SSE, My Friends and I

The word “others” can be defined in many ways. Here I define “others” as everyone around me who has different identity. I am going to share how I toward others (the diversity around me). I do not have to and should not be confused how toward others when I am in homogeny environment. I just could have a look into myself how toward well. It is different when I live in heterogenic environment (culture, ethics, religion). It is not enough to just have a look into my own. I have to overcome everything from some perspective. I have been living for 19 years. It means I have already found many characteristic of anyone around me.  It will be so wide and far if I tell generally, so I just want to focus on my attitude, interaction and communication during I am studying in my campus (Sampoerna School f Education).

Firstly I will tell my personal identity to show you my background and perception or way of thinking toward the diversity. I am a Muslimah. My family is religious family. I had been in Islamic school since I was in kindergarten (TK Islam) to senior high school (Madrasah Aliyah). I used to breathe the Islamic air. I already know how to behave when I am among Islamic environment, because I am accustomed to be there.

Secondly is the point of this writing. It is “How I toward others in diversity”. Diversity is not only in religion. Culture is one of diversity also. In SSE, I find many cultures which I never found before. There are some friends who come from Papua, Medan, Bali, Kalimantan and NTT (even Jakarta) and of course they come with their own culture.  I am already familiar with Sundanese and Javanese, but not for those all I mentioned. Before I come to Jakarta for studying here, I had some assumption about what I would meet and find in my new campus. I thought there would be many friends who are from overseas (out of Java). These were my thinking at that time:

1.      Papuanese is left many steps behind (villager and traditional), weird

2.      Batakenese is very crude and sensitive (it seems like to be dead as the victim if I have a friend like this)

3.      Kalimantanese is not so different with Bataknese

4.      NTTnese is weird (most of them are non-Muslim

5.      Jakartanese is arrogant, disrespectful, stylish

Actually what I have already got right now that they are not as I thought before. There are some of them who are in Javanese culture although they were born in those areas and grow up there. Fortunately, everything is better because my community (Javanese) is still the dominant (I am not in minority).

The other diversity is in religion. It is the first time for me to have classmates and lecturers (teachers) who are non-Muslim. As you ma          y know that there is a sentence which says “non-Muslim is Kafir”. In the past, I did not like them. Since I am in here, I have been trying to have a good friendship without paying attention to the difference in religion among us. Although still there is a kind of grouping (Muslims are with Muslim friends and non-Muslims are with non-Muslims friends), I am still OK as long as “others” do not bother my belief. Honestly, sometime I dislike the word “respect” (which the campus always uses) in belief. I hate this when “others” come to any religious event of mine (Muslim), because it seems like they push us to come to their religious events also. If I (Muslims) do not come or join them, they will judge me (Muslims) “disrespectful”. Whereas it is forbidden for me (Muslims) to join any event of “others”, because it shows that I (as a Muslimah) am in their belief and a part of them. In religion, yes I could be respectful. I mean “respectful” by giving their freedom to do whatever they want to do as long as they do not do any bad things to my belief.