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Editorial: The art of blaming everyone else

The Democratic Progressive Party government has been smacked around by the electorate because of its inability to deliver on its promises, and rightly so. Buoyed, perhaps, by the drama of it all, many voters will feel vindicated by the result, even if the prospect of positive reforms being enacted in the near future remains uncertain at best. Still, it is encouraging that corruption has a bad name again.

But accountability resides in places other than the ballot box and with people other than victorious candidates on election day.

Take the bizarre tolerance for the excessive behavior of cram schools, for example. Families of high school students would hardly be surprised to find cram school junk mail crowding their mailboxes on a daily basis, though some might wonder at the large number of letters personally addressed to either the student or the parents. Then come the near-daily phone calls: eager young voices asking to speak to children to coax them into joining their cram school.

Finally, it becomes all too clear: This parasitic industry has regular access -- presumably certain school or government officials are being bribed -- to confidential personal details that are collected under the authority of the education ministry. A good proportion of cram schools then brazenly abuse that information, invading the privacy of people's homes and daring to market themselves directly to children. All of this is for profit, cleverly dressed up as a necessary educational supplement. When the enthusiastic voice on the other end of the line is asked how the cram school came by its information, there is a pause, followed by the dumb response, "I'm sorry, I really don't know."

Yet nothing is done. The police know it is happening but do not act (even though the same sources of information are likely being accessed by criminals who demand money from parents whose children have been "kidnapped"). The schools and the education ministry know it is happening but do not act. Crucially, parents know deep down that all of this is improper -- but do not act. It is a situation that is so entrenched and seemingly acceptable now to the average person that junior high students taking final exams must first run a teeming gauntlet of pubescent touts working for the cram schools outside where exams are held -- in indecent anticipation that many thousands will not achieve good results and supposedly need cram school assistance to pass the optional supplementary exam.

There comes a point in any society where the general public's blaming of legislators and officers in the executive begins to mask its own refusal to stand up for itself and set standards it expects of others. There is more to a healthy economy and democracy than purging the executive, the legislature and local councils and governments every electoral cycle. If certain people shrug their shoulders and complain that their elected officials are hopeless, then those same people must also embrace the responsibility of acting against corruption and abuse of process in their own backyards. Otherwise, cynicism toward politics becomes merely a function of self-indulgence and self-imposed alienation rather than a signal that this nation's political and administrative fabric is irredeemably tainted.
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