We have reached the peak of hypocrisy in the administration of the state. It is time for all of us, especially leaders, to have to improve ourselves totally and honestly – now or never!
By
SUKIDI
·4 minutes read
SALOMO TOBING
Sukidi
"For hundreds of years," Michael Young said in The Rise of the Meritocracy (1958), "the community has become a battlefield between two major principles – the principle of selection by the family and the principle of selection based on achievement." The principle of selection on the basis of meritocracy has become a success story of the two developed countries of Singapore and the United States. Meanwhile, this republic is vulnerable to falling toward Indonesian kakistocracy, which is marked by incompetent leadership and moral deviations across all lines of state administration.
The principle of selection based on meritocracy has led Singapore to become a developed country. Growing up with a father born in Semarang, Central Java, in 1903, Lee Kuan Yew became a brilliant architect in transforming Singapore from a small tropical port city without the wealth of natural resources into a developed country with superior human capital, quality of life, health, education and income in the world on the basis of the principle of nondiscriminatory meritocracy.
Lee made a speech in 1971 saying, "Singapore is a meritocracy and these people have risen to the peak with their own achievements, hard work and high performance."
The meritocracy spirit has encouraged people to be accomplished from various backgrounds to excel in Singapore.
Meritocratic leadership rooted in Asian traditions, especially Confucianism, left Ian Buruma fascinated, writing in Time magazine (2005), ”Lee’s mark on history would have to be as a kind of Asian philosopher king.”
Seeing Lee in the image of the Asian philosopher king, not just in the tradition of Confucianism – because Confusion teaches that those who have advantages in virtue and skills must govern the public as is also in the Greek tradition. This is because Plato, in the famous Republic, imagined the superiority of the philosopher king who has the right to lead the realization of a just society. “In a Western perspective, Singapore looks like a high technology version of Republic Plato," wrote Adrian Wooldridge in The Aristocracy of Talent (2021), but “In the eastern perspective, the Singapore city state looks like a high version of the Mandarin Confucian state."
Lee Kuan Yew is often associated with Thomas Jefferson, the father of the United States, in his contribution to meritocracy as the main principle of government.
According to Harvard professor Michael J. Sandel in his latest work, The Tyranny of Merit (2020), the founders of the US republic saw themselves as men of merit, and hoped that people who were virtuous and knowledgeable would be chosen to serve. They opposed aristocracy inheritance, but were not interested in direct democracy, which they were worried could deliver a demagogue to power. They tried instead, to design institutions, such as indirect elections of the US Senate and the president, who would enable people who are capable and deserve to govern to make the decisions. Thomas Jefferson liked natural aristocracy based on virtue and talent rather than artificial aristocracy based on wealth and birth. Meritocracy, which is the success story of Singapore and the US, must be upheld for the progress of the Republic of Indonesia. Even though meritocracy has become a noble tradition for hundreds of years, America has also fallen into US kakistocracy, borrowing the term of Norm Ornstein in The Atlantic (2017), to refer to "government controlled by the worst and most immoral people among us" – Donald Trump and his mafia network.
It is time for all of us, especially leaders, to have to improve ourselves totally and honestly – now or never!
In order not to fall into Indonesian kakistocracy through transactional politics, nepotism, seniority, conflict of interest, abuse of power and the mafia network, this republic must be reformed through the principle of meritocracy. That is the true governance by people who have not just skills and achievements, but also virtue and wisdom.
As the dream of the founders of the nation who designed Indonesia in the form of a modern republic rather than a monarchy and aristocracy, meritocracy must be upheld as the main principle of government to lead to Golden Indonesia 2045 as a developed country. The dream of a developed country can be upheld through the principle of meritocracy. Meritocracy for this republic must start first and foremost with correct governance reform in all aspects of state administration.
We have reached the peak of hypocrisy in the administration of the state. It is time for all of us, especially leaders, to have to improve ourselves totally and honestly – now or never! This is all solely for the good and benefit of everyone.
