The breeze of change

It is imperative that we protect ourselves against and try to prevent the events that have shaken the credibility of our country lately, for no nation is immune to the winds of change that are blowing as we approach the 21st century.

There is probably nothing wrong in our taking stock of the things which we might have overlooked during the past three decades of development. This seems necessary if we want our second long-term development program to end successfully.

Warnings have already been aired by those concerned with the direction of our development efforts. As we approached the second long-term development period, the Indonesian economy appeared to be limping. It was moving towards a high-cost economy and away from the tenets of our Development Trilogy.

In politics, the people aspire to be treated like the main pillars of development - politically, economically, legally and culturally. This aspiration has not been realized. There is even the impression that the people are being left behind.

We should use the events that have taken place as a mirror to look at ourselves. For a nation that is determined to learn from adversity there is no such thing as being too late.

-- Merdeka, Jakarta