Readers’ Outlook: End corruption to save our nation

Ever since its birth, this nation has suffered tremendously from corruption. Its people have become poorer while the corrupt have grown richer.

In not being able to eradicate these corrupt practices, the nation has allowed them to proceed shamelessly, and has even competed to secure corruption-prone government positions.

There is no embarrassment whatsoever when the corrupt show off their second or third expensive car.

People seem to engage in corruption so that they can compete with their neighbors in terms of wealth.

We are indeed at a loss as to where to begin to correct ourselves. However, to uphold and preserve our country, we must find a solution at all costs. We can also learn by educational examples.

Correction by example could be the easiest yet cheapest way forward, if it is properly and honestly managed. Leading by example must obviously start from the top. We must find ways and means to do it to save our nation.

With the upcoming election of the new governor of the capital, we can expect the nation to stand on better footing, when the new governor with his previous experiences will apply his subtle, yet concrete experiences to his new charge, to realize the dream of “blue skies” on “dry ground”.

Surely, to realize those dreams, we need to do a lot of dreaming. We will cooperate to rebuild Jakarta as our capital city. We will stop littering to reduce city flooding, start to use public transportation more to reduce traffic jams, plant more trees and dig more injection wells to reduce flooding and we will avoid unnecessary transactions to avoid corruption. Let us even take bicycles to work to contribute to a Jakarta blue sky.

If we can succeed, so can the other cities in our archipelago. We will attract more tourism in the context of further economic development.

I hope we don’t need to learn from China to eradicate corruption from our Pancasila Indonesia. Merdeka!

Moeljono Adikoesoemo
Jakarta