Stop showing the absurd

Stop showing the absurd

For many local theater lovers who enjoy the absurd, they might
feel it is no longer necessary to go to Europe for such a show
because it is available here. The quality might not be there but
the fee is reasonable, since it does not cost anything to watch.
The whole country seems to have become a theater of the absurd.

For example, in Surakarta, the city administration ordered
that all trees and street markers in the Central Java town be
painted yellow, which it said was the symbolic color of the town.

However, since the order was made before the election, people
suspected it was a covert campaign for the leading government
faction, whose party color is also yellow. But authorities turned
deaf ears to the protest and the show hilariously went on.

Earlier this month, Surabaya, the country's second largest
city, was shocked by an order for primary school children to buy
academic books with the pictures of the city mayor, his wife and
the chairman of the local assembly on the cover. Mayor Sunarto
Sumoprawiro later disassociated himself from the business saying
he did not know anything about the book.

Besides the coercive way the book was distributed by a private
company, school principals also complained the book cover "is
ugly and the price is comparatively high". However, the book's
distribution continued.

The question now is how could local authorities let such a
personal cult of the mayor be channeled through education. They
might have forgotten that this nation in the 1960s put the blame
on the personal cult of founding president Sukarno for pushing
the country deeper into chaos. Usually primary school book covers
depict national symbols.

President Soeharto was reportedly upset by a scandal involving
the Ministry of Education and Culture in 1991, but the case was
only reported to him recently. The ministry ordered all junior
and senior high schools all over Indonesia to use South Korean
produced soccer balls because the producer won the tender bid run
by the ministry.

But what was later revealed was that the balls were made in
Majalengka, West Java, and later sent to South Korea to get the
"Nassau" brand name. In local markets, the price of the ball was
Rp 2,325 (85 U.S. cents) each, but after returning from the
round-trip to South Korea it was raised to Rp 50,000, with the
genuine manufacturer only receiving Rp 100 in profit for every
ball he made.

The list of absurdities may be too long for this whole page if
all examples are mentioned. But the latest example, which was
reported by Kompas daily yesterday, is an item no reader should
miss.

The same Ministry of Education and Culture, is said to be
planning to have all primary school students throughout Indonesia
wear uniform shoes produced by a certain private company.

The reason behind the measure might be to make the already
existing dress uniform complete so that any remaining symbol of a
social gap between students could be eliminated. But why support
the hated policy of monopolies while the whole nation is fighting
against it?

For the ministry, the monopolistic system seems to have become
part of its national policy because it has also ordered all
public schools to use only textbooks published by the state-owned
publishing company, Balai Pustaka.

Regarding the absurdity of the policy, a member of the
education commission of the House of Representatives reacted
yesterday and called the "shoe uniform policy... foolish and
highly unacceptable to healthy minds".

We sincerely hope the legislator's reaction serves as a
reminder that it is high time now to end the show of the absurd
before this country becomes a true comedic theater of errors.