Easily Jealous Indonesian
Posted on August 19, 2007
Filed Under Blogger Indonesia, Fatih Syuhud
If you are a long time friend of this blog, you must’ve read a post I wrote several months ago about how a British visitor was so impressed with our hospitality and warm attitude to everyone including to foreign guest. In case you missed it or haven’t read it here’s the excerpt:
…”I love indonesian people friendliness, their honest camaraderie and their pure-instinctive warmness.”
“I went to Thailand for fifteen days, this country is good. The people are also good. I went to Malaysia. the girls are smarts and pretty. But I saw them too serious. Until I went to indonesia. I enjoy it so much even I start thinking of giving up my nationality (British) to be Indonesian.”
At the time I made the post, I actually hid something. The British guy actually was not only talking about the positive side of Indonesian; he actually told me about the bad thing (yet, he still insisted then to be an Indonesian).
What’s the bad thing about Indonesia? This is what he said: “Indonesian has a very weird attitude. They are easily jealous to someone’s else success. Some of them are lazy and yet they don’t want to accept the fact when one who works very hard achieve a sort of success.”
Well, actually it’s a common universal phenomenon. One’s success drives another envy. Jealous is good when it motivates you to be a better person and working harder. And jealous is harmful to everyone concerned if you don’t want to accept the idea of natural universal law: the more you work harder and smarter, the more success you’d achieve; the more lethargic and laid-back your attitude is the more failure and “crazy” you’d be. Everyone deserves what he/she earns.
But in Indonesia harmful jealousy is not only an individual problem, sometimes it’s the problem of group of individuals, of community against another. And that should explain the root cause of anti-ethnic Chinese minority riots in Jakarta and Medan in late 1990s and in Makassar a few months back. In 2003/2004 similar incident also took place in Kalimantan where ethnic Madurese were slaughtered by ethnic Dayak and left thousands of people fled to other province.
The biggest problem as far as communal harmony in Indonesia goes is how to maintain a good and healthy atmosphere between ethnic Chinese minority and the indigenous majority. But let this question discussed somewhere or in other topics.
Speaking of Indonesian jealousy towards other people success, in some villages in Java it’s a common phenomenon that if a neighbor all of a sudden gains an unprecedented success of wealth, the neighborhood will start gossipping about the possibility that he/she got that wealth by illegal or corrupt means like for example through a magical way, stealing, robbing, etc and therefore he/she deserves isolation instead of appreciation. If the villagers are to be considered as the “raw and pure” Indonesian, then the problem of harmful jealousy is really deep-rooted in our psyche.
Now, why should we be jealous and envious towards the success of hard-working person? Let me be more clear and frank, why should we be jealous to ethnic Chinese success? Why dont we learn from them and blame ourselves, instead, for any mess of poverty we’re suffering?
The key success of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia is simple and everybody knows: work hard and harder, work smart and smarter. No extravagant life. No complain whatsoever. The Chinese-Indonesian deserves many awards and honest appreciation not only from our government but also from all of us regardless of ethnicity and faith we belong without whom this nation would’ve been less known in international stage.
Just tell me who’s the first Indonesian who got an Olympic gold medal? Who’s Rudy Hartono the world record holder for eight consecutive All England badminton championship? Who’s Susi Susanti, Alan Budi Kusuma, Verawati Fajrin, and many more? And who got the gold medal in the recently-held physic Olympic?
We do owe them—our brother and sister ethnic Chinese— very very much. And yet we are so ungrateful.
Deep within this is the danger of having a big ego without matching it with sufficient achievement. And what achievement we’ll get without working hard and smart?
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Comments are welcome in one of these following languages: English, Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Jawa and Madura.4 Comments »
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As an Indonesian with Chinese ethnicity, I’m so pleased reading this post.
Frankly, I’ve got bad treatment sometimes because I’m Chinese. I’m confused in how come some people are jealous to successful Chinese. People from any ethnicity can be success, it’s a matter of hard-working anyway. Many Chinese suffered a lot before getting the wealth they have today. And many others are still live in poverty, let’s say those in Singkawang.
But deep in my heart I do love this country and I hope that someday, Chinese in Indonesia can live happily despite the ethnic difference. I believe in ‘Bhinneka Tunggal Ika’, it’s a very good philosophy and I wish all Indonesians will always remember it.
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i am thinking about brainwashing those Indonesians…
yes, jealousy is habit thats hard to die