Franz Magnis-Suseno, S.J.

As in other Asian and African countries, Indonesians find this identity, not as atomized individuals watching out for their rights, but as members of a concrete community. Quality of life is measured by whether or not people can live within a community and feel at home, know their place, be their own selves. Thus the focus of this endeavors is on the well-being of the felt community they live in. This community is, of course, structured with different intensities and claims to allegiance, and with it one shares the good and bad things life brings. A Javanese proverb says: "It does not matter whether we have something to eat or not, the main thing is, we are together!" In difficulties or when need arises, neighbors gladly help each other.

Indonesians are not fighters for "social justice." They have learned not to get excited over generally bad or unjust conditions. They care about this concrete community, not for a "cause." If they encounter suffering, except in the close circle of the family, they do not show compassion so much as concern and sympathy. They also help the stranger who needs help. One does not leave somebody alone who cannot help himself.

On the village level, equality is regarded as a very high value. When former villagers who have attained high government positions visit their village, they set a premium on being treated as just one of the villagers. As human beings, villagers are equal, and this is a deeply-felt value.

On the other hand, feudal relationships of higher and lower positions still play an important role in Indonesian society. This differences in wealth, lifestyle and luxury are, by themselves, not offensive to Indonesians. But with these differences there has to go a certain behavior. While the lower one show respect, the higher one acknowledges responsibility for the well-being of the lower one by providing social services and, generally speaking, by demonstrating that his or her higher position is also beneficial for the community in general.

Thus, wealth and luxury in themselves are not against Indonesian values, but only when they coexist with blatant poverty and destitution. Differences in wealth, in influence, in social status are accepted, but only as long as nobody within the same region falls into subhuman conditions (according to the values of the community) or destitution. Thus, for example, the ongoing expansion of golf courses, while surrounding people have no houses, is felt as unjust and offensive. Disregard by those profiting from a fortunate fate towards the rest of the community, shows a loss of the fundamental feeling of the unity of the community and is therefore unjust and morally wrong. Thus the existence of an upper class of super-rich people, living very visibly in their own world, surrounded by facilities that are completely out of reach of ordinary people, is regarded as an unjust, metaphysically unstable condition, which will come to an end at a destined time.

The strongest feelings of injustice are elicited when the procuring of facilities for the wealthy and powerful is achieved by destroying the livelihood of common people. For example, when people lose their huts -- and very often also their livelihood, because they used to find it in the neighborhood from which they are ousted - in order to make room for big projects, or when their agricultural land is taken over, all with quite insufficient compensation, such experiences result in deep, ongoing feelings of being treated unjustly. Such a state of affairs should, in the opinion of common people, not go on. Maybe their deepest feeling can be expressed in this way: " We, the people, have always treated you with respect, we have not envied you for your wealth and fortunate conditions, we have acknowledged that you are important for society, and now you treat us as garbage, you have no regard for our very modest needs, you kick us out, you destroy us: this is not right, this cries out to heaven!"