Susilo orders better family values

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has called on Indonesian families to continue implementing family planning to help improve the quality of life of Indonesians.

Addressing the National Family Day gathering at the Monas park on Sunday, the President said that the central government and local administrations would reinvigorate the family planning program, which has weakened over the past several years.

Susilo, the first directly elected president of the world's fourth-most populous nation, where some 16.4 percent of the country's over 220 million people live on under US$1 a day, said that family planning was one of the ways that could be used to develop quality families, and is seen as a key factor in creating a strong nation.

Former authoritarian president Soeharto was credited by many for his success in enforcing tough birth control measures in a bid to limit population growth. But since his downfall in 1998, many people, particularly in provincial region, abandoned the family planning program, while at the same time local administrations were focussing on ways to generate more revenue to help finance their greater autonomy.

"Do not have big families with a lot of children if you cannot afford it," said Susilo.

"Quality (families) will create respect for our nation so we will have honor and pride in interacting with other nations," said Susilo, who wants to see a respected and confident Indonesia among the international community.

The president argued that a country will become poorer if population increases at a high rate.

"Without birth control, our efforts to boost economic development will be useless. Should it happens, our next generation will live in a worse condition. It will be the fault of our generation," Susilo said.

He said that the country's huge population would only be beneficial if they were quality people. Otherwise, they would only be a social and economic burden to the country.

Susilo cited a report of the UNDP that ranked the development index of Indonesian human resources poorly, ranking 117 out of 177 countries.

The president also called on Indonesian families to stay away from negative foreign cultures "that may harm the true spirit of Indonesian families and the nation".

He referred to the practice of people living together out of wedlock, which he says is a violation of religious and legal values.

"Let us maintain the principle and values of Indonesian families forever. We do not have to copy the lifestyles of foreign nations that are not in line with the spirit and the personality of our nation," Susilo said.

He said that the true spirit of Indonesian families is religiosity.

The combination of staying away from such negative foreign values and implementing family planning will eventually improve the quality of Indonesian families.