me vs the majority

just now, i feel a little discrimination towards myself. disclaimer, i'm not putting hate to the opposite religion i'm going to talk about. i just feel like i need to share my thoughts about being a minority in our muslim based country.

so this evening i went to my pkl project, which happened to be a mosque, in a moslem boarding school aka pesantren. i visited that site many times already, and until today, they still let non-muslim to go inside and take pics or any data related. at some days i do feel some kind of eyes from the craftsman staring weirdly at me. the students also. turned out it's a boys only boarding school. the area was filled with highschooler boys, in age between 13-18. i feel unsave, though i'm definitely like 5 years older than them. some catcalled me. aren't the teacher supposed to teach them boys to respect woman? moreover, it's a religion based school. i can only shooked my head. poor kids.. they're going to have a rough future ahead.

today, i was prevented to go inside the boarding school area. guess what i've done wrong. indeed, i was not wearing a hijab. the guard looked at me like i did something very very wrong that i was forbidden to go inside. like some kind of thief, or some slut that will ruin these pure kids brain or something. i know it's a muslim boarding school but damn i was only trying graduate from college sir. but eventually he let me in just to take pics. i hate that i must beg to go inside. "i'll be quick sir, after i'm done i'll go as soon as i can", i said hopelessly. 

the goddess of luck was not on my side that time, because the head craftsman that i wanted to meet already left the site. the mosque site was left with so many craftsman, working endlessly here and there. i was supposed to get the project's picture progress from 4 side, but damn i was so afraid of going there alone so i only take 2 pics from afar. there were just so many of eyes staring at me. like i'm some kind of plague. then i left from there and arrived here, at the ice cream shop, trying to calm down, ended up writing.

i can't help but feeling anxious. and angry. and sad. i somewhat got a muslim based company for my field practice subject, and of course they were working on a muslim buildings. i mean they also got projects somewhere else, but i happened to study about this mosque project they were working. it also happened to be in a muslim boarding school. i'm sorry to be a hindu here. on wednesdays i found myself between the company staffs, praying together, or ngaji to be exact. it's good to pray, there's nothing wrong with that. but in a muslim majority country, everyone normalize praying in a muslim way in public. in a professional working area. as long as i know, praying supposed to be a personal activity. where there's only you and God. but in some office, you are supposed to pray with their way. some even requires you to be moslem, and can read al-quran. that's for your job requirements there. maybe the CEO wanted to find a heir or something, but correct me if i'm wrong, but aren't you closing the opportunities for the non muslim out there who desperately looking for any job available out there? we are just the same as you muslims, we're just trying to earn money, or a score to graduate college. including this boarding school rules who won't let anyone with different religions go inside just to do her college assignments. it's not that i want to pick this company to work in, i just happened to get in here because my friend kindly offers his dad's company for us to work into. it's not that i can pick which project i want to work at. 

i remember going to pura to pray on special days. i'm not a religious person that prays daily. i simply just believe that God exists and leads us into a path He was creating. back then, i go to pura to pray because it was a responsibility i have to do as someone who was born hindu. now, i go to pura because i'm glad to meet my people. minority people that become a majority only inside the pura. i feel endless peace and the feeling of being guarded when i'm surrounded by them, even though i'm going alone. it only happened once in 15 days, though.

my point is, creating a save space for yall muslims to grow and learn together is fine. building a boarding school is fine. you can shut yourself from the outside world and i don't even mind. you can interact with your people and study al-quran everyday, go ahead. it's not my business. but when the outsider like me is trying to study at your place, is it okay to shut me also? i'm not trying to blend in with you or join to study al-quran, i simply want to study the architectural process from the mosque you are building. nothing religious here. for god's sake we live in malang, not aceh which requires everyone to put on a hijab. you can shut yourself from the world, but that doesn't mean that the world are not allowed to reach you too. or that's also your vision too, to decline every outsider to reach your little circle?

i may sound exaggerating, but for now it's only me vs my field practice project. if this continues, won't it be the minority vs the majority in the future? the simple "miss, you can't go inside this school because you're not wearing a hijab" can also leads to "miss, this is a muslim only country, you can't go inside". when you're a majority in a certain country, doesn't mean that you rule the country, you know? according the globestats, you're just the second biggest religion in the world. the christians still rules about 1 million followers more than you. so don't shut the minority from your little world. don't act so big. we also live in the land where you live. we eat the same rice from the same paddy field, drink the same water from the same mountain. can't we just live together side by side with peace? 

this includes your rule to obligate every students in public school to wear long sleeves and long skirt. the only difference between the muslims and the nons is the hijab. the muslim students are also forced to wear hijab. i mean don't you think it's too much? you can't tell us what to wear, religiously. what's so wrong with normal length skirt and normal length shirt though? a uniform is still a uniform, no matter the length. to protect us girls from the naughty eyes, you said? why don't you teach your boys to put more respect to the girls without forcing us girls to hide our skin? i'm just dissapointed that i got catcalled in a religion based school. that mean your teachers don't succeeded teaching you anything, including all those al-quran studies you are forced to study night and day. i can tolerate catcalled from the streets, because it came from people who have 0 knowledge. their heads are just empty. but in a muslim boarding school? not to mention that there are many sexual abuse case that happened there. why don't you teach your students more manner, instead of just paragraphs and paragraphs of al-quran prayers? 

i just kindly hope that there will be no longer experiences like i've been through today. i don't want any discrimination from the majority side of the country i'm living in. this includes job requirements, uniform rules, and the overall treatments to the minority side. as i said before, religion should be a private space between you and your God, that's it. that won't change our behaviour in a social community. i don't want to be forced to wear hijab just to work on my assignments, and i don't want to cover my skin just to study at school.

once again i'm not putting any hate here. peace!