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August 13th, 2006

this is why I say "KTP"

To clarify, the KTP is the Indonesian ID card. Used much like the US uses a drivers license, except the KTP has nothing to do with motor vehicles. It's just ID, and on it other than name, date of birth, and so on, is religion. Doesn't matter what you actually believe, you have to be officially one of the five sanctioned-by-state religions, or, if you believe in tradional beliefs--well, I don't know what happens then. I do know tradional beliefs are governed by the Department of Education and Culture (Depdikbud), and not the dep. of religion, so you know that it's valued below "real" religion.

Two of the five religions are Christian religions: Protestant and Catholic. Both call themselves Christian, and if someone asks you what your religions is and you say Christian, they may ask you "What sort?" In fact, to be accurate, Protestants are called, "Kristen Protestan" and Catholics "Kristen Katolik". People don't go around saying "I'm Protestant" or its usually "I'm Christian", and occasionally "I'm Catholic."

A third term is "Kristen KTP", which is an unoffical, derogatory, snubby sort of phrase coined by religious Christians to mean people who are filed under Christian, but don't believe, or don't show up show up regularly at church, or didn't make enough brownies for the bake sale, or who otherwise aren't Christian 'enough'. The unreligious members of the caste. Because, to me, it seems more like a caste than a religion. Because, again, it's all about what you're filed as and not what you actually believe.

Religion is an important part of Indonesia. We don't have card-carrying atheists and scientologists and all that stuff. If you believe in something not sanctioned, or don't believe in anything at all, you keep it to yourself. It makes people feel awkward when someone doesn't believe in one of the "valid" options.

Which is why I take great pleasure in answering "What sort of Christian are you" with a grin and a smug "Kristen KTP".

Because I greatly resent being fucking filed. I don't believe in any of it, really, at least not as anything more than a rich mythology we can maybe learn something from. Not more than I believe in, say, Indonesian ghost mythology, or my granma's ability to 'just know things'.

In a way, I don't quite get how people can get so behind the idea of being grouped, stamped, labelled. What religion you end up with depends a lot on who raised you. I have an adopted cousin. Had she been adopted by someone else, she might have been muslim. More than likely, her birth parents were.

So how can you be loyal to a thing you were just chanced into? Don't people get sick of the state telling them who they are? Who they should care about? Who they should support? What they should believe?

How can you be loyal to someone over another just because you have the same damn label on your ID? Just because you were filed in the same drawer?

I have a friend from over on the AI boards whose blog I don't visit much. Mostly because it loads like a motherfucker, but it's probably a good thing it does, and that I don't have the patience to wait while it slowly decides whether or not its going to freeze my firefox.

Because, man, that guy can spew hate like all get-out.

And its weird. He seems like such a nice guy in YIM and in the boards.

The hot topic in recent politics is the Middle East. The Israel-Palestine thing, not the Iraq thing, though that is definitely brought up, too.

And this guy? This guy wants Israel wiped out. He has no ties to them. He isn't from there, and most likely, he doesn't know shit about whats going and whats happened in the past, except from a propagandaist point of view (not that I know much, but this entry isn't about that.). And other than that we should care about human suffering, he has no reason to be so invested in the conflict.

Except of course for religious reasons. Palestine is muslim. Like him. So he wants Israel destroyed. He says--and I translate and edit for clarity and brevity only--"It hurts to see our muslim brothers killed. It HURTS. Let use remember what we HATE and may what we HATE be DESTROYED."

This is why I say KTP. You can file me under any damn thing you want, but you can't make me loyal to it. You can't make me take part in a thing that just makes people hate like that. That makes people want to kill and hurt or at least wish pain and suffering on others.

You can't make me loyal to a thing that makes people devalue other people because they believe in something different. I have a Jewish--not technically, because it's through the father, but still--cousin. We laugh at the same stupid internet sites. My little Indonesian cousin, seven years old, likely boy genius, draws trucks in two point perspective and says "How do I do a top view?" and hands me a crayon. He's Muslim. My mom is German. She seems to believe in academia before anything else.

I don't need a thing that takes people, strips away everything human about them, and leaves them with a label: Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddist; and makes it okay to not think of them as people with personalities, sorrows, souls. That makes it okay to wish them harm, based on that one slight difference.

I don't need a thing like that.

rurounibug ; 07:46 PM|4 replies

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