God's grace, good governance and our reputation

Endy M. Bayuni, Jakarta

The Baiturrahman Grand Mosque stood tall amidst the rubble in Banda Aceh. The main mosque in Meulaboh, a town on the western coast of Aceh, was also among the very few buildings still left standing. Further to the south on Pulau Nias, a church suffered minor damage while most other buildings on the island crumbled.

Many, though not all, houses of prayer in disaster-stricken areas of Aceh and North Sumatra provinces simply refused to give in when most other structures -- houses, shops, schools and government office buildings -- either collapsed after the magnitude-9.0 earthquake, or were swept away by the tsunami on Dec. 26

Many believers, Muslim or Christian, attribute this phenomenon to the grace of God. Some would even call it a miracle that can only be explained in terms of divine intervention.

And it is just as well that these buildings survived. Muslims treat every mosque as a House of God. And in the aftermath of the disaster, many turned to God to find solace, sanctuary, hope and explanation for the suffering and misery inflicted upon them. It certainly helped that these houses of prayer remained intact.

However, there is another more mundane explanation for the defiance of mosques and churches in the face of an act of God: They were simply better built than most other buildings. They used proper materials and they observed the rules and codes to ensure safety, comfort and strength against wear and tear and possible natural disasters.

This says a lot about the condition of most other buildings: They were simply not built to the same standards observed in constructing mosques and churches. And this in turn says a lot about the culture of corruption prevalent in Indonesia.

If you have ever built a house, or been involved in building one, you may know what it is like. Unless you have a trusted contractor, preferably a close relative, or a trusted supervisor, you would expect to be shortchanged by the builders as they tried to shave costs here and there, maximizing their profit at your expense.

The builder will still deliver you a house whose appearance seems to meet your expectations. But you know very well that somehow you have been shortchanged -- that cement and other building materials have been siphoned off, and that in all likelihood, the safety of your building has been compromised.

You have come to accept this, nevertheless, because you know very well that there is not much you can do about it. You can't prove it. And you may have come to accept this because you know very well that this is the "normal" practice in Indonesia.

No contractor or builder, however corrupt he may be, would shortchange God. Thus, mosques and churches are inevitably stronger and safer structures than most other buildings.

Shortchanging, siphoning off, embezzling, marking-up -- these are common practices in everyday transactions in Indonesia. They come under one grand title: corruption.

Six years after Indonesians rid themselves of one of the world's most corrupt regimes, this nation continues to struggle with this malignant disease. It has simply refused to go away. If anything, corruption has become even more prevalent because of the growing perception that this is a crime that you can get away with, and worst still, because of the growing perception that just about everybody is doing it, albeit in different measures.

Now, with billions of dollars of foreign assistance pouring in to Indonesia to finance the massive reconstruction in Aceh and North Sumatra, questions should be asked as to whether we can be trusted with so much money that has been donated so generously by governments and people all around the world.

Many people are asking whether governments around the world will really honor these pledges worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Few people, however, are asking whether Indonesia can, or should, be entrusted with that kind of money when the country remains, according to Transparency International, one of the most corrupt in the world.

It is probably just as well that Aceh governor Abdullah Puteh, who is on trial for corruption charges, is being kept safely in Jakarta away from the truck loads of money that are now pouring into his province.

There is, however, no guarantee that others, in Aceh, Jakarta or anywhere else in Indonesia, will not prey on the money that rightly belong to disaster victims.

The government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono must set up a mechanism that guarantees transparency and accountability for every cent of the money intended to help the victims. Good governance, which to date has been nothing more than lip service, has never been so important for Indonesia as it is now following the disaster in northern Sumatra.

Governments and people all around the world have dug deep into their pockets to raise more than US$5 billion to be donated to the victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and a handful of other affected countries. The global response to this catastrophe has no precedent. Indonesia, which suffered the worst of the calamity, will receive the lion's share of that money.

Our reputation and credibility as a nation is at stake. If we can't handle this, and if money so generously donated for victims of the disasters is embezzled, siphoned off, marked-up -- in other words, corrupted -- it will bring a terrible shame to this nation.

The writer is editor-in-chief of The Jakarta Post.