Raging against pornography

This pornography controversy is one of the dozen key- indicators of how deep we sank in the 32 years of New Order; and our fall was all about making money!

First, a mistake was made by Bung Karno (Sukarno), the founding president of the republic of Indonesia, when he instructed Balinese women in 1952 to cover their breasts because it was not civilized to go about naked. And 25 years later, the foreign airline stewardess and female tourists took off their bikini tops when in Kuta-Legian. Sukarno fell into the stupid puritanical trap of the hypocrites of the West (Christians), who, through Hugh Heffner, made money via pinup girl Rita Hayworth during World War II and playbunnies from Playboy, uncovering what was supposedly to be covered, and making fortunes in doing so.

The second mistake was when the New Order a few years ago tried to make men from Irian Jaya remove their koteka (penis sheathes). Six prominent designers failed to come up with something original to replace the koteka.

The third mistake is our "money-elite", copying the lifestyles of the "rich & famous" from America, London and Europe: Expensive cars, brand-name clothes and accessories, private jets, five-star hotels, conspicuous spending, elite-arrogance, first class travel, schooling the kids in Los Angles, Boston, New York and Sydney, all aping their parents. So they outpaced and distanced themselves from the people far below them.

This elite is too cowardly to come to the forefront during the post-Soeharto era, but use hoodlums to try and protect their corrupt standing.

Our country and its people are now mentally corrupt. The institutions (private and governmental), trade, finance and industry are corrupt, the air is polluted, the money is polluted, the Pertamina-gasoline, the earth, the water, the food. All polluted.

Indonesians will kill each other for a fistful of rupiah.

Y. SANTO

Jakarta