Corruption in Indonesia: Is it cultural?

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/EK25Ae02.html

By Gary LaMoshi

DENPASAR, Bali - My friend David Hill grew up in Florence, Alabama, in the heart the US Deep South and in the wake of its legacy of racism. Hill couldn't believe what he had read in his home-town paper.

In an article about teenagers gathering to show off their car stereos on the fringes of a residential neighborhood, Florence City Council President Sam Pendleton called the situation particularly dangerous, since gatherings of black youths were known to be more likely to breed problems such as gangs and violence. Given a chance to clarify his statement - ie, to retract it - Pendleton said he wasn't going to say what was popular, just what was true: black kids were more trouble than young people of other races.

"I immediately fired off a letter to the editor about how I can't believe that an area that had done so much to distance itself from its horribly racist past could have a city council president espousing such idiocy," Hill, editor of Outside Pitch, a baseball newspaper in Baltimore, recalled. "If Sam Pendleton doesn't resign, I wrote, I would hope the good voters of Florence would oust him from office at their earliest opportunity."

Black act
In addition to sending his letter to the newspaper, Hill circulated it among friends and family, and one relative replied with startling news: Council President Pendleton was black. Furthermore, he was a senior official in the local chapter of the leading civil-rights group, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

"I really wasn't sure what this revelation meant," Hill admitted. When the local newspaper called about printing his letter, Hill withdrew it. After some reflection he concluded, "Alabama is so racist even blacks are prejudiced against blacks."

Remarkably similar comments emerged from a conference in Indonesia last month. Citing the nation's dismal performance in the annual global corruption rankings (see Corruption, human rights, and the usual suspects, October 17) that costs the economy billions and arrests development, longtime activist Emmy Hafild accused fellow Indonesians of cherishing cultural values that encourage dishonesty.

Among government officeholders, Hafild observed, "Obligations to give charity and the expectations of their villages and relatives are all real and difficult obligations to refuse. How can an official rely solely on his salary when society's expectations of him are so high?"

Vulture culture
Moreover, according to Hafild, who heads Transparency International's Indonesian branch, officials become subjects of scorn and ridicule if they don't own fancy houses, expensive cars or large plots of land, send their children to study overseas, or support freeloading relatives.

"I look around me and find that the values we live by are not in favor of someone who lives free from corruption," Hafild lamented. "My experience tells me that far from stopping corruption, these values nurture it."

Hafild may have been politically incorrect, but she's right about some parts of the social equation. I learned about hospitality expectations first-hand when I invited in-laws to Bali for a family gathering. I agreed to pay airfares plus hotel bills for three nights. My in-laws joyfully announced they'd be staying five nights, so please extend their reservations. Under duress, my wife explained they were welcome to stay as long as they liked, but we'd only pay for three nights. Suddenly, they all discovered pressing obligations that would limit their stays to three nights only.

But is there anything really cultural about people trying to live beyond their means by whatever methods available? Freeloading relatives are known in all groups and nationalities throughout history. The global popularity of consumer credit indicates that only one race - the human one - is susceptible to the temptations of living large.

Blame game
Blaming social problems on race or class or culture doesn't get to the heart of the problem. It's just a shortcut to poisonous, defeatist attitudes such as Council President Pendleton voiced. Even if you don't condone music measured on the Richter Scale or official corruption, stereotyping marks those behaviors as a norm rather than an unfortunate exception. A shrug of the shoulders - because, after all, they're blacks or Indonesians or stupid tourists or whatever - is the wrong way to begin the search for solutions.

To her credit, Hafild did more than shrug. She suggested public shaming as a method to discourage corrupt behavior. If Hafild is right about the cultural factor, though, shaming probably won't work very well in the Indonesian context: the choices become shaming for taking too much or shaming for giving too little.

You can find the germ of a solution in Hafild's cultural observations. Behind broad public acceptance of corruption is the widespread belief that everyone expects their turn to benefit from it. From vote buying to jobs for the boys to phony procurement contracts, politics and government are all about spreading wealth among friends and family. President Suharto and his children (see Indonesia's first family of corruption, October 31) extended the family tradition to new levels, but they didn't invent the practice.

Ahead of this week's Lebaran holidays in Indonesia marking the end of Ramadan, dozens of journalists turned up at city halls across the archipelago to ask for a holiday gratuity, as did thousands of people impersonating journalists. During the holiday, it's a tradition for groups of neighborhood children to come to your doorstep and shout holiday greetings to receive a few coins. Many adults have switched to offering sweets because children too often turned up repeatedly.

At Lebaran, people who work in the cities return to their ancestral family homes and are expected to bear gifts. No one asks where the presents come from or how they were paid for. Moreover, it's not necessarily considered wrong to steal if that plunder winds up as gifts or charity.

Until those attitudes change, Indonesians don't have the luxury of taking offense at politically incorrect comments like Hafild's. Alabama had to reverse its racist past to let a black man like Sam Pendleton become an elected official and insult fellow blacks. Indonesia still hasn't gotten to the stage where honest people can make an impact in public life.

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