Feeling strong-armed at the charity counter

How does one ask for charity? Does one plead one's case earnestly, trying to coax out the good Samaritan from underneath cynicism and/or indifference? Or, does one just take the money and run?

If you've been to the movie theater in the past week, it seems the Indonesian Red Cross decided on the latter approach.

This has been an ongoing scheme -- some might say scam -- for decades. You dutifully stand in line for your movie tickets, hand over the money and then -- the nerve! -- they have shortchanged you!

As you cry bloody murder, the ticket lady lazily points to the Red Cross receipt book in front of her. There are many variations on this story and how it ends.

A friend once insisted he did not want to contribute and asked for his money back. The ticket lady refused and said it was mandatory.

Another friend gave the exact amount of money for the tickets out of spite, yet the ticket handler still demanded the extra money. When my friend said he did not have the cash, she refused to give him the tickets. After a heated argument ensued, she reluctantly gave him his tickets.

I don't know anybody who works at the Indonesian Red Cross or the state health ministry, so I don't know if they really impose such demands on the public. Or, do the movie theater owners feel that Indonesians will only part with their money by force and make it their policy to do so?

But this gung-ho attitude is not exclusive to the Red Cross. There were other instances where cinemagoers were "asked" to contribute money for various institutions or events such as the National Games (PON) and Southeast Asian (SEA) Games (even when it was organized and sponsored by the private sector), etc.

It's not that Indonesians are such penny-pinching misers, but when you live in one of the most corrupt countries in the world, you get skeptical about where donations end up.

So let's see some published accounts of where the money goes. Provisions and medicine for casualties somewhere in the remote jungles of Aceh? Shelters for natural disaster victims in distant Papua? A new Red Cross building? It would be really nice to know what we're donating to.

Instead, we get disturbing reports of money supposedly for charity ending up in the pockets of the rich. For example, the Japanese government's donation to the Indonesian women forced to work as sexual workers during World War II. You would think nobody would have the heart to use such money for his or her own purposes and rob these poor women -- who have literally lost everything -- blind.

But the money never got to them anyway. Instead, it got "stuck" at the high levels of a ministry at the time.

Of course, I am not saying, or even implying, that the Red Cross is corrupt and using the money for unscrupulous purposes. I just want them, and anybody else in this country who wants charity, to start showing a bit more class and stop acting like muggers.

It's this attitude of "Don't ask, just do what we tell you to" that keeps hindering progress in this country. Or is that too much to ask?

-- Krabbe K. Piting