Presidential candidates

Presidential candidates

The Youth Pledge of 1928, which was honored throughout
Indonesia last week, called for One Nation, One Country, One
Language: Indonesia. Masli Arman's letter, published on Youth
Pledge Day, deviates from the pledge. Unfortunately, he takes the
bigoted, jingoistic line of Minister A.M. Saefuddin by
questioning Megawati's candidacy on religious grounds. This is
disappointing coming from an Indonesian intellectual, which Masli
clearly is.

Masli's statement that "to expect a non-Moslem to be the next
president of Indonesia is... unrealistic" echoes the beliefs of
many in America in 1928, though the majority religion there was
Protestantism instead of Islam. In America in the year of the
Indonesian Youth Pledge, bigoted opponents of governor Al Smith,
the Democratic nominee for the presidency, who happened to be a
Catholic, were successful in defeating him because of his
Catholicism; (Catholics are a small minority in America).
Instead, they elected Herbert Hoover! Not until 1960 did
Americans discard such bigotry, when they elected John Kennedy,
another Catholic, to the presidency.

We should hope that Indonesians will follow the precepts of
the Youth Pledge, treating each of their fellow citizens as an
individual, no matter what his or her religion or ethnicity or
island of origin.

What we all need to learn, Indonesians, Americans, and all
other citizens of this earth, is to judge our fellows on their
individual merits, not on the basis of the religious or ethnic
groups to which they happen to belong. Any attack on Megawati
should be on the basis of her political talents (as Pak Masli
ably did in his letter), not on how or where she worships.

WILLIS W. JOURDIN JR.

Yogyakarta