Boediono Mendengar

By the way: Waiting for @boediono

Sumber : The Jakarta Post

“I know @Karl_Lagerfeld only tweets once in a blue moon, but when he does, it’s like God himself is speaking,” fashion stylist Diana Kertamihardja, aka @seastripes, exaggerates about the fashion icon’s rare Twitter appearances.

Twitter, the social media app, is gaining more users by the minute, and doubtless more power. Obama is there, and so is Ryan Seacrest, Tika Panggabean, Lady Gaga, Sarah Sechan, writers, schoolchildren, housewives and - to our excitement - vice-president-elect Boediono, aka @boediono.

“It’s as if we are all in the same room,” as @Ryan_Seacrest put it in one of his tweets regarding the joy of tweeting. We are happy to be “in the same room” with Ashton Kutcher, Christian Soegiono, Ben Stiller and other celebrities. Yet, to be “in the same room” with someone we have voted to be our next vice president means something else.

There is a real sense of having a direct audience with him, up there - a sense that he is more likely to be “listening” to us whenever we are worried about a heritage dance being “stolen” by another country.

“Mr. President has given his take regarding the Pendet issue yesterday,” he tweeted at 7:45 p.m. on Aug. 25, 2009, using TwitterBerry - an application to tweet from BlackBerry.

Even if it was his third or fourth personal assistant who actually keyed in the message, it’s pretty certain Mr. Boediono verified it.

His previous tweet, “Thank you, Indonesia. Good night all,” came five days earlier. His next tweets were dated Aug. 31, then Sept. 15, “Keep up your spirit for the fasting.”

Moreover, @boediono has 8,243 followers so far. It might not be a big number compared to comedy writer Raditya Dika, who has 65,317, or Ryan Seacrest with 2,279,011 followers so far.

Yet the message from our dear vice-president-elect, if important and encouraging, could be “ReTweet-ed” to reach more users.

The problem is I rarely see anybody forwarding or ReTweet-ing @boediono’s tweets.

Perhaps @boediono is wondering what kind of essential messages he should give us - young professionals who actually care to follow him on Twitter in the hopes that our vice-president-elect could be like @BarackObama, who passes on his important speeches there.

Among 1,006 users that @boediono follows, there are those who are really concern about the state of this country, sending questions like, “Is the President aware of the escalating hostility between the KPK and the police?”

And, “Is the President aware that regardless of the outcome of these legal proceedings, the political implication of the hostility will drastically alter the Indonesian judicial system and its commitments to eradicating corruption in post-reform Indonesia?”

Furthermore, “Is the President fully aware that drastically altering Indonesian commitments to eradicating corruption - a nominally constitutionally mandated policy - is beyond the jurisdiction and authority of the police?”

Concerns regarding the passing of Aceh’s Stone Age law that allows stoning of adulterers in public also remain unanswered.

These are examples of important issues that we, citizens who vote, remind our vice-president-to-be of through the use of Twitter. These are more than enough to generate better tweets than “Goodnight all.” These are material to respond to, so that @boediono now can be “in the same room” with us again as he was during the campaign period.

Most importantly, in Twitterland or not, these are reminders for the promises Yudhoyono-Boediono have made, especially in combating corruption in Indonesia.

Without many promises, Karl Lagerfeld, while running the multibillion dollar brand Chanel, every once in a while tweets something to inspire his followers.

He has posted only 43 tweets since Nov. 16, 2008, yet they matter a lot to many people because, “The most important thing is to do things, not to have done them,” as he tweeted three months ago. We believe our leaders can do better. We are waiting for your answers, Mr. @boediono.

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