Jan 29 2010 /
Visit to WA State Capitol In Olympia
Until now, as an Indonesian citizen, i have never been in the provincial or state government buildings in Surabaya, the capital city of East Java, such as the legislature, including representative, judicature building and governors office. But here i have gotten that chance.
When i was at the Washington State Capital, i also met with the Senator and Representative from Shoreline district. We went to that district’s representative because no one from our district showed up there. The Senate and Representative welcomed us kindly and we were talking a lot about islamophobia and low income housing which are some of the major issues nowadays. Also we talked about the new mosque that is being built in Shoreline by an imam from Bosnia Herzegovina and the Representative said that they will be visiting the mosque soon.
They also said to me, “you’re a lucky boy because you have been here for only 5 months and you got this opportunity to come down here.” Even though we just talked for 30 minutes each, because there were still a lot of people waiting in line to meet the legislature. And that was a great experience here.
Not only meeting with the senate and representative, but i also got a little tour of the legislature building including the House chamber, Senate room, hearing room etc. although on that day, there were no hearings going on there. So i still have a plan to go back down there to attend some hearings.
And the things that i learned from this point is that Democracy is a system to create an ideal society.
