We're not that bad, are we?

We're not that bad, are we?

A couple of "bule" (white foreigner) friends of mine once stated
that Indonesia is actually "a heaven and earth" for everyone,
regardless of where they come from.

Besides the variety of cultures and arts this country offers,
Indonesia obviously has a unique character of its own.

In this case, I'd like to divulge some comments from those
people, which I believe deserve to be taken into account. There
are several opinions of "bules" here that really make sense and
could actually be compared with our society's ways of thinking.

Who knows, by mixing the view points between the East and the
West, perhaps it's going to open the door of "freedom of
thinking" wider than before. Besides, it's not a sin, right?

An Australian entering their sixth year of living here once
complained to me that he had seen some "holes" in this country,
which is basically rooted in a system that he thinks is not
really working well.

At first, I was a little bit puzzled and thought, what the
heck is he talking about? He then explained that system, by
giving me a number of examples, such as a convicted-criminal who
is supposed to be in jail but is free to conduct meetings at the
House of Representatives building. That's one!

To his horror, the president even shook hands with him. I got
it! He's not talking about the system nor law enforcement! He's
talking about morality!! The system won't exist if there are no
people in charge of it!

At afternoon tea with another friend I again heard a weird
thing. My friend realized how stupid the government was for not
sticking to its own decision (Ooopss ... this time my friend's
talking about the revoked price-hike decision). He was actually
glad that the people's voices were finally heard but if those
people in the House know what they're doing there's no way in the
world they would implement the price hikes and revoke it. It is
only making them lose their faces in the society!

How true he is!! Not only that, he also commented on the "new
seasonal event" in this country (read: floods), which apparently
made people dislike the government even more.

Yeah, I have to admit that in this case there's no exact clear
steps from the government, when it comes to solving this "wet
disaster". All they have done so far is some campaign through the
media about how dangerous littering is!

I think that deserves two thumbs up but what if the flood
still hits us while we have anticipated the whole thing?

Mmmmhhh. Could there be any "leakage" at the city water dam?
Have they checked? Or the flows of the water from Puncak resort
are no longer flowing on the right track because there are too
many rich people building bungalows?

To be frank, I told my friend not to look at this country as a
whole. Let's throw a little glance over Jakarta alone. Man, this
city could actually perform better if we had a chance to elect
our leader and dismiss him or her if they couldn't do very well!

Instead of building the pricey fountain near Hotel Indonesia,
some people might think that it would be more worthy if we could
use the money to improve the water dam? So there's no worry every
time the rain pours down.

Instead of building the fence around Monas, would the money be
more useful if we used it to improve the quality of the public
school buildings that are destroyed by the storm? Where the heck
is the priority?

Every country has its own roses and thorns. Maybe sometimes we
need to have a barometer as a measurement of how far we have
progressed.

This reminds me of a song by Debbie Gibson, Anything is
possible. Would it be possible for Indonesia to have a
sophisticated transportation system like Malaysia? Would it be
possible for us to breath clear air and have a tidy environment
like Singapore? Would it be possible for us to restore peace
after the Bali bombing so tourists could come to Bali and share
their prosperity with the locals, like Thailand?

The answer to those questions: Yes, we can! We're working our
way up there. If I may describe this beloved Indonesia,
especially after Soeharto stepped down, this country looks
exactly like an unfinished painting with hundreds of different
colors in it.

Unfortunately, there hasn't been the right artists who can put
these colors together into a better masterpiece of art.

-- Faye Belnis