Where’s Your Nationalism?

It was one of those days, when a lunch break was a much welcomed relief from wearing routine. So we just sat there after finishing our meals, puffing our cigarettes, tooth- picking and talked about anything that crossed our minds. Eventually that dreaded topic surfaced: “I think we were better off when Suharto was still in power”. Oh please, not again.

And then my other friend started to speak up, “you’re joking, I disagree with you completely”. Ah, here’s a more sensible mind, but then: “had Sukarno not been ousted in 1966 we were already a superpower nation by now”. I was like, stabbed from the back…

But then again we still had some time, hence I asked why Sukarno? The reply came, “you see, at that time I think we as a nation had the strongest feeling of nationalism. Today we’re going nowhere; reformasi has failed to improve our condition. This is because we don’t have that kind of nationalism anymore, be them our government or ourselves. That’s the main reason corruption is still rampant, people just don’t care about their own country”.

Yeah right, and I suppose you could exchange that nationalism with a bowl of rice?


That was then. Now, I don’t think we are in short supply of nationalism. Let’s take Tempo, May 13, 2007 edition. There, our VP Jusuf Kalla was accused of favoring his family business over foreign contractors in Jakarta Monorail project, especially since no tender process was present. Kalla denied the allegation; he said since the project was being done by local company, there was a saving of $300 mio. over the original budget of $800 mio. “This is nationalism”, he firmly stated.

On the same page, there’s another article. Here, the then Minister of State-Owned-Companies Sugiharto was under fire because he did not privatize enough SOC. One of his staff counters, “now we rely more from tax and dividend from these companies. It shows nationalism because only limited income comes from privatization”.

Let me add another, this is from Globe Magazine, May 2007. It’s about Rajawali Group’s plan to have a majority stake in Garuda Airlines. Rajawali is pushing for the legislative to rule out any foreign participation in the bidding process (including a more experienced operator: Air Canada), on purely nationalism grounds. The tide of public opinion is on its side, with a groundswell of complaints over the dominant role of Singapore’s Temasek Holding in Telkomsel and Indosat.

See? You are wrong my friend. Nationalism is still abundant if you look in the right place. Of course you won’t find that kind of nationalism that moves people to sacrifice everything, even their own lives for the common cause. That happened once during our war for independence in 1945 – 1950.

But we are still talking about common enemies. Against the Dutch in 1945 – 1950; against America in the 50’s; against British, Malaysian in early 60’s; against the world up until1966. Now we’re fighting fat, ugly, greedy, giant global corporations like Temasek Holding, Cemex, Standard Chartered. They’re bad right? That’s why we don’t want them to have a piece of our property. We prefer big, friendly, benevolent, giant local corporations.

We are also still talking about fighting for something we believe in. Back in those momentous years of 1945 – 1950 we fought for our freedom and independence. Now, from what I read from those articles we are fighting for our… errr….money?

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To conclude, I think these days the importance of nationalism has been largely exaggerated. Yes we need effective government, yes we long to see leaders who care more about their constituents rather than their own pocket. But to rely on nationalism alone to get there is just a false hope. We’ll be caught in the semantic instead, as we saw above.

What we have, then and always, is simply motives—be them nationalism, altruism, greed, self-interest, you name it. Combine them with opportunities and you get action. Why don’t we have an effective government, for instance? There are motives to maintain status quo, and there are enough opportunities to do so.

Of course, good intentions / motives are always appreciated. The problem is we can’t investigate people motives—and I believe there’s no law prohibited even the most evil intention. At the same time the quest to build nationalism would bear a resemblance to paternalistic propaganda of the old days. With easily available information nowadays, nobody will take that kind of campaign seriously.

Because to some extend we can always control opportunities let’s just ignore people’s motivations. If you want to change the way things are, start to think about how to give more incentive for people with the preferred motives and give more disincentive for the others.

Now, does it matter to you if some government officials provide excellent service because of (a) the ambition to have good mark during job appraisal (b) fear of being reported in newspapers for giving awful service (c) simply good intentions—you can call it nationalism if you will (d) commitment to their responsibilities? It doesn’t for me.

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