"Erwin, hast du schon mal gehört, die Leute in Europa wollen kein Babys und nun gibt es mehr und mehr Muslim Leute! Das ist scheisse!"
Translated to English it would be something like, "Erwin, have you heard that here in Europe people don't like to have children and now there are more and more Muslim? Oh shit!" I was washing my dishes and have for more than five minutes overheard what my house-mate here in Regensburg listening to in her room that was opened (i think it was something like church propaganda called 'call for action' or something), before she came outside and panick.
I said to her I know that is true that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, but what is so 'scheisse'? She then explain that it is really bad if Europe will be run by the Muslim, which according to her always fight on the street and shout at their wives, and that European people should do something about it. She further added that Muslim people always do violence, blowing up buildings and kill other people. Then I asked her, if she's ever seen any muslim doing violence. She said she's never seen it, but that's what she always see about muslim in television.
I then assured her that I have never killed anyone and never have I ever have a plan to bomb buildings. So I hope she won't be scared of me, at least.
I then tried with the basic it's-only-stereotype explanation. But she seemed to be so clueless about the concept of steretotype. She also said that she is always scared whenever she sees people with burka or with beard, fearing that they would to terrible things, and she also thinks that the poverty in Africa are caused by muslim people (i did tried to convince her that there are different nations in Africa and they have different beliefs, also christians, and that Islam is not an absolute majority there). I then tried a more personal approach. I tried to explain that I am myself also a muslim believer (well maybe not a good one as she sees me drinking beer many times), and that I come from a country who has an overwhelingly large muslim population, and that there women are treated equal as man, and we even once had a woman president. Yet we have the biggest muslim population in the world. I then elaborate more what I meant by stereotype. I said to her that what she sees in TV does not represent Islam. I said to her it is 'scheisse' that those terrorist conduct violence under the name of Islam. We, muslims, are the people of peace. Nowhere in our religion condone violence to women, children, and innocent people. I shared to her about the bom that exploded in Jakarta few days ago. I said that they killed and hurt mainly muslim Indonesians, that has never done anything wrong to them. So there is no way whatever they belief in is the Islam what me, and most of 1.3 Billion others believe in.
She was nodding and giving signs that she was starting to understand this concept of sterotype and prejudice. I said to her that I acknowledge that it is not easy to fight stereotype that is echoed by the media. I too, most of the time feel scared with bearded men with turban, especially when I am sitting in an airplane next to one of them. So scared that I pray to God (the same one that those guys believe in i think), despite my pray-less days and all the sins i've been doing, hoping that they wont crash the plane to building or something. I further explain that stereotype against western people also exist in where I live. Some people still think that Germans are nazis and they hate foreigners and they drink beers allday. But that is NOT what I found here. I said to her that only with fighting stereotype and prejudice we can we end all these conflicts, as most of them rooted from misunderstanding towards each other.
So what I was concern was, if an educated university student like her could have such strong misconception, stereotype, and prejudice towards other, what would it be like for those people here in European countries who hasn't got enough education and whose jobs are lost amidst this economic crisis, and those conservative muslim back home in Indonesia, that all they see in TV is only the trashy and crappy part of american culture.
Stereotype and prejudice are, my friends, our enemies of today.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
International Symposium 2009 PART I
International Symposium 2009
Vision and Mission of Indonesian Intellectuals Abroad : Development Strategy of Indonesia towards 2020 Goal
PART I
That was how this symposium was called. The somewhat grandiose title of this symposium seemed to be promising some sort of significant changes or breakthroughs for our nation. Now how did it really go? Here are my personal accounts on the symposium.
I, honestly, have never participated in any of the International Indonesian Students Association (PPI) activities. Not that I wasn't willing to, but simply because we don't have one in the place where I study. However, I actively involved in my University's Indonesian students community, and have together with Indonesians students in Yale University and Cornell University initiated a discussion group, in which we meet bi-annually and take turns to present papers on some particular topics. Anyway, I just heard about this International Symposium two days before I went there and swiftly decided to participate. Without any pre-arranged transportation, I hitchiked a car to Amsterdam then took a train to The Hague.
The first speaker, Prof. Fasli Jalal (Indonesian Higher Education Department Executive), had already been talking about varieties of Indonesian students achievement abroad when I arrived at the auditorium of Museon Building The Hague. In his lecture, he mentioned students abroad who won the international robot competition and researchers who founded new species of flowers. From his keynote remarks it is implied that Indonesians are capable of being the pioneers in all areas of sciences. I found that his remark was rather entertaining – it was really fun to see what sort of rocket science inventions Indonesian students have achieved. However, I was rather concerned on how only those rocket science findings were highlighted. We have the tendency of only appreciating high-end achievement or by the number of degree that one hold. This would further make education as an exclusive matter. We should start caring about how to make good education as something that everyone should enjoy.
The second noteworthy remark were delivered by Mr. Anis Baswedan, the rector of Paramadina University who is also the youngest rector in Indonesia so far. Two other professors also joined him in this session about democracy in Indonesia. He eloquently identifies the problems that hindered our development. He thinks that we should now start to pay more attention to the so-called ‘architecture’ of Indonesian politics. In the basics of his political architecture, he divided the whole political scene as ‘input’, ‘process’, and ‘output’. Reformation era in Indonesia has liberalized the input for politics, but then the output comes out dissatisfying due to the lack of emphasize in processing the input. Institutions should reform themselves, to make them more effective to handle the input of democracy. Media should also play a constructive way to resonance the voices of the people. On the discussion session, I asked Mr. Baswedan what he things about the political parties in Indonesia and their programs. To me, so far political parties seemed to function more as self-identification. People mainly vote for party, which they feel they associate the most as a person. All parties that compete in the election varied widely corresponding to the diversity of Indonesian society, but I could barely tell the difference in their policy, let alone the platform in which they stood for. Mr Baswedan responded that we have not yet come to the phase where the parties could translate what they are fighting for in concrete policies stance.
Other activities during that day include: super-delicious Indonesian lunch (but unfortunately led to long late night toilet queue), and some afternoon talks that I didn’t find particularly interesting.
Vision and Mission of Indonesian Intellectuals Abroad : Development Strategy of Indonesia towards 2020 Goal
PART I
That was how this symposium was called. The somewhat grandiose title of this symposium seemed to be promising some sort of significant changes or breakthroughs for our nation. Now how did it really go? Here are my personal accounts on the symposium.
I, honestly, have never participated in any of the International Indonesian Students Association (PPI) activities. Not that I wasn't willing to, but simply because we don't have one in the place where I study. However, I actively involved in my University's Indonesian students community, and have together with Indonesians students in Yale University and Cornell University initiated a discussion group, in which we meet bi-annually and take turns to present papers on some particular topics. Anyway, I just heard about this International Symposium two days before I went there and swiftly decided to participate. Without any pre-arranged transportation, I hitchiked a car to Amsterdam then took a train to The Hague.
The first speaker, Prof. Fasli Jalal (Indonesian Higher Education Department Executive), had already been talking about varieties of Indonesian students achievement abroad when I arrived at the auditorium of Museon Building The Hague. In his lecture, he mentioned students abroad who won the international robot competition and researchers who founded new species of flowers. From his keynote remarks it is implied that Indonesians are capable of being the pioneers in all areas of sciences. I found that his remark was rather entertaining – it was really fun to see what sort of rocket science inventions Indonesian students have achieved. However, I was rather concerned on how only those rocket science findings were highlighted. We have the tendency of only appreciating high-end achievement or by the number of degree that one hold. This would further make education as an exclusive matter. We should start caring about how to make good education as something that everyone should enjoy.
The second noteworthy remark were delivered by Mr. Anis Baswedan, the rector of Paramadina University who is also the youngest rector in Indonesia so far. Two other professors also joined him in this session about democracy in Indonesia. He eloquently identifies the problems that hindered our development. He thinks that we should now start to pay more attention to the so-called ‘architecture’ of Indonesian politics. In the basics of his political architecture, he divided the whole political scene as ‘input’, ‘process’, and ‘output’. Reformation era in Indonesia has liberalized the input for politics, but then the output comes out dissatisfying due to the lack of emphasize in processing the input. Institutions should reform themselves, to make them more effective to handle the input of democracy. Media should also play a constructive way to resonance the voices of the people. On the discussion session, I asked Mr. Baswedan what he things about the political parties in Indonesia and their programs. To me, so far political parties seemed to function more as self-identification. People mainly vote for party, which they feel they associate the most as a person. All parties that compete in the election varied widely corresponding to the diversity of Indonesian society, but I could barely tell the difference in their policy, let alone the platform in which they stood for. Mr Baswedan responded that we have not yet come to the phase where the parties could translate what they are fighting for in concrete policies stance.
Other activities during that day include: super-delicious Indonesian lunch (but unfortunately led to long late night toilet queue), and some afternoon talks that I didn’t find particularly interesting.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)