Say it with gold
Never in the history of the New Order has gold glittered as brightly as it is glittering today. The precious yellow metal is now playing a role in the effort to heal the ailing national economy, with some people donating gold to the state.
A noted Moslem preacher began a movement among traditional scholars in which gold is donated to the state to help improve the economy. Now more people have jumped onto the bandwagon. Mrs. Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, better known as Tutut, a noted business tycoon and daughter of President Soeharto, on Monday donated 2.1 kilograms of gold. On the same day noted businessman Sukamdani Gito Sardjono also donated one kilogram of gold for the same purpose.
The activity could be regarded as a manifestation of a social responsibility, especially when done wholeheartedly and without much fanfare.
Such fund-raising is nothing new to this country, just as the crisis itself is not new. president Sukarno in the 1950s raised funds for the sake of the revolution, which he said was still going on long after Dutch colonial troops left this country, a notion many people rejected. And the usage of the funds, which were forked out by the haves, was not so clear to the public.
Another example of the same revolutionary activity is to this day annually commemorated by Garuda Indonesia, the national flag carrier. In 1947, the Acehnese people in northern Sumatra donated 20 kilograms of gold for the purchase of a Dakota (DC-3), which later become the airline's first plane.
However, there has been no overwhelming public response to the gold donation activity because, perhaps, common people are either in dire economic straits themselves or they lack trust in the management of the donations.
In a country well-known for the absence of an effective supervision system and where corruption is still evident, such suspicions are understandable.
Hopefully, the promise by Minister of Finance Mar'ie Muhammad that all donations will be deposited in Bank Indonesia, the central bank, should assure more people and lead them to better trust the authorities. But the minister still has to issue some guidance on how the public should hand over their donations.
In its effort to overcome the economic crisis, the military has also moved many steps forward. In an awkward move, the head of the military telephoned 13 business tycoons and instructed them to withdraw any U.S. dollar deposits they had abroad and change them into rupiah to alleviate the government's burden.
The behest seems to be nothing short of a blatant military approach, which is not relevant to today's modern management. It is inconceivable that hens would lay eggs at gunpoint, when all that would be necessary would be a good coop, proper treatment and sufficient feed to ensure productivity.
Businessmen should be asked to boost exports so that they can contribute more to the state's coffers.
After all, gauging our sense of nationalism and patriotism from a materialistic point of view has been regarded narrow- minded since the term was first coined.