We made our way back to Dina’s house to hang out for a while. Dina’s dad is a county policeman,,, and somehow,,, conversation always comes back to politics, poverty in Indonesia, and comparing conditions here to America.
His policeman’s salary puts him in the $220 a month pay bracket. My book “Indonesian Destinies” was just explaining that police, military & civil service salaries were deliberately emaciated under the Suharto regime to ensure unquestioning loyalty to the hand that feeds them… selectively of course- loyal subjects tend to eat better. Those sectors of society charged with carrying arms (police + military) rarely revolt against those who sign their paychecks.
Today, many unfortunate side-effects continue to stem from that policy of putting people in positions of authority a short step away from poverty themselves.
In Les Miserables, Jean val-jean was forced to steal bread because he & his family were starving. Here, many police are pushed into bribe-seeking & creative security rackets to supplement their skimpy paychecks and support their families as well. Makes it hard to defend ‘rule of law’ standards that we take for granted in the United States, when so many levels of officialdom are put in this awkward position.