Priests and clerics tell us it is divine punishment and that God is trying to tell us something. Scientists tell us the quake was really the result of shifts in the Earth's tectonic plates. Whether you subscribe to the theological or secular explanation, the 7.6-magnitude quake that killed more than 1,100 people by Friday morning's official count came on the eve of a multibillion-rupiah inauguration ball for the newly elected members of the House of Representatives and the Regional Representative Council (DPD) in Jakarta, just a few hundred kilometers southeast from West Sumatra.

Questions had been raised prior to the Oct. 1 inauguration about the propriety of such extravagance when the economy was not exactly doing well. Elected politicians and the General Elections Commission (KPU) insisted the sum was money well spent to celebrate the success Indonesia has made in organizing peaceful and democratic elections this year.

Wednesday's earthquake, however, turned the inauguration mood into a mourning one. Many of the newly sworn-in politicians, heeding the rising public outcry, were quick to announce they were donating their first month's salary to victims of the West Sumatra disaster. Let's hope President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will also show sensitivity during his own inauguration on Oct. 20 to kick off his second five-year term.

The quake is a sober reminder that Indonesia is prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. Straddling the Equator and linking two major oceans, Indonesia is at the same time blessed with abundant natural resources. No one can complain that Mother Nature has been unkind to us.

It is left to us to learn how to manage these conditions that we take as a given. The fact that Indonesia still has one of the largest concentrations of poor people in the world indicates there is something wrong in the way the country is being run, in the way it deals with the threats of devastating natural disasters, and in the way it manages its natural resources and redistributes the wealth arising thereof.

The House's extravagance reflects the behavior of many people, particularly the elite. They are very good at flaunting their wealth, irrespective of whether they are entitled to it or not in the first place. Many of today's state and private functions and ceremonies are excessive by the standards of wealthier Western nations.

Could this be because, for many people, this wealth comes just as easily as they spend it, rather than something that comes from hard work?

The fight against corruption, the platform that saw Yudhoyono elected the first time found in 2004 and again in 2009, seems to be slackening of late under a concerted drive to undermine the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

Questions are now being raised about Yudhoyono's commitment to the antigraft campaign. He allowed the National Police to pursue criminal investigations against two KPK deputy chairmen on the basis of what clearly looks like feeble evidence. And then he suspended the two deputies even while the police were changing their charges. He has since appointed a five-person team to select three names to fill in the vacuum at the KPK. So not only did he allow the drive to undermine the KPK's independence, but in some respects, he is also seen as very much part of the conspiracy to destroy the KPK.

This is rather unfortunate, for the President has just returned from a very successful tour of the United States, where he rubbed shoulders with other global leaders at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, and received standing ovations in speeches he gave before businesspeople in Boston and scholars at Harvard University. Indonesia's image abroad has been enhanced by the fact it has successfully gone through the democratic processes of electing its leaders, that it has managed to deal with the threat of terrorism and radical Islam quite well, and that its economy has been holding on when the rest of the world is struggling to cope with the global downturn.

Perhaps the accolades (be sure to read the special report on Indonesia in the Sept. 12 issue of The Economist) have buoyed our leaders so much that they have forgotten that the serious work still awaits us back at home.

There is the question of eradicating poverty, of creating jobs for the tens of millions unemployed or underemployed, and the task of improving our education system and ensuring people have access to inexpensive healthcare. And now there is the massive reconstruction work for people displaced by the recent earthquakes, in West Java last month and in West Sumatra this week.

There is really hardly time for Indonesia to bask in the glow of its successes, no matter what other nations are telling us. It is also totally inappropriate for the nation to be flaunting its wealth when more than half its population festers in poverty. And there is no room for the government to slacken its campaign to eradicate corruption.

Whether or not the West Sumatra quake is a message that the gods are angry, the high number of casualties and massive devastation should humble this nation into seriously changing its ways and becoming more serious for once about building this nation. Only then can we safely say that those who perished in last week's quake did not die unnecessarily.

- E ndy M. Bayuni

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