Undercurrents issue
(INI YANG DIPAKAI)
"Undercurrents" is an important new term in our political vocabulary.
It all started when the central government -- known as the "uppercurrents" -- imposed policies to be implemented by the provincial and regional governments. The policies happened to be contrary to the people's aspirations -- the undercurrents.
Take for example the cases of the Extraordinary Congress of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), the election of the governor of the Central Kalimantan province, and some elections of regents throughout Indonesia. All the candidates who were approved by the central authority were rejected by the people of the regions.
In a written speech read by the chairman of the committee, Azwar Anas at the opening ceremony of the national conference of the ruling Functional Group (Golkar), President Soeharto said that actually there was no power such as "undercurrents." According to him, the moves represented by this terminology were the maneuvers of people who were just claiming to represent the lower stream of society.
The assumption is that the undercurrents issue, which has been spreading freely in the Golkar body, must be exorcised because it will cause trouble for Golkar itself.
Referring to the opening speech for the Golkar national conference, there are three things we can observe: * How we comprehend the undercurrents; * How we comprehend politics as a result of the maneuvers; * And how Golkar faces the `undercurrents' issue, that could disturb its membership so much that it will no longer be Indonesia's largest political entity.
In order not to be confused, we have to distinguish between undercurrents and "undercurrents."
The first is the stream of the people's aspiration, their conscience, hope and the awareness of many incidents occurring in society. In the early part of the current New Order era, these aspirations were known as the "message of the people's suffering."
The more pronounced awareness of the public has resulted from the increasingly advanced level of the people's education and welfare, as well as greater access to information. As a consequence the people's awareness about democracy, human rights and law also has expanded.
IN line with this, the public is very concerned about the cases of manipulation, collusion and corruption which involve government officials. Thus, the people have appealed to the government to enforce law equally for all Indonesian citizens, without exception.
The second reference to "undercurrents" has an artificial meaning, because it is engineered by certain groups of people and does not reflect the public's interests.
Therefore, Golkar must make sure it is capable of distinguishing between the two kinds of undercurrents in order to truly address the people's continuing suffering.
--Pelita, Jakarta