In less than one hour I will be watching the super soccer match, Chelsea vs. Liverpool; my guess is Chelsea will be victorious by 2 or 3 goals. If I err in my judgement, well, I'll have to buy someone a pack of Gudang Garam tomorrow.
To pass time, I'll keep my promise to blog based on the comments I received from my previous posting. I got two comments! One comment wrote something about posts before comments; the other from someone, big hearted enough to show understanding over a blogger's block, preferring to read on something about Indonesia. So, here it goes:
Recently, when trapped in the usual traffic jam on the way to office, this particular sentence has rung in my head. "If complaining solves problems, this city would be a better haven." That was when I suspected myself of having harbored too many grunts--mostly against how things are run by the government. Then I began to feel sort of self-assured that the term "rebels without a cause" has been a misconception; for, I think, every generation must have its own curse, no matter how stable, democratic, or advanced the country is.
Such line of thinking, I mean that particular kind of thinking, as well as the ensuing disatisfactions, presupposes that government is responsible for governing most aspects of our lives, from cradle to grave. To further the issue in my previous posting, citizens should limit themselves in entertaining the idea that government will do them good. This mode of thinking has been subscribed by too many, perhaps without ever asking why. Realities are already too punishing to be added by yet another hope against hope.
That said, would that make me a pessimist or an optimist? Would be nice to say I am a cautious (or responsible) optimist, but I'm basically as optimistic that pessimists can be truly pleasantly surprised as I'm pessimistic that optimists cannot go to the dumps. Hhm, I think I'm digressing now, but let me digress a bit more. I believe Thoreau was somewhere near the truth when he said the best government is one that governs the least, but, heck, I'm not promoting civil disobedience (at least for now). I rather symphatize with SBY, that's why.
To come back to my point: part of the thoughts that we have about our country, or the memories of it, depends on who we are, the people our parents warned us about (he, he). We can agree that as beings we are the products of nature and nurture. Nature aside, only very few are lucky enough to adopt fresh values and ways of thinking.
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On the other hand, the heart of the matter itself, Indonesia, is one country unable to solve its developmental gap. Some of us in big cities have already gone into what Toffler dubbed as the Third Wave; quite a few have entered the second wave, but, most strikingly, most of us still dwell in the third wave, being simple peasansts, something resembling the Sumerian state six thousands years ago!
Strictly speaking, Indonesia is not a nation. Rather, it's a collection of nations. Aceh is one; Batak is just another, Moluccas yet another, etc. It's a USA in a smaller format; some of our nations are even bigger than those in Europe. "Indonesia" itself is not a name but a mere anthropological term concocted by the German Adolph Sebastian back in 1864. Then was the time when the large part if not all of Southeast Asia was called Java. The Malay language was then called Jawi, bahasa Jawi, or tulisan Jawi. Hamka once remarked, had we not found word "Indonesia," the republic I'm in now would be called "Jawa."
Indonesia is taking shape.
So, what's happening in Indonesia now is not it. Since 1998 we have experienced something new in the form of freedom of expressions, a novelty unthinkable even just one year earlier. To some people who couldn't stand it, it's rather excessive, but are we to mistake the excesses for the essence? A new balance may be attained some 20 years from now.
We live in one country, but over the 240 millions of us here are living in different ones.
Hope this isn't too bad for half an hour blogging. (The match already starting!)
