Global Citizen

I was accidentally born in Indonesia. Each of us was born with predetermined conditions, including nationality, we could never choose or refuse.

If the place we grew up in proves nurturing, we grew to love it. I love Surabaya mostly for its people. Surabayans are egalitarian in a country still reeks of feudalism, loud, prone to swear expletives, and say exactly what is in their mind. We are the rude Javanese, as most Indonesians would say.

This love of land is exploited in patriotic propaganda by a government and its apparatus that want loyalty and obedience from its citizens. The government would go even further by using our love of food, football club–or whatever else–and even religion to appeal to our patriotic zeal.

But we know better. Since the food was never created by such government. Only a few determined creative citizens created them, mostly out of love in what they do. The football club is in it for the money and does not care about any propaganda that does not make one. And even the religion is imported from a faraway land. So, what is claimed as ours–ours alone–is nothing but an illusion since it is never mine in the first place.

I feel even more stupid if I believe in such propaganda by claiming that Surabayan food is the best in the world. Because it never is. Since I actually like Indian breakfast of paratha, sambar, and chole, Vietnamese pho, Canadian beer, and Alberta beef steak. I grow to love other places and people too.

I have grown to be a global citizen. I can imagine living and dying in another place other than Indonesia. This was how I felt when my family and I left Indonesia last year after working there for 1 year to return to Canada. 

The place I grew up in does not have the same feeling as I felt when I was a kid. Java is now dotted with cities choked in traffic jams, floods, and overpopulation. Its government is corrupt and very slow to improve the welfare and health of its people. Its elite and rich is crass and ostentatious.

I was heartbroken but felt incapable of making enough changes. Maybe next time, I said to myself, when my kids are grown up. You see, first love is hard to erase. But at least this time, I am the one who will choose.