Value-based development

Ridwan Arif Nugroho

In his 2000 foreword to Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human

Progress, Samuel Huntington compared the economies of Ghana and South
Korea in the early 1960s. He described how the two countries had roughly
comparable per capita GNP and similar divisions of their economy among
primary products, manufacturing and services. The two countries also received
comparable levels of economic aid. Thirty years later, South Korea had become
the fourteenth largest economy in the world. This year South Korea is the
eleventh largest.
No such developments have occurred in Ghana. In the 1990s, Ghana's GNP was
about one-fifteenth that of South Korea. How can such a big discrepancy be
explained? Huntington stated it was caused by the different values held by the
two nations. South Koreans valued thrift, investment, hard work, education,
organization and discipline while Ghanaians had different values. In brief, he
said, culture and values counted.
According to Koh Young Hun, a professor at Hankuk University, at least four
values have been instilled by the South Korean government to facilitate the rapid
development of the country. The first one is hard work. I had the opportunity to
make friends with Koreans while studying in Japan, Taiwan and Yogyakarta. All my
Korean friends studied very seriously to achieve their goals.
The second value is thrift. Thriftiness is different from stinginess. Koreans do not
want to spend money on useless things. I have one Korean friend who always
chose the cheapest ticket to travel from Yokohama to Tokyo. She said it was
pointless to pay more for the same service.
Unfortunately, thriftiness is something we tend to forget, even though as children
we were taught hemat pangkal kaya (thriftiness is the source of wealth). An
AC Nielsen survey conducted this year placed Indonesians as the third biggest
spenders in the Asia-Pacific region after the Chinese and the Indians. If you
happen to travel to Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei, Tokyo or even Mecca,
then you will see the survey is reliable. In those cities we can witness how
Indonesians love spending their money lavishly.
The third value Professor Hun defines is a self-help attitude: trying to understand
yourself better and with honesty. By helping yourself to develop, you also
develop a sense of independence and self-confidence.
This value needs to be encouraged through our educational system since many
of our younger generation are obviously not proud of what they have. They are
proud of something which does not belong to them. For example, young people
are so proud of their latest mobile phone which their own country cannot
produce.
The Koreans are generally very proud of their own products. My Korean friends
drank their own traditional beer instead of sake, the touted Japanese beverage,
even when they were studying in Japan. Being out of their country did not make
them lose their national pride. Another Korean friend brought her own traditional
medicine from Korea even though she was covered by health insurance if she
had to see a doctor.
The fourth value is solidarity, a spirit of togetherness in which everyone willingly
works together to achieve common goals. This value is not something new for
Indonesians. We have gotong royong a system of reciprocal exchange and
collective work still practiced in many parts of Indonesia.
According to Professor Hun, Indonesians do possess these four values, but they
are being forgotten through neglect. Our education system overemphasizes
cognitive learning and neglects the importance of values. Education is
considered value-free. Thus our students lose their identity, and become a
valueless generation.
Indeed, values shape human progress. No nation can be built without a
foundation of values. Natural resources do not make a country become
developed. Many countries have proved they live by underlying values, such as
Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.
These countries are not rich in natural resources but they have become rich,
developed countries due to their human resources. Compare those countries with
some African countries rich in natural resources. Today they are as they were
many years ago.
It is high time to think about the direction of our education system. It is time to
compare our education system to those of the counties mentioned above. We got
our independence two days after Japan was bombed, three years before South
Korea got her independence, 20 years before Singapore separated from Malaysia
and four years before the Chinese Nationalist army came to Taiwan.
We had the same starting point, or a better one, than these countries. In terms of
natural resources, none of them can compete with us. We have all we need to
become a developed country. The only thing we lack is the willingness to
transform ourselves.
Bernard Lewis said, "when people realize that things are going wrong, there are
two questions they can ask. One is, 'What did we do wrong?' And the other is,
'Who did this to us?' The latter leads us to a scapegoat attitude. The first
question leads us to another line of thinking: How do we put it right?"
History shows, no country has been successful in transforming itself into a
developed country without instilling positive values. It is time to stop crooning
the lullaby to our students that Indonesia is a rich country which can fulfill the
needs of all its citizens. It is the human factor and positive values which make
the difference. Natural riches mean little when human resources are lacking.
The writer is a teacher in Yogyakarta teacher. He graduated from Yokohama
National University and Ming Chuan University. He can be contacted
atridwanarifnugroho@gmail.com