

My ears are chewed very definitely off. And I’ve been in Timor only one out of at least four weeks. This introvert is going to need more time out, perhaps wandering along the beaches.
A thick Bangladeshi accent features consistently in the conversation mix, although interestingly this comes with observations that both “me and you have English good good, unlike others who speak only English little little”. These “conversations” (so long as “conversation”’s definition does not require input from both parties) are long and intense. At first the Bangladeshi focus might be surprising, right in the heart of Timor. But actually I’ve come to realise there’s rhyme and reason to it. I’ll come back to that shortly.

I’ve been pondering the pervasive “feel” of the East Timor culture. Earlier this week I’d decided people carry a sense of peace, and that was a lovely conclusion to reach. The children certainly play in the streets with joyful, safe abandon even welcoming strangers like myself – consistent with that “peaceful” idea. But while I still sense that same peace, there is something yet more behind the local parents’ eyes that I don’t think “peace” quite captures.
I went for a bus ride on #10 “microlet” yesterday, just to get a different view of the city. Each bus does a complete loop, so I got on and off at about the same place, which somewhat confused the driver. No matter. On that #10 I was watching the milling scooters – easily 90% of traffic – and was struck in particular with a young lady’s reaction to being cut off in the traffic. I could probably more accurately describe “lack of” reaction. With empty eyes hardly even noticing what happened, she backed away and allowed the infraction as if it were just “her lot” to be beaten into place. Perhaps you might observe a “gentle politeness”, with some truth to that, but in that moment of clarity I came to see it as “resigned”.
That one incident actually simply represented the entire ebb and flow of the traffic. Perhaps traffic everywhere reflects the heartbeat of a culture? India is chaotic. China is dense, but controlled (I believe – haven’t been). In Australia the tall-poppy syndrome informs a bit of dog-eat-dog undercurrent playing impatiently with the flow of law-abiding exterior. American traffic is just big, with large petrol-guzzling beasts dominating massive multi-lane roads. It strikes me that each of these work as a metaphor for each prevailing culture, and perhaps Timor Leste is no different.
Resigned.

Timor Leste is very visibly proud of the hard-fought independence. But two decades years later it is hard, at least at a foreigner’s first glance, to see much benefit from that. Most of the people here appear to be dirt poor.

There are only the smallest pockets of real opulence and freedom, such as the President’s palace. But otherwise this town of more than twice Launceston’s population [correction – closer to Hobart’s population in Tas] has almost nothing. No decent infrastructure. Few roads worthy of that description. Very little clean and inviting parkland. Poor sanitation, which might be responsible for my brief bout of Delhi-belly (or was that Dili-belly?) earlier this week. The most appealing enterprise I’ve seen is the fishermen on their wooden craft who are “adept with net, spear and trap”. Yes, there is a romantic attraction here, and yes, as a foreign visitor I have no ability to really judge what I see. But life here certainly appears to be hard. And supports such as medical, financial, etc that we take for granted in the West are absent – again noting that Timorese no doubt have a strength of family and community that we in the West have somewhat thrown away.

Resigned. The independence no doubt came with promises of “better”. I’m told that the last regime was oppressive. I can see that this regime has not delivered freedom. I doubt it will. Those who’ve seen the old and the new must now shrug their shoulders and say “What can we do? Surely this is just our lot.”
Just like the young lady on the scooter.
Resigned. I don’t think the Timor Leste (broader) culture has much into offer for my search for hope, unless by way of contrast to remind me of the richness I have in (broader) family, friends, opportunity and most of all in my faith. I guess “opportunity” differentiates. [edit: according to a local pastor the high percentage of Christianity is a matter of census record rather than real faith, which is significant to my pondering here]
So let’s come back to our favourite local Bangladeshi. He happens to be Mokul, the owner and host of the backpacker. Although it takes a real focus and energy to translate on the fly to “my version” of English, I do enjoy his company. I’m in fact looking forward to his invitation to come to his own home and to meet his family over a meal tonight.
Mokul has worked extremely hard to build three good businesses here in Dili, after apparently losing some even more successful endeavours overseas to government corruption. I’m quite sure that Mokul’s Muslim faith informs a strict code of honesty, so for example I’m sure that if I left something valuable at the Backpackers he would chase me down to return it. But this is somewhat “blended”, shall we say, with a “pragmatism” when it comes to dealing with government. It is not really mine to judge, but I can observe. Hard work and business nous are not the only ingredients in his – or anyone’s, I dare say – success here in Dili.
And that is the point that ties these thoughts together. Multi-million (US) dollar loans are made, possible only with a few hundred thousand dollars back quietly under the table. In fact, a bit of under-the-table gratitude paves the way not just for loans but also for substantial government grants. There is surely wealth for the taking here, if you’re a foreigner with a business degree, a hard work ethic and a “creative” application of commercial law. Mokul will in short order become quite a mogul here, I believe. Mokul the mogul. And then his plan is to take that wealth and settle his family in a “better” country.
I probably don’t need to explicitly draw the link to the “resigned” culture of the locals.
With all due respect to the many NGOs who do good work in this place, my (“uninformed” – let’s be fair) first impression is that the only path to lifting this whole people out of poverty would be a systemic overhaul of governance at all levels. Every other effort is surely little more than window dressing. Until endeavour is rewarded only by natural processes and not greasing palms, poverty will remain endemic. Opportunity cannot take root for the people in the seedbed of corrupt government. The powers that be presumably just don’t care.
Interestingly, in my home corner of Victoria Australia, it is my man-on-the-street perspective that we’re rushing headlong towards an economy more and more dominated by palm greasing, and by entrenched systemic wealth shifting to powerful political lobbies and to friends of those lobbies. Sound familiar? It’ll be interesting to see how that experiment goes. Maybe in a few years Melbournians will be emigrating to Dili to improve our lot. What a waste of the lessons we could learn from a vast body of history’s terrible examples of the devastating poverty wrought by such bribery and corruption.
1 Comment
Thanks Daniel. How sad.
Reading this summary reminded me of the negative impact and functioning of the communist regime and associated corruptive processes.