Sudah denger kabar terbaru pengeboman oleh Israel di Jalur Gaza sehingga ratusan Muslim meninggal?
Sedih ya? how very devastating, such thing could happen to our brothers and sisters,, Semoga Allah selalu melindungi mereka. Amin.
Gara-gara peristiwa ini (berita di koran, TV, net, dan sms-sms dari kawan-kawan) bikin aku teringat sama kawan-kawan lamaku di Aussie yang berasal dari Middle East.
It was in the year 2001, I stayed in Adelaide, Australia for a year. I went to a special school for foreigners, specializing in English language, called Adelaide Secondary School of English.
When we enrolled, we saw that many people were wearing hijab, so my father allowed me to wear hijab too. I was very happy. So there are many people who are Muslims. I don’t have any suspicions at that time, as I was only 12. And so I was used to be surrounded by Muslims in my homecountry.
There are many Iraqis, Afghani, Iranian, etc. It was fascinating.
Until one day, the teacher, Mrs Parsons, wanted to know more about us. At that time, most of the people in my class were Afghani. So they told us the story. The things I caught was that they came here by boat.
Silly, I thought they were naughty boys who wants to escape from their house and school because they don’t like it. And they do not have much money so they escape on a boat.
Well, I was only 12, see.
Until the day of September 11, I started to understand that there is war going on. But I didn’t take that much pity to my friends, whom I knew as “asylum seekers”.
Until lately, until today… How devastating this war is. How sick it is. How can they do it to our fellow Muslims…
So I think if this was sick in the eyes of Indonesian people, how would it be to the eyes of the Arabs, the Middle Eastern, my old, lovely friends?
Hope you guys are fine, wherever you are, I will always miss you all. Allah bless you all.
Silly, I thought they were naughty boys who wants to escape from their house and school because they don’t like it. And they do not have much money so they escape on a boat.
Well, I was only 12, see.
This is the picture of my class (13P). (L-R: Hakim, Tahir, Amin, Ali, Hussain, Hamid, Raza, Srdjan, Samuel, Michael, Muhammad, Tayeba, Eunice, Via, Dejana, Me, Shereen) We were in grade Advanced 1 Junior. See, most of them are Afghani boys, who are smart and friendly. There is also a girl, Nazirah, but she doesn’t want her picture taken, against her beliefs probably.
This is the picture of me with my Iraqi friend, Fatin, and Bahraini friend, Shereen, and Indonesian friend, mbak Via. (sheesh, I was wearing my hijab badly). Fatin is a shiah, she refuses to wear school uniform. She wears abaya instead, where sometimes she got some trouble with school rules about it.
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