The State of Two Sides of the Same Coin

In December 1998, I left my country —a homeland filled with memories of beautiful people and nature— to meet a future in a wet and cold lowland called Holland.

In those difficult times, some argued that if the country were to recover from the Asian financial crisis, the aircraft industry had to be shut down. The industry was indeed phased out. The education and research institutions around it seemed to become irrelevant. It has always been my conviction to preserve and nurture the aeronautical knowledge inside me.

Sometimes you have to take a step forward into an uncertain new phase of life. "Look ahead, don't look behind," my father told me. "But don't burn all the bridges behind you," my mother added. So I carried on, while wondering, "Will there ever be a role in the future that will bring me back to my homeland?"

The Belt of Emerald (De gordel van smaragd) is a tribute bestowed by the Dutch to the breathtaking beauty and abundant natural riches of my homeland, which they, too, enjoyed and profited from for centuries. For some children of the nation, the journey of life may carry them to the far-flung corners of the earth, yet their homeland remains in their hearts, as portrayed in the song Tanah Airku by Ibu Soed.

Many Indonesians have lived abroad for decades. Yet many of them still retain their Indonesian citizenship, despite the laws of the countries in which they live allowing them to adopt a new nationality— one that could bring valuable opportunities for their careers. Is it a form of nationalism to remain one of the 280 million souls of the nation?

In search for a sensible answer, Goenawan Mohamad may be cited (Tanah Air, Tempo, 2000):

"Homeland is an engagement. To it we are bound, with it we struggle, in a relationship whose origin is unknown—for it can never be fully explained. You may call it patriotism, an obsolete word. Or you may call it love, a word whose meaning can never be described precisely—except when we experience its pain."

Times continue to change, marked by countless events, big and small, both in the homeland and abroad. A multitude of emotions arise in turn—emerging, receding, while some remain deep in the heart: from pride to shame, from joy to sorrow, from honor to disgrace. Such is the full spectrum of emotions that has swept over the Indonesian people since independence in 1945.

In times of achievement, people celebrate. In times of hardship, people persevere; everyone seeks to contribute to overcoming the challenges. On a coarse scale, those within government institutions do so according to their mandates. Others—the public at large—contribute by sending signals and critiques through various channels, in their personal or professional capacities, on a fine scale.

Indeed, the nation constitutes a multi-scale process of a society transitioning from one era to another. The coarse and fine scales are two sides of the same coin, which must interact in good faith to produce favourable outcomes.

On a coarse scale, policies are formulated and presented to the public in abstract terms. On a fine scale, the impacts of those policies become observable and tangible in people's daily lives. 

In a well-functioning democracy, civil society, including the press, has the duty to detect and investigate those impacts—not only in terms of the benefits but also the excesses, if any. The latter is arguably even more important to be reported to the public, since the former has usually already been communicated by the government institutions.

One instance of food poisoning is one case too many. A crumbling school building is another case too many. A corruption case is certainly one too many. The question is whether it represents only a single case out of many, like the tip of the iceberg, where many more are still hidden beneath the surface.

At another layer of society, observers and academics may exercise their aptitude for contemplating, connecting the dots in an effort to make sense of both the seen and the unseen, to identify underlying causes. What follows may take the form of a well-founded academic narrative, communicated to the public in a manner digestible to laypersons, carving a path from a problem towards a possible solution.

Signals and critiques are generally well-intentioned, but because they are usually expressed on a fine scale, they may focus sharply on specific details. As a result, on the receiving side, they may be misperceived as selective, or even offensive, by those entrusted with the power to govern. Expelling journalists from major academic events, alienating certain people by suggesting them to leave the country, or calling them names does not reflect a constructive response.

There are reasons why an article appeared in the 29 July edition of de Volkskrant, a reputable newspaper in the Netherlands, mentioning such responses. We should not put too much attention on the article, as the journalist was probably just fulfilling his duty to inform his stakeholders —the Dutch public— about current circumstances in Indonesia, an important trading partner.

We should instead focus our time and energy on rectifying and improving communication among ourselves, building the momentum needed to emerge from the current undesirable circumstances towards a more favourable future.

--- The author is a resident of the city of Leiden in the Netherlands ---