“The most violent element in society is ignorance” – Emma Goldman
As I was walking to the security check at the Bali Ngurah Rai airport, I was surprised by a young lady suddenly coming behind me who proceeded to put her things on the conveyor belt over mine. I said to her,”Ma’am, there is a line, please queue.” She responded angrily and exclaimed,”It’s the airline’s fault and now I’m late.”. She persisted by raising her voice and telling me to hurry up. I was disturbed by her behavior and to be honest, it made me want to sympathize with her less. I told her that she was being very rude but she relentlessly blamed the airline as her excuse. Alas, she never apologized for her rudeness. The scene angered me, and at the same time saddened me because it resorted me to a thought “Does someone’s hardship give them the license to disregard society and behave with disrespect and ignorance?” My heart of heart says no, and it shouldn’t be so either. From my own personal experience, I find that when I’m in a dire situation and behave sincerely with kindness, other people are more likely to respond helpfully.
On a discussion with a friend about civil society, we talked about Indonesia, specifically about courtesy, obeying rules and behaving for the greater good of people. During the conversation, in my frustrated state I said, “But it is common sense for people to queue, to know who has the right of way in traffic, to let others clear the elevator before you go in it, to hold the door for the person behind you. It is common sense!” She replied quickly,”No, actually it’s not common sense. You have to teach people to know those things.”
Her statement brought me back to reality, the reality of Indonesia. We are a growing and developing nation. We are still going through growing pains and we don’t have everything right at this point. Our new elected president Jokowi’s main campaign is Revolusi Mental (mental revolution), which aspires for “ethos transformation” that he defined as a basic change in mentality, in way of thinking, feeling and believing that will manifest in behaviors and daily practices. He firmly believes that education plays a crucial part on this endeavor and puts it as a top priority on his 5-year program. Moreover, I truly believe that in order to succeed, a mental revolution must be a nation-wide program that is imparted on, adopted and implemented by all people through all aspects of life, ie families, communities, corporations, government policies etc. I dream of Indonesia whose people are abiding to the laws, honest and full of integrity, kind and respectful to one another and that queuing is common sense!
“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.” – Walter Cronkite
This article has been exclusively published by Now!Jakarta magazine September 2014 issue
Turning Life Experiences into Life Skills 