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.