A

centuries-old tradition that is still alive and kicking today is salam tempel — literally meaning putting cash in someone’s palm while shaking hands with them. The giver does it as a gesture of respect, love, sympathy, pity or gratitude toward the recipient.

It is most commonly practiced during the Islamic Idul Fitri festivities and Chinese New Year, by elders to children. It is also a time when the elderly receive the money from their offspring and well-wishers. In Java, it is also common practice to do it with clerics as a token of respect.

There was once an insightful story about the late president Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid’s tour of cemeteries of East Java in 1994; at the time he chaired Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia’s largest Islamic organization.

As an avid advocate of cultural Islam, Gus Dur would visit the graves of his ancestors and renowned propagators of the religion. At the grave of propagator Sunan Ampel in Surabaya, it was said that a well-wisher slipped an envelope into his palm.

When he was out of the crowd, he showed off the gift to his politician buddy, Megawati Soekarnoputri, who had joined him on the trip, and ripped the envelope open. The contents? A Rp 5,000 banknote. A photograph of them laughing, taken by a Surya daily journalist, was exhibited during an NU congress in East Java last year.

NU Online, a media affiliated with the organization, also ran an account in 2012 of a reporter named Asmanu, who accompanied Gus Dur on a visit to Sunan Ampel’s grave and reportedly counted Rp 3 million in such “cash handshake”. He gave Asmanu all the money and said: “It’s good to be with me, huh?”

It is not clear if the two events occurred on the same occasion. It’s said that when Asmanu told the story to Yenny Wahid, one of Gus Dur’s daughters, her supposed light-hearted reply was, “So go accompany Gus Dur as often as you can.”

After the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) was established in 2002, the cash handshake tradition has continued with some twists. While it is perfectly OK for clerics like Gus Dur, or any other ordinary citizens, to pocket the cash, the corruption laws make it a crime for public officials to receive salam tempel related to their state duties because it counts as corruption.

Every year ahead of major religious holidays like Idul Fitri, the KPK reiterates its warning to state officials against taking gifts; if they cannot refuse the presents, they are required to report them to the agency.

Corruption remains unabated despite the KPK’s vigorous campaigns, and salam tempel is often used as a euphemism for gratuity or bribery for unscrupulous state bureaucrats. And because of its typically gargantuan sum, it usually needs large boxes or suitcases instead of a small envelope that fits neatly into the palm to deliver the cash.

Last Saturday’s arrest of Regional Representatives Council (DPD) chief Irman Gusman by KPK agents for allegedly accepting Rp 100 million in “thank you money” from a grateful business couple he reportedly helped is testament to the lingering salam tempel among our politicians.

Until that fateful day, the top councilor from West Sumatra had built a Mr. Clean image. When addressing a 2015 national anticorruption conference in Bandung, he eagerly threw his weight behind the popular demand for the death penalty for big-time graft convicts. He cited China as a country to look to in fighting corruption.

The KPK alleges that a business couple, identified as Xaveriandy Sutanto and his wife Memi, gave Irman the cash as a reward for helping them seek an additional sugar import quota for West Sumatra. It was understood that Irman phoned a State Logistics Agency (Bulog) executive in their favor.

So you think Rp 100 million is peanuts for such a senior public official as a DPD chief? Think again. If a call to one agency is worth Rp 100 million, then what if a like-minded corrupt bureaucrat calls five or 10 executives on behalf of his or her cronies?

If a traditional cleric like Gus Dur needed a shirt with a large pocket to collect handshake money which is all legal, a senior politician may need a car to carry all the “thank you” cash. — Pandaya