Undercurrents issue

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