meneruskan, semoga bermanfaat. salam,
pras The Jakarta Post, Wednesday 14 April 2010, Headline – Insight, p. 2. General Susno – a cameo riding in a political rodeo B. Herry-Priyono, Jakarta | Wed, 04/14/2010 9:29 AM | Insight Another golden opportunity to clean up the mess in this republic has shown its face. This time it has taken the form of a police general, a former National Police chief detective, who knows too much about the tentacles of colossal corruption in this country. He fell from favor in the police structure with an off the cuff comment in which he likened the Corruption Eradication Commission’s (KPK) of the National Police to a gecko challenging a crocodile. That general’s name is Susno Duadji. Surviving the blunder, he was branded a clown by the public and a villain by the police. Perhaps wounded to the bone, he since embarked on a series of public derring-do that has brought us to the current outburst: a string of public revelations about high-level corruption besetting the National Police, the Tax Office, the Attorney General’s Office, businesses, legal professions and more. Sure, the man may have vices and recesses in his heart, after all, the explosive information he now divulges remained hidden until his wounded pride struck him, giving him an apparent sense of public direction. But what makes him special is that he keeps naming names. Soon enough some high-ranking police officers will become implicated, dragging the whole police institution and other state departments into the focus of a public tribunal. As of today, we know not what will be revealed further, nor do we know how things be will resolved. The only thing that seems certain is that these are the sort of public revelations most of us have been expecting for a long time. It doesn’t matter whether they come from a villain or a hero. What is important is that the mess is exposed. Only then can a series of reforms begin. However, a sense of irony is needed. This graft case is not the first golden opportunity that has been presented to us. Some, in fact, have only happened recently. >From the case of bribery committed by Artalyta Suryani, to the fishy procedures surrounding the appointment of Bank Indonesia officials; from the Bank Century bailout, to tax evasion by a certain business group belonging to a businessman- turned-politicia n. The list goes on, and is dotted with corruption scandals regularly implicating members of the legislature. Indeed, all these scandals have in the past presented themselves as golden opportunities for serious reform. Yet what has repeatedly taken place is one scandal overtaking another, killing any momentum behind a prosecution. It is in this air of silence that any expectation of serious reform is often a triumph of hope over experience, and recent records contain abundant evidence of enough inaction to terrify even the most resilient reformer. Enter Susno. While the stage remains set for him to reveal more — and this is what we come to expect these days — many are terrified by what may lie ahead, leading some to question his motives. Some question Susno’s own record, amounting to a demand that Susno must prove that he himself is not tangled in the tentacles of corruption. Others have begun to ask, often couched in academic jargon, whether “Susno the whistle blower” has a trustworthy and sincere motive for reform. All these doubts are certainly worth airing, but I find them laughable. Noble motives are of course virtuous, but that is beside the point. The point is clear and plain: the more he reveals, the better, regardless of whether he is a villain or a hero. In a twist of irony, I would prefer a villain reveal the details of high-level corruption than a saint who is muted about dirty dealings. It doesn’t matter if the act of exposing all this mess comes from Susno’s desperate attempts to rescue himself from political damnation. I am deeply aware that this is courting moral danger, but it may also reflect the scale of moral despair besieging public life in this country. This brings us to another point that is too precious to be left unspoken. It is a lesson that the gate to genuine reform doesn’t have to be opened by morally high-minded leaders. The opening of the gate for reform may come from anyone and anywhere, be it from heroic or saintly deeds, or from desperate attempts by a crook or villain to salvage themselves from a fallout. Again, this is akin to courting moral hazard, but yet again this may also reflect the scale of moral despair besetting us. Of course, the reform process is bound to fail when carried out by morally feeble kleptocrats. Nevertheless, we need to be a little bit distinct: opening the gate for reform is one thing, guarding the process of reform is another. Susno has not only shown us the gate, he has kicked it open. While another golden opportunity for serious reform has been made apparent, it can only be expected that the forces of status quo will work even harder to put the brakes on public revelations that are now unfolding in earnest. Already some politicians from Golkar and the Democratic Party have shown apprehension. They argue that “there is no urgency for an inquiry on the tax corruption cases”, for “the process is too long with much energy being wasted” (The Jakarta Post, April 6, 2010). We can only expect more of such thoughtless words to be aired in the future. A spicy reasoning may also be added, in that public revelations of corruption scandals are only deemed to paralyze the government and prevent it from carrying out routine work and development. This line of reasoning deserves a rather harsh riposte, i.e., what we need now is perhaps not development, but serious institutional reforms; and reform itself is what makes up the routine and normal process that must be done now! Amidst all these predicaments, however, perhaps we shouldn’t end our despairs with yet another despair, if only because we want to retain our political sanity. We’ll instead end with a hypothetical. Suppose you were in a balloon with Susno and a certain respectable denizen of the present Indonesian political or business class who refuses to voice all these dirty dealings. Suppose that in order to survive you had to throw one of them out. Which one would you choose? I would throw out the latter, and fly the balloon with Susno. The writer is a lecturer in the Postgraduate Program at The Driyarkara School of Philosophy, Jakarta. __________________________________________________ Apakah Anda Yahoo!? Lelah menerima spam? Surat Yahoo! memiliki perlindungan terbaik terhadap spam http://id.mail.yahoo.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
