Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Talk about being biased..

One day, a cousin of mine was wearing his dishdasha (Arabic robe) at a family function. Mind you, we have Arab's blood in our family tree amongst others.

One of the guests, who happened to be a Christian, commented about my cousin looking like a certain kind of Arabs in that robe, in any case, not a good kind. To that, my cousin reminded that guest that he in a way was also insulting Jesus as he forgot the fact that Jesus wore the same kind of robe as my cousin's.

That's the thing. I heard many times comments like that directed toward moslems. As much as I think it is not necessary and pretentious to wear something Arabic like that in Indonesia, I do think it's their right to wear anything they want as long as it is not due to peer/parental/social pressure. Because, honestly, I think in some circle there's a pressure to dress as such.

I also cant understand why that guest needed to give comment like that. After all, priests and nuns in his religion is known to wear long robes and veils. So, what's the different?

3 comments:

David said...

Triesti said - "As much as I think it is not necessary and pretentious to wear something Arabic like that in Indonesia,"...

careful!! :-)...aren't you also passing judgment by the use of the very critical word 'pretentious'? How is this different and more acceptable than the Christian making what may have been nothing more than an inaccurately-received humorous quip? Or is this yet another example of the now tedious Indonesia blogs that seem to have nothing better to do than try and scrape the bottom of the lets-bash-religion barrels?

Come on Indonesian-blogists, enough of the religion bashing thanks and start posting something more interesting.
Religion and religious intolerance is here to stay, like it or not. It's the nature of the (human) beast. You don't seem to realise that you yourself are also being biased and intolerant. Is that a bad thing? You decide. I believe it is simply unavoidable. To use your own phrase in reference to your own views as expressed in this article - talk about being biased.
Maybe we all need to start learning to understand, embrace and tolerate intolerance. Then maybe the world will be a better place.
Peace :-)

David said...

oh...if you think I'm being critical, then have a look at this blog post :-)

http://johnorford.blogspot.com/2009/06/criticism.html

yang punya said...

hehehehe, well i knew i am getting myself into trouble using that word, pretentious.

i had that pressure before from people who wear the dress/robe and acting like they were better off than the rest. no, they are not my family.

that's why i use the word pretentious. i still think u dont need to wear them to let other people know that you are pious. my cousin or uncle wears them when they feel like wearing them, it has nothing about being pious.