Keep on talking
Keep on talking
The much hyped National Dialog Forum in Bali may have come up
with plenty of recommendations about what Indonesia should do to
overcome its multiple crises, but at the end of the day it was
all nothing more than just another talking shop.
The gathering at the Kuta Beach resort certainly attracted
some of the nation's top intellectuals who are not part of the
power structure. But following the dialog and the presentation of
the set of recommendations, nothing further can be expected. The
forum, involving more than 200 prominent public figures and
thinkers, does not even have the organizational structure to
monitor whether its recommendations are followed up.
The strength of the forum, however, lay in the presence of so
many respected figures. Whatever the recommendations coming from
the forum, the credibility of the participants is such that they
represent a moral voice to which the country's political elite
should listen.
The dialog itself was founded upon the shared concerns and
disappointments of the organizers over how events have developed
since the reform movement began in 1998. Two years later, and
after a popularly elected government came to power in October,
many people are greatly dismayed. Those who initiated the dialog
spoke for the majority of the country's 210 million citizens --
more so than the elected officials in the administration or the
House of Representatives -- when they said they were not
impressed with the present state of affairs.
The two-day meeting in Bali produced a series of documents
detailing everything that has gone wrong in Indonesia, and what
steps the country should take to right the ship. Essentially, the
forum calls for a return to the ideals that underpinned the
reform movement when it was launched two years ago.
Many of the recommendations are not all that different from
what the administration of President Abdurrahman Wahid has been
trying to accomplish. If the administration's progress has been
too slow, that is because of the political realities of this
country. Few people who know him doubt the President's commitment
to democratic ideals, but even the most visionary leader must
deal with the reality of political pressure once in office.
The forum may have been critical of the administration's
record, but it did not condemn the President for his failings.
Abdurrahman will probably find the criticism in Kuta Beach far
more constructive than what he will face when he presents his
first-year progress report to the People's Consultative Assembly
in August. There already are suggestions the Assembly should move
to impeach the President on the basis of his poor performance.
Going by the list of participants, in fact, one must assume
the President was very much at ease as he addressed the forum on
its closing day. He was essentially one of them, and no doubt he
would have been there as a speaker if he was not the President.
Similarly, the participants felt very much relaxed with his
presence, so much so that they did not realize he stole the
spotlight. Most of the media gave extensive coverage to his
address to the forum, and little to the forum's recommendations.
The National Dialog Forum may have been just another talking
shop, but that is much better than if these shared concerns and
disappointments were never aired. If public discourse is the
basis of a healthy democracy, then Indonesia should have more
such events in order to continue the search for the best
solutions and best format to manage this huge and diverse nation.
After living under a tyranny for three decades, Indonesians
are still far from adopting the ideals essential to a long and
lasting democracy, including free speech and respecting
differences of opinions. The bloody conflicts taking place in
various corners of the archipelago show that many people in this
country still resort to violence to settle their differences. If
more talk means less killing, then we should have more dialogs.