A discussion was held at an event by a prominent Indonesian businessman to celebrate the launch of his new book. The panel included a very smart guy named Chatib Basri. Chatib Basri is the head of LPEM UI and an economic analyst whose articles has been published at several occasions at several newspapers and magazines.
When delivering his speech, he told a story about the time he was in the U.S.A to present his forecasts on the Indonesian Economy (I believe this was several years back). After delivering his pessimistic paper (he really said this!) , a very distinguished economist named Jeffrey Sachs raised his hand and attacked his views. Sachs is the presidential adviser for 39 developing countries in Asia, South America and the leftovers of USSR. He has unprecedented experience in improving the developing countries’ economy and has had a great track record of success.
Sachs asked Basri; “Why should Indonesians so pessimistic about their country’s future?”. Basri then answered by delivering the discouraging facts that he had collected during his research; the people’s mentality, exchange rate, political situation, racial discrimination, suku bunga bank indonesia, lack of leadership and so on..
Sachs then answered with something like this : “It is not fair to compare Indonesia with it’s neighboring countries such as Singapore and Malaysia, or any other country in the world in that case. Indonesia has changed from a totally centralized country to a decentralized country virtually overnight. Indonesia has changed from a Dictatorship to a Democracy virtually overnight. Indonesia has changed to a liberal country virtually overnight. No other country has been through what Indonesia has been through virtually overnight. The closest example is the USSR. When the USSR split up, it experienced similar changes to what Indonesia had, virtually overnight. In that condition, Russia’s economy had a NEGATIVE growth that year. In that same condition, Indonesia’s Economy GREW. It had POSITIVE growth. If I were an Indonesian, I would be proud of that achievement. And I would predict a much brighter future.”*
Fellow readers, if a prominent foreign-born economic analyst would be proud to be an Indonesian, why shouldn’t we?
My country man, I agree with you. We are in the same lane now. We need dreams to create a positive mind to grow.
i completely agree. we need to a have a common dream, that will (somehow) lead us to grow further. Now, we seem to course each other out endlessly.
Go Indonesia go !
if we have a positive and inspiring leaders and thinkers, we wouldnt be in this situation right? i believe chatib basri is a nice and smart man, but he obviously not the man who have enough capabilities to change this nation. jeffrey sachs is a man who have a lot of capablities and achived many things, including in Africa. we need leaders who are not just smart and good with numbers, statistics and theories. we need leaders who have visions, dreams, and enough capabilities to actually make a great strategic change. we got 200 million people, maybe someone someday will actually learn how to do that.