It was around eight in the evening when I opened my BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and opened a chain message from my friend. In it was a link to a blog claiming to be from an anonymous Malaysian mocking various aspects of Indonesia, and the message told me to boycott anything Malaysian.
Out of curiosity, I opened the link and what I read on the blog was very nasty, but still, I found some of the facts may be true. I’m not being biased, as I try to be as open and as objective as possible on why these two countries, so similar in race, similar in roots keep on provoking each other, as if waiting for each other’s downfall?
From where did this hatred come and root itself so poisonously, and why behave so recklessly childish to each other?
It is wrong perhaps, that Malaysians claim something that Indonesians believe to be their heritage. But please, Malaysians has points too, it’s just that we are not mature or objective enough to hear them.
Malaysians believe that heritage does not belong to one country, that everything has its own roots.
Like wayang, which goes back to Indian culture; Balinese rituals that go back to Hindu culture, which is India again; and batik that not only Indonesian have and so on.
We are so childish that we become defensive and start to act outraged over even the tiniest mistakes Malaysians make. But we choose to turn a blind eye when it comes to our wrongdoing, such as the Indonesian who stabbed several Malaysians in Australia. Were any of us outraged about that?
What is ASEAN if it cannot erase countries’ egos; and what is ASEAN to two countries that hate each other if it cannot mediate? Do we prefer to wage war and let hundreds of people, or maybe more, die on battlefields for the sake of our ego?
Is their society so rotten as to watch our downfall, or is our society
so rotten that we really can dance at their downfall? Remember that if
we do something good, something good will happen to us. After all, what
goes up must come down, and people will reap what they sow.
Winnie Aisha
Jakarta
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