Project 365

… continuation from the previous post.

During our coffee time, I asked mbak Linda few things about the conflict in Maluku which occurred in 1999 between the Christian and Muslim groups. She told me that Christians and Muslims in Maluku were very peaceful and never had any problems. There were some provocateurs, which were allegedly done by our former dictator Soeharto, who forced these two groups to fight against each other. When the conflict ended, it was discovered that these people were forced to fight — if not, then these provocateurs would do something nasty, for example raping female relatives. So the Maluku people had no other choice than to cause terror against each other. Mbak Linda also told me that Maluku people were originally Muslims, until the Dutch made some of them to convert to Christian. She even told me that her great-grand mother was a Muslim and some of her far relatives were Muslims. During the conflict, her hometown in Ambon was totally burned, apparently by the Indonesian army. Yet another strange thing about this conflict!

Gosh, I loved to know about these things straight from the locals. They were the ones who knew the situation really well. They were first-hand witnesses or at least had relatives who experienced it. It fascinated me how these kind of details made a difference to how we view and judge others. It made us understand the whole situation better than just by relying on media which was apparently good in exaggerating stuff (and not to mention the censorship done by the government!). If we could build this kind of understanding and tolerance towards others, the world will be in a much better state.