It’s one more day until the 2009 Indonesian Presidential Election, the country’s second direct presidential election. The first direct election was in 2004, and voters yielded current incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, their first ever, directly-elected-by-the-people president, since former president Suharto.
Direct presidential election, which means that Indonesians can now directly elect their President and Vice President via vote, is a big thing in Indonesia. This is a country that had seen one president rule for 31 years, and until 1998, Indonesians has had no chance to democratically elect their Legislative Body, President and Vice President through valid, constitutional and manipulation-free direct popular vote. The former President Suharto ran virtually unopposed for re-elections, and although he ran against candidates from 2 major parties of the times, he always emerged victorious. Part of the environment that helped secure his victories was the strategy that required the appointments to the legislative body, the M.P.R., to be made official by the president. This effectively created an environment where it was easy for him to manipulate his re-election.
I’m having mixed feelings about this presidential election, but for all practical purposes, I’m totally excited to be able to exercise my first voting right in 12 years.
I feel normal again. I feel accepted. I feel I belong to something again. I feel like I’m the returning son to his father’s house. When I was in the US, I had no constitutional rights whatsoever to take any part in any American politics, and that makes me feel like an outsider. Granted, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about American politics (or for any politics for that matter) when I first got there in 1997, but thanks to George W. Bush, I can now see the value of citizenship, and I swore I would never again treat my citizenship as if it was something that I deserve.
A citizenship is your birthright, and no matter what country it is from, it’s a privilege that one must always viciously protect, and above all, appreciate. I know I sound like a preaching patriot, but having lived in a foreign country which I’ve grown fond of and eventually care so much about, and seeing it destroyed by, what I think was an unwise leader, the concept of citizenship becomes an all-important issue.
During the presidency of George W. Bush, he made one fatal move that I was furious about: Invading Iraq with the excuse of finding Weapons of Mass Destruction, which he never found to this day, and hunting down Osama Bin Laden, whose Al Qaeda organization Bush claimed to be trotting along in Iraq. Both were sordidly wrong and unproven. Al Qaeda in fact appears in Iraq precisely because of the US Forces presence there. George Tenet, then the head honcho at CIA, insisted at a personal meeting with Bush that there was no credible evidence of a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq. He went ahead with the plan anyways. In fact, ten days after taking office in January 2001, Bush instructed his aides to look for a way to overthrow the Iraqi regime in a secret memo entitled "Plan for post-Saddam Iraq.” But just WHY the heck didn’t he concentrate on finding Osama Bin Laden first, the guy who hurt the most Americans, then venture on other things???? Until this day, the guy most responsible for the darkest day in America is still out there, scheming, planning, roaming free.
And despite the common sense that Iraq is too poor a country to continue developing its weapons program after the first Gulf War and despite bitter oppositions from the United Nations, he went ahead anyways. As it turns out, Iraq had ended its weapons program in 1991. It was like this guy was bent on invading Iraq; no matter the billions of dollars of the cost of war (shouldered by taxpayers – I was a taxpayer, curse you Bush), the loss of lives, the unnecessary destructions, the damaging image of a cowboy America in the eyes of the world, the encouragement of other rogue nations to start their own“pre-emptive strikes” (hence North Korea), Guantanamo Bay, and let’s not forget the unfortunate incident at Abu-Ghraib.
His subsequent actions and decisions were no better. Hurricane Katrina, No Child Left Behind, the economy, the Kyoto Protocol, the NSA eavesdropping program…. All bore the hallmarks of his clueless leadership. Add all that with his curious grammar.
Which was why it hurt me so much to only be able to watch as other Americans return him to power in 2004.
Caring about something and then not having the ability to do something about it is not a good feeling. Like it or not, I was living in the United States, and I was living amongst her people, and her dreams, and her ideals. I cared about what was happening around me, and I truly care about the people whom I’ve built relationships with – the same people I worked with, struggled together with, laughed together with, and inescapably, love for. Like a parent, I care about what is best for a child (in this case, the child is a….country?) and I can see that the country was on the wrong path. Like a good parent, I wanted to correct the wrong. I felt that we were in this together, and yet, I was so disconnected.
Only then did I realize the value of citizenship. It’s not a privilege; it’s a responsibility. It’s your responsibility to fight what you believe in, and to fight for your country. Fighting takes many forms; for soldiers, the line is clear cut and drawn, but for regular citizens, the real fight begins when you care about what is happening around you and the people you love. I think to me that’s a healthy system of a functioning nation.
So you can bet your tush that I’ll be lining up the voting booth come Wednesday morning. I’m excited because after 12 years, I will finally have the chance to reconnect to something bigger than my life.
To all Indonesians, make sure you exercise your God-given voting rights!
Indonesian Presidential Election 2009 is Wednesday, July 8. It will take place nationally and at various designated polling places (check with your local governments “RT / RW” for voting booth locations). The voting day has been declared as a National Holiday. More information http://mediacenter.kpu.go.id/ 
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