KKN beast still wagging its tail

KKN beast still wagging its tail

The hectic chase, not without much fanfare, alas, of people
from the former administration era, will be like a bicycle trip
into the jungles of the Amazon. It will be, at least as I see it,
a long hazardous venture which probably is more easily started
than concluded if it ever will be crowned with tangible, long
lasting satisfactory results, and finally silence the cries for
justice.

It would be outright naivete, I think, to eradicate this
social illness or wipe out the pest entirely from the earth. In
any society, free or oppressed, there has always been KKN
(corruption, collusion and nepotism) practices reported openly or
in secret, and under various degrees and political and
organizational cloaks. The task seems to be as daunting as the
battle against the oldest profession in the world.

The reform's main aim cannot possibly be cleansing the air
from KKN bacteria until no single species is left, but keeping it
to a socially acceptable minimum. It should not be at the expense
of the common people. To a certain degree, in one way or another,
in glaring fashion or merely spiritually, perhaps nobody is
exempt from corruption. Assisting an associate to get a deal for
a small commission or appointing a person to a certain post
because you like him or her may be called a form of collusion.
Favoring members of your family, like appointing your daughter to
be a village head or your son-in-law to the post of director
while there are others equally capable, is clearly nepotistic.

Remember that the students' reform movement directed their
abhorrence against the excesses of such practices which had led
to the rich and powerful acquiring excessive wealth while the
majority of the people are deprived of the bare necessities of
life and democratic aspirations and human rights. We see how so
soon after the stepping down of the country's second president,
one gets the impression that the KKN monster is wagging its tail
again.

If there is to be a "social safety net" (an IMF term) then it
is imperative that the common people and the unemployed in
provincial capital cities are provided with easy access to food,
and the provincial governors should be responsible for that in
the first place. Because not only love starts from the stomach,
according to my Dutch teacher Van der Bos, but all revolutions
start from the stomach.

The presence of KKN germs in most cases is very hard to detect
materially (substantially) and still harder, if not impossible,
to prove legally until the guilty one is seen to try to flee the
country.

I am afraid that the KKN beast will roar harder and get
stronger to shed all KKN charges leveled by reformists and their
sympathizers.

GANDHI SUKARDI

Jakarta