Defiance - Chinese New Year

I came back from watching "defiance" with one lovely couple on Saturday night. I thought the movie was well made. It had a good story, a good and moral character, and a good lesson.

Since Christians are spiritually semites, I felt connected with the whole notion on how the Jews were discriminated due to their race and how they survive.

*Spoiler alert*!

One of the scene that stuck in my head was when they captured one of the Germans.

There, one German, surrounded by hundreds of Jews. The Jews started shouting, "You're looking for Jews? We are all Jews here!"
The German said,"I won't tell your location. I have two kids and a wife at home!"
The intellect said, "Leave him alone, let him go home"
but the rest of the group shouted, "We can't do that. Remember the milk man, he'll turn us to the German soldiers!"
More and more Jews in the camp crowded the one German. His life was hinged in the hand of the angry Jews. Then suddenly, one of the Jew struck the guy with his gun and said,"This is for my wife!" The other said, "This is for my children!" And the rest jumped right in and beat him up.

*Spoiler ends*

As Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye, and the world will turn blind."

This one scene reminded me of my own history. Maybe those of you who live in the capital of Indonesia didn't feel it as much as us who live in the regular town of Indonesia. But, the smell of discrimination was very strong in the community that we live in.

Why did it struck me so much? When the Jews saw this one German, their anger mounted and resulted in them wanting to beat this one poor and defenseless human being to death. When my dad saw the Indonesian indigenous, he scolded and felt very angry to them. Remember though, my dad is my "hero" in one way or the other. I grew up wanting to be praised and to be like him very much so. He is the figure that I admired.

Why some of you might ask, that we have that feeling of disgruntlement to the indigenous, one might ask?

First of all, for the Chinese culture, a name determines your own identity. It is the mirror of what our parents wants us to become. The Indonesian government "asked" (read: forced) the Chinese ethnicity to "naturalized" their name to an Indonesian name. That is a public humiliation, one might say to our own culture.

Second of all, Chinese language reflects the Chinese culture. By learning ones language, it allows oneself to understand ones cultural heritage and the writing of the ancient sage of the Chinese culture. The government curbed the usage of our Chinese character and prohibit the display of the Chinese character in public. How successful was this idea of curbing ones language? I grew up hating my own language (Chinese) because "nobody" (everyone around me) uses it hence it was not practical to learn them.

Thirdly, Chinese is one out of many many other ethnicity (hundreds) that lives and breathes in Indonesia. The Indonesian government restricts the enrollment of our ethnicity to public university, to politics, to judicial system, and to all things but the economy. It is painful for me personally to grow up in the system that disallow us to be treated equally. It is ingrained in our mind that being treated like a dirt is ok. We "deserve" it.

And so we thrived as a race.

I still remember up to this day when I was walking out in the street and somebody called me a "pig". In the Islamic culture, a "pig" is "haram" (equivalent to non-kosher). Therefore it is a derogatory manner to call somebody a pig, in that culture. What did I do? I just turned my back and go. It is useless to come forward and fight, for they are the majority and I could easily be beaten up by them.

I had also once spat at by a random indigenous person while I was going somewhere by taking a pedicab (google: "pedicab indonesia" if you don't know what that is). Again, I think taking his collar and beat him up was not a good idea either. It'll go nowhere, for the police will certainly take the spatter side and with no justice, we can't really go nowhere.

With those three reasons in mind, we as a race have a choice to make. When we saw the majority of indigenous people living around us, what shall we do?

Evil cannot be pitted against evil.

My dad went back and abhor the indigenous. He treated them back as a second class citizen because he has the money and power to do so. I saw that as a wrong response to take.

Passivity won't get us nowhere

As I pointed out through my own history, I tend to just look the other way and stop there. I'll let it sit silent and just became another act of unjust measure.

Charity is the answer

Treat others with respect, regardless of their race, religion, status, sex, and education.
Just as Jesus who pray while others are mocking him in Calvary, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they have done."
Just as the early Christian, who kneels before the very lion that will devour their flesh, and yet were so calm, for they know that their citizenship is in heaven.
Just as St. Jane de Chantal that forgave her husband killer.
Just as Pope John Paul the great forgave Mehmed Ali Ağca and asked others to "pray for my brother (Ağca), whom I have sincerely forgiven."

In other words, "Be charitable."

Happy Chinese New Year everyone! Xin nian kuai le! Gong xi, gong xi! Hope we all have a prosperous Ox year ahead of us!