Alright, I'm not sure whether it should go in "News and Politics", and please move this thread if appropriate, but I just want to share my experience.
Well, I took a leave on Thursday because I was going to visit my mother's house in Bandung. So after packing my gears, I took a "taxi motorcycle" to the train station (in Indonesia, there are motorcyclist that offer taxi ride for a negotiated fee; they're called ojek.)
When arriving at Thamrin Road, we (the biker and me) were stopped by a protest. Turned out it was a protest aimed at recent Israel's attack on Palestinian government official. So the traffic was stopped to give a way to the protesters.
But hey, wait, I saw several motorbikes slipped in at the left side of the marching protesters. Since motorbikes are smaller than cars, and can slip their way through traffic jams and the likes, I asked my biker why couldn't we slip through as well.
So the biker did.
What made me wonder next is why were all motorcycles around us keeping a slow pace. I mean, they were just ordinary motorcylists, weren't they? They could simply slip through and slip away, and surely didn't need to keep up with the protesters, did they?
Big mistake.
Those motorcycles are PART of the protesters.
And I was in the middle of it.
Luckily they were not Sharia hardliners; they were just Islamic students. Students and all. So they were not supposed to be violent (and they were not). But hey, a large mob of people is still a large mob of people, and they tend to be violent at the slightest provocation.
So here I was, trapped in the middle of the protesters, with an 'uh-oh' expression on my face and a thought, "WHAT the fuck am I doing HERE??"
And the worst of it, my mom called my cellphone. My fucking cellphone, ringed in the middle of the protesters. Some heads turned, but I managed to display as innocent expression as possible while answering the call. I managed to say "believe me, you don't want to know" to my mom before pocketed back the damn thing.
Fortunately we (the biker and me) eventually managed to slip away as casually as possible, then continued to the train station. When I later told my mom about what the fuck was going out, we both burst into laughter.
Later on, I cursed myself for not bringing my handycam before going to the station. It was not something that happens everyday!
:thumbsup