yeah, am an "alien" :#

Selam alaykum. It had been long time I didn’t write  any  posts here. I just came across with an issue which  currently affecting me. Regarding befriending with foreigners. The word “foreigner” for me changes depends on several aspects.it might be people who don’t have blood relatives wih  us, or those who maybe do but seems not because we are not used to them. In Turkey sometimes they prefer to call foreign students as “misafir” which brings meaning guest rather than calling them “yabanci” which means “foreigner”. “Foreigner” that rounding in my mind now those who are not sharing the same homeland,languages,cultures and traditions with us, that’s the general thinking among us when we mentioned about’ foreigner’.

 

   
                                                GAZI TOMER 2012

For most of us, befriending with  foreigners are really wonderful. we’ll get opportunities to learn about many things that we might not even know because keeping ourselves in a bubble not gonna help us to widen our mind..a lot of things we could learn by interacting with those who are “alien” to us .Sharing about different cultures, lifestyles,religions,interests ,education and even improve our language skills .but nowadays what we could see clearly (in Malaysia) there are small group of university students who choose to be away from those who are being called foreigner, maybe because they don’t feel eager to learn new things and  open their eyes towards the outer world. 

Even sometimes there are a lot of foreign students in their school, and even in the same kuliyyah, but this group just don’t have the eagerness to befriend with them, because they are “different” , so they choose  just staying in a community who are from the same race, religion and so on. Of course im not saying that it’s a must for every SINGLE students to get know with the foreigners.but because I do  heard  complaints by some foreign students who are studying in local university, claiming “ why some local students here didn’t even want to talk to me is it just because im a foreigner, come from where another part of the wprld’. And when there are some malay students who are kind towards the foreigner, no matter where does he/she come from, this small community will keep jeering towards them saying that they are discriminating the local without realizing actually they are the one who are discriminating! As I heard also this kind of group also even thinking that those good people are trying to show off their skills in communicating in English. What a shallow thinking, maalesef!

One more thing, from what I heard , some of those group just trying to communicate with foreigners based on the countries that seems they like. Help them just because those foreigners looks attractive and have good-looking comparing to other foreigners  from ‘low standard’ countries who are also needing help. 

Come on my friends,lets change our thinking. Its not what had been taught by our beloved prophet saw. Prophet Muhammad  never taught us to be racist. Even when he confronted with the not yet Muslims, he never told them they are kafirs. He didn’t need to tell everyone he was a practicing and good muslim because people could see by his own behaviours.all the behaviours taught by allah in this bless religion being applied by him in his daily life until his last breath. Being kind towards everyone is really a blessing. Maybe today we could help them for the sake of allah,and in the future when we need help allah will help us in many ways. Being a foreign student in a foreign land also sometimes give the same expression as what foreign students in Malaysia feel.

Actually really, those feeling not really felt by those who are in Malaysia, but im sure everywhere, even in Turkey I had the same feeling which took much time to recover. By seeing this conditions I understand that some local people need us to approach them first then they could start conversations normally, so those who are feeling so “alien” in a foreign land, you will surely confront kinda situation, yeah a bit hard to accept some of them, but instead of blaming the whole race to have the same “antisocial” attitude, try to adapt with the locals and as time passing we will miss those precious moments with colourful people.