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ayus Tambunan, 33, Muhammad Nazaruddin, 33 and Angelina Sondakh, 34, all have three things in common: they are in their early 30s, they are involved in large scale corruption and they are all being investigated by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

Another commonality is that they appear to be lacking remorse or even shame for allegedly being involved in corruption.

It is interesting is to try and fathom what these young people understand about the concept of corruption, bearing in mind that when reformasi took place in 1998, they were barely 20 years old.

They were born, and experienced their formative years, during the New Order period. This observation begs the question: Is there a generation gap in the perception of corruption these days?

Reformasi in 1998 was a crucial rite of passage for many Indonesians, but not for everyone. It was mainly experienced by those old enough to know and understand their history.

For those who were 25 years old and above, reformasi was a decisive moment in their lives. It brought about dramatic changes in their daily lives. They were suddenly part of the Indonesian political arena. The most powerful political figure in their lives suddenly fell from grace, pushed aside by a deep economic crisis. Before this, they were a passive audience to a staged political arena.

For these older Indonesians, reformasi was about transforming Indonesia into a more open, participatory and democratic society. A fairer economic distribution of the high economic growth Indonesia had been experiencing was expected to follow. This was a basic assumption.

However, no one asked whether Indonesia’s economic structure was ready for this demand of fairer economic distribution, which in turn would create a larger Indonesian middle class, and bring prosperity to the country.

For those younger Indonesians in their early 20s in 1998, reformasi was experienced through theirparent’s point of view.

Their parents were born before former president Soeharto’s rise to power, and they experienced the golden period of the New Order era. This included optimism and hope, but was followed by gradual disappointment and despair.

Parents expected that the prosperity they were experiencing would continue. Instead, in January 1998, they were shocked by photos in the media which showed Soeharto signing an International Monetary Fund (IMF) package of structural reforms, with Michel Camdessus, the then director of IMF, standing aloof with arms folded, looking down on Soeharto. Many ordinary Indonesians did not understand the financial details, but they knew instinctively that Indonesia’s economy was in crisis. The photo said it all.

Due to the lack of freedom of press and information prior to 1998, the photo of Soeharto and Michel Camdessus took on a larger-than-life meaning.

Until that time, public information and the press had been very much curtailed. The photos that did appear were pictures of Soeharto reigning supreme and very much in control of Indonesia.

The Camdessus photo must have had an impact on ordinary Indonesians. It was then that psychologically, ordinary Indonesians started a mental journey, preparing for changes in anticipation of the new Indonesia, which back then, was unchartered territory.

In 1998, the ire of ordinary Indonesians, and the parents of 20-year-olds, was based on the fact that they were witnessing a very small group of Indonesian elites obtaining economic privileges and becoming millionaires, while they had started to experience an economic downturn.

The anger started to build, and a realization started to sink in that they were imprisoned by the tacit acceptance of no freedom of speech and a lack of political participation, and that this was in fact a major disadvantage to them. Reformasi then took place.

For Gayus Tambunan, Muhammad Nazaruddin and Angelina Sondakh, and many other Indonesians under 20 years of age in 1998, reformasi is probably a blurry part of history, with violence being the focus of their experience — but they never had the historical knowledge to understand why the violence took place.

Could it be that parents, back in 1998, told their young children to: “Take all the opportunities you can! We now have freedom. Make money and be rich!” As a result, these young people went for economic opportunity, and did so at any cost, knocking over ethical and moral values in their wake.

In 2009, Angelina Sondakh actually campaigned on anticorruption in order to be elected to parliament. It appears that the issue of corruption was only a public relations vehicle to get her elected, with no ethical meaning for her at all.

For this generation, perhaps reformasi is not about democratization, but rather about getting rich quickly. Could it be that these are the lost generations of Indonesia? Of course there are exceptions.

Reconciliation at the moment is focused on human rights abuses, which is important. However, for Indonesia to move forward as a nation, a greater scope of reconciliation needs to take place which involves all aspects of social, political and economical issues.

As a nation, we still live in boxes determined by reformasi. Just look at the political parties of today: The PKS (Prosperous Justice Party) is post-reformasi and part of the New Indonesia, while Golkar is pre-reformasi and existed in the Old Indonesia. In many ways, reformasi is still divisive.

Today Indonesia celebrates its 67th birthday. We need to start bridging the reformasi period and turn the experience into a valuable part of our history, with lessons learnt for all Indonesians.

We must come to an agreement spiritually and psychologically on Indonesia’s future, and more importantly, how we will get there.

The writer, a former journalist, is secretary-general of the Indonesian Community for Democracy (KID). She was a recipient of the Nieman Fellowship for journalism at Harvard University — class of 1994