January 26, 2009
January 15, 2009
Sang Motivator
WACANA
http://suaramerdeka.com/smcetak/index.php?fuseaction=beritacetak.detailberitacetak&id_beritacetak=47405
15 Januari 2009
GAGASAN
Sang Motivator
Pascareformasi, pemanfaatan media elektronik sebagai sarana penyalur informasi ke masyarakat terus meningkat kualitasnya. Sebenarnya tahun 1994 sudah muncul acara yang tidak biasa di SCTV yang dibawakan oleh sosok dan kemasan yang juga tidak biasa. Dikatakan tidak biasa, karena sekian lama masyarakat dijejali acara yang dibawakan secara kaku dan berbau propaganda.
Kalau pun interaktif dialog serba terskenario. Disampaikan dengan semangat “mohon petunjuk” dan gaya bahasa topeng di tengah suasana monoton dan terjebak pembodohan serta “hari-hari penuh omong kosong”.
Siaran ini menyelinap acara Perspektif oleh Wimar Witoelar yang tayang setiap Sabtu 18.00 dan dikemas dalam dialog interaktif dengan lontaran secara jernih, menggelitik namun bukan sebagai yang paling benar. Pembawa acaranya “orang biasa”, gayanya jauh dari formalitas feodal namun tetap dalam kesantunan yang universal. Sosok penuh senyum ramah, terampil melontarkan pertanyaan cerdas cerdik sehingga sering mengusik syaraf tawa spontan. Bukan tertawa yang (seolah) sudah diberi aba-aba.
Pascareformasi, di tengah berjayanya provokator sebagai komunikator yang piawai mengolah kata semanis madu namun penuh bisa, hingga memanipulasi kebenaran menjadi banyak versi untuk mengadu domba putra putri Ibu Pertiwi, muncullah sosok-sosok yang berbeda. Metro TV menayangkan acara Kick Andy yang dibawakan Andy Noya danThe Golden Ways yang dibawakan Mario Teguh.
Kick Andy banyak mengangkat kisah luar biasa anak negeri yang selalu sarat pesan kerja keras, kerja cerdas, ulet, pantang menyerah, inovatif, kreatif dalam berkarya dan berprestasi. The Golden Ways mengajak orang menggunakan akal budi, kejujuran, hati nurani untuk meraih sukses sejati. Sebuah acara cerdas yang melawan arus.
Perspektif muncul di tengah arus deras ber”klompencapir”. Kick Andy dan The Golden Ways muncul di saat dominasi tayangan keglamoran, kepongahan dan semangat jalan pintas yang serba menyilaukan, walau penuh kepalsuan.
Kick Andy dan The Golden Ways tidak fasih apalagi obral bertutur dogma tapi sering justru lebih menyejukkan hati. Hal ini karena dibawakan orang pilihan hasil seleksi ketat dan lulus uji penggodokan. Kuat tersirat aura kasih, sikap tulus, ikhlas, sarat karya nyata terbaik bagi diri dan sesama.
Dengan kemampuan komunikasinya yang bagus, mereka menjadi inspirator dan sang motivator bagi siapa saja yang mendengarkan ungkapan pesannya. Sangat menyentuh jiwa, menjernihkan pikiran untuk menggerakkan badan dan menyatukan langkah demi kemajuan peradaban bangsa Indonesia.
Purnomo Iman Santoso
Villa Aster II Blok G/10 Srondol, Semarang
January 14, 2009
January 9, 2009
January 4, 2009
The day that President Sukarno died
The day that President Sukarno died.
It was June 21, 1970, and I was riding a taxi from Jakarta airport after completing a tour of the United States as a student leader. This was a program made available to Indonesian students by the Suharto government as Indonesia came out of isolation imposed by Sukarno. The streets were quiet and I asked the taxi driver why. He said in a neutral voice that Sukarno had just passed away. I was silent with mixed emotions. For four years our student movement had been urging Suharto to take charge of the country. Now Sukarno’s death made the process irrevocable. There was a feeling of passage, and in fact an anticlimax. Sukarno’s death was a low-key event; nobody talked about it, because Sukarno had disappeared ever since Suharto took over power in 1966. Nobody even knew where he was; it was not even clear where he died or how long he was critically ill. Suharto had never visited him in the five years since Sukarno effectively lost power, and the media never ran stories on him.
Suharto was the hero of the student movement as we started our political honeymoon. From 1966 to 1970 numerous seminars and rallies celebrated the new freedom. Little did we know that the democratic honeymoon would be short. Soon the New Order was introduced and democracy was subordinated to a system of power and control which would keep Suharto in power for three decades. Suharto’s New Order was, if not a police state certainly a policed one, with everything kept in check—political parties, religious (especially Islamic) groups, activists and dissidents, writers and artists.
I moved on to become a university lecturer with close contact with students, and supported a 1978 movement calling for the dismissal of Suharto. This landed me in political detention and came out subdued. But long practice in talking to people turned me into a television talk show host in 1993. The show was mild-mannered but clear in its values of free speech. We were banned in 1994, but that in fact rallied public support and we were swept by the wave of reform that finally brought Suharto down in 1998.
Suharto died on Jan. 27, 2008 in a circus atmosphere. For days before his death people milled around the hospital. Television crews jostled for camera space while news anchors played up the melodrama. It was like opera, with tragedy and comedy served up in equal parts. The tragedy of death, and the comedy of dignitaries past and present and sundry celebrities falling over themselves for a piece of the global spotlight.
Without doubt, the story of Suharto is grand opera: a village boy who grows up into an army general, then acquires absolute power in the wake of a mysterious communist coup and military counter-coup. Historians say those tumultuous days in the fall of 1965 sparked half a million murders, and that Suharto and his soldiers were responsible. We did not know about the massacres. If we heard about it, we refused to believe it. And if we believed it, we thought it was justified. It was kill or be killed when it came to the communists. You were either for them or against them. We chose freedom against communism. And we witnessed complete regime change.
There is no sense of regime change with Suharto’s death. He had been out of power, and practically out of sight, living quietly in a residential area in central Jakarta, for nearly 10 years. But he was not a forgotten man, when he should have been. That says much about who he was and what he stood for. Suharto was truly seen as the ‘Bapak Pembangunan’ (father of development) espousing a philosophy of economic development and a closed political system to support it—a model of governance that was once the rule in much of Asia. During his nearly 33 years in power, Suharto seemed to have forged a paternalistic pact with the people of Indonesia which went like this: I will build infrastructure, raise income levels, reduce poverty, battle disease and illiteracy and provide stability, and you will let me run the country as my personal fiefdom. Other leaders have made that same deal, but no one ever implemented it on such a large scale—Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous nation—for so long and with so much success. But the end result of failure is what counts.
Suharto was not forgotten for another reason: the attempts at political reform since he left have not produced tangible improvement in the daily lives of the people. Indonesia has been reborn as a young democracy, but because Suharto did not establish durable civic institutions, that democracy is messy enough for many Indonesians to pine for stability which Suharto’s New Order once ensured.
The post-Suharto lifting of press censorship revealed the bankruptcy of governance and a business system totally destroyed by cronyism and corruption. Movements to demand accountability from Suharto were started soon after he stepped down. However, attempts to bring Suharto to trial were thwarted. Efforts to find justice for students killed during the uprising in 1998—which forced Suharto to resign—seem to be forever hidden under the rug.
Suharto’s eldest daughter, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, who was a member of her father’s last cabinet, said after his death: “If he committed mistakes, we hope all are willing to forgive him.” But no one has the right to forgive Suharto other than his victims, and God. There needed to be some sort of reckoning for Suharto, not necessarily for the sake of justice or revenge, but because a young democracy like Indonesia needs to have a sense of what is right and what is wrong. Because Suharto did both good and evil, the distinction has been blurred. Yes, the economy grew during Suharto’s rule, but so did corruption and abuse of power.
Indonesia’s self-respect, and self-confidence, has been hurt as a result. More than anything else, that is Suharto’s legacy.
Suharto escapes trial, but Indonesia does not
Suharto escapes trial, but Indonesia does not
By: Wimar Witoelar
wimar@witoelar.com
With nineteen aircraft escorting the remains of former Indonesian president Soeharto to his luxurious final resting place in Central Java, he was laid to rest with full military honors. Does this end a major chapter in the history of Indonesia, a nation of 240 million people?
I remember the day President Sukarno died on June 21, 1971. I was coming in from the airport from my first international flight. It was very quiet on a hot Jakarta afternoon and there was a feeling of passage. Definitely a low-key event, nobody talked about it as Sukarno had disappeared from sight ever since Suharto took over power in 1966. Nobody knew where he was. Suharto never visited him and the media never ran stories on him. Sukarno, founder of the nation, President for life, revolutionary leader of the new emerging forces, just disappeared.
And I remember the day Suharto died on January 27, 2008. It was like a rebirth, a happening. The last days of Soeharto had a circus atmosphere, with people milling around the hospital and ten television channels jostling for camera space with on-camera talent hamming up the melodrama. I saw it as opera where tragedy and comedy are served in equal parts. The tragedy is the man’s passing away, because death is irrevocable and always sad. The comedy is in watching dignitaries past and present, movie stars and celebrities, all eager to show something to someone. It may be a show of loyalty to a man once responsible for their comfortable lives, a hope to share in the distribution of his assets, or just to share fifteen seconds of fame with a world class news magnet.
Without doubt, the story of Suharto is grand opera. Rising to power intuitively in the wake of a mysterious communist coup and military counter-coup, they say 500,000 murders escorted the military and Soeharto to power. We ordinary students did not know it at that time. If we heard something we refused to believe it. And if we believed it we thought it was justified. It was kill or be killed when it came to Communists. You were either for them or against them. We were defending freedom. And we, student activists of that day, chose freedom against communism. And we saw complete regime change.
There is no feeling of regime change with Suharto’s death. The smiling general was sent off by tearful sympathizers. The former first family was in tears. The immaculately groomed President Yudoyono looked every bit the political heir of the smiling general.
Ten years of attempted reform seem like a daydream. Attempts started in President Wahid’s term in 2000 to bring Suharto to trial were thwarted. Efforts to find justice for students killed during the uprising in 1998 – which forced Suharto to resign – seem to be forever hidden under the rug as Wahid fell from power after unsuccessful forays to bring New Order corruptors to trial.
The Suharto funeral had an eerie similarity to that of JFK in 1963, grand, solemn, historical, and impressive. The difference was, this first family is much bigger than John Kennedy’s, and LBJ looked more detached from JFK than SBY is from Suharto.
As media orchestrated the grieving, President Yudoyono said in an emotional television address that Suharto had “some shortcomings, but nobody is perfect. As a big nation I invite us all to express sincere thanks and give our highest respect for all of his service to the nation and the country.” Soeharto’s high-profile daughter – a cabinet minister in Soeharto’s last government – Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana played her part to attract sympathy. “If he committed mistakes we hope all are willing to forgive him.”
But can anybody respond to her plea? Does anybody have the right to forgive Suharto except God and his victims? The victims include families of the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives were destroyed and taken by Soeharto’s regime as well as gallant Indonesian military people who died in the execution of their duty. Less bloody but equally tragic are the millions of people living in poverty while billions of dollars were allegedly diverted to Soeharto’s family and cronies and funds managers.
President Soeharto ruled with authority and presided over an amazing record of economic development measured in aggregate terms, bringing Indonesia to the threshold of becoming an Asian tiger. But his authority turned to a dictatorship, as his New Order became a byword for corruption and human rights abuse. Outside Indonesia, people ponder the same question that has plagued the nation in the ten years Soeharto has been out of power. Will he ever be tried for his atrocities and corruption? Will the Indonesian nation be able to bring the Soeharto case to closure? The longer the public vacillates over putting Soeharto’s crimes on trial, the more the public shows its lack of resolution. And in the rare case where President Yudoyono showed resolve was when he recreated the image of Suharto as a national hero.
For most Indonesians the corruption aspect of Soeharto’s rule is the most clearly felt. But still there are excuses. In a television interview with Aljazeera, Professor Emil Salim who was a five-term cabinet minister under Soeharto said the amounts of money allegedly stolen by Soeharto “is nothing compared to the economic development he brought”. Salim and his fellow economists of the Soeharto era do not recognize that Soeharto’s economic development favored the Indonesian elite and foreign investors, while bringing only marginal benefits to the working people of Indonesia, not to mention the poor.
He was called the Father of Development by the sycophants of the New Order. True, economic development did great things in the mid 80s. But as he developed economically, he also developed his crony capitalism. This gave him confidence to turn against his loyal intellectuals as he left them for opportunists in his inner circle. Many good people turned against him then. But more remained apologists for the regime
Bringing Suharto to trial is not just a case of criminal and civil justice. It is important to give people a sense of what is right and what is wrong, which has been clouded by people straddling on the fence for so many years. People forget the atrocities because they were kept well hidden. But the damage to the nation’s confidence and self-respect is evident, and may well be the remaining legacy of Suharto’s rule
Obama’s victory, hope for America and inspiration for Indonesia
Obama’s victory, hope for America and inspiration for Indonesia
There is much that evokes emotions about Barack Obama, a quality that we last saw in John F. Kennedy. Kennedy was a junior Senator from Massachusetts when he was elected in 1960 just as Obama is one from Illinois. Both did not have much experience but both exuded leadership. Both were admired by a world extending far beyond the borders of the United States. American politics comes with a generous dose of romance. Indonesians respond to Obama as no one did for McCain. Text messages jangled mobile phones in Indonesia and congratulatory messages filled email in all languages. The live coverage of the vote count on November 5,2008 was watched by many in Jakarta and many rejoiced when Barack Obama passed the 270 electoral vote mark, which sealed his place at the center of the world. Not everybody knew what his programs are but mist sensed a positive area around him.
To start with, like no other US President since Franklin D, Roosevelt, Obama is a president for all America. He has stepped away from partisanship and appealed to all parts of the country regardless of race, region, and religion. His message of inclusion is the thread of his campaign, both in the Democratic Party and across the political divide. By his discipline he avoided the looming threat of the culture war which has haunted America since Richard M. Nixon used it to energize the Republican Party.
As a person Obama comes with an incredible background. We all know how he spent four years of his childhood in Indonesia, His friends at school in Jakarta and his neighborhood will give testimony to the fun he had playing and learning life at his mother’s side. When he went back to the United States he benefited from the care of his grandmother who sadly left him the day before the elections. His half-sister Maya Ng share their Indonesian background as the only survivors of this family of ordinary people.
But we will not make the mistake of claiming him for Indonesia. We are happy to have had some relevance in the development of Barack Obama. It will be our collective pride to see him become an outstanding president of America and make it a better country, because what is good for America is good for the rest of the world.
The difference between Obama and most presidents of the United States is that he does not build on fear but on hope. He is the antidote to George W. Bush of the “you are either for us or against us” mindset, promising instead dialogue and a chance at understanding even the nation’s worst enemies, keeping force as the weapon of last resort. Sensing this the world breathes a sign of relief. We will not be forced into accepting unilateral initiatives when Obama promises multilateral action whenever possible.
The sense of oppression does not exist only in the mind of America’s adversaries in the world but also in parts of the American population who have seen the space of their civil liberties consistently compressed in the name of capitalism and national security.
Maybe that is why there was so much joy in the celebration at Grant Park in Chicago, the scene of a polarized country in 1968 over the unpleasantness of the Vietnam War. The Iraq war had the same polarizing effect. And ordinary people started to feel they were held hostage of an alien kind of authority.
The scenes of celebration in the the park are reminiscent of the end of a sci-fi movie where people of the earth rejoice over defeating the aliens
The true genius of America is that it can change by democratic consensus. When it becomes clear that the people want change, they select the candidate of change by a landslide. With the magic wand of democracy, wars are minimized in glamour and the nation now concentrates on two tasks: economic recovery and improving the standing of the USA based on peace and prosperity.
These two goals are good for any country. When Indonesia can make its own democratic choice in that direction next year, we will have a sympathetic supporter in a new USA, led by a President who understands our hopes by having breathed them directly.
Indonesia’s Hope is in Her People
article for a Singapore publication (not for public distribution prior to publication)
Indonesia’s Hope is in Her People
By Wimar Witoelar
On the sidewalk in front of Scotts Center, arrows point in the direction of faraway places. Once I walked by with a young friend, who pointed to one marked ‘Indonesia’ and asked : “Is that the right direction?” Well, I said, the arrow could point in any direction except North. Whichever way you go from Singapore, you would probably find some part of Indonesian soil.
One does not always feel the sense here of being surrounded by Indonesia. In a way that is good, considering the image of that country being down in the dumps. High on the list of the most corrupt nations, with an economy near collapse and a society torn by violence and now infested with Al Qaeda terrorists, many Singaporeans would prefer to shut their eyes and wish this giant nation away like a bad dream.
The part that is totally true about that bad dream is the fact the Indonesia is very big. That is its main problem. I used to joke that Indonesia would be as orderly as Singapore if you picked the 4 million most disciplined people. You could even have a decent country with 40 million people. But with 220 million people, it’s tough enough to survive for 57 years.
Is Indonesia surviving? Considering its proximity it should be an overriding issue in Singapore. The two countries are intertwined more than most people realize. Orchard Road would be dead if Indonesians stopped coming.
It would be nice to know if there is hope in Indonesia, and where to find it. The answer is simple: look at her people. The very people who evoke images of huddled masses, violent riots and undisciplined laborers, are also the source of some of the finest and most enlightened democrats and pluralists in the world.
US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz once remarked that there are more Muslims in the world speaking Indonesian than there are speaking Arabic. Last May I was in New York and Washington DC watching former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid address various audiences, most notably the annual conference of the high-powered American Jewish Committee alongside US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. The message was that hope for containment of Islam radicalism lies in the moderate Muslims of Indonesia. The Muslim majority in Indonesia has consistently opposed abuse of religion by hard-line elements.
They have defended the Chinese ethnic minority who have long been the objects of persecution and discrimination. The presidency of Abdurrahman Wahid gave state recognition to the Chinese New Year, allowed Chinese-language newspapers and television broadcasts, and gave the Chinese freedom to use their original names. Sounds simple but it was not that way before. Ethnic pluralism and religious tolerance are major themes of the political transformation started in 1997. True, that transformation is jerky but ideas are now expressed without fear. The bad guys are still there, but newspapers point at them. Words like Aceh, Poso, Ambon strike fear into anybody living near Indonesia. But violence does not come from the people. In academic jargon, Indonesian violence is of the vertical kind, stage-managed. The activists of the civil society loudly oppose violence and corruption. Unfortunately almost none are known to the Singaporean public. Not many know that Xanana Gusmao, now President of Timor Leste, was represented throughout his captivity in Jakarta by a human rights activist named Hendardi. Nobody here has heard of Munir, a young lawyer who exposed the kidnapping of democratic activists in 1997. Teten Masduki with his Indonesian Corruption Watch made household words of major corruption scandals. Female leaders like Dita Indah Sari, Karlina Leksono and Wardah Hafidz fight society’s tough battles with high intelligence and commitment. We could fill up this column with names and names of people who are quietly holding the nation together with hope, integrity and social activism. They are not only activists but professionals, government officials and young military officers. For every bad stereotype there are many more good people.
Yes, Indonesia is a broken nation. Its tarnished image is well deserved by the misdirected elites in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. But a nation is nothing if not her people, and the Indonesian people are emerging to claim the nation’s future. In the words of Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, they are Stayers, not Quitters.
Terror with a brand name
Terror with a brand name
Al Qaeda’s a market leader but Indonesia must nab other culprits, too
Recently, two people were arrested in Singapore. They were suspected of planning a bomb attack on the Yishun MRT station.
It is very comforting to see the competent security system at work here. As an Indonesian who loves Singapore, I pray and hope that peace and calm will prevail in Singapore.
It is dreadful to even imagine something happening on Orchard Road with so many Singaporeans and Indonesians. Similarly in Bali, up until last Saturday night, many Indonesians played host to our loyal friends from Australia and from all over the world.
It is heartening to know that after the tragedy, in the face of despicable terror,there is still human warmth and cooperation. Australian tourists remain in Bali, helping the hundreds of Indonesian victims who are not able to enjoy state-of-the-art treatment in Darwin, Sydney or Singapore.
The Indonesian police has opened the door to Australian experts and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Interfaith memorial services were attended by the thousands in Denpasar, Bali. In Jakarta, people come to the Australian Embassy, leaving flowers and and messages of sympathy. You don’t read this in the headlines, but they constitute the fabric of human interaction that will ultimately prevail.
Meanwhile, confusion still reigns.
Not many Singaporeans visit Indonesia and things are difficult to follow from afar. As Indonesia is also not well covered by the international press, we must look beyond the wire service reports.
Otherwise, we could be misled by news items claiming that many Indonesians see the bombing as a United States Central Intelligence plot. Let me assure you that these suspicions exist only among the few die-hards, or people who are addicted to spy movies.
The less glamorous reality is that all our evildoers so far come from among our own fellow citizens. We should not point our fingers at outsiders, be it the CIA or the Al-Qaeda, when so much domestic terrorism is on the record.
It is strange how the world forgets that as recently as 1999 we saw terror being waged in East Timor. The terrorists who ravaged East Timor must be relieved that the agenda of the US government has shifted from human rights and justice. Having completed their own acts of terror, they are now eligible to enlist in the global war against terrorism.
Indonesians support the search for the Al-Qaeda. But we should entrust that to President Georgw W. Bush, who has all the intelligence on the Al-Qaeda. After all, how much can be expected of Indonesia when a mighty superpower has not found them in more than a year?
I have no quarrel with foreign governments who want us to arrest the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). These guys should be investigated.
But the real issue is that we must make sure the terrorist hunt does not stop there for the rest of us, because we know things faraway people don’t know. We know that terrorism has existed in our land far longer than Mr. Bush has even thought about them.
It all started with Soeharto, a familiar figure with senior Singaporeans. His regime was based on state terrorism.
The JI is a familiar name for Singaporeans, but not many know that it was founded in the mid-70s by Soeharto’s operators.
After the fall of Vietnam, Mr. Suharto, a former general, thought the communist danger required the forces of the military and the Muslim hardliners extremists to work together.
Besides the JI, now mentioned as the local arm of the Al-Qaeda, other radical Islamist militia groups were supported on and off by military hard-liners throughout the years, resulting in the atrocities and human rights violations for which Indonesia came to be known.
We need not go into the long list of terror instigated by the state and later, when Soeharto’s hard-liners fell from power, by military-linked groups using radical groups in the field.
Since 1998, the words May riots, Semanggi, Christmas bombings, Kalimantan, Poso, Aceh left us frozen us in horror – clear cases of terrorism whose perpetrators have never been revealed.
Then the Al Qaeda came onto the world stage, and Mr. Bush, assisted by media hype, gave them a brand image.
Those who know marketing strategy understand that when you are recognized as a brand, you can “just do it”, leave production to locals around the world and concentrate on brand management and franchising. Nike does not make shoes anymore. The job is made easier when your brand suddenly becomes the market leader.
As terrorists of all kinds are learning to use the world brand to streamline their operations, politicians learn to use the anti-terrorist password for their own purposes, as the Indonesian Defence Minister Matori Abdul Jalil so deftly demonstrated a few days ago. The minute he named Al-Qaeda as the guilty party, his name came up in lights websites around the world.
It is good for President Bush and his deputy sheriffs to hunt down the Al-Qaeda in their expanding list of countries on the axis of evil.
But for people who want to help Indonesia become a better place and for us who want to be better neighbors to Singapore, it is important to catch all the culprits, especially those who are around us all the time. Not just the Al-Qaeda.
The writer, a prominent media personality, is currently Professor at Deakin University. He was chief spokesperosn for former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid.
