If you want the honest answer, here it is. Most people blame the lack of natural resources, colonialism and the location of a country. If it was for any of those, then Japan would still be a third world country. In reality, it’s the people that make up a country. They run the show, so ultimately, you can only blame the Indonesian people, their attitude and outlook for reasons why their country is so underdeveloped.
- Laziness: Indonesians are well known to be lazy and unmotivated to work, let alone develop new ways of thinking to enrich their country. I highlight the dirty beaches of Indonesia as an example. Instead of throwing trash in trash bins, many Indonesians are too lazy to walk and throw trash properly so they throw them on the once beautiful sandy beaches of Indonesia, especially in Java. These beaches are literally filled with empty coke cans and bottles, plastic snack bags, cigarette butts (Indonesians love to smoke and poison their lungs!), broken Bintang beer glass bottles and more. It’s a shocking view to see these beautiful beaches tarnish by lazy Indonesians.
- Corruption: Indonesian government is highly corrupt. Again, going back to being lazy, the people just want to get rich quick, and for government officials, the fastest way is to receive dirty corrupted money from rich civilians. Since most Indonesians are poor, they usually end up in jail for a long time if they commit a crime. Don’t bother with the police here, Indonesians hate them for corruption reasons. Need more proof? Look up Neil Bantleman, a Canadian teacher at Jakarta Intercultural School, who was wrongfully accused of child sexual abuse even though there was no evidence to support the crime.
- Lack of Foreign Investment: I refer to No. 2, if Indonesia is so corrupted, why would any rich countries like America, UK, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and even China want to invest? They may not get their money back, as there is no justice in Indonesia in their civil and criminal court systems.
- Hypocrisy: Being a hypocrite is a trademark of Indonesians. They will tell you not to do certain things, but they do it themselves. Unequal treatment and injustice will only serve to the bitter end. When your people are bitter, there’s no development, no innovation and certainly no incremental improvements. That’s a fact.
- Jealousy: Indonesians know they are poor and uneducated compared to foreigners that come to Indonesia. Instead of actually learning from people that come from first world countries, they become jealous quickly and easily. All they can think about is how to extort money from light skinned foreigners like you.
- Fake Facade: Many people say Indonesians are friendly and they smile a lot. It is true, they do all that, but it’s just a facade to lure you in to their circle of thieves as a potential mission to extort your money away from you. If you are light skinned, you will be perceived to be rich, and their only interest is your money, not your friendship. Be very careful and don’t let those smiles and their friendliness fool you as a light skinned foreigner. You should be wary who you make friends with and find out indirectly what their intentions are. Of course, not all Indonesians behave this way.
- Thin-Skinned: Indonesians are extremely defensive when a foreigner mentions anything that is remotely negative about their country. They can’t and won’t accept criticism. How can you expect to be successful if you’re butt hurt all the time? Indonesians should be grateful that someone is pointing out their flaws so they can improve. Imagine if no one spoke about it, Indonesians won’t even think to change their behaviors and their lazy habits. If you come to Indonesia, feed them with sugar, for they don’t like honest sincere opinions.
- Under Reported Crimes: Don’t think just because the murder/violence rate is low, you’d think Indonesia is a very safe country, it’s not. Indonesia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world. You can’t walk safely by yourself even during the day in any Indonesian city, especially if your skin color doesn’t match a typical native Indonesian. If you are white, Chinese, or any light skinned individual, you will be perceived to be rich and you will be attacked, robbed and if you retaliate, you will be murdered. Most crimes in Indonesia are unreported, because as I said before, the police here are corrupted and no one wants to call the police even for violence and therefore there’s no report of the crime.
- Vicious Circle: Besides being envious and jealous of foreigners, the Indonesians hate their government, because they never put effort to care for their own citizens. The people know it and as a result they do nothing to further the improve of their own nation. It’s impossible for a country to be successful if the government does not take care of its own people. Enough said.
- Lack of Freedom of Expression: In America, Freedom is an important part of human rights. It’s also the reason why there are many entrepreneurs with creative ideas. It is this sort of freedom of expression that allowed America and many other first world countries to prosper. In Indonesia, there’s no such freedom and no such human rights. It’s super difficult to register a business as a P.T. company and take long bureaucratic months and even years to just get your business to start accepting customers. If you don’t allow the freedom of ideas and creativity to flow in your country, don’t expect your country to be successful. Plain simple.
- Inefficiency: It’s very hard to change the lazy and bad habits of the Indonesian people, and so inviting talented foreigners to build business and show off their skills is another possible way for Indonesia to prosper. Using the skills of a foreign talent, which is exactly what Singapore is doing. Problem is, to get a KITAS takes forever. An American vlogger in Indonesia, Martin Johnson, has been trying to get KITAS now for almost one year and he still travels and lives in Indonesia as a tourist visa holder and has to do visa runs to Malaysia every 60 days. If you won’t treat your own people right, and you make it hard for foreign talent to contribute to Indonesia, then don’t expect your country to be successful. America, Japan, Taiwan and Korea are lucky, because their people are already smart working and intelligent people and so these countries prosper.
- Model Minority Emigration: Of course, not all Indonesians are what I described above, these model minority Indonesians are smart, innovative, truly nice and have cool ideas and want desperately to better their country. Problem is, they are surrounded by a sea of lazy, incompetent and unmotivated people. It’s important to surround yourself with people smarter than you and this minority group can’t grow and as a result no innovations take place. Some of these minority Indonesians immigrate to USA or Singapore to establish their talent there instead of home. In the end, Indonesia does not benefit from these talented Indonesians. Sad but true.
These are only some of the reasons why Indonesia is so underdeveloped and very little improvements have been made for the past 20 years since Suharto stepped down in 1998. The police in Indonesia are so corrupt, you can’t even rely on them for any sort of help, unless you’re lucky and you have a lot of money. If you come to Indonesia, be prepared to stay away from trouble and understand that you are on your own. Forget about your American embassy, they can’t do much to help. Look at what happened to Neil Bantleman as an example. He’s a victim of Indonesian corruption system.
Will Indonesia ever be a developed first world country? It sure is possible, but many issues need to be fixed first and it all starts with the change in their bad habits, attitude and outlook of the Indonesian people.
quoted from here
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