looking beyond

Over the past week there've been three incidents involving the deaths of foreign students/former students here that have hit the news. It's given me something to think about on top of the lots of stuff that have been occupying my mind with practicum and all.

I must admit that i was hardly one to second-guess the local mainstream media's portrayal of the first incident (the stabbing cum alleged suicide at ntu). I just thought that, if not for the (thankfully) very strict gun laws here, it would be nothing more than akin to the many troubled-student-goes-on-shooting-rampage stories from places like the States and Finland that have popped up from time to time. In other words, i pretty much did nothing more than accept what was presented, what apparently were presented as facts.

Then i received an email from an Indonesian friend and former ntu student which suggested that things may not in fact have been as straightforward as they were presented to be. It included a forum response to the online ST article (re: post dated March 04, 2009 Wednesday, 09:40 PM) which i thought was a very sobering assessment of the portrayal of those involved in the incident and a justifiable questioning of the so-called facts that have been presented to the public, as well as the conclusions that we have drawn about them from what we have read and viewed. Like in the case of the second alleged suicide (interesting to note btw that this time they did at least make it clear that this was an alleged suicide - i don't recall the same being done for the first case, though maybe it was, and in my own reading of the story i conveniently discarded the word "alleged"), this time of a recent graduate and then-current staff of ntu, there are so many assumtions based at least in part of stereotypes that we tend to assign to foreign students methinks that perhaps are really less-than-helpful to say the least. At the least, i can only hope and pray that in whatever official/unofficial reviews that do take place in response to these incidents, colored preconceptions do not feature at all, and, specifically where Christian ministry to the international community in school campuses is concerned, that these incidents will serve as a good learning point when it comes to planning and preparation.

After i heard about the pgp incident and read about it in the ST, i went googling for reports on what had happened from the American perspective. I came across articles like this one and again, based on my more or less wholehearted acceptance of what i had read in the ST report, figured that the American reports had conveniently left out details regarding how he had passed on cos they didn't want to talk about the drinking and pill-popping that were inferred by the ST report to be the cause of his death. I then found this rather strongly-worded indictment of the campus observer for their speculatory take on the incident (to their credit, they did at least publish and respond to it, though there's no indication of any amendments made to the original article, let alone an apology being made, since they stand by what they had reported). I'm no student of journalism so i can't pass judgement, but i can't help but wonder if the original report was influenced by stereotypes of Western exchange students as well - stuff like their gathering at the pgp foyer steps every wednesday night before heading en masse to town to go clubbing and coming back in shared cabs in the wee hours of thursday morning all liquored up, and then waking up late for class with an almighty hangover (yes i admit i've held that view myself, especially when i was staying there - though of course in itself there's nothing really wrong about that)... In retrospect, surely no one, be they a local or a foreigner is so one-dimensional and readable (i know i wasn't when i was on exchange), therein lying a big challenge to student ministry - how to see each person as unique and special (in God's eyes, and therefore as it should be in our eyes as well), beyond any albeit sometimes partially true generalizations that can be made about them.

I think of this also because in my second week of practicum i've come across some international students as well, who are incredibly diverse in their backgrounds and all, and also in their needs. Looking at some of them, i'd have to say that it's hardly a stretch to see what has happened in the aforementioned ntu cases possibly happening to them as well in the near or far future, if perhaps they find no one to unberden themselves to and receive the appropriate help from... It's quite a worrying thought...