Distrust and Policy

When there's distrust, there's rejection/antaranews

In a relationship, distrust costs both sides expensively. This also happens in a country. When people distrust their leaders, any policy would fail to take into action, simply because the people would reject it in the first hand. People don’t believe that their leaders would bring the plan of the policy into realization.

Distrust will be followed by people’s rejection, which makes any of leaders’ policy illegitimate. Thus, the government must “buy back” people’s trust, which can be achieved whether in “smooth way” or “hard way.”

Some situations allow the government to make “bargains” with the “heads of the clans” who reject the policy. Of course, those bargains will cost them something. If this method succeeds, the heads of the clans will tell their people to support the policy.

However, in some other situations, the government feels the must to take the “hard way.” Hundreds to millions of soldiers are geared up on the street. The protesters must be treated in “proper way” according to military standard. This will not only cost a large amount of money, but (might) also death casualty.

The only way for the government to gain public trust is to have an “open policy.” Any policy or planning made by the government must be disclosed to public. The reason behind the policy and the numbers it contains must be revealed publicly. Any opposing argument must be accepted as consideration to make the policy better.

But, that “open policy” won’t prevail if the government distrusts the people. Sadly, this “negative attitude” is found in our government today. The Indonesian government seems to take “negative step” toward any argument that looks “dangerous” to the policy. Any opposing argument is treated as an attempt to weaken the government. Progress is never made when there’s distrust.

So, what we have here in Indonesia is a “doubled” distrust. The public distrust the government, and the government, on the contrary, distrusts its people. This kind of distrust surely costs the country very expensively. Therefore, this country urgently requires two things: trust and sincerity, both from the public and from the government.

The question is, who will start first?