Indonesia
is too precious to be corrupted..., isn't it?
Nothing
far from the truth that our country, Indonesia, is being
heavily corrupted by our own people, by our own leaders and
by our own generation. Not too many people realize that we
are one of the poorest countries in the region, despite our
abundant resources. And not too many people seem to
understand that most our people only have elementary
education in their lifetime. Tragic.
But
even more tragic is that only few of the young
generation of the country really understand and
care about the problems the country is facing now
and in the future. That leaves a big question mark
to the nation's future.
Indonesia
is a big, very diverse and fragile country. Only
through a solid cooperation among young generation
across religion, races and ethnic groups will the
country stand firm united in the future. And only
through a better understanding of the young
generation about the challenges the nation is
facing, will the nation prosper in the future. To
achieve that, we need to constantly remind our
young generation about the prospect of the country
by systematically and collectively doing the
following strategic steps: (continue to what we
are doing)
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What
we are doing
(1)
providing them with concise analysis and
information about the current affairs and their
future implications
(2)
stimulating and facilitating in expressing their
thought and ideas about the current and future
affairs of the country
(3)
working together in action to provide educational
services and social works to the poor and
uneducated people
(4)
assisting them to understand the global nature of
the world today: that to hate one country is just
like hating our own brother and to do damage to
other countries is just like creating a wound in
our own body.
That's
why I named this: The Prospect.
We
had been living in the era where creativity was
impeded, where alternative ideas were hindered and
where criticizing our government was taboo. We are
also living or were brought up in a culture where
writing or expressing our ideas is not popular.
Our culture and educational system do not really
stimulate and foster people to be able to think
creatively and write their ideas systematically.
The
following will outline our goals.
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Short-term
goal
1.
Preparing the young generation for the upcoming
election, so that they will use rational thinking
and judgment in expressing their opinion and
channeling their votes.
2. Helping
the poor people in facing the extreme difficulties
due to economic crisis.
3.
Providing the uneducated people, including poor
children, with educational tools, books and
related items.
Goal #1: The
2004 election
While
the 1999 election was regarded the first
democratic election in the history of the nation
during the post Old Order era, the 2004 general
election will be the very decisive moment whether
democracy can live and grow in Indonesia or not.
Although
we may expect that there will be a democratic
process during the pre and post election, we don't
want people, especially the young generation, to
have blind knowledge of the present and future
situation and then choose a certain party only
because she/he does not know the whole game or
simply because she/he knows nothing of the
platform of the parties which will take part in
the election. Therefore, we need to inform
people of the main issues that this nation will
seriously face in the near future.
We
don't want the young generation of the country
become the pawns of the irresponsible political
leaders. We have seen that they love to do that.
They push the youngsters to do criminal acts, to
hurt others, to destroy others' possession and
even to kill innocent people. We need to educate
our young people about the complexity of social,
economic and political affairs so that they will
not raise their voice and muscles only because
they have similar background, perhaps in race,
ethnic group or religion, with political leaders.
Therefore our
short-term goal is to provide as much as possible
information and analysis to the young generation
of the country about the current and future
social, economic and political affairs the country
is and will be facing. We will do that
through
- online services
- live meeting
discussions
- printing and
distributing bulletin about the above issues to
high school, university and colleges libraries
around the country.
However, please
be advised that we are not endorsing
any political parties nor behind any
of them.
Goal #2:
Helping the poor
Do you have any
idea how poor our people are? You might need to check
this out. There will be some more information
exposing this issue later on. But the bottom line
is we have more than plenty. Who is going to help
them? The
government is too busy to take care of 'big
problems' that they somehow leave the poor
untouched. The house of representatives are too
unconcerned that they forgot who actually they are
representing. And the political leaders are much
busier taking care of their parties that they
forgot to whom actually they belongs. Again, that
leaves the poor people stay untouched.
While we can't
satisfy all people, we still can do something to
help a few of them.
The Institute's representatives in domestic region
will assess who will be the recipients of our
assistances (more information on this subject will
be available soon).
Goal #3:
Assisting the uneducated people
Back to our
introduction, more than 60% people of our people
only have elementary education or less (nothing).
When you browse the Internet and finding
incredibly amount information and knowledge here,
millions of our people do not even understand
what's really going on in any part of the world.
Lack of formal education and understanding about
the world among our people, especially children
and young people, will only create a loser nation
in the future.
To help them, we
will collect old yet useful books, educational
tools and related items from people around the
world and then channel them to the needy people in
the country, including poor children.
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Long-term
goal
Equipping
young generation with vital information and
analysis toward the 2004 election is necessary but
not sufficient for bringing the generation to
better understand the complexity of problems the
nation is facing. We need to further improve the
quality of analysis and at the same time increase
the number of people we can reach. The quality of
analysis can only be improved if we use accurate
data, better techniques and deeper knowledge. All
of them require investment both in terms of
monetary, time, commitment and skills.
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Biographical
background
The
following information is intended to prevent any
suspicion about the person behind this idea,
although it is strongly urged you to look at the
messages rather than the messenger.
After finishing my
undergraduate in IPB Bogor in Statistics and working for a
couple of years in Jakarta, I flew to the US to
get my MSc in Economics, then worked for about a year
at Boston Financial Data Services (BFDS) and
another year at American International Group (AIG),
both in Massachusetts before quitting for another
endeavor. Amidst my hectic schedules as a PhD student in
Economics* in the US
and working for Harvard Business School Professors
on Asian crisis project, I try to do something that is
useful for people. At least I want to share my
ideas and opinion about the country and ask the
current generation not to let the older people
ruin this precious nation. Also, don't let your
irrational thinking destroys the beauty of a life
when you live in a diverse nation.
(*
Currently I am doing research on "Optimal
Fiscal Policy in a Small Open Economy")
Like
you, I view Indonesia as a rich and could have
been a great country. From my quite extensive
travel in the country, I have met the very
poor, poor, rich and the very rich people living
in the country. Some of the experience I got while
doing a voluntary work with a team of several
students for two months to help the government
implementing the so called "poverty reducing
program". We went to very poor villages in
the country and taught people to improve the
productivity of their lands, build sanitation
facilities and etc.
As
time went by, through my working experience as an
economic researcher, readings from many sources and conversations
with many people across Indonesia, I gained a
little understanding about economic, social and
political problems that our nation is facing.
During the period, I produced a lot of
writings in our national media and involved
in several discussion forum as well.
My
simple message to my fellow young people of
Indonesia is: don't let your absurd
thinking, ignorance attitude and skeptical
mind-set destroy the splendor of unity, harmony
and prosperity. We may have different races,
but we have the same aspirations. We may have
different religions but we have the same national
goals. We may have different ethnic backgrounds,
but you and I are Indonesians, at least we were
born or raised up there. We have the same goals
for Indonesia:
unity, harmony and
prosperity.
Only a
dream? Don't worry. Dream
is the foundation of great triumphs. There is
nothing more famous than the American dreams: prosperity
and liberty. And they work for it. Their founding
fathers worked for it and the successive generation
keep, maintain and enhance it.
Then
we must also work. When you see the older people are
fighting each other for power and money, leaving
people hungry; and when you see the young people
just follow them or ignore the reality, then
basically the dream will never materialize.
So,
it's time to raise your voice, grab someone's else
hand, reach out others, spread democratic messages
and offer cooperative action to others. Only through
a cooperation among young generation of the country,
Indonesia will be able to realize the dreams.
Remember Sumpah Pemuda? Remember the young Hatta and
friends in 1930s? Why we don't have such people
anymore? Because we only care about our own pocket
and never offer cooperative gesture to our fellow
Indonesians.
Perhaps
like you, I need also to take care of myself. In
fact, I am in the busiest stage of my study, but
that won't be an excuse to do nothing for others. This
endeavor is not for me to make a living, but rather,
to have a living out of it for others.
Some
(who are now studying or living abroad) may argue
because she/he
does not plan to live in Indonesia anymore and then "why do I care of all these stuff".
My answer is, well, we don't need to live in
Indonesia to care for poor people over there and to
educate the young generation of the country. We can
do many things: from writing your opinion, sharing
your experiences and skills, asking people to join
this effort, contributing your time to manage this
site and perhaps donating a penny.
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Last
updated:
01/21/02
|
The Prospect
is published by The Indonesian Institute. Our messages are
study, democracy and unity.
