In Reply to: Please Do not make the People be corrupt posted by jemanden aus Indonesien on Tuesday, 3. August 1999 at 22:01 Bali Time:
Before condemning the frequent 'cash advances' that most dealings with any kind of bureaucracy in Indonesia involve remember that Indonesia has a completely different cultural standard with regards to what we would call corruption. It seems that there are two types of corruption - good and bad. Bad corruption is where people in positions of authority exploit their positions to the detriment of the poorer people for purely greedy motives (ie. Suharto as a grand scale example). On other hand the frequently seen and accepted type of corruption is often a necessity for officials paid unbelievably low wages and this supplement to their income is not only accepted, it is often factored into wages. So while I certainly don't think that you should go out of your way to be a part of the corruption network, don't condemn it without understanding the motives behind it.