Shift Happens

This is my first post at The Aroengbinang Project, fulfilling my promise to the blog's owner, as one of TAP's contributors. I've been living abroad for several years, and since a few months back I've been busy attending a class to get a certification. Thanks that at last I completed my final term exams and hence I can find more time to write. This time I'd like to share with you of what my instructor shared with our class. It has nothing to do with the subject he was teaching, yet with awesome energy, it captured the attention of the whole class.

It was a video from Youtube. In fact they were just two videos, but they showed something that have been bothering me for a long time, without being able to express or articulate it myself. Whoever had creating the videos had really done a beautiful job. It gives me goose bump every time I watch them. Yes, I watched them again and again, and I could not resist from sharing them with you.

The first video titled Did You Know 4-IV


And the second one is Future Technology 2009. The year of technology invention (milliongenerator).


If you have children or plan to have them, think about how are their chances to be able to compete with other kids from different parts of the world. Are they ready to compete, in any field? Are we doing enough to prepare them for this? If we already have seen them have problem to compete in today’s world, what is going to happen to them in the future?

Translation: What would happen to them is what would happen to our beloved country. We have a lot of bright students, but are they going to be ready? What are our responsibilities as parents, as fellow students, as teachers, as businessmen/women, as leaders, and so forth?

How we use all this information to help us today and to help us and our kids coping with future needs and competitions? What kind of skills, knowledge and talents they need to have in 15 or 20 years from now? Do we know? Do our teachers know? Do our leaders know? Do they want or care to know?

With the stunning speed of development in technology, even country like USA was concern about their future generation’s ability to compete with China, India and European Countries.

China and India are moving toward leading position. They are ready to take over US position. India is the fastest growing free market and democracy. Their number of honors student is more than the total number of kids in America ’s!!! An honors student is a student recognized for achieving high grades or high marks in their course work.

What would happen in about 20 years from now, you imagine it yourself. We kind of see the trend right now. American’s jobs were shifted to Asia, virtually at no cost to the American Companies. It is so appealing to them that the trend is increasing upward with tremendous slope. Can we kind of predict where is Indonesia ’s future will be? Do we even know where our country position today is?

I remember as a young student in Bandung, I have friends in my class from Malaysia, sent by their government to study in Indonesia. Today, few decades have passed since then and I have seen Indonesian people sending their kids to study in Malaysia. Is this what we call progress? Do you see enough core industries developing in Indonesia? Does our country produce enough food for its own people? Do we have sufficient infrastructures to support progress? Do we have a system that works?

I personally believe the leading countries in this competition will have a tremendous impact on other capable countries which are lagging behind. Impact that can put Indonesia as a slave country without their people aware of it. Scary? What this means to you? Watch the videos again and ask yourself these questions. Are we ready to cope with today and future challenges? Are we ready to live our dreams?

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Talkers

Last week, right after the unofficial announcement by PD that Boediono would be selected as SBY's running mate for the upcoming Presidential election in July 8, leaders from PD's coalition parties, especially PKS and PAN, voiced out their disappointment, suspicion, accusation and even threatened to quit the coalition with PD, if SBY didn't change his preference. We know that PKS finally stayed with PD, while PAN showed their half-hearted support to the pair. I am no politician, and never want to be one, but a few thoughts below may be worth to consider.

The first one is about PKS. The reason why I casted my vote for PKS in 2004 general election, and might be the same reasons for many others, was not because its Islam platform, but because of its strong image as a clean party and more importantly because its people were always one of the first groups to be out there in the fields at the time of crisis or disasters, without too much of a fuss.

In the past, PKS was seen as a party of doers, instead of talkers. PKS had ever brought fresh wind into the country, making it different from the other political parties where its leaders did too many talks and self publicities with no or little works. PKS was also trying to project its moderate and tolerant image, and avoiding any linkages with an alleged grand scenario to convert Indonesia into Islamic state practicing strict shariah laws.

The incident in West Java, where the governor of a PKS cadre banned the traditional dance of Jaipong, tarnished not only its tolerant and moderate image, but also raised questions on its stance and appreciation towards diverse and rich Indonesia cultural roots. Meanwhile, its image as a party of doers was not as strong as before, and its clean image was overshadowed by the achievements of the current administration in combating corruption.

What PKS leaders did last week related with Boediono's selection as SBY's VP had caused further damages to its reputation. Not only people saw that PKS leaders were tempted to be talkers on the media, instead of channeling their concerns directly to SBY without creating unnecessary fuss, it also revealed the harder side of its face by pushing SBY to choose an Islamist figure to be his running mate.

PKS should learn from its mistakes and blunders, or else it would be fallen into just another Islamist party that cares for names instead of substance, that uses mouths instead of deeds, that looks for power instead of trust.

What about PAN? I have only one comment: pathetic.

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