Promised Land

When I was younger, I wanted to be a journalist. I used to watch Christiane Amanpour and Anderson Cooper on TV (because they are probably the most popular war correspondent in my generation) and think, I really want to go there. To wherever it was they are reporting from. Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Syria. You name it. The battlefield is always an interesting place--tears and blood are shed almost every minute, but it's the story I was always looking for the most. Because to die in a battlefield means to die as a number. But if you could die, you are not a number. You are a human. You have a heart. You have a soul. You have a story.

This year, once again, I am discovering the Middle East. It's the most exotic region in the world, with constant threat of war and a history that mankind never seem to lose interest in. I think it's safe to say that it's the land where religions were born.

Egypt

   

Whenever I hear the name Egypt, I could only think about a nation that is so rich in ancient history, a society formerly the pioneer of forward-thinking innovations that today people are still seeking the secrets of its former life. Egypt to me is almost like Greece--even though I haven't been to Greece. They are both Mediterranean countries with people who could look so much alike, and so famous in history lessons, but unfortunately so behind in today's stories.

It's sad.

El-Haram District, Cairo

When I was in Giza visiting the Pyramids (the only thing that interested me about the country at first), a guy who claimed to be an official for tourism in the Great Pyramids of Giza complex approached me and told me that our countries are very much alike, "We are basically brothers!" I can tell from his tone that he was trying to be friendly, but our countries are alike for many of the bad things it suffer: a lack of jobs, high level of corruption, low GDP, and until very recently in Indonesia, a government that likes to shut its people down to go on as a nation that looks 'fine' from the outside. We both have seen terrible demonstration to impeach a long-ruling president (though luckily we did not have to witness a man setting himself up in fire to let people get to the idea).

I swear this is the best sky I've ever seen in my life


But let's forget that. Let's focus about what it is as a holiday destination.

This is very exciting for me because it's the first time that I ever landed my feet in Africa! I have always wanted to visit Africa. First on my list is actually South Africa, then Marrakech, and somehow, Sudan (don't ask). But Egypt actually sounds really good! Sometimes I forgot how it's one of the most famous nations in the continent. The Nile River is something of a phenomenon on itself, but the Pyramids? The Suez Canal? Isn't Egypt the country you heard so much about in school?!

Cairo will bring you a tinge of deja vu for Jakarta. It's crowded, it's messy, it's full of old cars that people still use, it's very dusty, most the women wear hijabs even though it is not mandatory, and the traffic is basically hell. The tramco will remind you of angkot, and the dusty cars on the road makes you think of opening up a car wash business in the city. Basically whatever happens in Jakarta, or largely Indonesia, will happen in Cairo, or largely, Egypt.

It is another story with Alexandria, though. It's a masterpiece. The seaside town will make you think that you are in the southern part of France. You can feel the European influence almost immediately. It's like their version of Bandung, you know? You can tell that God was in such a good mood when He created this city.

The saddest part about this historical country is the lack of maintenance for its places of interest. They ask for entrance fee almost everywhere, even public toilets, even though it's not written. Someone even asked for money when I was just finished praying in a mosque he happened to (probably) keep. My guide said this is because people here can be very poor and jobs are scarce, so they need to take money from people by whatever means necessary. With corruption so high, money can buy everything--it's just not everywhere.

Jordan

When I first landed in Amman's Queen Alia International Airport, I thought it would be the new Dubai. Very unlike Cairo, where I flew out from, the city seems to be very clean, the air is clear and the weather is colder, and, from up in the air, it looked like Swiss in the middle of a desert. The airport itself is beautiful and very modern, you're gonna think it's not a country blessed to border with Israel/Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq. Yep, how's that for a geographical location?

See the white on the sand? They're all salt!

Have you heard of the Dead Sea? Apparently, I haven't. I didn't know that it's located among Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and perhaps other countries I didn't know. There, over the horizon on the photo above, is Israel. I was standing in the Jordan side, where Muslims can live freely and women don't have to cover their heads (this was taken after I crossed the border from Jerusalem, where I had to wear headscarves everywhere, so pardon my weird hair). The salinity level of this so called sea is deemed  one of the highest in the world, making swimming in it is pretty risky. You could float, but prepare to be covered in salt all day. I tried dipping my feet and hands, and they're all immediately covered in salt! I tried the water in my tongue, and oh boy. You will never know something so salty, it turns kind of sour in a very strange way! If you aren't very religious like me, this sea is kind of biblical. It appears in the Bible, and somehow Muslims also recognize the Dead Sea as the hang out place for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and mostly their LGBT community or 'the people of Lut'.

Jordan lacks water. There is no oil field, unlike its neighbors, and as far as the eyes can see, it's sand and stones. But the people--ooh. The women are free to show their hair, which for Arab girls can be wildly styled and colored, their faces are there for everyone to see. It looks like a free a country! They almost look like an entirely different race from the Arabs in Egypt, because most of them have light skin like the Europeans, and big eyes like their own peers (or probably because you didn't think you can see Arab women that much exposed). The check-in guy for my flight from Amman to Cairo even looked like the better, skinnier version of Rob Kardashian. Faces like Zayn Malik? They're on every street corner in the whole Arab peninsula!

I did not see Amman itself (Too bad! I'm a fan of the beautiful Queen Rania!) because I went straight to this newly famous small town called Petra. What is there is a 'lost city', a historical site once belonged to the Nabateans, somehow closely related to the Egyptians, Romans and Greeks. They said they only discovered this beauty in 2008, but you can tell that Jordanians treat this site very carefully that the surrounding is very well-maintained, clean, and it's so much of an upgrade from what I saw in Egypt.

After walking 2 km among layers and layers of these beauty....

...there she is!

By the way, it was here that my phone's LCD was scattered, one day before its anniversary. It managed to break in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Great. (P.S. It didn't break me. My guide, Ahmed, even asked my how the hell I stayed happy when my phone was just broken. Well...)

WHY????

If you are like me, someone who holds a passport from a Muslim (or majority of Muslim) country, chances are, your passport is no good for entering Israel. I can't enter the country from Tel Aviv since Indonesia doesn't have a diplomatic relationship with Israel, so like everybody else with the same problem, I had to cross the border from Amman to Jerusalem.

The journey can be tiring and long. There are so many checkpoints in the middle of an empty field people claim to contain explosives, and everywhere you look, there is an armed officer with firearms always watching you. I'm not sure if these people are Jordanian or Israeli, but from the way they watch you... maybe the latter.

Security checks at the border is one hell of a system. People who won't queue is apparently a problem that is not exclusively for Indonesia. Sadly, these people seem to be people who hold the Palestinian passports. They had to succumb to the extreme checks of the enemy in a country they call home, but they also failed to show that they come from a decent society. 

Jerusalem

It's not without a struggle getting them in my hand

I honestly don't know the politically correct way of saying the name of the country. Is it Palestine, because I'm a Muslim? Or should I call it Israel, because it is under Israeli occupation? So I decided to call it Jerusalem, because, as a pacifist, and someone who actually holds one of the religions whose history was closely related to this city, I think the international world should decide to leave Jerusalem as it is, not as a part of any country. Like the Southern Pole, it should be a place that doesn't belong to any country. 

My guide, a Palestinian man with Israeli ID and probably even passport, named Jamal, is very passionate when it comes to telling stories about his country. He tells it as it is, as bitter in truth as can be: "The Israeli government is a brute. They took away the Arabs of Palestine's land and claim it theirs and suddenly charge very high prices so the Arabs can stay in their places. Jobs are scarce, and even if they have it, the living cost in East Jerusalem is too high and no one can afford it. The Israelis have ultra-modern arms, they have mandatory military service for young boys and girls for at least 2 or 3 years. They are ready to go to war at any time. But the Palestinians? We only have small arms. Nothing compared to the Israelis. Corruption in the elites is high. No fellow Muslim countries actually help. We are desperate. It's hard even trying to survive here." He also said matter-of-factly that it hardly matters who the Israeli government is killing, because when they are fighting Palestinians of Jerusalem, they are also killing Israelis. They're all under Israeli's occupation now, so it doesn't matter which is Palestine and which is Israel anymore. The West Bank might be more popular as Palestine's area and they can't live on the other side of the wall, but in this side of the wall, there are also Jews, and when the government is enforcing their army here, they are enforcing it on the Jews, too.

Now, Jamal speaks Indonesians. He also speaks other languages, such as French and Mandarin, of course, but somehow he speaks Indonesian (He also speaks Hebrew and his son, who's 19, is also learning it because he said, "It's very important that we know what the enemy is talking about.") When I first hear him talking with so much inshaa Allah--God willing--I thought it's because he was very religious or somewhat on his way to be a Muslim cleric. But nope. One day, when we stopped at a souvenir shop, I heard him talking to the shopkeepers in Arabic and they all said inshaa Allah in almost every sentences! This was completely unheard of in Egypt and Jordan. It was as if they are not willing to firmly promise anything if God ends up not allowing them to fulfill their promise! It was as if, perhaps I'm almost exaggerating, that they somehow think that their lives could be very easily taken from them anytime, so why make a promise they can't really keep?

I could be wrong, of course. I was only there for 2 days, and barely interacted with the locals because I was too careful (more on this later!). 

From the top of Mount Olives, where the view is so much better IRL

Jerusalem is a beautiful, beautiful place. It is largely separated into two parts: the East, where the Arabs of Palestine live, and the West, where the Jews of Israel are. The people are also equally beautiful, I'm not gonna lie. Hands down this is by far the country with the highest number of good looking people per square meter! And I thought Turkey was the richest in this matter! Even the Israeli Defense Force who spend all day holding big guns and covered in bulletproof clothing, they are still better looking than many Hollywood actors.

Since I'm Muslim, and my main mission was to visit Al Aqsa, I had to appear like a good Muslim woman: no pants or tight clothing, head covered in scarves and all that stuffs. Al Aqsa Mosque sits on the Muslim quarter of the old city, but I also had a fair share of coming into the Christian quarter, and oh, they are both worlds apart. Extremely different.

The Christian quarter is so much cleaner and tidy, when you entered it, you'd feel like you were just stepping into a part of theme park like Disneyland. Most of the people here are Caucasian, many of them speak English in American accent. There are so many UN cars going around the city, and it all said that their mission was to help the people of Palestine. But call me a cynic, because I don't think that's exactly what they do. That's a discussion for another day though.

Jamal told us that the reason why the Muslim quarter is, uhm, dirty, messy, and overall, in poor condition, is not because the Arabs are not into hygiene issues. The thing is, much like the difference between the East and West Jerusalem, it's more about help from the Israeli government. They obviously would not put rehabilitating the Muslim quarter as part of their priorities, so, that's what happens. 

Some street arts in the Muslim quarter of the Old City

Jerusalem is beyond the famous Old City. You can literally get some history from almost every corner. It's where Moses, Jesus and Mohammad happened to create history on, and today their followers can't help but fighting over the right of the Promised Land. The war here never stops. Poverty is very common. Street beggars, from old men pretending to sell unremarkable souvenirs just to beg money from tourists, to children who would have been so cute and innocent if they weren't born into such a miserable place. They keep yelling, "Fisabilillah! Fisabilillah!--one who fights for the cause of Allah" It's hard to define who's really the fisabilillah these days, but to be put on earth in a place where you have no money, no government, no basic human rights to hold your own religion freely? I can see how much of a struggle their lives must be.

One of the child beggars in Hebron


A week later, while I was in my hotel room in Mecca, I saw the news on CNN that the Israeli police had shot two Palestinians at the same day but different time in Old City Jerusalem. They were both from East Jerusalem, and both were trying to attack the Jews. One of them actually stabbed a Jewish man and left him wounded. Both died. Both were desperate. I can instantly see that Jamal was right. Everyone here was desperate.

The Wailing Wall

So, if you were to ask me, what was the very highlight of my trip?

Here's a little narration: It was Friday. The day after, the Jews will stay home and unlikely to do anything as simple as using their cars. Plenty of Ultra-Orthodox Jews with unique hats, dressed in black and white, children with side curls, were gathered around The Wailing Wall, making it looked like a prom night where all you really have to do was wailing. And as you can see above, that's the Dome of The Rock pretty close by. A few minutes after this photo was taken, Al-Aqsa's muezzin started to call for Maghreb prayers, and shortly after that, when I was walking back to my hotel, I heard a church bell ringing.

You can't really buy that kind of feeling, you know?

The most memorable Friday prayers, EVER!

Additional information if you are a Muslim traveling to Al Aqsa: there is such a thing as curfew. Shortly after Isha prayers or around 8 pm, they'd close all gates to Al Aqsa up until it will be time for Fajr prayers or around 4 am. Apparently, that's what life is like when your country is occupied by your sworn enemy: it's a living hell.

  

KSA

If I tell you everything that I think about this country, you're gonna think that I am not a good Muslim--or not a Muslim at all. You will think that I don't understand the religion (which might be slightly true) or you will tell the person next to you that I have been too caught up in a system that glorifies Western cultures which, ultimately, was driven by the Jews (hate to break it to you, but regardless of how right or wrong that theory would prove to be, many people from Muslim countries tend to blame it on the Jews)

So I'm not going to tell you what I think.

I'm going to tell you what's really going on.

  

Here's what I need you to understand: Many feminist media (mostly born in the West) think that KSA is a country of misogyny. They hate women so much that they won't allow them to drive. The fundamental teachings of the Wahabbi is so strong that women are not even allowed to show their faces--some don't even show an inch of skin at all. The men are allowed to marry as many times as they like, while the women are hidden, almost untalked about, in this kind of culture. I read somewhere that this is also the state in Afghan culture. Men are not to talk about the women in their family, not their mother, sister, wife of daughter. This, I think, probably also happens in other Muslim countries. My guide in Egypt, he was a smooth talker when it comes to the ladies, but a quick look at his social media accounts show that he's married with two sons, but no sign of his wife at all. He probably also have a daughter that he's never posted about, who knows? The similar experience also happens in Starbucks.

Starbucks baristas don't ask for your name. I don't know if it's the procedure in all Starbucks shops in Saudi, but it's obviously not the default Starbucks procedure anywhere else in the world. Instead, they write a number on your receipt, and later they'd put your order with the number written on it. They don't even shout the number. I don't know if that also happens in the Single's Section of the cafe, where it's all men who come without their family and/or claimed 'family'.

Oh, yes. All cafes and restaurants are separated between Family and Single Section. Even food stalls at the food court. Men and women don't line up together.

Shops meant for women are marked 'Family Only' while shops for men are marked 'Single Section' or something like that--I'm not sure, because I always made sure that I did not just step into a lion's den in a country that very easily blame things on a women--let alone a foreign woman from a country where they get most of their housekeepers from.

There are no fitting rooms in clothing shops in this country. If you are going to be a dress, you buy it, and if you don't like you, you can return for an exchange or refund your money. I don't know how long this period of return is valid, but judging from the nature of their free-spirit behavior, this goes without saying that they probably have a very good consumer protection act in their country. Probably. (Truly, though. If this was a Divergent universe, it's like the whole population of the Arab nations will be Dauntless, while Islam was created in the world to make them be Abnegation. Or Amity. Both, actually)

At the most sacred place in the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, women only have very limited time to pray while men have all the time in the world. The space for women is, I suspect, slightly smaller, and yet they only give them very limited time. Women had to fight against each other for a spot to pray. It's pretty draining, both emotionally and physically. Women can't pray in the same seriousness as the men. It's like even our path to attend to heaven is somehow limited compared to the men.

It's really hard to comprehend. It makes being a female Muslim very tough, too.

I really don't know what's wrong with this place. All I know is that one day, their beloved king fought for the regions where the Prophet Muhammad--peace be upon him--made most of his history in, and POOF! Everyone has to travel there for religious pilgrimage. There. A place where gender segregation is very apparent, and it's probably even bordering on misogyny.

But let's not go there, shall we?

May we will always be welcome here

To me, the Kaaba is still the most magical place. There are true stories of how people who came to Mecca could not see it, because God did not allow them to (Yeah, because Muslims see God in everything, according to Life of Pi). For the time being, the Al Haram Mosque is under major construction which may still take a few years to complete. But that's fine. The sanctity of this place will never be second to anything else. The number of magic happening every second to everyone surrounding it will never cease to amaze. Alhamdulillah. May we will all always be welcome there.