CONTROVERSIAL COMMEMORATION OF 911-TRAGEDY

To Indonesian who are mostly Moslem, the tragedy of 911 in the U.S. in 2001 was very surprising and depressing not only because an Indonesian citizen, Eric Hartono, was one of its victims, but also many people accused Moslems was behind it. Today, after ten years the tragedy has passed, Indonesian Muslims has to face a controversial commemoration of 911-tragedy.

As reported by vivanews.com, a coloring book specially published to commemorate the 10^th terrorists’ attack on WTC has triggered the anger of American Muslims. Instead of giving education to American youth, the author and drafter of the book have in turn brought a bad image of Moslem in general, including in Indonesia. Thus, many Moslems thought that controversial commemoration of 911-tragedy through the coloring book was not fair.

Meanwhile, reacting against the controversial commemoration of 911-tragedy, some Indonesian Moslem leaders once issued their official statements, of the them is Kyai Haji Hasan Mutawakil Alallah, the chairman of PWNU (Muslim organization of Nahdlatul Ulama) for East Java. He strongly criticized the controversial commemoration of 911-tragedy as it would be done with the burning-out of Al-Qur’an, the Holy Book for Moslems, by some American people. He stated that the action would provoke Moslems in all countries and just trigger their anger, which would certainly be not good both for Moslems and also American people in common.

Regarding to the coloring book, some Indonesian Moslems also strongly criticized the picture as it showed Osama Bin Laden was hiding behind a woman wearing niqab ( a kind of veil) with a man from NAVY SEAL was shooting his gun to Osama. They thought that such a picture did not appropriately reflect the real fact that Moslems in general who apparently love peace. Even though the author of the book, Wayne Bell stated that his book did not contain any offensive material, American as well as Indonesian Moslems had an objection for the controversial commemoration of 911-tragedy through the coloring book.