A question of culture?

A few months have now passed since the idea of officially banning smoking in buses and other public places was raised. Given the wide support that the plan received at the time, many non-smokers have since been living in the hope that at last -- perhaps not too far into the future -- their right to breathing clean air in public places will be respected.

In the silence that has since prevailed regarding the matter, one could ask, what has become of the proposal? Why has there been no follow-up? Have we forgotten or abandoned the issue as we so often forget and abandon plans that seem too difficult to put into practice?

Fortunately for non-smokers, such pessimism seems premature although a few warnings are in order. From the prestigious University of Indonesia's School of Political and Social Sciences comes the warning that cultural factors inherent in most or many Indonesians may stand in the way of the non-smoking campaign.

Indonesians, according to the university's mass communications expert Dr. Muhammad Budyatna, live in what he calls a "high context culture." This essentially means that, among other Indonesians, they are expected to display an "understanding" of what other people like or do not like, of what they want or do not want to do.

Thus Indonesians, like many other Asians, tend to express their views or judgment in a wordless form of communication. To use the Javanese word, an Indonesian would feel rikuh, or ill at ease, whenever he or she has to directly admonish someone for an offense, either public or personal.

To be sure, no one is under the illusion that banning such a long-standing habit as smoking in public places will be easy. And certainly Dr. Budyatna's argument makes a good deal of sense. Yet at the same time all the scientific evidence presently available seems to argue in favor of such a ban. Surely the dramatic rise in the prevalence of heart and respiratory tract disease over the past few decades warrants that certain measures be taken to reverse or at least slow down to trend.

With Dr. Budyatna's warning in mind, it seems that a rigid enforcement of the laws will be needed if and when the no-smoking ruling is introduced. Like Singapore, or perhaps even more so, Indonesia seems to be a country in which rigid law enforcement is needed. As the general sense of discipline is low, we cannot expect that all rules and regulations will be automatically adhered to by the public.

To mention one example, traffic regulations imposed on certain roads in the city will only respected for as long as a police officer is present. The trouble with this kind of mentality is that it is well nigh impossible to enforce the law strictly because the 1:1,500 ratio between the numbers of police officers and the population is grossly inadequate. In fact, the ratio is the lowest in any country in Asia.

The big question then is, can the government afford to make the necessary improvements? For the time being it is impossible to say. Perhaps, then, it is just as well that, as Dr. Budyatna says, in big cities such as Jakarta people have started to adopt the "low context" culture of the West. Part of the responsibility of making the law work rests with the public.