Political leaders with vision or illusion?

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).