Where the Problem Truly Lies
By Muhammad Alfian Sofakhairi
The military already moved to quell the outrage by doing everything from apologising to ensure that the two officers would be tried in a military court. But, is it really enough?
Disgusting and barbaric. These two words aren’t even enough to explain what happened in that viral video. I can’t even watch the video until the end. It’s just so disappointing to see such barbaric act being done by members of the military of this nation to a deaf Papuan man.
The backlash are immense and immediate. People are legitimately angry and it showed especially in social media. Some people quick to point out that the video look as if it was shot-to-shot recreation of the famous video involving George Floyd that became the catalyst for the BLM movement. People are just tired of another abuses done to the people of Papua.
The military moves quickly to quell the outrage. They offered a public apology. They mutated the commanding officers of those soldiers. And those said soldiers would be tried in a military court, said them.
Of course, all of those weren’t enough. Although the man seems to be alright until those two soldiers were being prosecuted and received sufficient punishment, that will be the end. Will it be the end though?
When the hammer of justice fall to those two, it will just be the ‘end’ for that case. It didn’t even touch on the most fundamental problem of them all. Their very act were barbaric and so deserve punishment. But, I think that the true problem lies somewhere else.
The true problem lies in the very fact that it looks as if there was no hesitation whatsoever to do it. They just did it, instantly. No questions asked, no discussions, and no effort to deescalate tension. They turned on him and pushed him against the earth as if he wasn’t a human being.
That’s the problem, where the problem lies, their prejudice. I don’t know whether or not both of them do have prejudices against minorities, especially Papuan. However, I believe that people will show their prejudices in their action. People can say ‘I don’t have prejudices against minorities’ or ‘I am not a racist’, but action speaks volumes.
It is disheartening to see that this is even a problem in our military. After all, the military should have been the defender of this nation, of all the people who called this nation their homes, whoever they are, majority and minorities. The member of the military should be an exemplary citizen of this nation, but these two in this instances became parts of some of the worst of us instead. The military have to learn a lot from this instances to not just quell the outrage and the criticism, but also erase this problem once and for all.
I haven’t even started talking about this incident being another addition to a long list of alleged rights abuses in Papua. However, I do believe that by acknowledging the very existence of prejudices against minorities, in this case the people of Papua, just because of their skin color and many other disgusting reasons among some members of the military or at the very least among these two is the first step in addressing alleged rights abuses in Papua.
Any feedback especially on grammatical error is greatly appreciated…
