Sunday, February 17, 2008
Political Conscience
at 10:26 PM
People Conscience Party (Partai Hanura) is one of new political parties that will fight in the 2009 general election. Wiranto as the founder and general chairman has placed political advertisements putting stress on conscience. Is there really a conscience in politics?“Nurani” or conscience comes from the Arabic word “Nur” meaning light, while “nuraniyyun” means something having character of light. What light? According the perspective of Islamic Psychology, psychological devices of man are mind, heart, conscience, syahwah, and lust. Mind is the problem solving capacity whose task is thinking, heart is the device to understand reality, “nurani” or conscience is the inner sight as opposed to eyes of the head. Syahwah is behaviour motivator or motive, and lust is the destructive force testing the soul ability. As a system, the five subsystems are led by the heart, so that a person whose heart is good will have a good behaviour too; on the contrary, if his heart is bad then his behaviour is also bad.
Emanation Theory
The concept of conscience comes from israqy theory (emanation theory) stating that God is a Nur (Allahu nur assamawati wa alardh), like the sun that always emanate its light. The sun leaves its traces on the earth in the forms of living, warmth or heat, and brightness. At night, the sun’s heat and light try to go back to its source, leaving the earth dark and cool. Similarly, God also radiates His light and among the traces of God is man; therefore, in man there is a divine light called bashirah (inner sight) or nurani (something having characteristics of a light). “Nurani” (conscience) has a longing to return to God as his original light. It is different from heart that is inconsistent. Sometimes heart hates something, another time it loves the thing. Sometimes it remembers (something), sometimes it forgets. Sometimes it is relaxed, sometimes it is restless. Meanwhile, conscience is a divine light that is consistent, unwilling to compromise dishonesty and crimes. Although one is winning a case in the court by bribing the judge, his conscience honestly tells that he is the guilty one on the case. However, like a light that is sometimes dim, man’ conscience is sometimes also dim or dead that is when it closed by something. If a conscience is dead, then the person is like a person in a dark place (dzulm) and his behaviour is like that of a person in darkness; misplaced, taking and placing things wrongly, misperceived, and taking wrong steps. From the word “dzulm”, then a person whose conscience is closed or dead is called dzalim or despotic person, person placing things not in their correct places.
Conscience is closed by two things: greediness/ambition and sinful deeds. A greedy person certainly has a conscience not in function. He possibly has the highest position with the highest salary but he still manipulates the poor’s rights. Similarly, an overly ambitious person will use almost any way to achieve his ambitions, he doesn’t care whether the way is right or right, he doesn’t care whether his acts will inflict a loss upon the country and the nation or not.
Political Character
If politics is understood as power, then one of its characters is corrupt. Corruption is manipulating numbers and facts for one’s own interests. In connection with psychological typology, a politician more influenced by his or her mind will tend to be rational although sometimes he/will be “dry” (too much focusing on ratio), while a politician more influenced by his/her heart will tend to be careful, a politician more influenced by his/her syahwah will tend to easily and overly motivated by ambitions, a politician more influenced by his/her lust tend be destructive and evil. Meanwhile, a person who is involved in politics because his conscience called him/her to do so tends to desire to give than to receive.
Political Syahwah
Syahwah is a tendency on things desired. Political syahwah is a tendency on ruling others, their mind, their tastes, and even their wills; then political syahwah will motivate the person to be number one as a chairman, director, head of village, or even president so that he can rule and control others. Actually syahwah is humane, neutral, and not necessarily bad. If a person fulfils his syahwah by following procedures and laws (God’s law, state’s law, and ethical law) and by being honest then the syahwah actualization is allowed and even can be an “ibadah” (religious deed or worship). Since politics tends to be corrupt, however, then political syahwah in general motivates us to try to achieve ambitions, while ambitions may close our consciences. Therefore, seemingly focusing on conscience in political movements and manoeuvre has tendency on manipulation, not honest in judging a thing, not honest in criticizing, and forget to be introspective. When a chairman of an opposition party in a political party commented that President visiting an area is merely “tebar pesona” or trying to attract people, then the comment is certainly not a voice of his conscience but is based on his political syahwah. Because of his syahwah, then he forgets his own criticism and does exactly the same thing, trying to attract people. Similarly, when a presidency is still in its halfway, but a lot of people had declared their intention to be the next president, then their declarations are not voice of their consciences but their political syahwahs, since syahwah is indeed impatient.
Are there leaders with conscience? Certainly. Character of a leader motivated by political conscience is that he emerges because of his inner call, not because of calculating advantages and disadvantages. In a seemingly hopeless situation, an always-wrong situation, when a nation is almost in its destruction, “conventional” leaders are preoccupied with calculating their positions, fighting for new ones, although their heads are possibly almost sunk. In such a situation, a true leader usually emerges whose conscience is called to clean up all the mess. He’s ready to give anything needed without much calculation of advantages and disadvantages. His heart and mind are free from selfish interests. He emerges not because he wants to rule but because he wants to contribute his potentials to salvation of his nation, and he even is sincerely ready to give he leadership to others deemed more appropriate.
Conscience advertised is certainly not a real conscience. If a consumptive thing advertised repeatedly will attract consumers although such a thing is possibly not of high quality, then advertising a quality conscience repeatedly for a long time will cause the “conscience” sounded unattractive to the ears of the “consumers”.
Man has a kodrat as a cultural being (madaniyyun bi atthob`i) and as social being (ijtima`iyyun bi atthob`i). As a cultural being, man has various concepts, ideas, and beliefs he adopts which in turn will guide him in fulfilling necessaries in his life. Man has concepts on beauty, honour, greatness, and humility. As a cultural being, man is also knows theoretical values, economical values, religious values, power values, and solidarity values; the dominant value of which on a person will also determine whether he or she will become a scientist, economist, religious teacher (ulama or priest), artist, politician, or humanist. Furthermore, there are also mystical scientist, struggler-politician, rational ulama, corrupt human rights activist, philosophical artist, and repressive ruler. A highly-civilized person would feel humiliated if he gained success by making others suffer or if he gained victory by deceiving others. Meanwhile, a lowly civilized person would be proud that he is able to deceive others, the government, and people. According to a lowly civilized person, success is the main goal and the means is merely a technical matter, not a value; while for a highly civilized person, success relying on valueless means is a failure.
Man as a social being has a desire to cooperate and compete at the same time. Man realizes his weaknesses so that he wants to cooperate with other men to achieve common goals faster. Man, however, is also unique; every person is himself or herself, having mind, feeling, and will different from those of others. Therefore, while in cooperation a person may be sincerely cooperating for common goals, while another person may be unique, having his own agenda, wanting to achieve his own goals, beyond the common goals. People having their own agenda will compete with each other, sometimes fairly but often unfairly. The temptation to compete unfairly will stronger mainly in political and business competitions. A lot of people do things humiliating his dignity as a human being for their political and business goals.
Post a Comment