Issues: `Being Indonesian and proud of it'
Another head scratching moment for me and the people who assist me comes when, as an Indonesian passport holder, I plan to travel outside of the ASEAN region. Applying for entry visas requires filling out stacks of documents and tedious preparation is necessary and at the end I always feel overwhelmed. Someone suggested to me that I change nationality to make it easier whenever I need to travel overseas. You know, for citizens of some countries, they have visa waivers so they can just jump up and go overseas anytime they want.,
Your comments:
To Indonesians who are not proud of their own identity: Then I guess you were born into the wrong race. Better luck next time. | Tue, 04/07/2009 2:29 PM
To non-Indonesians who have problems with proud Indonesians: You are not Indonesian. Your opinions are irrelevant.
Karina Soemarwoto
There is nothing wrong with being an Indonesian and being proud of it. Being the only Indonesian (I am the eldest of four siblings of whom three were born in Australia) in my family none of my siblings spoke Indonesian when they were kids. Now they are all grown up and want to know more about their ancestry and heritage. They went to Indonesia to stay at our parents village in West Java and then to Jakarta which they found very "shocking" and "interesting".
Now they understand and are proud of their Indonesian heritage as much as they are proud of their Australian. Kind regards.
Papayono
Proud of being an Indonesian? I will be proud of being an Indonesian if Indonesia is a good country, with no severe corruption, no brutal killings, no cruel rapings, no tremendous hypocrites and mainly, no heavy racism against Chinese. However, the reality is that Indonesia is one of the worst countries and the most hypocritical people in the world. So, I will not be proud of being part of bad things. In fact, being associated with any Indonesia stuff is the most embarrassing moment in my life.
Peter Chang
Comments regarding the 220 million poor in Indonesia are pretty far-fetch. There are probably 45 million poor people living and struggling to make a descent living. The meaning of poor is vague. There are also millions of poor people in the Western world and the definition of poor is rather vague. One can still be poor and be living a manageable life. Poverty is another level to being rock bottom poor.
Being an Indonesian living abroad and traveling to Europe has never posed any problems for me. On one occasion, I saw Malaysian and Brazilian passport holders being turned away by UK immigration officials at the border control in the train station in France before boarding the Euro Star train to the UK. So for those proud Indonesians you have nothing to fear when traveling abroad as long as you have the proper documentation at all times. With a clear conscience why doubt oneself when traveling abroad?
Christian Edwards
Proud of your home country -- that's the way it should be. Your home country is like your family, you don't choose them. I've been living in Indonesia for some years. Nice and kind people and beautiful country, but I would never ever change my home country for Indonesia -- that is clear. I'm open to apply for my wife's country (Indonesia), but Indonesia will never be my home country. Being from Latin America I have family that has American citizenship and that doesn't mean they love our country less. So I agree, you can change your citizenship for practical reasons and still love your home country.
Gabriel
I couldn't agree more with you. Yeah, we are overwhelmed with a lot of problems but I do believe that we are moving forward. Thanks for your article.
Suryantara
