Like many Indonesians, I was disturbed by Indonesia's Supreme Court's decision to overturn the corruption conviction of the House of Representatives speaker, Akbar Tanjung. What even troubled me was the Court’s decision to instruct ‘the public’ to rehabilitate Akbar’s name. Taking it literally and legally, Mr. Tanjung is absolutely innocent, his name must be rehabilitated and his reputation must be restored. But of course this can create an ambiguity. Is the Court’s intention to transform Akbar into a new sinless figure with no association of his disturbing past? Or does the Court’s mean that Akbar is still Akbar, regardless of the Court’s controversial decision? In other words, is Mr. Akbar Tanjung still a main figure of the cloudy past of the country?  

Mr. Tanjung was found guilty by the lower court in a Rp 40 billion (US$4.7 million) graft case and the Supreme Court's verdict last week has brought a big smile to Mr. Tanjung, something that he can share with his supporters. But in the court of public opinion, the case is a little bit different. Much of the reason is due to his close association with the New Order regime. Mr. Tanjung was a key figure of the Regime, a regime which undoubtedly had managed the country awfully poor for almost three decades. Majority of people view key figures of the regime untrustworthy, incompetent for performing public services, and self-center pragmatic that have ruined the nation’s future. They want those who ruled or held authority under the New Order Regime to go away. Three decades are more than enough for them to hang around like wolves disguising as sheep. And Mr. Tanjung is no exception.

Ideally, bad apples must be removed from a full basket of apples so they will not spoil the remaining good ones.  It takes a will and power, however, to do that. The problem is who controls the power and who has the will? Unfortunately, while the majority, the people, have the will, they are far from controlling the power. Even in the reform era, people seem to be no more than unworthy pawns whose voice and will are not worthy. Our people are really powerless.

The Akbar’s acquittal is actually not his problem. One can blame him, but he is just like anybody else who wants to get acquitted even though he might have realized he has committed a felony. This is inherent in our nature: the tendency to lie embodied in our ego as human beings. Have you seen a murderer in the United States declared himself/herself to be not guilty even though mounting of irrefutable evidences presented before his/her own eyes? It is now the responsibility of the prosecutor, the judge and the jury to find and convict him/her guilty of his/her crime.

I am neither a judge, nor a prosecutor in the Akbar’s case. But just like many Indonesians, I can be a juror. While the Indonesian law system is not employing a jury system like the one in the US, the lower court apparently had captured correctly the jury’s decision: guilty.

Is this a presumed guilty before the court? Not really. The Akbar’s key point of defense, if it was not entirely depending on that, was the loss of his recollection of the money, the only factor that has driven the case. This is not a new phenomenon. In politics – and now is being employed in many other fields of crimes, to declare that one cannot remember anything of the episodes surrounding one’s court case is a legitimate tool of defense. Akbar of course was just using the available, and quite effective, tool at his disposal. He has deliberately chosen not to employ another tactic/tool that is being widely used by his New Order colleagues when they are facing trials: illness. This illness tactic is of course much sickening than the sick itself. Akbar is not as dumb as what people might have thought. He has avoided that tool because of his ambition of a something bigger: presidency.

On July last year, Mr. Tanjung cleared the smoke about his future intention. After his usual let-people-keep-guessing style, he announced his intention to contest the presidential candidate selection at his party's convention. It was a bold and outrageous decision given his guilty status by the verdict of the lower court. But politics is a matter of calculation, and let’s not forget, it is also a matter of negotiation. In his view, the trial is nothing but a political concession and suicide at the same time. Akbar is not Soeharto, a man who had control the power for almost three decades and who had surrounded himself with a ring of influential loyalists. Neither is he an Army general. It would be a suicidal move if he tried not to loose anything and still expect to get acquitted from the graft case. After all, he must have learned a lesson from the ridiculous stubborn resistance by the former president Abdurrahman Wahid when he faced a rather similar charge in 2001: when you try to have it both ways, you will end up have nothing. Mr. Wahid tried resolutely to defend his presidency over a money scandal similar to Akbar’s case, even to the point he declared Presidential Decree to denounce the Parliament’s decision to remove him from power, only to loose his presidency and his reputation altogether. And so the drama in the Akbar’s show is essentially revolved around one key word: concession or compromise.

The big questions now are: what is the concession and with whom he establishes the concession? These are more than hundred-twenty eight thousand dollar questions – if you count sixty-four thousand dollar for each question. They are not easy to answer although it is easy to speculate them.

Speculation aside, the loser in this case, regardless the substance of the concession and the other party(ies) involved in it, is the people. Who should they trust? And who will they trust? A few years ago, they have their trust in Mr. Wahid only to loose it in less than two years. Back in the early 70s, they had their trust in Mr. Soeharto and his regime, only to witness their trust disrespected and destroyed for the benefit of the regime. And in the early years of the reform era, they placed their trust in the new Parliament members, after they were elected through the first democratic election in the country in four decades. Soon they discover that the new members are not different from the old ones, not to say much worse. We have seen through out history that when the people have no more trust in their government and their elected representatives, anarchy will follow. And in such case, all become losers. Trusting no body is just as dangerous as trusting everybody.

For those who might have involved in this concession, one thing is clear: the people are getting smarter, and thanks to the new election system that will be used in the 2004 general election, they will have more power to decide whom will the trust. And for those who have missed the fundamental lesson from the Wahid’s case, which could have influenced the Akbar’s case had the Court learned from it, it is this: leadership is all about example.

I am not trying to blame Mr. Wahid of the Court’s controversial decision over the Akbar’s case. But he and his supporters, including some Western academicians, have failed to foresee the dynamics of the future and missed the chance of laying the moral foundation for the next generation to follow.  Here was I wrote Wahid's ystery and Lessons for the Current & Future National Leaders

When it came to Bulogate and Bruneigate investigations, Wahid was apparently trying to avoid traps and at the same time hiding the truth.  He forgot a lesson from Clinton’s Lewinsky scandal that no one can hide the truth forever. The events - the financial scandal investigation and Wahid’s response, were very critical to the future of the nation. Wahid could have set a truly magnificent example by revealing the truth to the people. Even if he committed a scandal and regrettably admitted it, he at least had set a legacy that the future leaders and generations will strive to follow that is a legacy in which a leader really acts as a real example, admits openly his mistake, regrets it and learns from it without being afraid of losing his position.  Wahid apparently forgot that, as a president, one small step he made meant a big step to the nation. But why he forgot about it?

Whatever the motivation behind the investigation, he could have done better by candidly explaining everything about the matter at whatever cost.  The highest cost was his presidency.  By rejecting the results of the investigation and accusing the legality of the special team of the investigation, Wahid clearly showed that he wanted to remain in power for some more years. For majority of people that was nothing but a plain indication that he was more interested in his personal agenda than in the nation’s interest.

What absent from the nation’s attempt to prosecute the money-related scandals involving the former New Order cronies is a legitimate national moral leader that can provide an exemplary commitment just like the former South Korean President Kim Young-sam who led the nation’s commitment to create a clean government, including by arresting and imprisoning his predecessor, Roh Tae Woo. The latter was jailed for massive corruption during his term in office. In addition, in 2002, the President’s son, Kim Hyun-chul was charged with bribery and tax evasion in a corruption scandal that has crippled his father's administration. The indictment was the final act in an investigation by state prosecutors who charged him with taking $3.6 million in bribes from two businessmen seeking government contracts, licenses and his influence in a court case.

Mr. Tanjung, through his political maneuver and his loss of memory, may win his case. Many may feel distress of the Court’s decision.  And the Supreme Court can continue to play politics, instead of promoting justice. After all, given the body’s existence, we should never expect much from it.  But the nation’s future is not over yet. In fact, it will be better, but only if the people, the “concessors”, the non “concessors” and, no less crucial, the professionals – from journalists, businesspeople to academicians or all middle class, can find commonality about the nation’s future. Can they find it?

The answer is almost entirely rest on the latter – the middle class. Denial mentality is not an option. A lot of hard works need to be done, especially for the professionals. Defending that progress have been achieved over the last six years is one thing, admitting that there are some fundamental failures is quite another. What is really lack of the recent years is the spirit of cooperation among Indonesians. A gigantic effort, a kind of effort needed to transform Indonesia into a better nation, cannot be perform by scattered, miniscule and resourceless ones.  It is really ironic that most activities performed by non-governmental organizations are financed by foreign sources. And it is also ironic that Indonesians tend to run first to foreigners for advice on how to improve their own country, marginalizing the potential of their own fellows. Let’s us ask ourselves, did the Japanese do the same when they build their country from the ruins of the Word War II? Or do the Koreans act the same?

Indonesians have yet to learn to support each other for a common clause: a better Indonesia. Until then, people like Akbar and his fellows will continue to reign the country.  Or as Plato said, “Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.”