The paradoxes of Indonesia's present are many: There are more educated people, but fewer judicious leaders; we have higher incomes, but lower morals; we expect to get more, but work less.
We have widened our freeways, but not our horizons. We earn higher university degrees, but we have less sense and judgment. We sharpen our intellectual capacities, but not the capacities of our hearts. We speak more against injustice, but take less action. We uphold religious values, but never manifest them in our deeds.
We need not be ashamed to admit that all of these are the true portraits depicting our societal life today. While poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and malnutrition rates remain relatively high, corruption, misappropriation of state funds, abuse of power, bribery, illegal levies and other forms of immoral acts and injustices still prevail, making headlines in almost all local newspapers as well as electronic media, and becoming everyday public consumption.
This corrupt mind set has been so ingrained in our culture that it is difficult, if not impossible, to diminish it in a short period of time.
If we retrace the overwhelming cases of corrupt practices committed by state officials during the New Order administration, and relate them to our current cases, we can see that the corrupt mentality has become a legacy passed down from one generation to the next.
It is possible that our future generations will inherit the same reprehensible mindset enacted by their forebears once they rise to power and hold powerful political positions in government administrations.
The seemingly never-ending corrupt practices which implicate state officials in important government institutions form a clear sign that Indonesians feel no shame.
We are never ashamed of our greed or other disgraceful deeds that have created misery for thousands and even millions of people in all areas -- the same people who are guaranteed prosperous and decent livelihoods by the Constitution.
Watching televisions airing news of convicted corruptors standing trial, for example, one can see that they -- who feel no shame or remorse -- can respond to reporters' questions with smiling faces, giving the impression that nothing is wrong and that they have committed no wrong.
Furthermore, almost never in our cabinet's history have we witnessed a minister tender his resignation due to a lack of expertise or incompetence, or due to alleged corruption scandals, as was recently seen in the case implicating the state minister for the National Development and Forestry Ministry.
By way of comparison, we still recall the case of the health minister under the Badawi administration in Malaysia whose leaked sex tape caused uproar among Malaysians. Without pressure from the public or his premier, the then-minister boldly admitted his misconduct, made a public apology and soon tendered his resignation from the cabinet.
These few instances show us that we have not yet developed a culture of shame, where Malaysia has.
The notoriety of corrupt government bureaucracy has also long been with us, with those who are supposed to serve the public for free extorting money from them. It comes as no surprise that the public perceive the House of Representatives as one of the most corrupt institutions.
Korupsi berjamaah (collective corruption), a recently coined catchphrase, has seen a lot of use of late. It is used to describe collectively high-profile corrupt practices implicating those in the legislative body, the Indonesian Central Bank (BI) and the Supreme Court.
Political figures, lawmakers, prosecutors and cabinet ministers are supposed to set an example and serve as role-models to the public as individuals who are not only intellectually capable, but also morally decent.
They also must be aware that they are central public figures who are emulated by the public and are also representatives in whom the people put their trust when voicing their aspirations to the government.
With the people's trust and mandates empowering them in their duties, it is ironic that an overwhelming number of high-profile corrupt practices take place within the legislative body.
Instilling a culture of shame among young generations is imperative and should begin at school. Ethics, as a branch of philosophy dealing with morality, should be considered as an alternative school subject to be included in the curriculum.
Through this subject, students can learn principles by studying case studies as well as basic principles that uphold intellectual honesty. They can be told that cheating during exams and plagiarizing scholarly works are akin to a "corrupt mentality" and moral indecorousness, with suspension and even expulsion from school awaiting as an academic sanction for those committing these acts.
Imposing a culture of shame can also be initiated by mocking and humiliating convicted perpetrators in public; for instance by exposing them, with their hands handcuffed, to the public via both print media coverage and electronic media.
People may also wish that someday they will watch a convicted high-profile graft perpetrator on their TV screen being detained and being clad in a uniform that reads Tahanan KPK Kasus Korupsi (the detainees of the Corruption Eradication Commission for corruption cases).
The writer is chief-editor of the Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching and teaches English composition at Atma Jaya Catholic University, Jakarta. He can be reached at setiono.sugiharto@atmajaya.ac.id
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