There are many things you can control - what you'll have for lunch, what movie to watch on a Friday afternoon, what shirt to wear with what pants and plenty more. However, there are a lot of other things that you can't control. For example, where you were born.
To be born or brought up in your country comes with unwritten rules of the duties you have to serve. Some do it with passion and some don't even bother. To some, they don't see it much of an obligation with the excuse that, no one had the choice of where they were born.
This is all too true. I experience this first hand. I am much too comfortable in doing absolutely nothing for my country. People always say I don't give much credit to my country, but why should I? What has my nation ever done that was so significantly worthy of my attention? Absolutely nothing.
Don't get me wrong, I love the uniqueness and the diversity of my country, Indonesia. But there's only so much good food and beautiful culture that can hide this nation's flaws. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is fully aware of the fragile situation Indonesia is in and it's been the same for years. People just choose to ignore things they don't want to hear or see. 'Ignorance is bliss' and it really is. We believe that we're better off not knowing because we secretly hope it will all go away by itself. But the reality isn't like that. It starts off small, by seeing a small child coming up to your car window, begging for money. It has become so common that it has integrated into your everyday life and seeing that would not affect you in any way at all. The bigger picture here is that, how are we able to live in a place where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer? Then, we get stuck in the daily, long hours of traffic and pot holes as big as a tire goes by unnoticed. We'll never be able to see perfectly smoothed out roads, despite the billions of Rupiah there actually are. We then realise why the highly-anticipated monorail project was never completed..
There are all these talks but no action - what good does this do? Fluffing the image of the country seems more of an important thing to do rather than to work on the substance. We have leaders that are not even bothered to cover up their blatant acts - what does this tell us? That we're not supposed to be ashamed of our vile doings? If that's everyone's way of thinking, then all hope surely is lost. Indonesia is unable to move on and is forever stuck in limbo, falling behind.
To an extent, I am ashamed of where I come from. It gets so bad that one day, I would actually have to raise my child in this sad excuse of a country? Hell, it doesn't even have protection for its own inhabitants. Would Indonesia even still be standing by then? Here, destruction is occurring much faster than the actual 'healing'. Nevermind, there is no healing. To them, there is no future. Everything is in the short term for them and as long as it makes money, there's nothing stopping them.
Lady Gaga announced last February that she was to perform a concert right in the heart of Jakarta. A week ago, news spread that she got cancelled. Why? Because she was too sexy. "She intended to destroy the nation's morality," according to the Islamic Defenders Front. So, in other words, she is going to 'corrupt' people's minds. I'm sorry, what? A world class artist, not to mention who won six Grammy awards and fifteen nominations - only in the span of four years, is going to 'corrupt' our minds? What about our President, who has been doing nothing but that for the last eight years he has been elected? They were so quick to judge an outsider, with no actual proof, but they dismiss the flat-out fact that its happening right in their own backyard. Gaga isn't teaching anyone "to worship the devil" - Gaga is an artist. An artist is capable of doing anything they please, knowing the consequences that come with it. She is just simply expressing her views and nothing more. Everything is just so contradictory.. Maybe their minds are the corrupted ones. Please.. They should worry about themselves before they impose absurd theories onto others.
It continues on.. Indonesia ranks 140th on the list of "How Islamic are Islamic Countries?" Now, if I were the President, Minister, whatever - I'd be the slightest bit concerned because.. For a country that is predominantly Muslim, why are we ranked so low? The survey was not based purely on numbers but also the attitudes of the people. The number of Muslim people does not matter when the things that the people do are not even considered to be even close to Islamic. Knowing this, why are they not even bothered to right the wrongs? To a country that promotes teachings of Islam everyday, surely they would want to do something about it. It's like an empty promise - you say it, but you don't really mean it.
That's what Indonesia is to me: an empty promise.
I said earlier that I wasn't fully proud of where I come from, and these are all the reasons why. When I can't even celebrate the day of independence with the slightest smile on my face, then you should probably know why. Everyone keeps telling me to give some respect to my country but I don't see why I should. I wish I could though, maybe then I can have a sense of belonging.
