Pancasila, Path to Recovery from the Covid-19 Pandemic
Emil Salim and Meuthia Ganie-Rochman received the 2022 Dedicated Scholar Award from the Kompas daily on Tuesday (28/6/2022).
By
TATANG MULYANA SINAGA, DIAN DEWI PURNAMASARI
·4 minutes read
JAKARTA, KOMPAS — For the last two years, the Covid-19 pandemic has severely affected many aspects of life. Now that the pandemic is relatively under control, the path to recovery is headed towards building a better life.
According to senior economist Emil Salim, who is also a noted environmentalist, the pandemic has caused desocialization, a decline in religion, and dehumanization. As the pandemic indicators have gradually improved, life seems to have returned to normal, but it is not as easy as it was before.
"Can we rearrange people’s lives following their recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic? From a decline in religion to religiosity, from dehumanization to humanization, from desocialization to socialization, we are returning to our roots," Emil said on receiving the 2022 Dedicated Scholar Award from the Kompas daily on Tuesday (28/6/2022).
The 2022 Dedicated Scholar Award was also granted to sociologist Meuthia Ganie-Rochman from the University of Indonesia.
The award, which was created by Kompas founder Jakob Oetama, was given to commemorate the 57th Anniversary of the Kompas daily.
According to Emil, all parties needed to reflect on the goals on which the nation was founded. The nation's ideals of realizing social justice must still be used to guide life after the pandemic. “Now is the path to recovery. Where to recover? How to? What is the substance? Return to Pancasila!” he said.
Emil emphasized that the solutions to the country’s various problems should not deviate from Pancasila. This should be realized by promoting the spirit of mutual cooperation to recover together from the various impacts of the pandemic.
"Therefore, we must restore the Belief in One God, the religious harmony that we agreed to, and imbue it with something more meaningful," he said.
Now aged 92, Emil is still actively keeping up-to-date with the nation’s various problems. The fruits of his thinking are poured into his many articles, including those published in Kompas. In fact, he still remembers his first article in Kompas, on the Pancasila economic system that was published in June 1966.
Changes
Ever since the pandemic emerged in the country in early 2020, Meuthia predicted that many institutions would experience many changes. "By looking at the poor capacity of international institutions and
countries to cooperate in disaster management, it could be expected that a kind of paradox would arise between preventing a pandemic and proceeding with human economic activities," she said.
The pandemic has also changed the country's challenges, such as in maintaining the economy. The supply chain has changed, altering the production and distribution flows.
Regarding digitalization, Meuthia highlighted the emergence of a centrifugal force in society from the widespread use of the internet and social media platforms. "It means that people are too busy looking for information on a great many things, but don't know how to reconstruct [the information] to solve the problems that are relevant to their lives," she said.
According to her, technological development always requires the community and public institutions to have a certain capacity so that the technology is useful and does not cause harm or injustice.
Meuthia constantly divulges her scholarly academic ideas in various articles that are published in the mass media, including Kompas. In addition to spreading knowledge, she continues to look for references and research papers as sources of knowledge for sharing with her students and at discussion forums.
Separately, Press Council member Asmono Wikan opined that the ongoing spread of fake news and hoaxes was growing “crazier”. This condition should be an occasion for mainstream media to provide informational guidance to the public through quality journalistic work.
According to Communications and Information Minister Gerard Plate, one of the roles of the mass media is correlation. To that end, the mass media was expected to bridge and knit together social ties.
Meanwhile, former Constitutional Court chief justice Jimly Asshiddiqie expressed his hope that the mass media would become a means of connecting data and information to provide space for a meeting of larger and longer-term interests and bring together ideas from different perspectives.
This article was translated by Hendarsyah Tarmizi.