New consumer protection law
I refer to the article in The Jakarta Post on April 16, 2000, titled New law boosts consumer's position.
Everyone will agree that consumers in Indonesia need to be (better) protected. Is the new law going to help? I don't think so. Indonesia is not very good at implementation. Several excellent laws covering other areas of society are in place already, but they fail to have any effect in practice.
Consumer protection is part of the larger concept of abuse. Unfortunately, Indonesians combine two characteristics: they are easily abused and they are easily abusive. Abuse relates directly to responsibility. If a person does not feel responsible for his actions, how can he begin to grasp the idea that others should not be abused, and that he should not abuse others?
In Indonesia, someone else or something else is always held "responsible". Do you want this or that? I don't know, it's up to you. Do you want to do this or that? I don't mind. The house was burgled? I don't know, I was asleep. The city's on fire? It can't be me; there must be provocateurs. People are training for a jihad? Can't be us, these people come from overseas.
In my opinion, this extreme deferral of responsibility originates and is cultivated in the early years of Indonesian childhood, what I call the babysitter years. Regardless of class or wealth, children in Indonesia are carried and fed. Mothers, sisters and babysitters (not the fathers actually) carry children all over the place for years, then start running after them trying to feed them with a spoon. Children are not taught to do or not do certain things based on principle, but always by reference to an external party, a tree, a ghost, an uncle. Later, they don't know how to do the dishes, how to tie their laces.
Independent, responsible thinking can only develop if children learn principles, and that the responsibility for walking and eating does not lie with the babysitter. So my suggestion to the government is: if you want to protect consumers, stop the babysitting syndrome of this society.
ERIK VERSAVEL
Jakarta