From amok to 'gotong royong'

People have taken on utopian ideals of late. They are enthusiastically doing their bit to help the victims of the tsunami, and rightly so.

Altruism is vogue -- from the tycoon writing a fat check, to the ordinary housewife buying an extra box of noodles for Aceh whilst grocery shopping.

How selfish would we look (feel) rejecting a circulated donation box for Aceh at the mall?

Empathy, sympathy and love are truly all around. Examples replete everywhere we turn: In a middle-class housing complex in South Jakarta a local neighborhood canceled its New Year's resident's party and diverted the money collected for the occasion to donate to Aceh.

Meanwhile, in the back lot of a small subdistrict office in some obscure corner of Tangerang, boxes and other contributions are stacked, ready to be sent to northern Sumatra. The usually dilatory official whose habit it is to charge extra for administration costs suddenly works studiously, and earnestly, organizing the charity effort.

The scale of the devastation has invoked a sense of solidarity this nation has rarely seen.

This common spirit is almost unprecedented, especially for Indonesia's younger generation whose view of the country in the past seven years has been marred by ethnic unrest, religious rivalry, rioting, terrorism and regional separatism.

Since the birth of reformasi in 1998, Indonesians have displayed more instances of desiring to separate from each other rather than be united with one another.

If ever this generation were to taste some semblance of the unity and heart of the fabled "Spirit of '45" which -- according to legend -- prevailed across the nation during the country's fight for independence, then the pervading philanthropy is a good example.

It is also a fine manifestation of Indonesia's self-lauded gotong royong (mutual cooperation/help) culture. A persistent application of gotong royong on such a grand scale can either result in aid fatigue or breed even wider compassion.

The former is more likely to prevail. A glut of sob stories, short memories and disenchantment over aid funds will create a backlash that hardens people's hearts toward tragedy.

With news headlines already heralding the mismanagement of relief operations, it is no wonder that people are questioning whether donating is worthwhile.

The manipulation of donated aid resources is a most despicable moral crime. Likewise, the disorganization of relief operations is a waste of precious resources. In both cases, it is an abuse of trust that the public cannot easily forget.

The casualties of a hardened heart are not only the current victims of the tsunami, but future victims of other disasters that will inevitably occur.

Most desirous would be the resurrection of a national spirit of community out of the rubble of Aceh. The spirit of gotong royong that Indonesians speak so much about but do not as frequently practice.

Tragically, there are as many Indonesians suffering from a multitude of calamities as there are victims and survivors of the tsunami in northern Sumatra.

Let us not forget the survivors of the Nabire earthquake, the hundreds of thousands still living in refugee camps for months, some even years, as a result of communal unrest, and, in just the last week, the thousands in Kalimantan, South Sumatra, Lampung and Jambi who are waist deep in water after flash floods inundated their homes.

These people are just as entitled to our empathy as those in Aceh. Loss of life and livelihood is just as devastating, whether it be caused by a tsunami, earthquake, flood or violence.

However, this must not turn into a case of competing for compassion or of dividing up the pie. Instead, it must be one of opening our hearts, and wallets, even further to disaster victims.

Altruism's direction should not be dependent on news headlines, and its focus interrupted by commercial breaks in the middle of broadcasts. That is the true spirit of gotong royong.

Supposedly the Indonesian language has contributed just two words to the modern English dictionary: orangutan and amok.

How admirable would it be if, through their actions, the Indonesian people could infuse another word into the global vocabulary: From the cuddly but rather obtuse red-haired ape to describing a frenzied riot, comes an Indonesian idiom of active compassion and cooperation, gotong royong.