Time has come to cure our ailing society

Time has come to cure our ailing society

By Rahayu Ratnaningsih

JAKARTA (JP): The series of recent disasters befalling us
should prompt us to ponder what has gone wrong with Indonesian
society.

The Gurita ferry catastrophe in Aceh, the bus accident on the
Bogor toll road, and the Bogor shopping center fire, all killed
many people and are fresh in our minds.

What is left to make us proud as Indonesians if ignorance,
negligence, carelessness, indifference, indiscipline, corruption,
opportunism and selfishness feature so highly in our society?

Indifference makes it impossible for us to walk safely and
conveniently on the sidewalks. In fact, sidewalks are considered
such an inappropriate luxury, the need of which is regarded as
something trivial, that they are transformed into markets.

Only in Indonesia can traders occupy half a main road, such as
those in Tangerang. Indifference continues until a catastrophe
pricks our conscience, then it is soon wiped from our memory. The
cycle is then repeated. When another calamity happens the whole
nation will mourn and regard it as a national tragedy and
submissively say: "This is God's will."

Like people from middle eastern countries, we are
characterized by our external locus of control. What happens to
us in life is due to luck or chance -- by takdir, our favorite
word which means fate.

Research indicates that people with an external locus of
control are less likely to take responsibility for the
consequences of their own behavior and more likely to rely on
external influences. Internals, on the other hand, are more
likely to rely on their own internal standards of right and wrong
to guide their behavior. Most developed and western countries
share this particular trait.

So everything tends to be seen as God's will, partly because
Indonesian people's religiosity requires our total submission to
God by not questioning His power and authority.

It is a worry because we are too ignorant and indifferent to
notice that the human sacrifice in the series of accidents were
indeed unnecessary and could have been avoided if we had had a
little discipline and concern for public order and safety.

How can we be concerned with other people's safety when we
often don't really cherish our own? Look at the people who sit on
trains' roofs. They even walk along them when the trains are
running, oblivious to he real danger of being killed. No one
stops them from doing it, not even the railway officials. The
officials perhaps have tried in the past without success.

Not only the common people lack concern for their own or
other's safety. High government officials lack it too. Sewers
remain uncovered, posing a significant danger to pedestrians. We
don't even bother to refill excavations made to install telephone
cables, making the roads traps for motorists.

Casualties are uncountable, but the districts' mayors still
enjoy their morning coffee while reading their residents'
complaints in the newspaper. Seeking justice is futile.

Being an Indonesian mayor is a piece of cake. Their
counterparts in developed countries can easily be liable for
millions of dollars if a citizen is injured, however slightly, by
faulty workmanship in their district.

Indifference is so prevalent here, that the leaders don't even
address it. Many of our officials are corrupt and don't
understand the concept of leading by example.

Our feudalistic and patriarchal culture is rooted so deeply
that our leaders are often arrogant even when facts show they are
to blame for casualties.

The Bogor mayor is a case in point. He was quoted on the
worsening traffic jams prior to the Pasar Anyar inferno as
saying: "Sidewalk traders are to be expected. It's a perfectly
appropriate thing to occur."

Then, after the recent shopping center fire, he insisted much
too early that because he was mayor people had to believe there
were only ten human bodies and one cat found.

The fire unveiled the sorry condition of our public
buildings. It is now time to stop leniency towards safety
violations. The same story repeats itself every time a fire
breaks out: the fire squads fail to extinguish the blaze because
of the inadequacy of the built-in fire control devices.

It isn't difficult to find those responsible, but again we
are too indifferent to make fuss about it. We are too forgiving
and too reserved to question. It shows once again the
opportunistic and corrupt mentality of our entrepreneurs and
officials. Both are only interested in their own well being. Are
we going to preserve this attitude or are we going to work things
out?