Opening my eyes and seeing the world from both sides now

Azwar Hasan, Contributor, Jakarta

In Aceh, the land of my birth and where I lived until high school, I grew up in a traditional environment full of religious values.

These values were so rooted in my consciousness I often fantasized about what my father, a religious teacher, told me about heaven. The image of heaven engraved in my consciousness from childhood was of a place full of trees and rivers flowing with clean, clear water, where everybody lived in peace and harmony and nobody wanted for anything.

And, of course, everybody in heaven was Muslim.

I lived for many years comfortable in my understanding of heaven until that cozy concept came under fire in a small town called Bairnsdale, three hours from Melbourne in Australia. I lived in a homestay in that rural town for approximately three weeks with my "adopted" family.

It had taken a lot for me to be chosen for the Australia Indonesia Youth Exchange Program (AIYEP). First, I lacked confidence sending in my application, believing that as a student from an undeveloped village I would be an unlikely choice. I had also come to believe that any selection process in my country would involve favoritism or graft, but I pushed on anyway and was picked.

When I arrived in the town, I experienced something that surprised me, impressed me, even made me feel dizzy, as I struggled to understand what I saw and felt every day of my stay.

It started out when I asked my host father about his religion and he replied, "I have no religion."

That answer did not exist in the set of beliefs I grew up with, because I "knew" that every human being must have a religion, be it Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism or Buddhism. I no longer knew how to position this man in my life: As a freak, an enemy or perhaps one of the infidels we often heard about in our religious classes.

I was confused, not least because these people were so kind to me, full of attention, both for me and my family back home. They worried if it was OK for me to eat what they ate, asked about my pocket money -- they behaved like the benevolent people I imagined populated heaven.

I did not have it in my heart to think of them as infidels. I really hoped that I had been wrong in my understanding and interpretation of the religious instruction imparted to me back in the village. I wanted so much for them to be my adopted parents with whom I could talk about many things.

My confusion deepened when an Australian friend from the exchange program introduced me to his family. Without a care in the world, he said, "Azwar, meet my mum and this is my mum's boyfriend."

How was it possible that his mother had a boyfriend? Where was his father? Was this allowed, or was it a sin! She would go to hell forever.

Good grief! I was scared to even think of hell -- a place of such cruelty and suffering where, as far as I knew, people who had illicit relationships were doomed to spend eternity. I was only a teenager and this woman was the mother of a teenage boy -- and she had a boyfriend! My world, or my concept of it, was falling apart.

These people were living in the same house as husband and wife and from the way they behaved, they seemed to be very much in love.

In my host family's household, the father cooked and served dinner. Then he cleared up and did the dishes -- the sort of things that are a woman's duty in my village.

Meanwhile, my host mother, dressed in man's boots, drove a tractor to cut the grass and after dinner would return to the field and do some weeding while the father eased himself into an armchair to watch television.

In my home village, I saw families who lived under the strict rule of law; the man would order the woman around to do his bidding and neglect the children so that they did not even know what -- if anything -- they would eat that day.

What sort of world was this? What was right and what was wrong? I felt feverish with confusion, wrestling with the thousands of questions flashing in my mind. I told myself that one day I would have a wiser view of all this because I was sure there was no easy or perfect answer to what was happening.

Bairnsdale really was like heaven on earth for me because I actually experienced and felt all the things that I had only imagined in my view of heaven. Clean, clear water flowing down a river free of garbage and discarded plastic bags, trees and fertile land all around me, fresh air, good roads, no pollution, clear skies.

Houses were left unlocked although they were full of valuables. Horses and cows looked so healthy; all the animals had a name and every member of the family knew it. What sort of country is this? Is this what heaven is like?

And if the answer is yes, how come these people, including atheists, are in the sort of heaven that was described to me by the clerics in my village? What should I do to bring this heaven to my village or my country?

Looking back on my experience now, I am grateful to the AIYEP program because it allowed me to see another side of the world and to experience life from a different angle. I have learned how to appreciate diversity and how to walk together to face all future challenges.

If more of my people could see and experience life from another angle through a similar program, maybe conflict and war would no longer be part of our lives.