Blogger Indonesia of the Week (11): MementoesMementoes: Travel Notes, Concert Reports, Daily Crap is the title of her blog. She stays and works in UK, after finishing her study there. As she put it as an introduction in her blog, “Despises being far from her family but hates the idea of having to go back someday,” she looks like in a dilemma–between staying as an expat in a foreign country which promises her a good salary and going back home with family with no certain future and job–a typically shared feelings among Indonesian students abroad.
Since Suharto era up there’s still no radical change even in the reformasi era today, what you need to get a good job in government office is not how skillful and talented you are. the job opportuniy –as far gov. office goes– more often than not is not about skill, degree and professionalism; it’s about what link with high ranking government officials you have. the higher the beaurocrat you know, the better. and that’s exactly why Mementoes and many other skillful students have in mind when they have a strong desire to go back home.
On the other hand, staying in a developed country like UK or any other white dominated countries is not as you expect it to be. there’re some discriminations against you one way or the other. the Asians: the colored, yellow, brown plus black are not so welcome faces in the west. the discrimination could range from the social-status (the rich & poor); the race (white & colored); the countries (advanced & developing) and the figure (tall & short; blonde & black hair, etc.).
Mementoes know much deeper what i’m talking about as she experienced herself how hard and painful being a human who’s discriminated against by other humans; especially when the symbol of discrimination and insult come in the form of phisical attack. the pain will go down right into the deepest part of your heart! just read her blog, and you’re gonna sense the pain yourself..
I hope im not regarded exaggerated if i say that as far as racism is concerned Indonesian people (the mass, the grass-root) generally are the most friendly and nicest human beings. i’ve travelled anywhere in the country, and as i’ve got bright complexion, many people around the country i met thought that I’m a chinese origin guy. yet, i never heard any insult, discrimination nor anything like that from any people i met. You cannot expect that nice treatment from even a country like India where casteism still prevails, although the insult so far is not getting phisical.
last but not least, her blog needs to be visited not only by Indonesian fellows, but more importantly by the western guys, who’re in their blogs tends to behave like a pharaoh and see things outside them from an ivory tower ready to teach and criticise manything done by the eastern guys with holier-than-thou kinda attitude. tolerance, pluralism, understanding; fanaticism, racism and discrimination are not only owned by the west nor the east. good and evil are made by human. any dialogue and debate on any issue of humanity should begin from this point: the point of equality and mutual respect. many western guys forget this very basic tenet of universal values.