Compromising Integrity and Double Standard

The long known effective training method concentrates on the process. However a very large percentage of people and businesses nowadays are concentrating on results no matter how it is going to be achieved. Professional has been trained not in proper way of grooming professional, but rather on obtaining the certificate exercise. Sometimes the certificates were given away out of pity rather than reflection of the person effort / competence. We ends up meeting many raw or not-baked "professionals" such as:" Police Officer who cheat and distort, judges who receive bribe, footballers that play very bad." Reflection of gross incompetence can be seen as in high school leaver can not write simple essay, people riding motorcycle on the wrong side and their face expression they did not break traffic regulation, punishment / jail term that has been compromised.

Look at many tragedies around us. The Lapindo Brantas mud, the hunger among the haj pilgrim this season. When the Minister of Religious Affairs were asked by reporter: "Will you consider turn in your resignation letter, sir?" He responded: " I do not even think about it!". The ELBA radar that did not track passing airplanes in the last few months prior to the lost of AdamAir B-737 around Strait of Makassar.

Look at what we have achieved at Asian Games 2006 in Doha. We have sent over 300 athletes plus a large contingent of officials. We obtained very little medals. The Minister for Sports said his apology. That is not enough... He should quit!! Benchmarking in sports is easy. Why send a runner when the stop watch during training session did not tell that he or she has the chance of winning. Why don't we allocate the money spent in Doha on Sport Education instead.

The list may runs for miles......; the commander that does not command, the leader that does not lead, the manager that embezzles their company, and still the list can go on forever and ever........

Since the beginning of Republic of Indonesia we compromised mediocrity. We forgive sub-standard performance. Accumulation of many little bad things eventually lead to mountain of tragedies. In 1950's as a young boy silently I rated my own teachers; started rating them which teacher had integrity and which one did not. As I progressed to Junior High, then Senior High, I had seen the deterioration continued. Old valuable teachers had been replaced by newer higher qualification teachers. The new teachers performance was lower since they generally had lower professional integrity. I had seen similar phenomenon during my day at Universitas Indonesia. Deterioration of integrity has becoming a culture, and it precedes corrruption. According to my 80 years old Mum (an elementary school teacher's assistant by training) the deterioration started at the time Indonesia was occupied by Japanese Imperial Army / Navy.

The situation has been so bad. In 2006 our standing among nations I think is at its nadir.; do we?
In august 2006 I was almost refused to enter the Free Port of Dubai by not having Entry Visa offshore. I knew for Indonesian citizen, it was not required before. I told the incidence to my nephew, a young diplomat at our Foreign Services Department, and he was dumbfounded. On the contrary In 1981 I enter UK through Heathrow for a short stopover based only on confirmed continuation flight on my way from Abu Dhabi to Detroit. In 2003 on my way USA I obtain visa on arrival at Narita Airport. Nowadays many of my overseas traveling friends try to hide their Indonesian identity to avoid inconvenient treatment by locals. Sad isn't it!

How do we improve our nation standing????

The government definitely must function as an effective regulating government. The government should objectively implement policy and stay away from double standard. We must admit that we have many double standard practices, and such practice is increasing with regional autonomy.

The governing government should put attention to the nation building of integrity, measurable, and benchmarked overtime against measurement of other nations. It is going to to be a long and arduous process and definitely not within the reach of any one or two terms regime. However hard all regimes must consciously direct our policy toward building people integrity in all walks of life.

And to you all.... God be with you and care for you if should you decide to build your own personal professional integrity.....

Happy New Year!!