Born A Crime: the Things that Interest Me In This Marvelous Book

I know there aren't many people who will read my review, still i like to voice my opinions, especially on this book, since it is a funny, charming, profanity-filled book.

The book tells the story of Trevor Noah growing up in South Africa. While I was reading this book, I found myself thinking, "You too??", like every 2 pages and honestly surprised that South Africa and Indonesia have a lot in common, since we are on the other side of the globe. These are the things that i find interesting,

1. Indonesia and South Africa were both colonized by Netherlands

My uncle who worked in mining off-coast of Johannesburg said that people who speak South African or Afrikaans, understand Dutch. While Netherlands people do not understand Afrikaans. I don't know if it's true, but it seems that Afrikaans and Dutch have many common vocabulary. Indonesian language has also adapted a few nouns from Dutch, since Netherlands "occupied" Indonesia for ~1.5 century. Gosh. The colonization that long of course influenced the people and the country, and Indonesia really adapts Dutch law. It seems that countries that were under Netherlands many years ago, turn out to be developed, third world countries, but are still considerably fine compare to middle east war zones. My friend said that maybe it would better for Indonesia if we were colonized by the English, look at Singapore. Singapore now is cool, but the English took away languages and traditions, it took away identities. While Indonesia still got to speak Indonesian and kept our cultures, Ireland lost Gaelic. I don't know which is worse. Nevertheless, nobody likes to be bossed around by tourists who stole goods for their profits, whether if it's the Dutch or the English.

2. Patriarchy and household tradition

Trevor Noah's mother were ahead of her time. She was like nowadays modern Indonesian women, working, some of them are single moms who live in big cities. Yet, when these women are back to their villages, they have to face the judging eyes of their extended families and neighbors. Many families are still very traditional, women are born to take care of children and clean house, first-born sons are considered the head of the family when their fathers are not at home, men are not supposed to be in the kitchens (I mean, every people should learn how to fucking cook, it's a rule to survive), husbands should be respected above all. These are the norms of people who are never left and they try to shove their beliefs that this is a true way of life, since it is the kind of life their mothers and their great grand mothers had lived. The men are taught only they can provide for their families and it is their pride to provide a living in his way accordingly, thus they do not like women who have too many opinions and make more than they do. This kind of "rational" thinking are one the causes of domestic violence and unfortunately i'm not surprised when Noah's mother told her family that her ex husband beat her, they turned the table by telling her that it is normal, that their husbands beat them too and instead, asking her, "Did you make him angry? What did you do?" and it seems they try to blame the women, not the hitter.

3. Corrupt Officials

This is the most amusing part of all because nobody really talks about it here publicly. When we get pull over, we know that it's not necessarily our fault, it's just that the policemen are hungry. When our house is burglarized or our relative is murdered, we know that it took extra money or publicity for the case to be solved. When we need official document, we know we have to "contribute" extra to create our ID a week faster. It is like a secret-sharing method. When talking to a policeman when you got pulled over, you can act stupid all you want, your conversations will be just spinning around circles, until you mention an amount of Rupiah, then it starts to go somewhere. Exactly like the book.

There was a saying this book,

I couldn't be more agree, in Indonesia especially. We live among tens of other tribes with each different languages, four other religions, separated by five major islets and we don't exactly all finish school. It is very easy to divide Indonesia. And that's what I have been feeling, especially recently, that government or some people tried to convince us that we are different and they keep pointing at the already opened gap to make it more obvious and create a bigger one.

4. Fear of Women

I laughed when Noah told the story of how his aunt is bigger than her husband, that even though he beat her, she could come back and scare him. I remember Trevor said this on The Daily Show during the women's march section,

Trevor shares his thoughts on the Women’s March #betweenthescenes.

A post shared by The Daily Show (@thedailyshow) on Jan 25, 2017 at 8:47am PST

"Wathint' abafazi, wathint' imbokodo'." 

"You strike a woman, you strike a rock" 

Although in many places in Indonesia women are still hiding, at the same time it is the women people fear. It is the women who actually run their houses, support their men and ruin powerful men. There are a lot of cases in Indonesia which powerful men went down right poor because of women. Marry them old, take their money, watch them die. It is a classic Indonesian opera story. It is also the women who are the most ferocious in public places, I've seen them yelled at police officers, rode motorcycle in highway and were economic and politic experts in social media without college degree. I once heard this joke, that the special cars for women in the commute train are purposefully not to protect women from men, but to protect men from women. So that's that.


Anyway, it is a great book. I'm not sure it is available offline in bookstores in Jakarta or any other Indonesian cities. I bought it online. If you want to learn about what it was like living in South Africa and accidentally compare your childhood to Trevor's, in a humor side, I recommend you this book. Thanks for reading.