A week that I spent in Europe (Paris & Berlin) was enough for me to start asking myself a question “What were we doing”. When you walk on the streets of Paris or Berlin you will have a cultural shock. Everything around is a sign of civilization. Everything is very neat and clean. Very attractive and organized in a way that I couldn’t understand for the first days.
I went back with my mind to the history, weren’t we the Arabs the leaders of the world for a long time? Wasn’t “Al-Andalus” one of the landmarks in the Islamic architecture history? What happened exactly to make us stop the human civilization process?
Discussing this subject with a friend, we came up with two explanations:
Number one says: we were doing nothing but eating while the Europeans took our role as the leaders of the world. And we are still doing the same but trying to imitate them.
And number two is: we are very proud that we figured out the ZERO up to an extent that is preventing us from moving from that point. Yes we came up with something that’s called ZERO either to find a name for our status or to stop there.
That’s funny! Same problem in Indonesia. I think it’s the lack of ambition (cita-cita, we call it. It actually translates more like dreams & hopes rather than ambition). Our ancestors had dreams and the drive to make their dreams come true, a thirst for success, if you will. But our generation simply doesn’t know any other life than lazing around and enjoying what has been invented for us.
I’m very interested in how young arabs think about their culture & religion. In Indonesia people confuse Islam and Arabic culture, thinking that when they try to look arabic it also means they become more religious.. hahaha!
Comment by Citi — November 3, 2008 @ 11:09 am