Jakarta. With its new board members, the Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals Association (ICMI) is hoped able to bring a big change in developing the country by working smart. Vice President Jusuf Kalla stated this while making his remarks in a ceremony inaugurating the organization’s new central board members for the period 2015 to 2020 and the opening of its national working meeting held at Menara 165, Jakarta today (Feb 10).
“Indonesian people are not that lazy. They only need a smarter way to work. And the Muslim intellectuals share responsibility for this,” he said.
According to Mr Kalla, ICMI is the most comprehensive Islamic organization in Indonesia, as its members involve bureaucrats, politicians, and professionals.
”With its potentials, ICMI should not only move from one congress to another. It must have a real action,” he affirmed.
The Vice President underscored that Indonesia is currently in the middle position, not very advanced but not too left behind, with relatively stable economy and politics.
“This should be a big capital for ICMI members to realize the objectives of the organization and to come out with solution for the concern of the nation that is the alarming inequality,”he said.
He then told ICMI members not to keep talking about how to tackle corruption, but more on how to save the abundant wealth of the country by making proper policy instead.
“Corruption is indeed harmful for the country, but it is more harmful if a public policy is made recklessly,” he said.
Concluding his remarks, the Vice President reiterated that ICMI should stick on its noble aims, one of which is to carry out a peaceful Islam to the world.
Previously at the same event, the newly elected ICMI chairman Jimly Asshidiqie stated that the organization now has 752 board members which is fewer than that in the previous period.
In the new ICMI formation, Vice President Jusuf Kalla is appointed as the organizaion’s head of advisory council, while the third Indonesian BJ Habibie President is elected as head of honorary council, and the chairman of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), Zulkifli Hasan as head of expert board.
