Kamis, 05 Februari 2015

Be courageous, Mr. President!

Be courageous, Mr. President!

Alfonsus Murtanto Gatum  ;  The writer has a Masters degree in theology
from Ledalero School of Philosophy in Maumere, Flores
JAKARTA POST, 04 Februari 2015

                                                                                                                                     
                                                

On courage, German political theorist Hannah Arendt, in her famous Human Condition, wrote: “Whoever entered the political realm had first to be ready to risk his life and too great a love for life obstructed freedom, was a sure sign of slavishness.“

“Courage, therefore, became the political virtue par excellence, and only those men who possessed it could be admitted to a fellowship that was political in content and purpose and thereby transcended the mere togetherness imposed on all […] through the urgencies of life.”

Arendt contemplated this virtue when she was describing the different characteristics of two connected yet distinguishable realms, oikia (household) and polis (city state), which refer to the typical political realm in ancient Greece.

The main driving force behind all activities in oikia, a private realm, was individual maintenance and survival. In oikia, thus the labor of men and women was directed toward the fulfillment of basic necessities; it was subject to the urgency of life.

On the contrary, polis was first and foremost characterized by freedom. Its participants were equals, who through action (praxis) and speech (lexis), selflessly advanced the good of the people.

Freedom implied voluntary detachment from the insatiable pursuit of basic necessities.

Polis or the political realm, accordingly, was a noble sphere designated for dignified souls who, instead of prioritizing his or her housekeeping, originally left the household “in order to embark upon some adventure and glorious enterprise and later simply to devote one’s life to the affairs of the city”.

Courage found its vindication here. It was “one of the most elemental political attitudes” because it enabled those partaking in polis to make their self-immersion into polis a perilous venture of fulfilling their promises to the public.

Far from being dedicated to one’s life or survival, this immersion was ultimately reserved for the advancement of public affairs, res publica.

Courage increasingly reverberates these days as we are now dwelling in times of political turmoil and uncertainty. Many in the country have resented and lambasted President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s inaction and reluctance to quickly solve the standoff between the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the National Police, which has escalated after the antigraft body named police general Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan a suspect just after Jokowi submitted his nomination as the sole candidate for the police chief post to the House of Representatives in mid-January.

As this political inertia is greatly related to the multifarious interests of his party and also of his patron and patroness, many have begun to question whether the formerly most repudiated accusation directed at Jokowi — his submissiveness to the bigger players behind his rise — has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Added to the blazing fire, there is so much talk now about the possibility of impeachment by House of Representatives lawmakers who resent Jokowi’s indecisiveness. Jokowi is now seriously facing the threat of being stripped of his authority.

Irrespective of the possible execution of this scheme, Jokowi is still the man in charge now. As the man at the wheel, to paraphrase the words of Arendt, it is the perfect time for him to assert “his individuality, to show who he really and inexchangeably is”: a man who comes from humble beginnings, but who has enough guts to go against the tide and mark another novelty in Indonesia’s political scene.

To a certain extent, our situation now resembles Carl Schmitt’s “state of exception”, where severe political disturbance prevails and so that requires the application of extraordinary measures.

The existing disturbance is greatly due to volatile interests of too many powerful persons and groups in the country, who are presumably worried by the KPK’s relentless inquiry into the dark world of corruption.

Reconciling those conflicting interests is next to impossible and should be ignored because not all those interests will be for the greater good of the people.

As a matter of fact, Jokowi should not play safe. We do not want to listen to his previous bland, nondescript and insubstantial statement of “upholding and respecting the legal process”.

Anybody on the street can make that stale statement! Besides, the above cliché is now also being employed by too many mouths that advance their own ulterior agendas amid this stalemate.

Provided the exceptionality of our situation, we now need a president who is morally courageous, perhaps a bit “eccentric”, who doesn’t follow the predictable pattern, but one who willingly takes risks for the good of his people.

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