Megawati best choice for president

Megawati best choice for president

Let me first express my compliments on your newspaper,
especially in relation to the editorials. Upon reading the
articles I often have an urge to comment on and sometimes to
express my bewilderment with the (to me as a westerner)
incredible happenings in Indonesia.

Intelligent people who express good (often front-page) ideas
and who show quite a bit of insight into Indonesian matters fail
to see the importance of the presidency of Megawati. These often
very intelligent people think they know better than the people
and in fact they do. The problem, however, is that man is not
governed by his thinking or rationale alone. Man is an emotional
being that uses his rationale to control his desire (at which he
is in general very unsuccessful). In the last election it was the
emotions of the people that were shown, not their knowledge of
democracy.

Take the example of Amien Rais. A very capable outspoken man
who deserves to become the next president of Indonesia. Still the
people ignored him and I'm glad they did. It's because the people
need someone with a heart who cares for them. Amien Rais is an
intellectual who will cooperate with other intellectuals who are
far from those of the ruling elite.

In my home country, Holland, we have a queen who represents
the state. Her contribution to politics is almost zero. Many
people want to get rid of this tradition that only costs
taxpayers a lot of money. Then what's the use of having a queen?
For the majority of people she's a symbol of unity. They feel
safe with her. And we're talking here about one of the most
modern countries in the world! It's the same in many other
western "advanced" countries such as Britain, Belgium and Sweden.
Why was Sukarno called Bung and Soeharto Bapak. Same reason.

The monetary crisis has shown that we cannot trust our Bapak.
So people voted for justice and therefore reform. Now they feel
that nobody can be trusted and that corruption should not be
underestimated. People are forced to learn about politics. It's
an inevitable evolution. And since most Indonesians know very
little about politics there is still a long way to go before we
can even start with a reform movement. So, that also means that
there's an even longer way to go before we can, at village level,
expect critical voters to help improve the lives of their fellow
citizens and follow through with reforms because corruption is
definitely not something limited to the big cities of this
country.

In order to motivate people to do the right thing we need a
credible government that appeals to them. In this view Megawati
is by far the best choice. She cares. She may not be able to
voice this aspect of herself very well but she does care and the
people see that. She wants justice done, something which is
desperately needed in Indonesia. She is ready to serve -- the
essence of politics. She doesn't need to be on television every
night.

So I would like to say to all those intellectual writers:
Please try to listen to the hearts of the Indonesian people and
not just to your head.

HUUB NEYS

Kuta, Bali