Political leaders with vision or illusion?

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): The erratic political behavior exhibited in our country during the last few months has made me entirely convinced that we will never be able to come out of our present crisis until and unless leaders with clear vision concerning our common future guide our political system.

Such leaders should do their best to inform the public how their chosen policies will take us out of the current turmoil to a "normal" life. They should also be able to give us a hint about what might be the main features of a "normal" life in the future.

However, it is doubtful that there are enough leaders of this caliber in our midst. What I see are "power-seekers", whose political acts are driven primarily by illusion, coupled with unrestrained personal ambition.

What is the difference between "vision" and "illusion"?

One dictionary describes "vision" as "unusual competence in discernment or perception; intelligent perception." Whereas "illusion" is defined as "an erroneous perception of reality; an erroneous concept or belief; something, such as a fantastic plan or desire, that causes an erroneous belief or perception."

According to Jonathan Swift, an English satirist (1667-1745), vision is "the art of seeing the invisible". Thus, only relatively few people are able to demonstrate vision. Illusion, on the other hand, has been thought of as a trait common to mortal beings. Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), for instance, observed that if the average man were robbed of his life's illusion, he would be robbed of his happiness at a stroke. Joseph Roux (1834- 1905) remarked that "Our experience is composed rather of illusions lost than wisdom acquired."

The difference between leaders with vision and those with mere illusion lies in their ability to perceive reality clearly. Yet both leaders with vision and those with illusion usually have one thing in common: an idea or dream of the future. The cardinal dissimilarity between the two is that leaders with vision perceive clearly the difference between the reality of the present and the virtual one dreamed of for the future.

Leaders with vision can also foresee the interventions necessary to generate changes that will take society closer to the one envisioned for the future.

Yet leaders with mere illusion do not have the mental power to control their perceptions of both the present and future. They may "see" in present society things that do not really exist. Another illusion can be that their thoughts and imagination about the future are vitiated by personal desires. They will then aspire to a future that can never be reached. And this erroneous perception of both the present and future will prompt them to adopt policies that will make the government and its people behave erratically and unrealistically.

Differentiating leaders with vision from those with illusion can also be done by borrowing a metaphor from Godfrey Hodgson, the biographer of American Senator (ret.) Daniel P. Moynihan.

Hodgson said a political career is not like the "steady, powered impetus of a locomotive. It is more like a sailboat." Our current political leaders are like seamen who have to steer the nation through stormy weather.

To succeed, they must be able to keep our nation afloat on the "mighty, unpredictable waters of public opinion." They must know how to avoid "the most dangerous storms, tack against adverse winds, and when becalmed, catch the lightest breeze that will maintain the course."

Who among our leaders can read public opinion, and take it seriously? What leaders realize that a careless statement might create a political storm? And who among them can detect in a timely fashion whether a political wind is opposing or supporting the nation's cause? Do they have any sense of where they are taking us?

Why do many leaders lack vision? Why do many of them unnecessarily create "political storms" instead of avoiding them? Why are they unable to fathom the possible impact of their often very careless statements?

This is probably because most of them make entirely incorrect assumptions. One most common assumption is that leaders have unlimited power to mold public opinion, and that the people have no dreams of their own.

This assumption has made many leaders lose contact with their supporters. They become insensitive towards changes at the grassroots level. Leaders begin to think in an asymmetrical manner. Their aspirations are regarded as public aspirations, but the aspirations that are really alive at the grass roots are far removed from the leaders' business.

Another frequent assumption is that leaders do not need to update their knowledge about their constituency and the country, nor do they need to update their theoretical knowledge about social and political dynamics. In this way many leaders do not realize at the right time when their knowledge has been made obsolete by major events in their constituencies, in the country, in the region, or in the world in general.

Without realizing it they become provincial politicians with myopic political views and schemes, and apply them within the national political arena.

Still another assumption is that during this reform era many politicians feel that they have become the highest authority in the country -- they can say anything they consider politically correct. They do not care even if a statement might undermine the authority of an established institution. What in their view is correct politically must be expressed loudly and clearly. If possible, such political statements must also be legally correct. What if a statement is politically and legally correct but morally wrong? "So what!" This would be the basic disposition of most leaders at the moment.

It is assumptions like these that make many leaders unable to acquire vision and wisdom. Since we cannot continue to live under leaders without vision, how do we prod them to re-examine their assumptions and reformulate their leadership mode for the next phase of our political development?

As it is well-nigh impossible to change the culture of a political generation, more hope will be placed on the next political generation, which is as yet untarnished by the present political modus operandi.

By the "next political generation" I mean one defined by culture, a generation brought up in value systems significantly different from the ones adopted by current politicians.

Hopefully this is not too much to hope for.

The writer is a legislator of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan).