Di Mana Hangatnya Kayu Putih?
This is for our academician, for the mothers and the fathers, and for the entirety of the Indonesian people. This is for the concerning group, for those who don’t identify themselves as one, and for those who seek their spot in this vast conversation.
Disclaimer: I promised myself to write in Indonesian but I feel ashamed to use my native language remembering how people have been misusing it.
You guys need to understand something extremely important. Oh, and yes, I am talking about LGBT, or in a more general term: people.
Indonesians have been joining the conversation ever since the terrorist attack that occured in the capital. As nothing more than a student with little to no journalistic qualification, I wanted to say that it is beyond my wildest imagination that the issues regarding LGBT is more concerning and gets more attention than the fact that there are terrorist group out there lurking on the edges of our cities virtually capable of blowing up buildings.
Yes, you read that right. We are more concerned with people’s sexuality than suicide bomber and blood spilling on our streets out of massacre. We have always defined our country as a nation of religion and faith, which makes it even more interesting. It is fairly understandable to a level that in our culture, sexuality and sexual identity is still considered as taboo. To think that in a society and in a culture that reserve itself from openly talking about sexuality, we give a huge amount of time and energy in exploiting our shallow opinion on the sexuality of others.
This has been shown in local television where “academician” flaunt their degree and “expertise” in violently attacking the LGBT community by only quoting several lines of a textbook that correlates and of relevance with their point of view. They fail to understand that every negative word they threw on television will shape the opinion of people towards the community–and to an extent, harass the LGBT community. They believe that LGBT is a state of moral imbalance that originated from poor religious teachings and, if supported, will somehow become contagious to the coming youth.
When they are talking about LGBT as if it is a disease, an abnormality, or a deviation, they forgot that they were not talking about the concept: They were talking about the people. They were talking about a closeted child that remains silent about their true self because they are afraid of getting bullied. They were talking about a father of two kids that got married with a woman he never love because his society dictates him to. They were talking to two people who feel like they fail as parents and decide to disown their child for being gay. They were talking to those individuals as if somehow they are going to hell just because of one fact: they are gay.
As a response to the growing issue, one of the organizations in my academic institution has proposed themselves in creating a public discussion session on the topic of LGBT, and how it’s nature contributes to the development of Economics. To my surprise, one day before we should have our discussion, it immediately got cancelled by the Dean.
What a shock. Bummer.
I wasn’t sure about their reasons, as I am too baffled to even make the time to read the letter they wrote to ban the discussion.
I am not angry because I didn’t get my chance to speak my mind in this matter. Heck, I can talk anywhere on the matter. I even prepare every point of view of mine with every supporting and counter-argument I could think of.
I am angry, furious, scared, dissapointed, and at the risk of sounding grandiose, I am fucked. No, wait. We are fucked.
We are fucked because we thought we were free of giving our own opinions, free of sounding our thoughts without the constant fear of being killed. We got through that phase, with casualties. We define our nation as successful in escaping the tyranny of communism and thrive ourselves under the light of a democratic society, a society that upholds the principle of, wait for it:
For the people, from the people, to the people.
Where the fuck did that go? When the fuck did we lose it? What the fuck am I missing out? How the fuck did this happen? Who the fuck is responsible for this? Why, why the fuck did we lose the only thing that found us?
This discussion is a chance for us to explore our understanding. For some, it is a well-managed environment for them to be bold about themselves. For those who are gay and closeted, it could shed some light into their lives on how they could confront this issue as who they are. Now, those chances are forcefully taken away by the people we looked up to. We wanted to believe that as young people, we will clean up the messes we see today by understanding the world not as how we want it, but as it is.
This isn’t merely about LGBT.
This is about freedom. Of choice? No. Of speech? No.
Of thought.
We are forced to govern ourselves with a pre-programmable thought that never allow us to think beyond our evolutionary premises. When you constantly got fed of the idea about how bad LGBT is, its hard to reprogram yourself into thinking otherwise.
In their defense, they would probably say that we shouldn’t be talking loud about LGBT because we are not one of them. Well, wrong. You don’t have to be Syrian to support the refugees. You don’t have to be a chicken to fight for animal rights. You don’t have to be a chef to cook dinner. You don’t, have to be gay, to talk and show your concerns for LGBT. One of the reason as to why they are so afraid about LGBT is because they avoid any further information of discoveries regarding the nature of LGBT. They only talk about their own view and they only listen to what they want to hear, unaware that there are still uncharted notions that they fear of exploring.
But there is still hope. People are starting to talk a little openly about this, and I believe that understanding comes from exploration and exposure; which is where we are currently going through now.
One more thing: This could be your friend, your sibling, your parent, your uncle, your aunt, your ex, or your future children struggling with these issues. Please be considerate. Don’t only stand up for the cause that is about you.
