Talk little, work much

Talk little, work much

From Media Indonesia

When I was in elementary school, one of my teachers taught the class to "talk little, work much". This implied that it was better to work a lot and yield something useful, than to talk a lot without having any tangible results. Nowadays the youth of Jakarta like to say, "Don't only talk, you must come with proof of what you say."

Bung Karno, Indonesia's first president, said "talk much, work much". He contended that when we talked a lot we would produce more ideas. A lot of talk made somebody creative and more work would result, according to him. I think Bung Karno wanted to say that people must have innovative ideas, and together with the people he turned ideas into real work useful to the community, country and nation.

Second president Soeharto's idea seemed to be, "talk little, work much". The people were not allowed to talk much, but had to work in obedience to the government. The New Order government, backed up by the Army and the police, was apparently worried that if people talked a lot it would threaten "political stability and national security". Thus, control of the press, the NGOs, political parties, etc. was strict. This resulted in extraordinary economic growth, making Indonesia a newly industrialized country. But the situation turned sour with the coming of the monetary crisis, a result of the lack of social resilience and the people's weak economic foundation.

Now, in President Abdurrahman Wahid's era, I think the situation has changed into "work little, talk a lot". Just think of the statements made by the speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly and the speaker of the House of Representatives. We often do not know whether they are speaking in their official or private capacity. They should be able to restrain themselves to avoid having their statements misinterpreted.

Abdurrahman's Cabinet members talk a great deal compared to the concrete results they achieve, at least that is the opinion of some people. Anyway, their work and performance are not optimal; there is more talk than work. The Cabinet needs a reshuffle.

In the case of intergroup conflicts in Maluku, Abdurrahman only said that he knew some people from Jakarta were behind the conflicts. If this is known, why are there no steps being taken to stop it?

AMIR KARAMOY

Jakarta