Start telling the public the truth

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): The present government sees its function as a 'pembina politik', which I translate into political controller.

This is a function where the system of government is to be carried out by the minister of home affairs, the governors and the regents.

The ultimate purpose of this government program is to ensure that political life within each district, each province throughout the country proceeds according to the spirit of Pancasila state ideology.

'Style of governance' is the way a society is actually managed. There are three ways of managing a country: ruling it, reigning over it or governing it.

A society is perceived as being 'ruled' if there is evidence of arbitrary power, and whenever those exercising authority over the people are not elected by the people.

A society is perceived as being 'reigned over' whenever those exercising power over the people behave like kings and treat their territory as a kingdom.

Finally, a society can be considered 'governed' only whenever the way sovereign power is executed "connotes as its end the keeping of the ones directed or controlled in a straight course or smooth operation, where perils are avoided and the good of the individual or of the whole is achieved."

I think it is relevant to note here the three types of morality coined by Auguste Comte (1798-1857): personal morality "which subjects the preservation of the individual to a wise discipline"; domestic morality "which subordinates selfishness to sympathy" and social morality "which directs all individual tendencies to enlightened reason, always having the general economy in view, so as to bring into concurrence all the faculties of human nature, according to their appropriate laws."

In this connection I think that a system of managing a society or a country can be called 'to govern' only if efforts are made to guide individuals and society to observe norms of personal, domestic and social morality.

These two questions, that of political control and that of style of governance, have been occupying my mind for the last two weeks.

During these two weeks I participated in three different seminars in Jakarta, Surabaya, and Yogyakarta. Despite differences in the set-ups and participants, there was a very interesting similarity: all participants showed a keen interest in the present political situation.

The Jakarta seminar was designed to discuss national vigilance, and was attended by high ranking executives, from both government and private bureaucracies throughout the country.

The Surabaya seminar was about changes that are likely to occur in the employment market by the year 2003 to 2005, and whether or not universities are adequately prepared for these changes. The participants were students' parents and the lecturers of a private university.

The Yogyakarta seminar was about situations that might develop in Indonesia by the year 2020, and what the country has to do today to avert situations considered undesirable and promote other situations deemed desirable. The participants were representatives of students' councils from a number of universities throughout the country, both state and private.

I have the impression that the majority of these three audiences looked upon the present political situation as a national crisis. They wondered why and how this crisis happened, how the outcome will be, and what effect it will have on the long term future of this country.

On the basis of discussions, two reasons were suggested as the cause of the present political crisis. One is that the concept of 'political control' has never been sufficiently defined and elaborated.

A fuzzy understanding of this concept can lead any minister of domestic affairs, any governor, or any regent to formulate a legally unfounded interpretation, and on the basis of this interpretation do something politically hazardous.

Logically, 'political control' should lead towards a political life of ever-increasing maturity.

But what can we observe today?

No one in his or her right mind will call the present situation mature. Thus there is something terribly wrong with the exercise of political control. Former governor Ali Sadikin that during his eleven years tenure as governor of Jakarta he never acted as the controller of political life.

There is a school of thought which maintains that the present situation occurs because our society is not actually governed as it should be. What we have been witnessing thus far is a mixture of four kinds of administrative practices: ruling, reigning, governing and polishing.

Just look at the way high-ranking government officials talk to the public. They habitually talk more like an absolute ruler or a king, and only occasionally like a leader in a democratic society.

As long as we still do not understand and practice the principles of governing, and as long as we still habitually resort to practices of ruling and reigning, we will continue to have problems managing our society, regardless of who happens to be in power.

So where do we go from here?

In my opinion, this is not so much a problem of conceiving an alternative model of public administration, but more a psychological problem regarding the personal consequences of such change.

Everybody knows, I think, that if we really want to pursue a democratic course -- and who wants a non-democratic system? -- then we must become more transparent in our public policy and public acts.

How can we make such a change without losing face?

It means that we must stop lying to the public and misleading them, start being honest to the public.

But again, how can we adopt such practices after years of habitually concealing facts and distorting truth, without losing face?

In terms of Auguste Comte's typology of morality I think that ultimately it is a matter of synchronizing our personal moralities with our domestic moralities and with what we collectively perceive as our social morality.

The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.