The future of Indonesia

The future of Indonesia

Indonesia is a country which faces several challenges that could shake the stability of the country, so it is required hard work from the community and the government. Since the independence in 1945, Indonesia has made great leaps to make wonder the world. However, why is in the last decade Indonesia already seen decline, even to be bottom-line state in various surveys? What’s wrong with Indonesia? Some people say that Indonesia has everything to make this country a developed country: a good natural and — as its counterpart — good human resources. Yet, why does this country not step forward, whereas all support needed to make Indonesia step forward available? Instead, Indonesia is overtaken and left by states which once upon the time was far below Indonesia. It is a puzzle for the people of Indonesia. Is the government system going wrong? Does Indonesia has no competitive advanteges against other countries? Then, what is the proper way to make this country make any progression, both in terms of politics, economics, or others? What will happen in the future of Indonesia? Will this nation on and on walk in its place without any significant progression or surpass other countries and never become a prominent in the eyes of the world.

Currently, Indonesia has entered into a new phase of its political life. Legislative election and general elections have been completed and rising new names in the government of Indonesia, but not with the president. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono still hold the position, while Boediono — former Bank Indonesia governor — hold vice presidency. He comes from professional circle, who SBY assessed to be more worthy as his deputy. This is very good because leadership of the period 2009 - 2014 can run without “double sun” as previous period. But, it is hard for Indonesian society to accept circulated rumors that Boediono follows neoliberalism, in other words, the common people will likely be given second place. Meanwhile, for minister positions, there are many new faces in the current cabinet, and the most striking is that professionals in the current cabinet are greater. It can help the president to finish the job better because ministers of professional background are more capable in their fields than of the political-party background. Nevertheless, weakness of the new cabinet remains, such as many entrusted names offered by political parties as well as by Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s friends.

In the economic problems, it will seemingly increase due to Boediono the Vice President is an expert in economics and a very experienced because he previously served as economics minister and governor of Bank Indonesia (The Indonesian Bank). However, back to the neo-liberal topic, many are doubtful that Boediono can overcome poverty and unemployment because Boediono deemed to follow neoliberalism considering more important to middle- and upper-economic strata than grass roots. In addition, many other factors can increase Indonesia's economy, one of which is recently development of small and medium industries. It can help economic development of Indonesia. Nevertheless, global economic crisis that hit some countries in many hemispheres is still a serious threat and we still have to carefully deal with it. Such large countries as United State have very heavily affected, moreover developing countries such as Indonesia. Therefore we have to be very carefully to face this global crisis so that its influence is not as heavy as the 1998 economic crisis which has made the Indonesian economy into chaotic and helpless condition.

Meanwhile, Indonesia social problems will seemingly decline along with other developments. It is evidenced that Indonesian people's welfare — according to the government survey — has increased from year to year, despite problems such as rising prices of basic commodities and fuel in Indonesia become individual problems for the government, because every fuel price rising as well as basic commodity, social problems such as Direct Cash Aid (BLT) will be a separate obstacle for our government. The government can easily handle other problems such as child protection, evidenced by reduction of cases of domestic violence against children at homes. However, there are problems in terms of broadcasting in Indonesia, namely there are still many junk shows aired on television, such as uneducated soap operas contained adult scenes which aired in hours in which children possibly watch. It may emerge social problems of pornography. Other example is cartoons contained violence scenes. It may not to let it be as is, because it can shape Indonesia's next generations to be crude and violent. This problem becomes separated task for the government to address social problems in this country.

For technology-related problems, Indonesia seems to grow rapidly. Consider Internet users in Indonesia growing more rapidly than in other countries. However, just as other developing sectors, problem always exist. One of technology-related problems is military technology, which lagged by other countries. Military aircraft accidents are often due to age factor, so do military ship accidents. To guard the border of Indonesia's outer islands, this country has no modern technologies suitable to use and cannot be guarded using merely such current military technology, whereas today Indonesia border is prone to enter by another State. However, there seems to have good intentions of government, namely increasing the government's budget for military technology purpose, although apparently still not enough and still should be improved, because this military budget is still less than other countries, such as the military budget allocation of Malaysia — our neighboring countries — even got two time allocation of Indonesian military technology budget.

Environmental problem recently become very important, because the issue of global warming has been proven to make this world becomes increasingly damaged. Indonesia is one of the important countries in improving this world, because Indonesia is one country which has the largest forest in the world. The problem is that many of Indonesia's forests are illegally logged without any consideration of future impact for all mankind. The government also already attempts to prevent this by improving security where are vulnerable with illegal logging. Moreover, many of other countries support Indonesia to fight against illegal logging. They give fund as compensation so that Indonesia can better preserve its forests. This has been evidenced by the climate change conference held in Bali; here is a great expectation from worldwide countries for our country.

Life of the law in Indonesia has been greatly changed since 1998. The current life of law is better and relatively indiscriminate. It is the greatest developments in the history of Indonesia. It is estimated that life of the law in this country will move forward along with other developments which are moving forward. Even so, life of law in Indonesian does not mean free of problems. One factor inhibiting development of law in this country is corrupt government officials which damaged this nation and give bad examples to the people of Indonesia. They are public servant, but in fact, served their own greed and betray public trusteeship. So, it is not surprised that many people of this Republic have no more faith — even though just a bit of faith — to leaders of this nation and to high state institutions. This widespread confident crisis problem becomes a very heavy task for the government, so the government must work more extra to overcome this problem and to improve public confidence. Other legal problems disturbing stability of the State are law violations committed by its own citizen, from the simplest daily violation, such as smoke at some forbidden public area in Bandung, to the most complex violation such as corruption habituated some custom values. They demand changes to the country while they themselves are not willing to change and are still carrying out activities that violated the law. As Al-Quran said, “Allah will not change the fate of a people if the people are not willing to change”, so do the Indonesian people. Allah will not change the fate of this nation before which the community and its government intend really to change for the better. Because the problems left as was and did not change, these legal issues can be serious and could threaten the development of this country. Therefore, let's transform this nation together toward a better life.

Last-five-years Indonesia has been going through a fairly difficult period, ranging from natural disasters, global crisis, to the problem of terrorism that make Indonesia’s good name ruined in the eyes of the world. Nevertheless, Indonesia can handle those problems notwithstanding through much pains and very hard works. Next-five-years Indonesia will likely have a better progress than last 5 years. It can be seen from several factors, such as more experienced government for previously having five-years experience, more professionals in the current period of government, and other factors that can lead this country ahead. However, all depends on the cooperation of all of us to build and to develop our country into a better sophisticated country. It is clear that the government should be able to work together with the citizen and also must understand aspirations of the people to emerge good synergy and make this country a developed country.