Why I made this blog,

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh,


There has been a request for me to write in English. I think this is good, not only this message would reach a wider audience, this blog would provide an insight for this neighbourly spat between Malaysia & Indonesia for the English speaking world.

I'm not going to transliterate what I already wrote in Indonesian word-by-word. I'll just write whatever comes naturally. So here it goes.

Lately there has been a series of events that lead to worsening of relationship between Indonesia & Malaysia. This is a source much sadness to me, an Indonesian Malay. I am Indonesian, of a Malay ethnicity, since my parents are from Sumatra. The fact that there are Malays in Indonesia and generations of Indonesians (such as Javanese & Bugis) in Malaysia adds to the irony. Our shared culture is a matter of fact, older than our countries. The word 'Indonesia' is not even Indonesian, its greek. We are a newly created country. Only one generation old. My grandfather lived in what is now Singapore (and a period of time part of Malaysia) and married a woman from Pekalongan, in Java. And there are just so many people from all over Indonesia in Malaysia. But Indonesia did not even exist then whey migrated.

This imaginary lines drawn by the colonials, blinded us from who we really are. 

There has been a lot of underlying issues that lead to this falling out. But the trigger seems to be the cultural war of  ownership of 'Tari Pendet'. A clip of  the dance was shown on A tourism Ad for 'Enigmatic Malaysia' on Discovery Channel. This sparked accusations that Malaysia was actively 'stealing' Indonesian culture and advertising them as theirs.

Although my personal opinion is that there has been many contributing factor leading yo to this. This did not happen simply because of the dance. Indonesians did not become suddenly protective of one of the thousands of traditional heritage that we often take for granted. I could not remember the last time Tari Pendet was actively advertised and promoted on Indonesian TV. There are bigger issues. Issues that had been ignored and was left to fester by our respective governments.

The bigger issue, in my opinion, is Indonesian workers in Malaysia. There are currently 1,8 million Indonesians living in Malaysia. A vast majority working as maids and menial workers. One does not become a foreign worker willingly. They do so because Malaysia offers a better livelihood for them. Indonesians have to admit that Malaysia has a more vibrant economy that attracts these workers. These workers also have a important role in building Malaysia's infrastructure and economy. This is a purely mutually symbiotic relationship.

However, this also created an impression that Indonesians are treated like 2nd class citizens in Malaysia. Some of these workers arrive illegally, and unable to find employment, a minority of them resorted to criminal activities. This often made headlines in the Malaysian media. The term 'Indon' is coined. Malaysians used them casually, innocently, as a short form for 'Indonesian'. But the Indonesians themselves never use them, and prefer the short form 'Indo' instead. There is nothing linguistically offensive about the word 'Indon', it's just that it has a negative conotation. That the term is reserved only for maids, labourers and criminals.

On the other hand, there are many reports of exploitation of workers and abuses to Indonesian maids. These problem had been around since the 80s and both governments haven't been making much progress.

This eventually created the antagonistic stereotypes: That Malaysians are arrogant and selfish, and Idonesians are backwards and uneducated.These sentiments are never far from both nations minds and would continually mar our arguments, no matter how small the matter is, even if we hate to admit it.

The Tari Pendet case is just the latest of a long line of disagreements. One of the most notable is the territorial dispute of the Ambalat regions that contained rich natural resources. Then there are further accusations of plagiarisms of Indonesian music by Malaysian artists, another cultural theft of the 'Reog Ponorogo' dance that was advertised in Malaysia's Tourism website. The webiste was soon defaced by Indonesian hackers. Since then, hackers from both countries had been actively involved in defacing each other's websites. And there is also a report of a malaysian website that made fun of Indonesia's National Anthem lyrics. And then theres www.malingsia.com and its best friend: www.ihateindon.blogspot.com. The list goes on.

To make things worse, there's the media. Indonesian media and Malaysian media its vastly different. Theres almost no control over Indonesian media & Malaysian media is tightly controlled. The Indonesians know too much, the Malaysians know too little. Indonesians hates Malaysians because of pendet, tkw, ambalat, manohara, etc. Malaysians just hates back because they think Indonesia is paranoid and do not see the significance of those issues. There is just no meeting point between the two medias. If it wasnt so sad, it would be funny.

Now, there's just been too much hate going around, and I just can't stand this. First of all, I have many Malaysian friends. Malaysians are the closest thing to Indonesians, naturally when I'm overseas, I would look for Malaysians for company. We eat together, we pray jamaah, we play soccer together, we sing a long to Sheila on 7 songs, and we get infatuated by Dian Sastro in the Movie 'Ada Apa Dengan Cinta'. Indonesia's booming pop-culture in the late 90s has been a source of pride and joy for me. I'm proud that young Malaysians enjoy our music and movies. I hope in this way, they would have a better understanding of Indonesians and our way of thinking. Having Malaysian friends only makes me more Indonesian. Because the more I get to know them, the more I realise we came from the same stock. Share the same culture. Have the same tastebuds. Have the same manners.

Now, I love my country. That is why I made this blog. Because we are blind to see that Indosesia & Malaysia need each other. Together we are better and stronger. I pray we won't be as devided as the Middle East. Or India & Pakistan, or North & South Korea. Only when our national soccer team play against each other we are allowed to take sides, hehehe.

I've been babbling too much. Back to the point of this blog.

Ok, this blog is my endavour to find common grounds between Indonesians and Malaysians. While I acknowledge that as neighbours we bound to have disagreements, I will focus only on what we have in common. And I'm going to celebrate that.

This blog maybe small, maybe an insignificant voice amongst the trillions of haters out there. But at least its there. And I know I am not alone.

The Quran says, all Muslims are brothers. If it is so, then Indonesians and Malaysians are definitely twins.

There is a thin line between a misguided Patriotism and Racism. Let us not fall into that trap.

Wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.