Umi Kulsum – Indonesia’s 100th National Awakening day, which fell on May 20, was noisily celebrated at the Bung Karno Sports Stadium during a ceremony led by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. In the president’s speech he said that Indonesia is a capable nation that can change its fortunes and confront the energy and food crisis. But what about the public’s views on this?

Kompas research and development (Litbang Kompas) conducted a survey on May 21-23 to find out the public’s views about Indonesia’s current situation.

The result was that around 82 percent of respondents said the government has been unable to overcome the food crisis. As many as 84 percent of respondents answered that the state has also been unable to overcome the energy crisis (fuel and electricity). Moreover a significant portion of respondents said that they are not convinced that Indonesia will be able to overcome these two problems within the next five years.

It’s not surprising that the pubic holds views such as this. The current situation is making it progressively more difficult for the public to fulfil their basic necessities of life. Purchasing power is declining because food prices are increasing. Other expenses have jumped so their fixed income is declining in value.

This reality has turned the celebration of 100 years of National Awakening into a “thundering in the desert”. The majority of respondents are of the view that business facilities, the availability of jobs and the price of basic goods are extremely poor at present. The pubic is feels that there is absolutely no guarantee that current economic situation promises improvements in their lives.

This sense of pessimism is felt by housewives, those who have yet to obtain jobs, school and university students, private sector employees, state civil servants and most of all the business community.

The energy and food crisis that has befallen this nation has in fact yet to spur the growth of a proactive spirit to generate new ideas to try to achieve a national awakening and self-sufficiency.

Although it appears that the public is beginning to be sensitive to and have a awareness of the energy crisis, it is not impossible that changes in lifestyle are more influenced by the decline in economic capacity resulting in there being no other choice except to downgrade living standards.

As many as 90.4 percent of respondents said they are already trying to economise electricity in their daily lives by turning off lights if they are not being used or when sleeping, cutting down on the use of air-conditioners and reducing the amount of time watching television.

This is also similar with regard to fuel, with 65.4 percent of respondents saying they have changed their daily lifestyles, particularly in terms of transport. For respondents that own cars, the first thing they have done is cut down on the usage of private vehicles and shifted to public transport or motorcycles. For lower-income groups meanwhile, their standard of living has also declined as they replace liquefied petroleum gas with kerosene for cooking and ride a bicycle to work.

Moreover for housewives, the high cost of fuel has forced them to reduce the amount of food they cook on daily or choose foods that are quicker to cook.

Meanwhile the spirit to resist the ailing national situation by taking proactive action to seek self-sufficiency is clearly not apparent.

The dependency on the consumer goods market has resulted in life choices being dependent on two things: the availability of goods in the market and the availability of money in the pocket. A public stand to act as agents who determine market conditions is clearly not apparent.

In overcoming the food crisis for example, the reluctance of employers and businesspeople to enter into the agricultural field is becoming more apparent as revealed by 50.3 percent of respondents in this group. They are emphatic refusing to enter into the agricultural field. The lack of enthusiasm to take part in establishing food self-sufficiency is most visible among high-school and tertiary students, private sector employees, state civil servants and those who have never worked or are currently unemployed. On average only a little under 50 percent of these groups want to enter into the agricultural field.

In reality, national awakening, which is interpreted as meaning a spirit of nationalism, has little resonance for the public.

A majority of respondents (69.5 percent) said that the Indonesian nation’s sense of national solidarity is very week at the moment. Only 23.7 percent of respondents said that tolerance between different social groups, such as rich and poor and between different ethnic groups is quite strong. Meanwhile 73.1 percent said that solidarity between different social groups is week. This is not very surprising if we look at realty, that in a situation of economic depression the economically wealthy groups are still throwing money around just to have parties.

Respondents believe that the most urgent issues that must be resolved at present are those related to economic problems (58.7 percent), followed by corruption, education and justice.

The economic and social crisis is of course creating a great deal of hard work for the present government, although it cannot be denied that the government’s present state of absolute confusion cannot be separated from past leadership. The public however wants the present government to more explicitly side with the broader public rather then with the interests of particular groups.

Concrete decisions and real support from the government and legislative bodies to make Indonesia’s national awakening a reality will continue to remain in the public spotlight. (Litbang Kompas)

[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was “Kompas Survey – Public equivocal about Indonesia’s awakening”.]