To be honest, I do not have any intentions to incite hatred between the two neighbouring nations by quoting those comments. What I am intending to do is quite the opposite.
I can tell you, right now is definitely the lowest point of our post-Konfrontasi bilateral relationships with our so-called serumpun neighbour.
I do not know for certain whether it could get any lower than this, but judging from the current developments, and the way the issues are handled by both of our governments, I think it could.
To be fair to the Indonesians, I will state here the prevalent views about Malaysia in Indonesia, shared by many of the Indonesians (but not all of them), whenever a problem crops up between their country and ours.
First of all, they do view us as a bunch of arrogant people who, over the years, keep “stealing” many of the things that they regard as solely theirs, be it in the form of two isolated tiny islands (Sipadan and Ligitan), cultural heritage (wayang kulit, keris, batik, gamelan, angklung, Reog Ponorogo, Balinese Pendet dance), folk songs (Rasa Sayange, Terang Bulan), some ambiguous oil-rich sea territory (the Ambalat oil block), illegal logging in Kalimantan, (allegedly sponsored by Malaysian ‘taukeys’), and some other isolated ‘stealing’ episodes which I cannot recall.
So prevalent is this view of us as a “nation of thieves” that they now casually refer to our country as ‘Malingsia’ (Maling means thief).
Secondly, stories about Indonesian workers who get abused/cheated/tortured while working in Malaysia make headlines in Indonesia. As a result, it is not surprising if they tend to have this skewed notion of us as one cruel nation whose citizens do not have anything else to do but leisurely torture their people who come to Malaysia, over and over again.
Another reason for them to label us “arrogant” would be our usage of the ‘I’ word, which we frequently, innocently, with no malice whatsoever intended, use whenever we refer to the nation and the people of Indonesia.
To them, the ‘I’ word is insulting, offensive, not to mention condescending as well. I bet not many of you know about the negative connotation of the ‘I’ word among the Indonesians.
Even I was not aware of this fact, not until I set my foot in Indonesia some six years ago.
The Manohara controversy did rattle some of the raw nerves in Indonesia. And oh, Noordin Mat Top, too, did his bit to help make matters between the two countries go from bad to worse.
