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