Terrorisms and the Tears of (Indonesian) Moslems

Indonesia, a land of thousands islands, is a unique tropical country which has a lot of beautiful natural sceneries. Not just famous for its sights, Indonesia is also well known of its social diversity. As the 4th largest populated country with more than 227 million people, about 300 native ethnicities with different social and religion backgrounds live together peacefully. The fact that more than 80% Moslems populate the country and the fact that Indonesia is the largest Moslem country in term of population do not automatically mark out Indonesia as an Islamic state.

Some years ago, some bombing incidents occurred in Indonesia. All the media associated these with an extreme Moslem terrorist group. However, what the world should know is that the terrorists are not the only party with a bad image. The word “Moslem” as an attachment that the media associated has a significant impact on the Moslem image as a whole. With a “Moslem” tag when referring to the terrorist group, Moslems are indirectly associated with violence and radical movements. I personally do not think that acts by a very small number of people could represent how the rest of the population would act. But unfortunately, since the media are keen to expose this issue, the rest of Moslems population (the biggest part), who do not have any relation to terrorism are tarnished with a negative image.



Due to the fact that Indonesia is the biggest Moslem country in the world, the terrorism issues have brought a negative impact not only for Indonesian, but also for the Moslems as a whole. Starting from last year, in the name of terrorism issue, the government has started to control the regular religious speech conducted at some local mosques. Due to this issue, the Indonesian Moslems are not as free as they used to be in practicing their religion. People are feeling insecure with people wearing religious attributes (e.g. long beard, half legged trousers). It is a really pathetic condition, when people feel insecure about their own identity. It is a really a pity, how Moslems are conditioned to be suspicious of the other Moslems due to this imbalanced media exposure.

I am a Moslem. Though I am not a good example, I try my best to hold my belief values. After almost 4.5 years living, studying, and working in Europe (Germany and the Netherlands), I realize that the media have a very big impact in forming a community mindset. The fact that most people are too busy with their routines to do further exploration makes the media even stronger in directing people’s thought. For me, it is a pity that terrorism is always associated with Moslems. It is really a pity that Indonesia, which has been at peace for thousands years has to live under suspicion. What I really want to say is that terrorism can be applied by anyone from any background. Bad people are bad people regardless of their background. So association of terrorism activity to a certain group of people is rather unfair especially for most of the people who really do not have anything to do with this subject. Personally, I think the people who dance on the blame of innocent people are the ones with the most violent violence.