Not so long ago, I received news that the region of West Sumatera, the native homeland of my ethnic group (suku), Minangkabau, was hit by a massive earthquake. Immediately my heart sank.
No, seriously. No pun intended.
It's one thing to hear that the earthquake happened in your home country, but it's certainly entirely another (and definitely worse) to hear it happen in a place that has a personal value to you. West Sumatra. It's the land of my ancestors. I've been afraid that this would happen one day, ever since I read an issue of National Geographic assessing the high-risk zones in Indonesia. To my horror, West Sumatra was among those that have the highest risk of getting hit by earthquakes and tsunamis. It's not just the earthquakes though. Ever since the tsunami in Aceh, everything seems to go downhill from there. Nias' earthquake. Mandala crash. The flood of hot mud that nearly buried an area in Java. Ceaseless rains in Medan and drought in Jakarta. And then a flood in Jakarta. Airplanes falling out of the sky like paper on fire. The grand Pagaruyung Palace went up in flames. etc. etc. etc. I heard somewhere (probably from a Jum'ah khutbah) that all these disasters that have been happening to us are warnings from God, Allah SWT, that we, Indonesians must change and do our best efforts to repent and make everything better. That might very well be the case, but the important point is whether we actually learn something or not from all these disasters. The fact is that we Indonesians need a lot of change. And I do mean a lot. Like, a HELL lot.
(continued to next post)
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