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An American friend who visited Indonesia once remarked to me: "You Indonesians must be good people, that's why there are so many beggars around. And not only that they look well-fed and some are not even handicapped."
I liked this remark very much, because it is true that we are a friendly people, everywhere you look you see smiles and everybody is ready to help you. We are generous to the poor and even to the beggars, who flock to the big cities to earn some money, especially now, during the month of Ramadhan, when the spirit of philanthropy is at its height. But then he added: "Maybe it is better for them if people are not so generous. It will teach them that they have to work for their food and that they should not be parasites of the rich...."
Well, who are we that we feel we can teach people? Do we have the right to teach a beggar, just because they are poor and we are richer? Let us first find out why people give besides the giving of alms around the month of the fast.
The answer is that we sometimes do it to get something out of it. "More give, plenty come," is my friend Bob's favorite adage. He always gives generously and he is a big business man now.
Another motivation to give is for penitence. It feels good to help people after you have done something wrong.
But why do people become beggars? Not only because they are poor, but also because that is the way of life they have adopted. To work means that you have to go a certain place every day and have to dress appropriately. For that you have to spend money. Another thing is the discipline. Why do you have to obey others people wishes? It is worse when you get a job as domestic servant.
In the first place you work under somebody who pays you for your services. But the housewife feels that she has the right to scold, or even hit you or throw a pail of hot water at you.. Or even worse, the man in the house may want to rape you.
Judging from that point of view beggars enjoy quite a lot of freedom. They don't have to dress in uniforms, they have no strict working hours, they do not have to abide to discipline, but they have ethics. One of them is, that they have their own territory and should not enter other people's. Another is that they should not threaten people into giving. But there are no restrictions about which people are allowed to beg. There are even agencies that rent a child and all the women have to do is to carry it and sometimes give them "breast feeding".
That begging is a lucrative business is shown by "the one-armed bandit". Well he is not a bandit, but one of arms has been amputated and that gave him reason to join the beggars, although he had a robust appearance. One day I snapped at him: "You don't have to beg, you should be working." From that day he just avoided me but kept on begging. And one day I discovered why.
I was sitting at one of the many branches of Mac Donald's when I saw him entering. He was smartly dressed and looked clean. I wondered whether he was "reformed" and had taken on a job and was now buying some food for his boss, when I saw him sitting down and eating his cheeseburger with the same gusto as a laborer would eat after a hard day's work.
The next day he was at his "job" again. This time I decided to give him money, because I can now appreciate him more as a human being, who wants to keep up with the progress in his country.
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