WITH ALL DUE RESPECT
I’ve just hung up a phone call and I’m fighting the urge to scream.I want to scream for my motherland Indonesia. I somehow foresee its fate: a resource-rich poor country heading inevitably for an uncertain future where oil is USD 200/bbl; where the sky gets greyer and allies turn enemies. For God’s sake, no! Indonesia deserves better.
But it is being run by a corrupted, patriarchal, narrow-minded government; civil servants who don’t have any idea of how to serve and respect their civilians.
A humble junior engineer who happens to work in some oil company, I am merely plankton in the sea of oil people. I’ve just hung up a phone call, I said. It was with a (male, senior) officer from the governmental body that happens to be the Poseidon of my sea. He expected me to respect him; three-headed spear and all. I did. I expected him to respect me, too—plankton as I was. He did not.
How dare you, you probably think, to expect Poseidon to bow to crappy plankton?
Well, when it comes to respect, I’d venture to propose that there’s a certain degree of respect that you have to pay fellow human beings out of nothing at all— simply because you respect Humanity. I have sat and chatted with ambassadors, and I treated them with the same respect as when I sat and chatted with a janitor. Why should this Poseidon be treated any better? We human beings are equal— even God see us that way.
I was modest enough, though, to let my more refined nature get the better of me and be nice to His Excellency Mr. Poseidon— acknowledging his older age and male superiority. The Javanese culture I grew up in favours older people, and I don’t oppose this gracious custom. (The male superiority part of course sucked; nonetheless I managed to cope with it.)
All the same, I refused to respect him more than that. Not when he failed to show integrity, kindness and humility. Higher respect is earned- not bestowed nor bought. His job title and his money can’t help him earn my respect when he failed to respect the fellow human being in me. He took all my efforts on politeness for granted. A typical government officer in a spiritually retarded country.
For God’s sake, no! Indonesia deserves better than spiritual retardation— especially with so many challenges ahead. Indonesia could do better without a bunch of Poseidons who sit up high looking down to people they are supposed to serve.
I hope the day will dawn when we could build relationships (both professional and personal) based on mutual respect. It would be the start of a true civilian society, and the spark that ignites progress. On that day we could say to His Excellency Mr. Poseidon, with all due respect, “Good riddance!”
Labels: indonesia
posted by eloque @ 5:54 AM
What Say You?: 2
