Indonesia fights corruption with people power

Posted on November 7, 2009

Totally agree with what BBC says, we, Indonesians, fight corruption with people power. In fact, whatever we want our government to change or to do we have to do it with people power i.e. street protests. The bigger the better. We cannot expect any change coming from the heart and soul of government officials whose only concern is how to fill their pocket with illegal money as fast as possible before getting retired.

In Indonesia public protests, secret recordings and an alleged plot among senior law enforcement officials to undermine the anti-corruption agency have transfixed the country.

Ask any Indonesian about corruption and chances are they will tell you that at some point in their lives they have had to deal with it.

Whether it is paying a bribe to get out of a traffic fine or slipping some extra cash to an official at the immigration office, corruption, many here say, is unfortunately a way of life – it is in the culture.

It is a depressing fact, but a reality that Indonesians have become used to.

But now something has changed.

Fed up and frustrated with the levels of graft within the institutions that are charged with the responsibility of protecting them, Indonesians have taken to the streets in what is being called one of the grandest showings of people power since the days of the 1998 Reformasi movement.