Prabowo alludes to societal groups unwilling to cooperate

Jakarta (ANTARA) - President Prabowo Subianto alluded to a phenomenon in society concerning groups that do not wish to be involved in cooperation.

“There is a phenomenon that we all feel, that there are groups in society, our brothers and sisters, also our fellow citizens, also part of the greater NKRI family, who have an attitude that can be said to be very unwilling to cooperate. We respect it, we have no problem,” said Prabowo during a briefing at the government working meeting of members of the Merah Putih Cabinet at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta on Wednesday.

The President described the situation through an analogy of building a bridge in a village.

Prabowo recounted that when the majority of villagers agreed to work together to build the bridge, there was a group that chose not to get involved in the work.

According to the President, such an attitude is not an issue as long as those who do not participate are still respected.

However, the President alluded to a tendency among non-participating groups to instead offer criticism of the ongoing construction process.

“You may criticise, but I also don’t understand if someone wants to build a bridge, they sit idle, don’t want to help build the bridge, but they criticise,” said Prabowo.

“But this is the village people asking for a bridge to be built, I build the bridge for our people. This is a phenomenon,” he stated.

The President also noted that this phenomenon is not new and does not only occur in Indonesia, but is also found in various countries.

Prabowo then connected the situation to the nation’s long history, including during the colonial era, when there were parties from within the nation itself that facilitated foreign powers in colonising.

“There have always been our brothers and sisters from our own nation who also made it easier for those foreign nations to colonise us, plunder our wealth, make us slaves, those are our brothers too. So this is not a new phenomenon,” said the President.

According to Prabowo, attitudes such as envy, jealousy, hatred, and resentment are part of human nature, so this phenomenon does not need to be responded to excessively.

“This is normal, the seeds of envy, jealousy, spite, these are part of humanity. Hatred, revenge, heartbreak, these are part of humanity and indeed they exist, they do. We must not be surprised, so to speak,” said Prabowo.