Hot Topic: Am I Indonesian?

 

My two-hour morning commute can either be conveniently fast-forwarded by taking a nice nap in the car, or by watching a movie or two on my laptop. Today, however, with the absence of my hard drive, I have resorted to looking out the window at the insane traffic whilst trying to keep my anxiety in check. The usual things passed me; beat-up cars, busses sans doors, and this morning, a herd of motorbikes have passed by me on the tollroad. I think hell just froze over.

Let’s get to it:

I am Indonesian, and that is what I tell people and foreigners when they meet me. I was born and raised in Jakarta, and so were my parents. But during my few months back here, I’ve realized that I don’t have any personal attachments to this country. I am Indonesian, but half the time I feel like a tourist in my own nation.

Should I even call myself Indonesian when the only thing tethering me to this country is my passport?

The moment I was born I was taught to say mommy and daddy as opposed to the traditional mama or papa/papi. I dove headfirst into an International school where they treated the Indonesian language as a nuisance and thus encouraged English as the mother tongue. I watched Hollywood and European films exclusively and passed the time playing Monopoly, where I learned about Mayfair and Trafalgar Square even before I could name another city in Indonesia besides Jakarta.

We learned about World War I, World War II, and the French, American and British revolution more intently than about our own independence. We studied Descartes and John Locke and Copernicus but not the national heroes printed boldly on our banknotes. We became knowledgeable about places and people that existed thousands of miles away. I learned about George Washington before Soekarno, and for nearly two decades, knew nothing about the tyrannical Suharto and his 31 years of military reign.

I am an Indonesian whose culture is a tapestry threaded by western media. My fluency in the Indonesian language stamps me as a native, but when I’m sitting in the comfort of my European car, listening to Grammy-award winning artists while looking at street vendors I have never had the pleasure of interacting with, I wonder whether or not I am who I think I am.

Saying I am Indonesian means representing my country of 250 million people. When I travel abroad and a wide-eyed local asks me where I’m from, at that moment I will be the transient personification of my country. They will ask me what it’s like and how it is over in my secluded archipelago, and I will tell them that we are doing great. That we do not live under a rock and we are just as exposed to the world as you all are, as evident by my English.

But then again, I’m speaking on behalf of a country to which I only relate to a very small percentage of. Being of Chinese-Indonesian descent, I make up as little as 1.2% of the population, and that I come from a middle-upper class background in a third world country makes me part of the 1%, or even less. On top of that, I'm a Catholic in the biggest Muslim country in the world, which might push me up to the 0.2%. So how do I know if my country is doing ‘great’ when I’m receiving the positive end of the government stick? How do I tell someone about the social, political and economic situation of the entire country when I'm an extremely small and privileged minority?

I call myself an Indonesian and yet I have never walked the busy streets of Jakarta or Palu or Balikpapan. I have been to orphanages and tutored at public schools as part of my school’s community service requirement, but it’s all part of the itinerary in my 19 years as a tourist here. I have only dipped my toes into the cold water that is Indonesia and yet I believe that I have swum in it.

My friends are no different. With most of them being more unapologetically ostentatious and insular, I feel like I live in a bubble of security. From what? Well, from whatever my own country has to offer. Don’t ride the bus, our parents say, or else you’ll get harassed. Don’t cross the road unless there’s a cop nearby or else you’ll get hit by a raging driver. Don’t ride a cab because someone was raped by three men in the middle of nowhere. Don’t eat street food too often because you’ll get sick. My friends and I were brought up to be safe in a country of presumed monsters and bandits.

I don’t know who I am, or whether or not I should be allowed to say that I am Indonesian when only my olive skin and thick black hair gives it away. I don’t feel adequate or deserving to speak on behalf of hundreds of millions of people whose lives are completely different than mine. I can't even relate to them because I feel incredibly detached from the rest of my country most of the time. But then again, if I don’t believe I’m Indonesian, then where am I from?