Indonesia is considered a religious country, but
the number of corruption is very high. According to
your opinion, why has this happened?
We got various answers and herewith the
prominent ones:
Faith doesn't fulfill our needs. Religion has a
standard, and humans have their own standard;
The necessity of life makes the standard
adjusted to reality. The goal of working is to
earn a living, not peace of mind through
religious practices;
Corruption is about greed, doesn’t correlate
with religiosity;
People who look religious, are not always real
pious. It’s an image. There’s a belief that
corruption is acceptable, as long as some of the
money is donated to charity;
Religiosity is the safest mask to cover
corruption;
Religion is just a ritual, not spiritual;
Some people believe that they can repent
afterward, and will be forgiven;
Some perpetrators even consider corruption as
an opportunity to do charitable acts, as they
would donate some of the money to charity;
Fear of God's law doesn't mean the fear of state
law. Moreover, punishment for corruptors is
considered light. Also, corruptors able to use
money from corruption to bribe law enforcers;
It’s a tradition for a long time ago;
Indonesians still have a feudal mentality.
Power and property take control;
Religion rituals are an obligation. There's a
belief that people can balance their sins with
good deeds, such as charity, and perform the
pilgrimage. Hence, corruption practices can be
balanced with charity and pilgrimage;
In Christian belief, even during the Jesus era,
corruption already existed. This is because
people love money more than God.
Referring to the literature study, plus netizen's
answers above, it seems that in Indonesia, there is an
unconnected relation between religious rituals and
religion values implementation. Religion becomes an
obligatory ritual, not applicable ideas.
Former Indonesia Vice President, Mohammad
Hatta, ever mentioned that the most important aspect
in eradicating corruption is not merely in the form of
rules or institutions, but based on the strong desire
and firmness of all parties to eradicate corruption
(Kompas, September 23, 1970).
This opinion is still relevant today. There is no
correlation between religion and corruption; for
people understanding toward religion is superficial.
Therefore, it requires an act to repair the condition
and build a connection between the two so that the
role of religion can scrape the seeds of corruption.
5 Conclusions
This paper has a limitation, since the methodology
is a literature review with limited sources of data, plus
supported with a random check for findings
confirmation through twitter. Hopefully, in the future,
more comprehensive research could be conducted.
The result of this study reveals that there is no real
connection between religion/belief and corruption.
Hence, back to the question: why does Indonesia that
is considered as a country of believers, acquire piles
of corruption practices? The answer is: although
people consider themselves as believers who truly
believe in their beliefs, they justify certain corruption
act as common practice and part of the culture.
Since corruption has become ingrained and
developed into a tradition, rely on punishment for the
perpetrators is not sufficient to eradicate it.
In order to eradicate corruption, society needs to
change a habit and culture, and it requires an extra
effort from both the government and society itself.
The authors of this paper recommend authorized
parties to improve religion teachings. Implementation
of religious values, morality, justice, and ethics must
be emphasized in the teachings, instead of merely
concepts and theories.
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