Archive for May 13th, 2010
Forgiveness and Justice after May 1998 Tragedy
by Jennie S. Bev
Twelve years ago, our family and my parents’ house were saved by a mosque. A mob came to torch down the neighborhood but a good Muslim neighbor shouted, “Don’t torch our homes. There is a mosque nearby!” I was fortunate I was there and not on the way to my house in Tangerang, West Java.
Afterward, I heard many cars and their occupants were violently attacked on Kebon Jeruk toll road. One of those cars could have been mine.
Questions on forgiveness and justice have been haunting me since.
As a triple minority, based on my ethnicity, gender and religious affiliation, I belonged to “the weakest link” group, which explains why women of Chinese-Indonesian descent were targeted. Read the rest of this entry »
