Tangerang, City of Shame!
Aug 17th, 2009, in Opinion, by Ross
Ross finds shameful bigotry in the fair city of Tangerang.
Tangerang in Banten already has an unpleasant reputation among those who dislike religious bigotry, but a report in the Jakarta Post did little to exculpate the citizens of that city.
The latest scene of nastiness is an obscure area called Pisangan Jaya, where a small group of Christians are being tormented by unidentified “Muslim groups”. The Baptists are a long way from their nearest formal GBJK church building in Cengkareng (and even if they weren’t, so what) – accordingly they meet for prayers in a residential area and each Sunday this occurs, a gang of loud-mouthed Muslims gathers close by, to shout abuse.
As the prayer-group leader, Bedali Hulu, says,
How can we pray properly if there are a bunch of people screaming threatening words outside…?
How indeed?
The JP notes that while actual residents by the site are more rattled by the protests than the prayers, Islamist intimidation has reaped its harvest of fear, an example being neighbour Mr.Asun, who says
‘They come every Sunday brandishing sticks…if a brawl broke out, who’ll take responsibility…we agree the church should move because we don’t want any violence.’
Nor, surely, do the Baptists, and it is clearly the Muslim trouble-makers who are at fault, so why don’t the police disperse them and arrest those brandishing offensive weapons?
Maybe some policemen share the nauseating irresponsibility of the jobsworth village head, a Mr Sa’adudin.
“It was the local residents who told us they didn’t want any Christian activities in the area…”
He then trotted out the bureaucratic thing about residential use, but we notice that this is simply an add-on, his initial comment indicating that –
- A – there are a lot of obnoxious ignorant bigots among his Muslim neighbours, and
- B – his sense of civic duty is so miserably low that he won’t stand up to the vermin who bring lawlessness into his patch.
I believe that another Christian denomination in Tangerang came under threat some years back, and Gus Dur went out courageously to speak up for them. He’s not my idol, but he has a long record of knowledgeable Muslim leadership, yet he was shouted down by the mediaeval cretins at Sang Timur, who were enjoying terrorising Catholic schoolchildren so much that no mere presidential figure was going to stop their foul fun.
When will this government crack down on the vile fanatic element in society?
69 Comments on “Tangerang, City of Shame!”
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Ross says:
I submitted mine today, had to trim it, but kept to under 1500. If Patung wants me to let me expand it a bit, I am prepared to.
My fan club on IM is smaller than yours, but preaching to the converted lacks spice! -
I put it back to draft status in case you want to edit it again Ross, the title though, I’ll send PM….I’m thinking Monday to publish so no rush.
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timdog says:
Ross, it’s up to you buddy. I’ll chop mine down anyway, but it’ll loose something, obviously. But if you want 500 extra words to play with yourself, let me know and I’ll submit the longer version.
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Naw, let’s leave it as it is, too much work involved, with a weekend looming. Patung, please keep it to the one I submitted, though the title can perhaps be improved.
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It’s done, though I confess I’m 92 words over the limit, which I guess means I get a vote deducted as a penalty, or something like that. Not really bothered about the vote anyway; just looking forward to what I am confident will be two radically different stories…
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Ok timdog I got it, no penalties needed, I actually figured out a way of giving a post multiple authors so it’ll say “by Ross & Timdog”, the voting, wouldn’t expect a huge turnout there as longish (by internet standards) short stories are not like “Dewi Persik Wardrobe Accident” posts are they in terms of getting eyeballs.
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ET says:
What the *$(# is a “chicken christian?!”
A haram chick. One that may be killed but not eaten.
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Background music keroncong perjuangan sundari sukotjo juwita malam.
To paraphrase a commenter here: it’s arabs’ fault. Of cooourse, we should then ask ourselves why we let those arabs (did it).
To my knowledge those arabs (eventhough they are citizen of indonesia) came from outside (duh, obviously). Therefore I consider them as guests, regardless the number of years or generations they’ve been living here. I will — or we should — always consider them as guests until they fully assimilate with us. There are numerous local cultures to choose from: sundanese javanese balinese manado ambon papua padang madura dayak etc.
The message is clear for them: be one of us, or stay as guest. As in any civilized world, we treat guests well as long as they return the favor.
These incidents involving fanatic groups linked to / operated by arabs clearly show that some of them have failed on both accounts: assimilating and being good guests. Therefore we must expel them (only those who have failed) before they cause further damage to our country. To name a few: abu bakar basyir, rizieq shihab…, they should be in the expel list.
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How’s the story going Ross? Mine’s done, only now I’ve got to trim out 500 words – unless you’d agree to an increase in our target word count… 😉
Thanks for the pre-emptive vote of confidence Lairedion!