Ming’s Mind

Last night when I was racing my
way back home because I didn’t want to eat a cold take-away dinner, I almost
struck someone who was strolling on the side walk; a beggar.

In the city where I’m living,
there are many beggars waiting on almost every traffic light areas, approaching
every vehicle when the traffic light turns red. They sometimes bring a small
container with them for collecting money, and sometimes empty-handed, some of
them even bring some portable instruments and play their *ughhh* ‘music’ in the
attempt to get some change. I feel pity for these people most of the time
because there are a lot of them who are disabled; I’ve seen one who has lost
his legs, a blind woman who needs to be helped by her son (?) walking her when
she’s begging for some change, one who looks mental and has a larger tumor growing
on the side of his neck… But there are also a few who seem strong, healthy,
and capable of working if given chance. Most of these people are very annoying
actually; they will bang your car if you don’t give them money or simply ignore
them. And they even let their children help them begging for money as well,
around the very crowded and dangerous traffic. Most of them haven’t even
reached the age of five because they could barely walk, and I found most of
them are suffering from malnutrition because of their poverty. Some mothers
bring along their infants begging for money under the blazing sun of our
tropical climate, which is very unhealthy to those poor newborns. What’s worse,
as I examine these beggars and bums, it seems like their number are growing,
slowly, but surely. These people seem to be reproducing pretty quickly because
they don’t have anything to do and they have all the time in the world to do
their thing, and if this keeps up I’m pretty sure our city, the city in where I
was born, will become a slum city in the near future, because not only these
people will disturb our traffic, they are dirtying the city as well; a very
serious problem, indeed. Sadly, I used to give some change to these people
regardless of their condition, but after giving it more thought, I decided to
be choosy on who I’m going to give some change to. This situation has put the
people here in a dilemma, in where we feel a lot of pity for them, yet if we
keep giving these people money, we’re directly supporting the growth of the
beggar community in our city.

An even worse condition happens
in the metropolitan city of Jakarta, a lot of people work cleaning the front
mirror of cars, and not caring whether the owners of cars will approve or not
of their action, they charge them; and funnily enough, those illegal (yes, I
think this kind of action can be classified as a form of threatening) car
cleaners state the price of their service, when they’re actually not needed at
all. But I can’t blame them. They are just victims of this cruel world, who are
struggling unrelentingly for something to fill their stomach everyday; they
must be helped.

Ironically, one of the statutes in

Indonesia

has clearly stated that: "All the poor and urchins will be supported by
the country", while I can find them lurking around everywhere in my city.
The policemen act as if they don’t see them, when these should be gathered, and
helped somehow (maybe by teaching older ones some life skills so that they’ll
be able to work decently and putting their kids to school). The government acts
as if these people don’t exist and do nothing to solve this problem; I believe
if the government would just share their precious time to take care of
them-instead of preoccupied corrupting-everything will become a lot better. A huge
shame for us Indonesian when comparing ourselves to our neighboring countries
like Singapore; they have a special force who works keeping the country clean
from bums and beggars, and I’ve heard that Malaysia is also starting to follow in
Singapore’s footsteps in keeping their country away from bums and beggars.

I really hope someday

Indonesia

’s
government will be less toothless about their law and won’t break the law that
they’ve made themselves. But I know I shouldn’t put my hope too high. Many
deaths are caused by the corruption done by the government who are corrupting
the fund planned to be used on the poor for their welfare. But this fund is also
corrupted, mercilessly, by some certain scum, causing a lot of death of the innocents
because they weren’t able to afford the medication for curable diseases like
Malaria, Diarrhea etc.; they’re murdered by corruptors. And we’re still the
runner-up in the competition of the most corrupt country in the world after

China

. I can
still watch the show “Republik Mimpi” (=Dream Republic)
every Sunday evening, humorously criticizing the way our govt rules the
country. And I can find a prepaid airtime voucher depicting a certain govt
being sent to his elementary school and being punished by the teacher to write
“Saya tidak akan Korupsi lagi.” (=I won’t be corrupting anymore.), on the
blackboard by his teacher, and passed out knowing that he will have to write
the sentence as many times as the amount of money he had corrupted-500 billion
times, that is (500.000.000.000 Rupiahs = approximately US$ 55,555,555.00; assuming
that US$1 = Rp 9.000,00 [nine thousand; a soft currency, yup]). Try to imagine
how many lives has been killed by this scum because of his bad habit, imagine
how much help that amount of money could be used to fix the fucked up condition
here, and imagine how severe this scum should be punished…

Although our current President in
charge is trying so intensely in fighting the corruption, who can guarantee
that he will succeed? What will happen in the future if he won’t be voted as
the next President? Who can guarantee that he himself is not corrupting?

I don’t even know what to believe
anymore…

What will be of Indonesia in the future?

Will we end up selling our
islands to foreign countries because we’re unable to pay off the monstrous
debts left by some certain Indonesian scum for the future generation?

Or will there be someday when I can lift my head up and proudly say, "I’m an Indonesian"?

…Indonesia, my dear country, I
love and thank you for all the things that you’ve given me; I’m sorry, I
can’t help but feel shy for being an Indonesian…

-Ming-