Monday, December 10, 2007

Java culture recognises supernatural powers. A person with supernatural power is one who has ability to face certain constraints with extraordinary ways, for example, he is invulnerable and can’t be wounded by bullets or sharp weapons, or he can walk on the water. Some of supernatural powers are regarded as coming from power within one’s own self; some others are believed to be inherent in certain things. Those things with supernatural powers are called jimats (charms) from the Arabic word “‘azimat”. Those things are, among others, creeses, rings, and yellow irons. Those who want to get the supernatural power usually collect those kinds of things as much as possible. Political leaders wants charms intended to strengthen their powers, criminals interest in charms intended to cheat their to-be victims, lazy persons desire charms which can be used to obtain properties without working, and coquettish persons look for charms to attract certain people from the other sex.

This way of thinking stressing on “shortcuts” is also implemented by bureaucracy officers who tend to enrich themselves by using “shortcuts”, using certain strategies in manipulating regulations, deviating from rules, or recklessly breaking the rules to gain a lot of money shortly. This practice is called corruption. Those corrupting officers’ focus of attention is how to gain properties as much as possible while they still own authorities, while they still in their positions. Since there is similarity between their way of thinking and way of thinking of those people with supernatural powers used in handling certain constraints in extraordinary ways, then the “skill” of those corrupter is called “charm of opportunity” meaning opportunistic, making use existing opportunities as much as possible while still possessing powers.

Those having the charms of opportunities are intelligent in terms of certain numbers, but they are not intelligent in terms of space and time. They are intelligent in calculating amount of money that they can embezzle, but they are not intelligent in terms of the places that they will have to live in and how long they will be in uncomfortable situations. Just imagine an ex-officer who had the “charm of opportunity”, he may have had 25 houses in Jakarta, billions rupiahs of deposits, but when he achieves the elder ages after getting retired he is sued to be responsible for his “charm of opportunity” he had had when has was in position. In climax, no one of the houses he can live in, since then he has to stay in a small room of a prison for seven years. Imagine, in his elder days he should have been living happily with his grand children, but instead he has to spend his time in a narrow room of a prison.