Leader must bring back nationalism

Leader must bring back nationalism

From Rakyat Merdeka

The riots triggered by incidents related to ethnic background, religion, racial origin, and social groups which have been breaking out almost incessantly across the country are inseparable with what the New Order has done which are as follows:

1. An authoritarian government with a tint of militarism has allowed security and other apparatuses to evict people from their own land and has also condoned unjust practices in such a way that the gap between the poor and the rich/business tycoons is getting wider and wider.

2. One's wishes are invariably forced on others and the principle of "the end justifies the means" is upheld. The law is not enforced as a guilty person who may turn out to be not guilty or the other way round. A closed government has always covered up a lot of cases. It has done away with transparency. Many cases are still unexposed, although the public can easily guess who the perpetrators are or what they are actually about. These will include, among others, the Marsinah case, the case of Udin-Iwik and the district head of Bantul, the Busang-Freeport case, the abduction of activists and the attack of the office of Megawati- led PDI by a paid mob.

3. Practices of corruption, collusion, monopoly and nepotism such as the felling of clove trees by the Agency for Clove Marketing and Bufferstocking (BPPC), the purchase of used German warships and so on.

During the New Order era, the opposition and outspoken politicians were helpless. They could be easily sent to prison and accused of being involved in G-30-S/PKI (aborted coup of 1965), subversion, a "formless organization" or so forth.

To normalize the situation, the present proreform government must immediately and transparently handle cases related to practices of corruption, collusion and nepotism by government officials and their cronies. The New Order is indeed very smart at orchestrating things and fooling people. During the New Order era, every time a government official inspected a village and or officiated a development project, he would claim that it was thanks to Golkar that the development undertakings had shown rapid progress. On this, even a layman may comment as: Anybody can do what is claimed to have been done by Golkar because the fund comes from offshore loans (without the least consideration that our children and grandchildren will have to repay the loans).

Now that the election campaign is approaching, officials and ministers, covertly still affiliated to the New Order, have been undertaking veiled campaigns, such as, handing over to regional administrations their lists of projects. The leader that we immediately need now is one who can bring back our nationalism, which is not in a state of disorder.

ISHARDONO

Jakarta