#ANationArguingwithItsOwnShadow

A Nation Arguing with Its Own Shadow By: SS Budi Raharjo, Social Observer Without meaning to, I found myself recalling a conversation between two young Indonesians at a café on a rain-soaked evening. One was pessimistic. The other optimistic. The pessimist spoke of swelling state debt, shuttered factories, rising unemployment, shrinking rice fields, and a middle class sliding downward like loose sand collapsing from a cliff. To him, Indonesia was marching toward a precipice with alarming confidence. The optimist smiled. Democracy, he said, was still alive. Education was improving. Young Indonesians were becoming more creative. Foreign investment continued to arrive. Entirely new forms of employment were emerging from technologies once unimaginable. Indonesia, he insisted, was simply too large to fail. I listened to both. And as often happens in this country, both of them were right at the same time. That is Indonesia: a nation constantly arguing with its own shadow….