New consumer protection law
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