http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/the-dprs-shameful-politics-of-ignorance/435465
The DPR's Shameful Politics of Ignorance Novri Susan | April 15, 2011 Indonesians may already have lost the words to describe the values and principles of lawmakers' behavior in the House of Representatives. During the democratization era, political elites have become wilder and shown open contempt for the system. Watching porn videos at a legislative meeting is but the latest example. What our elites easily forget is that their power comes from people through general election and taxes. And they show their insensitivity to that public with the unpopular proposal to build a new legislative building with a price tag of Rp 1.13 trillion ($131 million). The stated reason for a new House tower is the need for a more comfortable working space and facilities. However, the public cannot accept that reason, considering the economic conditions that are now pushing up food and oil prices for the common consumer. And long list of issues would seem to merit more consideration than new facilities for lawmakers - for example, fixing national infrastructure, education and health services for poor people. Moreover, renovating the existing DPR building would be a perfectly acceptable solution. Here Malaysia offers an interesting comparison. The parliament in Kuala Lumpur listened to public appeals to cancel a new legislative building that would have been built at an expense of 800 million ringgit ($265 million). Earlier, lawmakers decided just to renovate the old building. By its political culture, Malaysian civil society is softer than Indonesia's in voicing public aspirations. Even so, the voice was heard in this case. Across the strait in Indonesia, though, despite a vigorous civil society that isn't shy about making known its concerns, the political elites in the House ignore it. Obviously, the country's elites are afflicted by the politics of ignorance. This impedes the proper functioning of democratic systems, tripping up legislative, monitoring and budgeting activities. A vivid example of this ignorance can be seen in the failure of the National Legislation Program in 2010, in which only 10 new laws were passed out of a target of 70. According to some reports, Indonesia has only been able to pass a maximum of 20 laws annually since the birth of the democracy era. Compare that number to Singapore, where from 1990-98 the parliament was able to push through 360 new pieces of legislation - an average of 45 new laws per year, according to its Legislative Council Secretariat. This gap in performance between the two countries offers tangible evidence of the politics of ignorance running rampant in the DPR. Beside the poor performance of the legislative program, the House is still unable to fulfill its role of monitoring the executive branch of the government, as witnessed by the failure of the Bank Century investigation, and the slow progress being made in eradicating corruption. Colombia University political scientist Jeffrey Friedman, through his article about "the epistemology and politics of ignorance" stated that the ignorance disease among politicians actually occurs as a rational mechanism to achieve self-interested goals, such as the accumulation of money from state budgets. Friedman calls this mechanism "deliberately dissembling," and it occurs when politicians carry on clandestine discussions on how to utilize state resources for personal gain. The deliberately dissembling phenomenon can be clearly seen at work in the House's resolute intention to proceed with the unpopular tower construction. Basically, deliberately dissembling works best in an oligarchy. It speaks ill of our country that it has been so easy for legislators to ignore public appeals to drop the building project - even to the point of seeming absurdly, deliberately obtuse on the matter. Another ridiculous political phenomenon rising up recently is House Speaker Marzuki Alie's supposed ignorance of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's call to put a tight leash on budget expenditures following the recent spikes in the price of oil. Marzuki's ignorance, along with that of his fellow Democratic legislators, of the president's call to reduce spending could lead to the Indonesian people's trust eroding in the government as a whole. Moreover, many people are still questioning the overall benefit of a democratic government on their quality of life. At a lower-income, grassroots level, there is a persistent belief that life has gotten tougher since the reformasi movement came into being in 1998. When elected officials who survive on taxes fail to be responsive, the stage is set for larger discontent to spread. As a consequence, Indonesian democracy is being threatened and broken down by the politics of ignorance among the House's elites. After 10 years of democratization, huge swaths of the public still have yet to see a notable increase in their prosperity. While politicians work in their own self-interest, accumulating wealth by siphoning funds from state budgets, more than 30 million people languish in extreme poverty. The country needs stronger leadership that can root out and exile the politics of ignorance. Yudhoyono needs to take a firmer stand in order to force the House to answer to the public's criticism in a substantial, respectful manner. At the very least, he should be working to postpone the project until his own party colleague, House Speaker Marzuki, can offer up a compelling reason why it should proceed. Otherwise, the public will have no choice but to assume the president is in full support of the new office tower. Novri Susan is a doctoral candidate at the Global Studies School at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Post message: [email protected] Subscribe : [email protected] Unsubscribe : [email protected] List owner : [email protected] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
