrat, who at the age of 66, led the first meeting of the Indonesian Independence Preparatory Committee on this date in 1945.
"It was he who led the discussion that eventually produced the draft of the preamble and the main body of the 1945 Constitution," Soeharto said. (emb/har)
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