National leaders united to save country from collapse
M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta
Over 100 key national figures, including state officials from the New Order administration, called on the nation to take necessary measures to "save" the country, which they said was on the brink of collapse.
They said the commemoration of National Awakening Day, on May 20, was the right moment to begin rebuilding.
"The nation is at risk of ceasing to exist as a result of prolonged economic and constitutional crises, the decline of citizen's morality and the loss of a sense of security," Lt. Gen (ret.) Sjaiful Sulun said while reading a joint statement which marked the commemoration held by the Greater Indonesia Congress here on Thursday.
Also participating in the event were former vice president Try Sutrisno, former defense minister Gen. (ret.) Edy Sudrajat, elderly statesman Roeslan Abdulgani, senior economist Frans Seda, media mogul Surya Paloh and Muslim scholar Nurcholish Madjid.
The joint statement also pointed out that to overcome the myriad of problems, people had to do their utmost without the help or interference of foreign countries.
Earlier in his speech, Nurcholish said the country's problems stemmed from its leaders' tendency to enrich themselves. He also said that most leaders seemed to think that the country existed only to serve their personal goals instead of the other way around.
"Our founding fathers have foreseen this country being a welfare state that would guarantee the well-being of its citizens. However, in the last 40 years the country has been ruled by leaders who acted like monarchs," Nurcholish said.
Nurcholish said such practices had almost ruined Indonesia as a country and has created many chronic problems.
Worse still, the current leaders failed to take the necessary measures to cope with the problems, Nurcholish said.
"They only seem to be merely getting rid of the symptoms that go with the problems," he explained.
He added that National Awakening Day was the most fitting moment to redefine Indonesia as a modern nation-state which would strive for justice, democracy and freedom.
Former women's empowerment minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa, said in her speech that the country risked losing its independence as most of its valuable assets had been sold in the current privatization drive.
"The government said that it was carried out for the country's interests, but we know very well that it was not," she stated.
She argued that the privatization program was carried out to satisfy a few at the expense of millions of others, therefore it had to be put on hold.
National Awakening Day commemorates the time when the first modern organization, Boedi Oetomo, was founded by a group of medical students in Java on May, 20, 1908.
Although it never grew into a political organization, it, however, marked the beginning of the building process that eventually led to a cohesive nation -- mostly in solidarity against Dutch colonization.
It was the first organization which was aware of the need for Javanese to cooperate with the rest of the vast archipelago's ethnic groups who felt oppressed under the colonial government.
The movement would eventually lead to the country's freedom movement, which culminated in the Aug. 17, 1945 declaration of independence by Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta.