"Memento Mori"

When the stream of clear river flows rapidly, even the naked eyes could see what lies on the ground beneath the river itself because of its cleanliness. There are stones, sometimes a little fishes swim across, a sands and more importantly, imagine we stand near there in the bright morning. The sun shines down its light to the flowing water and what appears then a natural reflection of spectrums glow beautifully above a little inch of the river. Like the rainbow indeed, the reflection is colorful and stunningly attractive.

Forgive the adolescence of writer that puts much metaphoric words in the paragraph above. Briefly, there are two points there. First, a constant current stream that flows in transparency, clear without any dirt or garbage, which pictured in the image of clear and clean river. The second point is a reflection of a glowing light which described more-alike, some pretty little rainbow. It’s colourful, means the rainbow is not the appearance of one single colour only, but contains many colours which all emerged in one. Now if we step ahead, the two points here are representative sample of how the good government is organized in even better policy.

First, transparency. Transparent here doesn’t mean a weakness of argument like what stated in dictionary, but moreover is the transparent of the government to put everything as the results of works, the circulation of money, plans and steps what will be taken or not, whatever and whenever the citizen is all concerned within. Take a sample of our president of Indonesia itself, SBY, whom has granted some clemency regarding a matter of one famous guilty corrupter, Syaukani HR. It’s not a personal matter anymore, because the identity and reputation of Indonesia is engraved on it. Even all the progression is right and well-placed in the corridor of laws, most of citizens couldn’t stand is also not the reason of humanism as what stated by SBY, but the freedom of those guilty persons Aulia Pohan, Maman S Soemantri, Bunbunan Hutapea, Aslim Tadjuddin (whom all these three are involved in corruption case of Indonesian Bank), Artalyts Suryani, Al Amin Nasution and many more. There are 11 names listed by the hand of senior journalist whom I deliberately don’t mention here, but total more than 22 names of corruptor got the remission they wished from the hand of president in August 17 ago, claimed Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) in news. What matters here is the list of corruptor’s names which not revealed to the public, but lies concealed in the hand of president himself, or moreover by Patrialis Akbar, the Ministry of Laws and Human Rights, as what comes in the report of investigation by some journalists. The conclusion is, then the government doesn’t act in transparency, because the president doesn’t reveal what is right, the reason behind releasing them all free from the prisoners to become the free men. We also may speculate that president has played a dirty hand here, also he has a brach, because he doesn’t obey the laws of “UU nomor 22 Tahun 2002” subject 3 section 3, which force us to believe, has President some profound political reason behind it?

Second comes the multiple colour as the image of Indonesian cultures. The different cultures mean a different languages, a different characters, a different attitudes and a different ideologies among the many districts. Here comes the test of how skillful the president could embrace all elements without benefiting a single-group only and risking another. Have a little peek into our motto as example. Indonesia has “Bhinneka Tunggal Ika” which means we must hold not any grudge into whom has a different character from us. Perhaps Sumatera civilians have a strong-character, as they are easily blood-boiled. Compare them to Javanese people which some are slow, nice, but some are also easily angered. Or whatsoever in Kalimantan, Papua, Sulawesi, Madura and many more, the communication and interaction are done differently toward the people regarding where from they were born or stayed long in some district. The writer said that he has learnt so much about living together with another people from different countries. Especially here, in Egypt, where you faced Nigerian people, Russian, Turks, Afghanistan, Aljazair’s people and many other that we must learn the character of each individual. And this, is the hardest responsibility which must be held by the president himself. Say he is Sumatera, then he must learn how to interact with Javanese, or vice versa. The fact is, until recently, there are some districts where they consider the president’s clemency still didn’t reach them. Whether it is accidentally done but the president has some effort to do it before, or just deliberately he forgot or just disparage them. Maybe we could say, a poverty. August 17, in the independence day of our nation, the report clearly stated that the index of poverty has been decreased from 34.7% into 32.4%. Nah, we could see that is indeed, a falsification. How come the index of poverty has been decreased as there are people longing and starving for foods, down in the streets, below the river, or back there in the small huts? They’re carving for daily meals, while they‘re slowly dying. Perhaps, but this is just a speculation, a report concludes what happened in parvenues, competenet authorities, or military officers, politicians and some people only but not among all civilians. Who easily believes that report just stated the true is indeed blinded and couldn't read the facts. Otherwise, he/she’ll do his/her best to erase poverty in this nation.

These two points above are just a little bit of critique which taken from many inadequacy of how difficult becoming the president himself. As he must clearly understand what the meaning behind all those points is, he also must become the water, not a flame one. Water, which described by the writer above as the river, could fill the place where it is put, but indeed, it may change its shape but not its substance. It is flowing, low and flexible, to occupy the box or thing it is placed, cup or be a glass, pot or bottle, thin or flat, but it still stays the same, as water, nothing more. And hope may the president of PPMI could also become the water. He could flow with the idealism of what Masisir longing for and make them come true. Then in the end, the flow will shine down to Masisir and PPMI themselves as the hard effort they've ever done.