Shame Culture and Corruption

in Indonesia

Yenny

15609548

Gunadarma University

English Department

2012

I. Introduction

1.1 Background of the Problem

Corruption is a word which may have countless horrible effects and bad impacts

in people’s lives all around the world, including the people of Indonesia. Nowadays,

corruption grows significantly inside the body of our government and the people who are

in charge of this country seem to be more ignorant of the fact that most of our people are

far from happiness. Meanwhile, the corruptors can eat, breath, and sleep peacefully

everyday without ever concerning about the consequences of their mistakes. Moreover,

most of the corruptors are the people who have high positions, not only in offices but also

in the government.

This kind of moral deviation is mainly caused by the absence of shame culture in

Indonesia. Without the existence of shame culture in our daily life, many people feel free

to do anything they like, even the bad and the wrong things, as long as other people don’t

know about it. They keep doing the wrong because there are chances for them to do it

without being known by other people. That’s what happens to the corruptors. They don’t

feel shame and guilty at all to steal people’s money secretly.

Most of the corruptors don’t want to reveal their mistakes in front of many

people. They will do whatever it takes in order to defend themselves even though their

mistakes have been revealed and known by the others and there is evidence about it.

Sometimes they even accuse someone else to get rid of the suspicion. They have lost the

sense of responsibility within their hearts. Therefore, after understanding and observing

the facts that happen in Indonesian people, the writer comes up to a hypothesis that many

Indonesian people tend to abandon shame culture so that the corruption grows freely

within the country.

1.2 Identification of the Problem

From the hypothesis which has been mentioned before, the problem of this

research is the significant development of corruption in Indonesia because of the absence

of shame culture among the people nowadays. In the other words, the main topics of this

research are shame culture and corruption in Indonesia, and also how they are related to

each other.

1.3 Limitation of the Problem

Even though the topic is about shame culture and corruption which can be related

to many countries, still this research is limited to Indonesia because the main subject of

this research is about the condition of Indonesian people itself. In the discussion there are

several examples about other countries too which have to be stated in order to support the

hypothesis. The explanation of shame culture is limited to its relation with the

development of corruption in Indonesia. The explanation of corruption in Indonesia is not

too detail because what the writer want to discuss is just about its growth which is caused

by the absence of shame culture among most of the Indonesian people. So, the cases

about corruptors in Indonesia are not included because there are too many to be

discussed. Therefore, the main focus of shame culture and corruption is limited to how

they are related to each other.

1.4 Statement of the Problem

The problems which are discussed in this research are:

1. What is shame culture?

2. What is the relation between corruption and shame culture?

3. Is it true that many Indonesian people don’t have shame culture anymore in

their daily life?

1.5 Aims of the Research

The aims of this research are:

1. to introduce the readers about the meaning of shame culture and the

importance of it in people life.

2. to show the readers about the relation between corruption and shame culture.

3. to find out whether Indonesian people still have shame culture or not.

1.6 Benefit of the Research

The benefit of this research is to find the theories about shame culture and

corruption and also their effects and implication in a country, especially in Indonesia.

Hopefully, this research can enrich the knowledge of the readers about the condition of

Indonesian people and increase their morality and their sense of responsibility which has

been left by many people lately. By developing the sense of responsibility, perhaps the

readers can understand that our nation is in the edge of humanity because of corruption so

that they will think twice if they want to do something bad like that. As we know that

until now Indonesia still cannot be separated with corruption so that the people have to

change from themselves. Knowing, understanding, and implementing such positive

values as shame culture can increase the reader’s value and worth as a human being who

have brain to think and heart to feel.

1.7 Methods of the Research

The method which is used in this research is library research. So, the data were

collected from several related articles and books. It cannot be denied that the

development of technology has simplified human’s job to send information to the entire

of the world so that most of the data come from many blogs and online newspaper which

can be accessed by the internet. After the data had been collected, they were sorted and

analyzed according to the topic of the research.

2. Theoretical Framework

In this paper, the theory about shame culture is used as the main base of the

research. First of all, we have to know the definition of culture itself. According to

Schein:

“The culture of a group can now be defined as a pattern of shared basic assumptions learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, which has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.”(Schein, 2010)

Therefore, culture is produced by men in their experiences in the past which

contains knowledge, belief, behavior, and moral standard in a group. The culture is

descended through generations and also to the new members of the group so that the

historical values within it can last until now.

According to K. Bertens, culture can be divided into shame culture and guilt

culture. In shame culture, the most important thing is what people think about someone.

The punishment comes from outside the individual. Reputation and pride are very

important to the people so they won’t do anything that can harm and make a shame to

themselves. But the weakness of this culture is people can do the wrong thing as long as

it is not known by other people. So, if they have done a mistake, they will do anything to

cover it.

In contrast, guilt culture is a culture where the people do anything that they think

right. They tend to be more individualistic because most of them think that what they do

has nothing to do with other people’s thought. The strength of this culture is the existence

of sin and guilty feeling inside the people’s heart. When someone does a mistake, he will

feel guilty even though there’s nobody know about it. The effect of this guilt culture

comes from the inside of the individual. Therefore, some experts said that shame culture

is generally used in eastern countries and guilt culture is commonly found in western

countries.

Besides shame culture, the theory about corruption is also included in this

research although it is not too detail. Corrupt comes from the word “corruptus” in Latin

which means “to abuse or to destroy”. In political field, corruption means the abuse of

power and resources by government officials for personal interest.

Corruption happens in almost every country in this world, including Indonesia.

Indonesia that has abundant natural resources but lack of high quality human resources is

a good and suitable target for the corruptors. For many years ago, Indonesia has been

ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Even until today, corruption can

be seen not only inside the government but also in offices, organizations, and among

common people.

3. Shame Culture and Corruption

Indonesia is a rich country which has abundant natural resources but there are also

countless poor people who really need money and food in order to survive. People pay

taxes every year but where does the money go? Corruption may be the best answer for

this question. According to Corruption Perception Index (CPI) which is published by

Transparency International (TI), from 183 countries, Indonesia was in the 100th position

of the cleanest country in the world in 2011. Of course in this case the word “cleanest”

doesn’t mean free from dirt or pollution but it refers to a condition that is clean from

corruption. There were also eleven countries which had the same position as Indonesia;

they are Argentina, Benin, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Gabon, Madagascar, Malawi, Mexico,

Sao Tome and Principe, Suriname, and Tanzania. Meanwhile, the cleanest country in the

world is New Zealand and the most corrupt country is Somalia. The ranks of these

countries are determined by the assessment of many experts and opinion survey in which

each country is ranked with a score from 1 to 10. The score 1 means the most corrupt

country and 10 means the cleanest country. The score of New Zealand is 9.5 and Somalia

is 1.0. Then how about Indonesia? In 2002, Indonesia’s score was 1.9 and now it

becomes 3.0. There is a progress indeed, but it is still very far from good.

Corruption has created a bigger gap between the rich and the poor. While the rich

become richer and richer by corrupting the poor’s money, the poor don’t have any chance

and enough power to take it back so they are just forced to become poorer. This is what

exactly happens in Indonesia. There is no need to become an expert or a highly educated

person to know and understand about this situation in Indonesia. Thousand hundreds of

people live in poverty and hunger in this rich country. It is just like a cock that dies

because of hunger in a rice barn which is full of grain.

Just take a look at the newspapers and the television. The news about corruption

is always there everyday but most of them still in a dead end. The corruptors who have

been arrested always tend to elude from the accusation. None of them frankly admit their

mistakes. They are afraid of being charged and put into the cells. They get rid of their

responsibility and abandon the morality. And even though there is evidence that proves

their mistakes, they bring out the other’s mistakes instead. It is so sad that many of them

have lost their sensibility of the future of this country.

One important thing that has caused this phenomenon is the absence of shame

culture. If a person wants to do the wrong things, he will think twice because he knows

that it will be very shameful if it is known by other people. He will be more respectful to

the rules. But if he finally cannot avoid of making a mistake, he will take a responsibility

immediately because he knows that if he defends himself even for awhile, he will lost all

of him. The higher the position, the more important the honor. Of course the idea of

shame culture is not only about pride, honor, and dignity of someone, but it also means

the person know how to value himself and his job, how to take responsibility of what he

has done, and how to behave among the people. For the people who live in shame

culture, not making mistakes is good but being responsible for the mistakes is the best

thing.

In this case, the Indonesian people can learn a lot from Japan. Everybody knows

that Japan is a country which is well-known of its shame culture. The shame culture has

been descended from generation to generation so it has been rooted in their daily life and

their way of thinking. In the past, the Japanese samurai used to do “harakiri”, kill

themselves by cutting their stomach if they had lost in a war or a battle. It was an

example of shame culture. They preferred to lose their lives rather than their dignity. But

it was not the only reason for them to do harakiri. They thought that they had failed to

accomplish their job so they took the responsibility by doing it.

Until now, shame culture can be seen in many aspects of the Japanese life,

especially in the political field. The Japan’s Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, for the

example, resigned from his position in 2010 because he failed to fulfill his promise in the

campaign. There is also Naoto Kan, who was the former Prime Minister of Japan, finally

resigned in 2011 because of tsunami, earthquake, and nuclear disaster in Japan. Even

though all of those things were not his fault, but he said that Japan deserves to look for

another leader who is more respectful and responsible. The other example is Seiji

Maehara, Japan’s Foreign Minister, who also resigned from his position in 2011 after

being criticized for accepting an illegal political donation from a South Korean national

resident in Japan. Even the worst is Naotoshi Nakajima, the Hokkaido railway president,

who committed suicide by jumping into the sea after a train accident in May 2011. There

were 35 people injured but fortunately nobody died in the accident. His body was found

six days later and he left a suicide letter. In his letter, he said that he was really sorry for

the train accident and he also asked the other workers to always keep an eye on the safety

of the train’s passengers.

The value of shame culture can also be seen in the latest news from Greece. The

Culture Minister of Greece, Pavlos Geruolanos, resigned on 17 February 2012 after two

robbers stole at least 60 ancient valuable objects from a museum in Olympia. And of

course there are also many other examples of shame culture from all around the world but

the examples from Japan and Greece above are quite enough to emphasize the value of

shame culture. Shame culture which is shown by those previous examples is absolutely

not a way to get rid of the responsibility. The fact is they resigned because they realized

that they were not able to solve the problem anymore so they wanted to give a chance to

the others who are more capable and can handle it for the sake of the country and also of

their people.

This kind of culture is very important to be developed in Indonesia, especially for

the children who are in the state of forming their characters. Shame when doing

something wrong, shame when taking the other’s money, shame when telling lies. It is

not only talking about ourselves, but also about the others and God. By doing mistakes, a

person will become shame to himself, shame to the others, and the most important thing

is feeling shame to the God because God knows everything that he has done.

But unfortunately, many Indonesian people start to close their hearts from this

shame feeling because of the influence of western culture. Western people are mostly

individualistic and liberal which means that they tend to implement guilt culture rather

than shame culture. Guilt culture has a good effect actually in which the feeling of guilty

comes from the inside of the person, not by the prejudices from the others. So, it means

that the person will keep listening to his own heart about what is right and what is wrong.

He is aware of the existence of the sins if he does something bad. But the weakness of

guilt culture which always happens in Indonesia is the person won’t feel guilty if he

thinks what he does is not wrong. Because the measurement of guilty or not is in the

person’s hand, he can do anything that he likes as long as it is good for him.

Every single corruptor has one main goal that is to get money as much as they can

for they families. Their purpose is very good indeed, but the way they achieve it is totally

wrong. Everybody knows that corrupting is the same as stealing the other’s money and

stealing is not a good thing to do, both according to laws and religions. But then the

question is if they know that corruption is bad, why do they still do that? Perhaps the

answer is because they don’t feel guilty when doing that. They don’t feel guilty because

they think that there are many people who do that too. That is why guilt culture cannot be

implemented in this country. However, if there is shame culture, people will think twice

before corrupting because they know that even though there is nobody who knows about

their mistakes, there is someone who always knows everything in this world, He is God.

The fact is many people even don’t know what shame culture really is. So, the

values of shame culture have to be taught to every people in Indonesia, including the

children, because it is very important for them to know it as soon as possible so they will

apply it in their daily life. The changes of a country come within the people itself so if

Indonesian people want to change their country to be a better one, they have to change

themselves first.

4. Conclusion

Corruption is very cruel and unforgiveable because the corruptors seem to be

innocent and proud of themselves even though they have stolen the other people’s

money. One of the reasons is because the laws in Indonesia are very weak, especially for

the people who have wealth and power. Of course this situation cannot be reformed

easily. The changes have to come from the people itself. However, many Indonesian

people nowadays are influenced by western culture which makes them become more

individualistic and ignorant. Therefore, shame culture starts to fade away from people’s

life. That is why the existence of shame culture is very important among Indonesian

people.

Corruption makes the people who do it become worthless. However, shame

culture makes them think about how to value themselves and the life of the others. In

shame culture, the feeling of shame when doing something wrong is very important:

shame to ourselves, shame to the others, and certainly shame to the God. Therefore, to

decrease the number of corruption cases, Indonesian people have to develop the value of

shame culture as soon as possible among the people, especially for the young generations

who will become the next leader of this country, before it is too late.

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