Unity in diversity
Unity in diversity
In a country which prides itself on maintaining the principle
of unity in diversity, a true administrator is someone who
understands the traditions, cultures and aspirations of areas
outside his or her native region. This also means that an
administrator who comes from one region should one day be ready
to serve the local people in other parts of this vast
archipelago.
About four decades ago this wisdom seemed to have gained a
foothold in the hearts and minds of the people. But lately -- as
the Republic prepares to celebrate its 49th anniversary next week
-- we have heard voices demanding that a "son of the soil", or
putra daerah, be named provincial governor.
This sounds like a lamentable retreat from our aspirations of
national unity and cohesion because such exigencies seemed to
have disappeared as far back as the early 1950s. Still, the
demand seems reasonable enough. Perhaps some provinces have had
uncomfortable experiences with governors who hailed from other
areas and lacked hands-on knowledge of their new areas of
jurisdiction.
This sentiment is of course nowhere to be found in the
military sphere because of its command system. There, in terms of
a commander's area of origin, leadership from the national level
right on down has been diversified since the birth of the
Republic in August 1945.
These provincial sentiments are no longer relevant at the
present stage of our national development. It is in this context
that we understand President Soeharto's message to the new
graduates of the Public Administration School in the West Java
district of Jatinagor over the weekend. He called on the newly
inducted officials to be ready to serve in different parts of the
country. Wherever the officials get assigned, they will still be
in their own country and are expected to serve to the best of
their abilities.
One thing that should be remembered, though, is that a
provincial governor is -- according to law -- not only a public
administrator representing the central government in that
particular area, but also a local leader who is elected by his
constituency. The central government thus has the right to reject
a governor elected by the local legislative council although
lately it has usually upheld the choice.
Many experts have voiced the opinion that this dualism places
governors in an awkward position. To solve this dilemma, it has
been said, the law on regional administration should be revamped.
But the government has so far remained adamant on the issue. The
reason could be that yielding all authority to local legislative
councils would mean introducing a full autonomy system of
administration, while in reality most of our provinces could only
manage administrative autonomy since they are far from self-
sufficient financially.
In any case, the idea of widening the perspective of an
official's task is certainly in line with modern thinking in a
country with such a diversity of cultures and traditions. The
timing of the idea is also proper now that officials in the
Ministry of Home Affairs are much better educated. Most high-
ranking officials have undergone administrative training at all
levels. We are convinced that they possess the capacity to handle
a variety of jobs in different provinces.
And to underscore the viability of the President's view that
an official should be able to serve in any area of this country,
even one outside that of his or her birth, governorships in Java,
too, could be placed in the hands of capable administrators from
other islands in Indonesia. True, this has never happened, but it
would surely reflect a great step forward in our thinking as
citizens of the unitarian Indonesian Republic.