Saturday, August 27, 2011

Where is the line of our tolerance?

I thought the whole thing about being tolerance works both ways. In Indonesia, however, it seems like when you are part of the majority you can do whatever you want.


The other day I had to walk about 2km at 10PM to home because this madrasah close off the road for their breaking the fast event. They are going to do it again on Sunday. I wouldnt know about the Sunday event had my ojek driver not tell me. Heck, I didnt know about the event the other day (I thought it was going to be the following night) because I didnt see their posters, which they posted in the area that I had never pass by. Very convenient.

On the following day the guy at work asked me if people did me wrong the night before. He heard about the crazy traffic jam around my area. Someone asked why I didnt take an ojek. I would if there were any, or if they could pass the deadlock. It was quicker for me to just walk the 2km then getting an ojek for the last 700m. I got home at 10:30PM after stuck in the traffic for 2.5 hours. I heard people got home around 2AM because they stuck in the traffic. Good luck with that.

It happens all the time. Some madrasahs or sects (yes, they are sects. Deal with it) decided to have an event to show off that they have thousands of following, closing off streets, leaving a lot of trash afterward. It annoys the heck of me. If such event was organized by any minority those Islamic radicals would be angry. Yet, since it was 'one of their own' they tolerate the situation.

Why cant they organize their event in a way that not many people suffer from their doing? I know one church which has people directing the traffic to make it more bearable and the parking before, during and after their event. Why cant these madrasah people do the same? As they dont have any space for parking, they could've asked their people to come with public transport as much as possible. Heck, if they dont have enough space for their people, for the love of G_d use any football field or stadion or any open field. They could've worked with buildings around the area to use their parking lot instead of closing off the street for their parking lot. They could've also preached about cleanliness (pick up your trash people!) and that they need to follow the traffic rule instead of making the traffic jam even worse while not wearing any helmet for those who are riding a motorcycle.

Seriously, to the best of my knowledge Islam talks about cleanliness. However, in my experience it were always the mosque/madrasah which have more trash in their premisses. They need to work on that. Islam also talks about the importance of our relationship with G_d and also the importance of our relationship with fellow human being. Imagine someone needed to go to the hospital that night and the road was close off or stuck in traffic. He might not make it through the night because some people wanted to deepen their relationship with their G_d. Where's that leave you with your human relationship?

As we are still in the month of Ramadan, FPI has been going around closing hawkers which still operate during the day. Why? There are people who are not fasting for what ever reasons. FPI have no rights whatsoever to do that, yet they've been doing it with police 'blessing' as the police tag along some of these raids. I thought we pay the police to protect us from thugs like that. Those hawkers need to make a living, especially before Ramadan so that they can celebrate Eid ul Fitr just like everyone else.

Indonesians are very permissive. Too permissive, that it doesnt do us any favor. There are things that we cant tolerate, but yet we, as society, did. It starts with small things such as organizing an event, but ended up with 'tolerating' that you can lynch people who has a different opinion that you and the law would just slapped your wrist for that, while giving your victim a longer punishment. This troubles me. A lot.

2 comments:

colson said...

There evidently is something about the concept "public domain" they don't understand.

You're right: by allowing them to control the streets occasionally now, to apply their own very special version of "do the right thing" in the public domain, they undermine the state-of-law.

We've got our governments and it's institutions to protect our common public domain. They ought to teach the bastards the meaning of the concept. In a friendly way, if possible, in a tough way if need be.

It looks like gradually the state retreats and the thugs advance though.

It is worrying indeed.

triesti said...

@colson yupe. it's very frustrating. Each time I talk about it, someone will say that those thugs are not the real Islam. Well, newsflash: until the silence moderate majority speaks up, those thugs are the face of Islam. Yet, most people refuse to speak up about it.