IRF Debate: Democratic Culture

International Relations Fiesta, on Wednesday, October 24, 2012, held a debate seminar with topic of Democratic Culture. The topic was taken from the events’ theme Local Culture Go Worldwide. Democratic culture was discussed to figure out which type of democracy that will suit Indonesia, liberal democracy or Asian democracy.

In this debate seminar, the committee invited experts as speakers such as Jerry Sambuaga, a politician and UPH International Relations lecturer and Lie Nathanael Santoso, the Director of UPH Faculty of Social and Political Science. The debate was held in MYC MPR UPH and was moderated by UPH International Relations student, Matthew Hanzel.

“An ideal democracy is the one that prioritizes freedom, freedom of individual, Therefore, democracy was born from liberalism that will root to individualism. So, we must pay attention to the individual freedom. Indonesia is heading there and Indonesia has done significant political liberalization on reformation. What Indonesia has done is a politically centered liberalization,” explained Jerry in the beginning of debate.

Lie Nathanael responded by refuting that each person had his own rights to choose his democracy and he took example of Singapore government’s democracy. Every person could express their wants.

“I chose Singapore government as a role model for Indonesia because Singapore is one of the most suitable Asian countries for Indonesia and it is successful. China is also successful but the government is vague, sometimes it uses democracy, sometimes authoritarian,” said Nathanael who taught Asia-Pacific study at UPH International Relations Department.

In the end of the debate, Dean of UPH Faculty of Scoial and Political Science who also joined the seminar concluded that Indonesia could adopt Asian democracy in Singapore that prioritized on educatio and could also adopt Western democracy in terms of federation.

“Started from the basic of Indonesians’ needs, meal, the. The quality of education must be improved like Singapore’s improved education. As for western democracy, we could copy the federal democracy done in western countries. From both perspectives, asian democracy and western democracy are not wrong, but there is only a few points we could copy for this country,” said Aleksius Jemadu.