The gap has a bad impact on all, not just the common people, but also the rich. Severe gaps can tear the ties of humanitarian, religious and national bonds.
By
SUKIDI
·4 minutes read
SALOMO TOBING
Sukidi
The gap, whatever its form, is injustice, especially for the common people. Farmers, fishermen, traders, laborers, employees and other small people feel the worst effects of the gap, ranging from malnutrition, hunger, mental illness, to poverty and death. "The greatest escape in human history," said Economic Nobel winner, Angus Deaton (2013, 23), "is the greatest escape from poverty and death."
Leaders have come and gone one after another, but the gap continues; it even increases. Without proper and fast public policy priorities, the gap only causes negative prejudice between classes and social upheaval.
The gap that was rooted strongly in almost all aspects of the life of the nation increasingly keeps Indonesia from the noble ideals of its founders. Founding mothers and fathers established Indonesia as a unitary state in the form of a republic. The basic idea of the republic, said Soekarno (1959) in Latin was "Res Publica! Once again, Res Publica!" With an authentic commitment to the republic, the state of Indonesia must be held in accordance with the principle of benefit and goodness of the public, namely the realization of justice and the people's welfare in an equal way.
As citizens, we are called to encourage the promises of the republic that have been mandated by the founders of the nation. The call is reflected in Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo, the Archbishop of Jakarta, who refreshes for us the dream of the nation's founders that "This Indonesian state is in the form of a republic, Latin res publica, where the state efforts for its first responsibility are to guarantee the realization of public goodness," (Kompas TV, 25 /12/2022). Goodness and benefit become the core and promises of the state in the form of a republic.
Specifically, this republic was established to realize justice and social welfare for all Indonesian people. The basic principle of social justice is equality, the opposite of inequality. All people are entitled to get fair and equal treatment. They must also be treated according to their essential human dignity, by providing a prosperous living, quality education and good and affordable health. These are the promises of the republic that must be escorted together so that justice and public welfare can be realized in the lives of people in the midst of the danger of the gap that is becoming worse.
The gap has betrayed the promises of the republic to its people to have a just and prosperous livelihood. Therefore, we recollect the promises of this republic so that the administration of the state leads to the interests and benefit of the public.
This can be taken by drawing a firm and clear separating line between business and political interests with its consequences, stopping moral deviations in the form of conflicts of interest that obscures the boundaries between private and public affairs in the ethics of state administration. When business and politics are mixed and conflicts of interest are inevitable in the ethics of state administration, this republic has actually been betrayed. Betrayal of the republic occurs when public officials no longer act as fair regulators for life together, but also as business players who are actively involved in seeking as much profit as possible for personal and group interests.
Public officials who prioritize personal interests and their group’s are not enlivening at all the core and promises of the republic inherited by the founders of the nation. The state is not to become an arena or business competition, but is solely a means of noble service for the realization of the equivalent and universal welfare of the Indonesian people. The essence of devotion in the republic tradition is the political will that is devoted to realize goodness and mutual benefit without discrimination or gaps in any form.
In the end, the gap has a bad impact on all, not just the common people, but also the rich. Severe gaps can tear the ties of humanitarian, religious and national bonds that have been harmoniously knitted above the pillars of diversity.
The dangers of the gap for the sustainability of this republic must arouse human conscience, as the highest judge and authority, to animate the collective awareness that we are all one and equivalent, live by depending on each other and bound by the ties of humanitarian, religious and national bonds that are inclusive and universal.
This is the right time for us to greet one another, have positive prejudice, collaborate and act collectively in order to pay off the promises of the republic that have been neglected so far so that an egalitarian, just, prosperous and democratic society is realized.
