Society must be watchdog over sweeping changes

Society must be watchdog over sweeping changes

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): There are two dangerous tendencies in our
thinking about the current reform movement. One is the idea that
reform should be carried out primarily by the government, and two
that reform really can be accomplished through mere sweeping
changes in our bureaucratic and legal systems.

It is indeed true that the government has a very important
role to play in carrying out the reform that we all aspire to,
but without society's participation in it I doubt that the social
ills that have finally made us cry out for reform can be removed.

I doubt, for instance, that democracy can be restored and
promoted in our society without the public exercising control
over what the bureaucracy is doing in this respect.

Building democracy in a society like ours is a long process.
If we are not constantly vigilant it is quite possible that
efforts to restore democracy will only last a short while and
that it will soon be followed by gradual and systematic attempts
to curtail and finally destroy our democratic institutions.

The various forms of pseudodemocracy like "protected
democracy" in Chile, "semidemocracy" in El Salvador, Colombia and
Paraguay, and "people's democracy" in North Korea are evidence
that democratic systems can backslide without the society being
aware of the ongoing process.

In our own country, what happened from 1971 to 1997 was a
gradual and engineered destruction of our democratic system which
bloomed between 1966 and 1969.

To heal our society of various economic "diseases" that have
finally destroyed our economic fundamentals, public participation
is equally imperative. Attempts to wipe out corruption,
collusion, and nepotism from our economic system cannot possibly
succeed without the public watching closely and scrutinizing what
our economic institutions, our bureaucrats, and other economic
players are doing.

The transformation of our cooperatives from social
institutions into mere extensions of the bureaucracy, which
subsequently were misused as instruments to rob the people and
private enterprises, is a result of public ignorance about and
indifference toward bureaucratic manipulations.

Then we have the question of what kind of reform we all want.
Do we want a thorough reform or shall we be satisfied with mere
cosmetic reform?

The current reform movement can be carried out either in a
superficial or thorough manner. If it is carried out
superficially then it will certainly not bring about significant
and lasting changes in our society. It will not weed out the
systemic defects that have eroded our political, economic, and
legal systems.

If, on the other hand, it is carried out in a thorough manner,
there is hope that the social ills that have plagued our society
for the last 20 to 25 years can be removed in a definitive
manner, and our society will then undergo a healing process that
ultimately will propel it into robust growth and development.

And only then will we be able to penetrate what Larry Diamond
calls "the threshold of democracy" and enter into a genuine
democratic system.

What are the roots of our social ills?

I think that in the final analysis the roots of all our social
ills lie in our minds. The various deformations of our democratic
system have been made possible by our silence every time we
encountered government measures to curtail or compromise the
basic principles of democracy.

Our economy has been crippled by our silence every time we
faced government manipulation aimed at fooling the public
concerning the status of our economic condition at any given
time. And our judicial institutions have been badly compromised
and corrupted because we have been silent every time the
executive body twisted the logic of law enforcement.

What is the cause of all these forms of silence? Ignorance,
indifference and fear on the public's side, and transgression of
reason and decency on the side of the power holders, both within
and outside the government.

The most glaring example of this is the distortion of the word
"constitutional" by former president Soeharto. He used the word
constitutional in a very arbitrary manner to suit his political
interests and imposed his interpretation on the public by
threatening that anyone trying to dispose of him in an
"unconstitutional" manner would be clobbered.

And we remained silent for fear that speaking our mind would
jeopardize our personal safety. But many among us, who were
silent, knew exactly what was really going on.

Another example is the claim that the appointment of Siti
Hardijanti Rukmana, or Tutut, as minister of social affairs was
not nepotism. With this assertion, the Soeharto gang wanted to
distort the meaning of the word nepotism.

No matter how hard one tries, according to sound, normal
reasoning it was a practice of nepotism but they persisted in
imposing their distortion upon the public's mind. And the
majority among us, people who are still sane, preferred to be
silent about this.

Do we sincerely want to pursue reform in a thorough manner? If
we do, then each one of us has the obligation to reject any
attempt to distort concepts and to twist logic in a consistent
manner. We can no longer afford to remain silent in facing
distortions and twists that endanger our future, both politically
and economically.

Capitulation to forces that distort concepts and twist logic
mean flight from reason. It should be noted in this regard that
flight from reason has occurred in human history and not only by
ignorant people but by great minds as well.

Paul R. Gross, professor of biology at the University of
Virginia, reported that even William Blake (1757-1827), a noted
English poet and artist, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-
1832), the famous poet, novelist and scientist, made this
mistake.

William Blake rejected all forms of inquiry upon which modern
science was built, while Goethe "opposed the very reasoning that
allowed science to escape the straitjacket of naturphilosophie".

If even great minds can make the mistake of abandoning reason,
we ordinary human beings are prone to make the same mistake. If
we sincerely wish not to repeat our past mistakes, each one of us
has to be constantly alert to the temptation to desert reason.

The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.