Friends, I think you should read this article, written by Deni Ratno, an Indonesian investigator who works at PriceWaterhouseCoopers:
It was a clear and sunny sunday morning, when I got on an "angkot" (in case you're not familiar with the term, this is a type of public transport vehicle), and did something that I've never done before: having a chat with the driver. Well, to be honest, if I had to have a chat with somebody, angkot driver would be at the bottom of my list. Most of them are as cold as stone so that you would seem to be talking with a statue. But the other day was different. I sat at the front, just adjacent to the driver, and since I got on the car, I noticed that he had spent Rp 6,000 just to buy a tissue, a newspaper and a cheap energy drink. Each at a different block. (Tissue? Last time I remember they used a small towel wrapped around their neck. Cheaper, and more practical) Interestingly, it appeared that the price of those stuffs has been inflated. The driver paid Rp2,000 for the tissue, which can't be worth more that Rp1,000.
I just couldn't help my curiousity, so I started asking him a straight forward question, "Did you buy those things voluntarily?"
He smiled and looked at me in disbelief, "Are you kidding? Why would I need a tissue and a paper?"
"Then why did you buy them? What would happen had you not bought?" What a naive question. But I just couldn't help it.
He said, "Well, I don't know. You just have to pay, that's the thing you should do around here..."
I was speechless. I used to use public transport like this for years before I stuck on public railways and my car, and I knew extortion occurred in almost every street corner that an angkot passed. It becomes a common thing. So common that this driver could only say "that's the thing you should do around here".
Still I was startled.
Further, he said that almost every street corner has their own gangsters, and they charge angkots for "passing through their domain." When I said gangster you might imagine a young scary person, with tatoo and piercing all around their bodies. Well, that's not quite accurate (and in some cases, not even close). What I saw were young people with clear faces and innocent look (Yes, some of them were hopelessly trying hard to look tough). Surprisingly, the one who sold the papers was a white-haired person and seemed to be at his early sixties.
(That should not be surprising though. We know we have many kinds of crooks here, those young and old, white collar and blue collar, on the street and inside fancy offices, in uniform or plain shirt, what else?)
Now, according to the driver I spoke with, he has to spend at least Rp20,000 per day to pay those illegal taxes. That's around USD2. Quite a lot for a guy who earns Rp10,000 to Rp 25,000 per day.
What have the police done about it? The driver said, "Nothing." (Why was I not surprised to hear that?) It doesn't take a Hercule Poirot to spot extortion like this. You could simply get on an angkot from the departure station, keep your eyes open (no kidding, people could easily fall asleep in an angkot), and see how the driver buys "unnecessary things" along the way. Could the law enforcement have missed such crime? Yeah right. I don't buy such justification. It's just too obvious to overlook. I suspect that they just wanna preserve "harmony". As far as I know no victims have filed a report on these occurrences. Like the angkot driver said, "It's just the way it works around here". So the police must have thought, why rock the boat?
The moral of this situation is clear, it is not about right or wrong, it is whether you can get away with it. And I don't see any reason why you couldn't. We have parliament who act like a bunch of brokers, a government whose bureaucracy is amongst the most corrupt in the world, religious leaders who are too busy spreading hatred, law enforcers who sell their integrity for money ... you name it. I'm not being skeptical, but I think we have all it takes to be a failed community.
Since then I just couldn't get rid of this driver's story from my mind. What would he say to his wife when he got home and didn't bring any money. Would he say he has given their hard-earned money to some crooks on his way home?
More importantly, what should we do about it? I don't know. I don't have the answer today. People say this is just the tip of a bigger societal problem. Well, no doubt about it. I'm just sending out a gentle reminder, do not take everything we see in our daily life for granted. Take a few step back, put things into perspective, you may find that what we call "business as usual" are just unacceptable by any values we know. And if we could share our view and make others understand, hopefully it would change "the way it works around here".
Deni@072009
This article can also be accessed through my website at
http://deniratno.wordpress.com.
It was a clear and sunny sunday morning, when I got on an "angkot" (in case you're not familiar with the term, this is a type of public transport vehicle), and did something that I've never done before: having a chat with the driver. Well, to be honest, if I had to have a chat with somebody, angkot driver would be at the bottom of my list. Most of them are as cold as stone so that you would seem to be talking with a statue. But the other day was different. I sat at the front, just adjacent to the driver, and since I got on the car, I noticed that he had spent Rp 6,000 just to buy a tissue, a newspaper and a cheap energy drink. Each at a different block. (Tissue? Last time I remember they used a small towel wrapped around their neck. Cheaper, and more practical) Interestingly, it appeared that the price of those stuffs has been inflated. The driver paid Rp2,000 for the tissue, which can't be worth more that Rp1,000.
I just couldn't help my curiousity, so I started asking him a straight forward question, "Did you buy those things voluntarily?"
He smiled and looked at me in disbelief, "Are you kidding? Why would I need a tissue and a paper?"
"Then why did you buy them? What would happen had you not bought?" What a naive question. But I just couldn't help it.
He said, "Well, I don't know. You just have to pay, that's the thing you should do around here..."
I was speechless. I used to use public transport like this for years before I stuck on public railways and my car, and I knew extortion occurred in almost every street corner that an angkot passed. It becomes a common thing. So common that this driver could only say "that's the thing you should do around here".
Still I was startled.
Further, he said that almost every street corner has their own gangsters, and they charge angkots for "passing through their domain." When I said gangster you might imagine a young scary person, with tatoo and piercing all around their bodies. Well, that's not quite accurate (and in some cases, not even close). What I saw were young people with clear faces and innocent look (Yes, some of them were hopelessly trying hard to look tough). Surprisingly, the one who sold the papers was a white-haired person and seemed to be at his early sixties.
(That should not be surprising though. We know we have many kinds of crooks here, those young and old, white collar and blue collar, on the street and inside fancy offices, in uniform or plain shirt, what else?)
Now, according to the driver I spoke with, he has to spend at least Rp20,000 per day to pay those illegal taxes. That's around USD2. Quite a lot for a guy who earns Rp10,000 to Rp 25,000 per day.
What have the police done about it? The driver said, "Nothing." (Why was I not surprised to hear that?) It doesn't take a Hercule Poirot to spot extortion like this. You could simply get on an angkot from the departure station, keep your eyes open (no kidding, people could easily fall asleep in an angkot), and see how the driver buys "unnecessary things" along the way. Could the law enforcement have missed such crime? Yeah right. I don't buy such justification. It's just too obvious to overlook. I suspect that they just wanna preserve "harmony". As far as I know no victims have filed a report on these occurrences. Like the angkot driver said, "It's just the way it works around here". So the police must have thought, why rock the boat?
The moral of this situation is clear, it is not about right or wrong, it is whether you can get away with it. And I don't see any reason why you couldn't. We have parliament who act like a bunch of brokers, a government whose bureaucracy is amongst the most corrupt in the world, religious leaders who are too busy spreading hatred, law enforcers who sell their integrity for money ... you name it. I'm not being skeptical, but I think we have all it takes to be a failed community.
Since then I just couldn't get rid of this driver's story from my mind. What would he say to his wife when he got home and didn't bring any money. Would he say he has given their hard-earned money to some crooks on his way home?
More importantly, what should we do about it? I don't know. I don't have the answer today. People say this is just the tip of a bigger societal problem. Well, no doubt about it. I'm just sending out a gentle reminder, do not take everything we see in our daily life for granted. Take a few step back, put things into perspective, you may find that what we call "business as usual" are just unacceptable by any values we know. And if we could share our view and make others understand, hopefully it would change "the way it works around here".
Deni@072009
This article can also be accessed through my website at
http://deniratno.wordpress.com.
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