Politics is founded upon -- according to Arendt and using Plato's concept -- vita active; the actual political experience of humankind. Arendt warned the treating of politics and democracy as mere tools could create a depoliticized situation. This was actually what Karl Marx achieved when he sought to create a classless society, which became bureaucratic authoritarianism as in other socialist-communist countries. Such a similar situation is still fresh in our collective memory, cast by our thirty-year experience with the New Order regime. During that period, Soeharto ruled our political lives by systematically depoliticizing public affairs from Jakarta all the way down to the village level across the entire country. The result was a prolonged political nightmare that we certainly do not want to repeat.
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