I like to watch YouTube before going to bed. I usually watch movies, talk shows, or stand-up comedy. Sometimes I just play the sound of rain to help me sleep.



When I want to watch a movie, I write down any keywords I want like "Indonesian movie" or "Indonesian sub movie" in the YouTube search bar. Then, YouTube will show a list of films based on the keywords I wrote. One day in 2017, there was a movie with the title "good movie" on the list, and I watched it.


The movie was titled "The Taqwacores" and was set in Buffalo, New York, USA. The film tells the story of a group of punk kids who are mostly Muslims. I was very interested in the character of Rabeya, a Muslim woman who wears a burqa (a garment that covers the entire body) with various punk identities. Rabeya actually has very feminist and liberal views despite wearing a burqa. The film is controversial and considered taboo by some Muslims, but for me, the film teaches tolerance and friendship between different characters.


In the film, Michael Muhammad Knight, a convert who is also part of the Muslim Punk Rock community, faces difficulties in being accepted among Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Nevertheless, they remain committed to performing the five daily prayers during their music tour. For a Muslim watching this film, they may feel a dilemma between their identity as a Muslim and being part of the Punk Rock community.


Identity is very important for humans, and our society continues to seek absolute identities. However, we actually have various identities within us such as gender, nationality, and social class. But not all of those identities become absolute identities. We need to reflect on ourselves and accept identities freely.


The French philosopher Gabriel Marcel said that objectivity is the opposite of existence. Existence is our concrete situation like gender and nationality, but it is not our true identity philosophically. Marcel offers three important phases to achieve objectivity, namely admiration, reflection, and exploration. By doing these three phases, we can find our true identity.


To become a true human being, according to the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel, we need to go through three important phases. The first phase is admiration, which is to open ourselves to various things in life with humility. We must be willing to see, hear, and accept new things with an open mind. We cannot be true human beings if we are arrogant and conceited.


However, being open alone is not enough. We also need to reflect on ourselves. Reflection has two stages. The first stage is intellectual reflection, which is abstract, analytical, universal, and verifiable. The second stage is dialogical reflection with real life. We must bring our thoughts and life experiences together in order to better understand ourselves.


After going through these two stages of reflection, we will arrive at the exploration phase. In this phase, we can accept reality freely, including accepting ourselves with all the identities that are attached to us. According to Marcel, the exploration phase goes beyond our active thinking.


From Marcel's philosophical concept, the Punk Rock Muslims in the mentioned film seem to reflect on themselves. They open themselves up to two different identities, as a Muslim and as a Punk Rock music fan. By reflecting on their identities, they could accept their identities freely and simultaneously embrace both of them.