Azizah Syiami: Identity & Perceptions
By Azizah Syiami Mutik, Indonesia
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| Azizah Syiami |
The
past one week I’ve experienced the most amazing week I’ve ever had in my life
(I hope I am not exaggerating it). Why do I say so? Because ten thousand miles
away from Indonesia, I met such beautiful souls in ACWAY Project which gave me
a lot to learn, a lot to ponder, and a lot to share to my friends everywhere.
And I am honored to be able to call those beautiful souls as my family. Anyway!
I will take this opportunity to share with you a little bit about the session
that we had with Prof. Abu-Nimer from American University, Washington DC; about
how culture and religion can become the source of conflict with the correlation
to a problem that I am facing in my community.
A Problem
mostly starts from the perception and resources. Resource is real things which the existence of it can be interest
of some groups, or would cause the deterrence effect to others, for example
oil, military force, nuclear, army, land, and money. Perception is what we have in our head about something, what
definition that we build over certain things which then may lead to either positive image or negative
images, for example culture, religion, political affiliation, etc. This perception is what most of the
people are failing to deal with. Why?
If resource
is the problem, then as it is something real you can always find a way to
divide it, to share it, to have a joint on it and many more ways to do, but
having a perceptions is something way more complicated as you are dealing with
the evil inside you to define the person or condition around you. People are
different in many aspects; religion, race, appearance, choices of life,
culture, idea, job, etc. It is okay to be different, because the source of the
problem is when you are trying to make it the same. You try to diminish the
existence of basic rule of human being that each and everyone is different. The
diminishing, or let’s say ignorance, of differences is wrong idea of how people
will be able to resolve the conflict. Here we will take an example from my
community.
Recommended: RELIGION OF A CHILD - PART I
3 months ago
I went back to my hometown in Sumatra after finishing my bachelor in
International Relations (Military and Security Study), I found out that the
town has evolved into homogeneity race and religion which is very strange to
me. 90% of the population in this town is Moslem, but still we have Christians,
Catholics, Hindus, and Buddhists since long ago which are also part of our
history. The problem is when the majority number, which I think economically
and politically will be very powerful, doesn’t have basic understanding about
what they are believing in nor why they are doing the practical activity
related to it. This group of people is trying to diminish the differences
between them. For example, women are covering their head with veil, which I
support as the rule of Islam, but the problem is when they cover themselves
because, “I
don’t want to be different from my friends”, or “I feel alienated if I don’t use it”,
even worse “Just
because all my colleagues use it”. No! For me, it is not a right
reason of doing something, especially when it is related to religion. I still
have a view that when you do something related to God, then you suppose to find
it morally fulfilling and you find peace of doing it, not because others tell
you to do, or because you are afraid of getting judged because you are not
doing something, in this case is wearing a veil.
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| Azizah Syiami |
Perception
is powerful and people are selective to which statements will support their
prior perceptions about someone, or something. We should be critical and always
ask questions because basically the problem comes from our mind. We thought
that it is something wrong with the culture, but it might be from the person,
or maybe the context of the situation which makes it seems like the other looks
so wrong. Then we should process the information that we get by coding and
decoding the interaction between two or more people. This process will give you
the better view and avoid your prejudice, so does judgment and discrimination
over others. As I said before, I am
not against any practice of religion as I am one of a person who believe in God
and the beauty of religions.
But when the
religious practices become one’s basis for judging others, which make one feel
as he/she has a right to condemn other people, then I guess they need to check
if they are worshiping God or their ego.
With love, #ACWAY100
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