RI and U.S. similarities

RI and U.S. similarities

Students and workers have taken to the streets in both
Indonesia and the United States.

In Indonesia, they originally protested the hikes in utility
rates and in fuel oil prices, but later they started demanding
that President Megawati and Vice President Hamzah Haz step down.
In the United States, they are protesting their government's plan
to attack Iraq.

The students and workers in the two countries represent the
taxpayers. In the U.S., tax revenues are spent on paying the
soldiers to "kill" the Iraqi people. In Indonesia, tax revenues
are spent on, among other things, the payroll of the ruling
regime.

In the U.S., the president can be forced to step down by means
of something like a special session of the People's Consultative
Assembly (MPR), as is done here in Indonesia.

Protesters in the U.S. believe their president, George W.
Bush, is mentally challenged. In Indonesia, protesters believe
the president and the vice president are insensitive to the
people's sufferings.

Students and workers in the U.S. realize that Bush may be
considered as having violated their constitution. The United
Nations Declaration of Human Rights maintains the spirit of the
U.S. Constitution. So, if Bush attacks Iraq without a UN mandate,
it means that he has not only violated this declaration, but also
that he has violated his own oath of office, disrupting the
organizational order of the United Nations as well as denigrating
the dignity of several U.S. presidents (excluding Bush Sr.), such
as Truman and Roosevelt.

In Indonesia, super-political policies that do not take into
account the people's sufferings will render meaningless not only
Article 33 of our amended constitution, but also the presidential
oath of office. Where, then, has the dignity of Bung Karno and
Bung Hatta, the two leaders that proclaimed Indonesia's
independence, gone?

Unfortunately, many parties at home and abroad fail to notice
that in both Indonesia and the U.S., policies drafted by the
government have nothing to do with faith and resignation based on
these nations' respective holy books. All are secular in nature.

The irony is that the oath for a public position in these two
countries is taken under a holy book.

SUNGKOWO SOKAWERA, Bandung