Criticisms about the government is always going to be valid. People are ought to be wary of their own government, and one way of being wary is to be critical. But what critics should be levied towards the government such that we as a society could move forward? One that has a strong basis.

This blog often talks about control and authority because we used to adopt a presidential dictatorship for 32 years under one rule. The Suharto rule. We can learn so much about what Indonesian elites consider to be control, and apply the same lens to see that there might be a slight chance that Indonesia might fall into the same controlling aspects of old.

That is my own criticism niche. As much as I dislike infighting within the same space of a "concerned citizen", I think that the criticism levied against Indonesians' corruption is a misfire. Hell, maybe even fostered by the very corrupt individuals as well.

Corruption is an inevitability

When we talk about a system of power, corruption is almost a force of nature. There are no fully "benevolent" system which could sustain itself. Humans are naturally greedy, and that greed manifested itself most of the time with structures.

So far, the only structure that works is capitalism. Because it rewards the human need to seek capital. It didn't blind its own eyes towards the greed of humans. Instead, the structure developed naturally through trade and communication.

Corruption exists in a space where humans realize that in a system, some part of it is always going to be exploitable. Some aspect of a system could be broken and bent to serve whatever greedy purposes humans have. Only, we calculate the damage of corruption through a metric we all felt viscerally. At least those of us who have had fallen through hard times.

Money.

We often see this in headlines. "X and Y corrupted something worth billions of rupiah". We then react with hypothetical scenarios of what that amount of money might be worth. What it could feed, or what it could house. Because we don't really know what corruption really is.

Indonesians see corruption as a buzzword that signaled negativity. Everything that has the label corruption is by default evil, and that we should punish corrupt individuals.

The word "corruption" then became a boogeyman. A demon we can collectively rally against.

Collectively rallying against a demon

Unfortunately, that same everyone who shouts at how bad corruption is, is the same everyone who would in turn do corrupt acts. This is true in every system. Whatever the scale is.

It's easy to point fingers and call big corrupt politicians. Punishing them socially and feeling satisfied once you did a good deed of being on the right side of history. But if we are working towards eliminating corruption, then why the heck can we find it even on a small crack in the walls of your local wedding registry?

Truth of the matter is, corruption is not some big demonic game where only the elites could play. It's everyday. It's baked in. All the systems in the world can be corrupted.

We should ask ourselves then: why is it being framed as such? Why do we often see our government proudly state that they caught and fished out corrupt players in the game of thrones?

They're easy fall guys. The label corrupt is broad enough to be this mysterious but shady label, placed on anybody, and they will be the public enemy. Which, granted, is fair enough because these people did do damage to the economy.

But if you think about it, all the damage they've done is narrowed to only the aspect they're corrupting. The narrative, however, is that we are all united under this massive fight against systemic corruption.

We're not. Even if we are, we're losing that fight. Corruption is inherent.

An easy tool

What is to gain from governments rallying against corruption? It makes for an easy cut tool. Because everyone plays the game of thrones the same way. Everyone is corrupt. It's just about how we hid the fact.

The masses can then be redirected. Systemic rot of the anger and frustration from people who, before news of a corruption scandal, are starting to "see" what's happening.

Because humans can only hold so much anger. So much questions. Corruption answers all of those questions, and if you don't ask further, it satisfies all the check boxes.

Think about it. Let's do an exercise. The recent blackouts.

Why did we experience blackouts? Before, the answer is about systems. About the plants being malfunctioning. Or technical details we the commoners are not privy to.

Then, a scandal is uncovered. Damages in the billions. Money everywhere.

When before, we had plenty of legs to ask questions in with the technical details and hush-toned explanations. Suddenly, it can all be collapsed to a systemic corruption of the resources burned to be electricity.

Questioning further puts us at odds with the very same angry masses from before. That is what corruption cases are for. Control.

Ripple effect

The ripple effect of this, is that Indonesians have a narrow view on what evil is being done right under their noses. Cases of corruption is small. Small enough that reporting it is practically impossible.

But the reporting itself is what caused people to know what corruption took place. So, it tracks that people's anger is now under control of the reporting of corruption. When news cycles break that some dude in some place has had a scandal involving a major artery of the government we've properly criticized, that's the cue that we're not supposed to dig deeper.

Young people entering politics are also going to ask less questions. They are by default trying to rally against something easy. Something unequivocally evil and mundanely understood by even the worst of the idiots of their generation. Corruption fits that role nicely, and it blocks our intent to ask more.

Maybe, this is by design as well.