Some facts of life

Some facts of life

Mr. Bill Starr calls me "offensive" and "presumptuous" ("Your
Letters," On concept of guilt, Oct. 25) in daring to suggest that
the concepts of selfishness and guilt are not high on the
philosophical agenda in Indonesia. Apparently I have a lot to
learn, particularly from his example of "family values," of which
he proposes, Western societies might learn something from
Indonesia.

To what "family values" is he referring? I only know what I
see without the aid of rose-tinted spectacles. I see the
Indonesian economy staggering from crisis to crisis under the
weight of nepotistic inefficiency caused by influential fathers
having placed totally unsuitable and ineffectual offspring in
managerial positions and power. I see the spoilt children of high
ranking officials literally getting away with murder. I see child
labor accepted as a fact of life for hundreds of thousands of
Indonesian children.

I see mentally unstable family members cast out of their homes
and left to wander the streets in rags and penury. I see
orphanages and social programs milked of their already meager
funds by corrupt yayasan (foundation) officials. I see children
dying unnecessarily due to neglect by parents of even the most
basic hygiene, or -- even worse, and unforgivably -- their
indifference to immunization. I see children given away, and not
always because of poverty, but because they may be inconvenient.
I see righteous, upstanding husbands habitually cheating on their
hapless wives with mistresses of prostitutes -- not a few of whom
are still children placed in brothels by their parents. I see, in
this male dominated society, women cowed and worn down by high-
handed, lazy, dictatorial fathers, husbands and older brothers. I
see wife-beating as one of the greatest unspoken cover-ups of
Indonesian society. I see incest, rape and the physical abuse of
children furtively committed on an extensive scale, especially in
the more remote villages and sometimes with the local society's
connivance. Practically every day I read in this very newspaper
of murders more often than not committed by family members or
close family friends. All these examples are not the
comparatively rare occurrences which taint every society in the
world. They are commonplace in Indonesia; so commonplace that
only the worst excesses get reported. Are these the "family
values" which Mr. Starr would wish the West to emulate?

Mr. Starr charmingly confesses in his letter to being bald.
Perhaps he could attend to his rather more serious myopia. I am
surprised, whilst he set about his attack on me, he did not pull
out from his drawer of cliches that fatuous old dictum: "When in
Rome, do as the Romans do." I would counter that with "Nero
fiddles while Rome burns." All over Indonesia, in the last few
months, that is not too far from reality.

ROBERT WALKER

Amlapura, Bali