It Is About LIFE

Thanks to Antony Loewenstein for posting this video.



42 Years
3.5 million people
10.000 prisoners
Humiliation

It's not only about occupation...or human rights

Use of banned weapons
Collective punishment
Targeting civilians
Denying aid and relief

Nor is it only about war crimes...or war criminals

Religious discrimination
Segregation
Denial
Apartheid

It's not only about a racist regime...or ethnic cleansing

Settlements
separation wall
land confiscations
home demolitions

It's not only about international law...or international politics
It's not only about resistance and sacrifice.

It's time we all understood
It is about justice
It is about love
It is about LIFE

That's why, at the end of the day
Tyranny
oppression
and racism
will be defeated.

And it is humanity which shall prevail.

Living Less

Mungkin aku bukan orang yang sangat tepat untuk bicara living less, hidup hemat atau hidup tidak berlebihan. Banyak sekali orang lain yang mau ngga mau harus begitu. Memutar otak untuk mencukupkan uang yang ada agar gizi anak-anak tetap terpenuhi. Agar uang bulanan bisa bertahan sampai pay day selanjutnya.

Sementara di Oprah ada tayangan tentang Freegan , aku teringat kepada tukang sampah di kompleks Althia Bintaro yang mengambil dan memakan makanan sisa atau cemilan melempem yang kupisahkan dari sampah-sampah yang lain.

Kemudian mataku tertuju pada buku resep yang kubeli minggu lalu. Di sampul buku itu tertulis "MENGHEMAT UANG BELANJA", tapi ketika kubaca ternyata uang belanja yang dibutuhkan untuk masakan di buku itu berkisar antara 50-70 ribuan sehari. Hemat dimananya????

Bagaimana dengan orang-orang yang hidup dengan penghasilan 10-20 ribu per hari?

Satu hal yang lumayan menyenangkan di Balikpapan (menurutku), hidup tidak sekadar berputar di mal. Too much mall in Jakarta. Mal-mal yang ketika masuk membuatku ngga nyaman, bahkan sedikit muak, karena harga makanan dan barang-barangnya menghabiskan gaji sebulan asistenku di rumah. Mal-mal yang kalo kita bersandal jepit dan tidak ber-make up maka kita termasuk makhluk rada langka di mal tersebut. Mal konsumerisme yang di dalamnya kita termasuk ke dalam dunia 'aneh'.
Simpelnya, we’ve become a society of people who define ourselves and others by the stuff we have.
Baju dan tas bermerek yang kita pakai.
Gadget terbaru yang kita punya.
Mobil dan tv termahal yang kita beli.

Work, earn, survive, buy, repeat. And die.

Orang harus membeli untuk terus merasa 'full', dan hal ini dibantu sepenuhnya oleh televisi, majalah, iklan...Butuh membeli untuk merasa "dicintai", "dihargai" dan akhirnya melihat orang lain juga dengan cara yang sama.

Buy more. Need more. More and more.

Apakah 'more' berarti 'better life'?
I don't think so. We don't need expensive stuffs to make us happy.

So, living less. Buat kami berarti :
Lebih sering membuat cemilan sendiri dan mengurangi/menghilangkan jajanan di luar. Sebagian besar cemilan untuk anak-anak yang dijual di toko sebenarnya banyak mengandung bahan yang kurang sehat seperti pewarna, pengawet dan pemanis buatan. Lebih baik menggoreng pisang daripada membelikan taro, cheetos, coklat dll.
Mengurangi menonton tv atau film dan lebih banyak kegiatan bermain aktif atau membaca buku.
Mengurangi pemakaian plastik.
Mengurangi makan di luar dan meneguhkan diri untuk mencoba resep-resep baru di rumah (this weekend, Kimchi!!!^^).
Pantai dan jalan-jalan di sekitar rumah sebagai pengganti mal dan mainan baru.

Ah, kehabisan ide!
Sambil jalan nanti pasti ketemu ^^

They say in this circle of life, don't take more than you give. And aim to give more than you take.

My Only Wish

From Karin's blog



All your armies
All your fighters
All your tanks
And all your soldiers
Against a boy
Holding a stone
Standing there
All alone
In his eyes I see the sun
In his smile I see the moon
And I wonder, I only wonder
Who is weak and who is strong
Who is right and who is wrong
And I wish I only wish that the truth has a tonque

(Sami Yusuf, My Only Wish)

Take Three Steps Back

Damar Alif Muhammad, 5 tahun Juli ini, dulunya anak yang temperamental. Sejak bayi sampai sebelum adeknya lahir dia akan terbangun tengah malam atau pagi-pagi buta dan menangis keras. Sering sambil nendangin aku dan papahnya yang tidur bareng dia. Bicaranya juga sedikit telat dibanding anak umur 2-3 taun, waktu itu. Dan SANGAT aktif! Kerjaannya berantem dengan tante Ruwi, yang awal-awal kami di Jakarta sering mampir ke bintaro sektor 4 sepulang kerja (Miss you, Ruuuu....).

Sampai Dimas berumur 9 bulan di rumah hanya ada kami, praktis sebelum adeknya lahir Damar dan aku hanya berdua. Jadi kemanapun aku pergi dia ikut. Apapun yang kulakukan dia duduk di sebelahku sambil membawa mainan favoritnya. Sampai aku kebelet sakit perutpun dia ngotot mau ikut masuk ke kamar mandi...ugh!
Ada masa-masa sangat capek sehingga aku marah-marah. Ada malam-malam ketika dia tidur aku akan menangis, nyesel kenapa kehabisan kesabaran lagi sebelumnya.

Jangan-jangan Dewo waktu itu bingung, mana sebenarnya yang harus dibawa ke psikolog, anaknya atau ibunya, hehehe...

Setelah Dimas lahir dia jadi lebih anteng. Pelan-pelan jatuh cinta sama adeknya. Sekarang dia sangat sayang dan (hampir!) ngga pernah marah kalo diganggu. Aku inget dulu sering ngasih tau, "Nak, jangan mukul temen atau adek ya. Dipukul itu sakit. Kalo mau berantem teriak aja. Panggil Mamah atau guru."

Sejak umur 3.5 tahun dia sempet jadi anak bawang di dua playgroup. Pertama di Kaffa deket Plaza Bintaro, kedua di Al Kautsar di deket kompleks Althia. Kusebut anak bawang karena masuknya ngga di awal tahun ajaran, dan keluar sebelum selesai. Aku juga ngga menekankan dia harus bisa mbaca atau apapun (temen-temennya di Kaffa banyak yang dimasukkan les mbaca sebelum umur 4 tahun). Yang penting dia have fun dan berteman.

Ada beberapa hal yang sempet jadi kekhawatiranku. Entah kenapa, dia sering jadi korban bullying waktu pertama masuk sekolah. Sekali kepalanya berdarah gara-gara dipukul pake kursi oleh seorang temennya di Kaffa, padahal dia sedang duduk bermain sendiri. Kalo di rumah, adeknya lebih garang dari masnya. Bekas gigitan Dimas di perut dan pipinya belum hilang sampe sekarang.

Akhirnya aku sempat berdebat sama papahnya. Apakah baik seorang anak hanya diajarkan mengalah dan tidak membalas? Sebentar lagi anak-anak akan menjalani hari-harinya jauh dari pengawasan 24 jam kita, apa mereka bisa membela dan melindungi dirinya sendiri?

I have to admit this, sempet aku bilang ke Damar, "Mengelak, Nak! Tangkis, kalo adek mau mukul, nggigit atau ngelempar. Jangan diam aja." Atau kalo udah kuesel buanget, "Cubit tangan adek kalo adek nggigit!"

Hasilnya?
Sampai hari ini, si adek masih suka iseng. Ngga ada angin, ngga ada ujan nggigit. Atau ngelempar masnya pake balok-balok kayu yang diculik dari 'stasiun' atau 'kastil' yang lagi dibangun si Mas. Dan sebagai tambahan, sekarang masnya sering di'cuwewek' (istilah Mbak Yuk), dicubit pipi kanan-kirinya...kayaknya ucapanku tentang mencubit malah menginspirasi serangan alternatif.

Time Out masih belum terlalu efektif. Omelan atau bentakan? 100% pasti gagal! Heran aku, sudah tau ngga ngefek marahin anak seperti itu masih ngga bisa total ngga dilakukan juga...Maafkan mamahmu ya, Nak!

Ketika lagi pusing, beberapa waktu yang lalu aku mbaca a must-read-blog Leila El Saba, one of my blogger friends. Dan ada post yang sangat me-recharge. Mengingatkan lagi dengan tendangan keras di hatiku.

Advice for the President from my seven-year-old:

Don't litter.
Take down the war.
Save water.
Tell friends don't fight or I'll tell Mama and you'll be in a time out.
If somebody fights with you, take three steps back.
If you see a good teacher, tell him or her.

Jika seseorang berkelahi denganmu, ambil tiga langkah ke belakang.

Tell your children that it is alright to say 'no' if someone tries to hurt them. But never, never tell your children that it is alright to hurt someone.

You know what, I've learned much more from my kids than they ever learned from me. Perhaps,I need them more than they me.

"Now I understand why Palestinians did terrorist attacks"

More and more "Palestinian and Arab thugs" and "Israel's the victim" thingies on Forum Kompas. Makes me sick to my stomach, sometimes.

It's the occupation,you stupid!!!!!

This is from Yaara, Israel's Backyard.

A young man approaches the gate and calls us. I went towards him. He has good Hebrew and articulates himself well. But he is having a hard time putting the sentences together, going mad out of anger. He has a hard time talking. Angrily, he bangs the gate with his fists.



“Israel doesn’t want it to be better, it wants it to be worse. It’s no security for Israel, this gate, it’s taking our land. Now I understand why Palestinians did terrorist attacks. I’ll also want to do an attack eventually. We’re jailed here. Do Something. You Must.”

Ezra Nawi

Ezra Nawi is a human right and pro-democracy activist.
He's a Jewish Israeli. This coming July he will be sent to prison.
I read about him in Shamai Leibowitz' Blog.

From Neve Gordon in Guardian :

His "crime" was trying to stop a military bulldozer from destroying the homes of Palestinian Bedouins from Um El Hir in the South Hebron region. These Palestinians have been under Israeli occupation for almost 42 years; they still live without electricity, running water and other basic services and are continuously harassed by Jewish settlers and the military – two groups that have united to expropriate Palestinian land and that clearly have received the government's blessing to do so.
As chance would have it, the demolition and the resistance to it were captured on film and broadcast on Israel's Channel 1.
The three-minute film – a must see – shows Nawi, the man dressed in a green jacket, not only courageously protesting against the demolition but, after the bulldozer destroys the buildings, also telling the border policemen what he thinks of their actions. Sitting handcuffed in a military vehicle following his arrest, he exclaims: "Yes, I was also a soldier, but I did not demolish houses … The only thing that will be left here is hatred." The film then shows the police laughing at Nawi.
But in dealing with
his audacity, they were not content with mere ridicule and decided also to accuse him of assaulting a policeman.

Yeah, that's Israel. Where soldiers smiling and laughing after destroying people's lives.

Please visit here to read more about Ezra Nawi. Also Support Ezra Facebook Group

God bless you, Ezra Nawi...

Palestina In My Mind

I'm 28 years old.

And I could not remember precisely, when was the first time i heard of the word "Palestine". Perhaps on my elementary school. Cause I read too much at that time. I even wrote about the downfall of USSR in my school magazine and my friends raised their eyebrows.

I was raised as a moslem, in the biggest muslim country in the world. I even remembered someone or a teacher once said something about Jews, and Christians. Yes, there was a lot of racism inside our community too. We're good. They're bad. And sometimes the minority didn't get a decent treatment as they should get.

I was glad I decided not to believe that stereotyping. I was glad I could teach my children that they had to treat others as the way they wanted to be treated.

I had to admit, Rachel Corrie was one the most memorable moment.
I was shocked, not just by the way she passed away. But also by the hatreds she and her family received from Israelis supporter.

In Indonesia, Palestine was always connected with our identity as Muslim. And for some Islamophobics or Zionist supporters in here, Palestinian also identified as terrorists. And the stereotyping went on. So Jews and Israelis and Zionists were the same entity. Just like some said Muslim and Al Qaeda and Terrorist were the same thing.

When I read about Rachel Corrie, I thought: "Hei, she's an American girl. And she's not a muslim. Almost the same age as me. And she's dead defending your brothers and sisters in Palestine."

After that, one by one, I found out about Breaking the Silence from Daniel Bunuel "Don't tell my mom that I'm in The Holy Land" on National geographics channel, October 2008. And then Courage to refuse, ISM, Machsom Watch and Jews Against the Occupation were some of the best sources.

While blogging and reading, I found great thoughts from great people around the world, including Israel. There were Chet, Julia, Leila El Saba and Young Activist in US. Bob Birch and Antony Loewenstein in Australia. Yarra in Israel. And some amazing blogs, from Gaza with love, Oranges and Olives, Jerusalem Syndrom, Raising Yousuf and Noor, Munich and A little bit of everything, Tikun Olam, Mondoweiss and Jews san frontieres. I read "From Beirut to Jerusalem"'s dr. Ang Swee Chai and Palestinian walks's Raja Shehadeh.

Too many to mention.

But from them I knew one thing for sure. That Palestine (or Palestina in Indonesian) was never about religion. It was about humanity. It was about peace, justice and freedom. No matter what your religion was.

Lets face it. This was something that some people here in Indonesia should learn more.

I would finish with some words from Remi Kanazi.

I envision Palestine in my mind
With the “chosen” frozen in time
To realize their morality’s blind
To take back generations of crime
And put an end to Apartheid

How many kids sit and wish
They could be labeled other than a terrorist
To exist is to resist!
Reads the graffiti in their cities

Give them chalk instead of rocks
They’ll use the blackboards
If you let them go to school

Give them chalk instead of rocks
Instead you bulldoze the block
Destroy their homes
Palestine is what you call the “no building zone”

But you can’t bulldoze our minds
Every time we’ll rise through ashes
Like Cassius Clay
We’ll bob and weave for infinity
There is no divinity
In bombing our cities
Setting up committees to treat us differently
We’re from Falasteen
The land where dreams are made

So just remember one thing
One day the bells of freedom will ring
And you’ll see me smiling
Loving life in Palestine

This post dedicated for Blog About Palestine day 2009

We Will Never Forget

Tired of reading and watching the news about the election and corruption chief's scandal (Was it really a conspiracy, made by those corruptors????), I started to read some blogs again.

A youtube video posted by Mark Elf, Jews sans frontieres.



See how Mark Regev cs spun things to justify their crimes like "they force us to kill their children, because they kill ours."?

And news about Pope in Holy Land. He's better than hypocritical world (Arab?)leader. Perhaps.

"Towering over us, as we gather here this afternoon, is a stark reminder of the stalemate that relations between Israelis and Palestinians seem to have reached - the wall," Benedict said. "In a world where more and more borders are being opened up - to trade, to travel, to movement of peoples, to cultural exchanges - it is tragic to see walls still being erected."

In The Name of Mothers

It's been quite some time since my last post. I've been busy with my quiet and simple life, adjusting to our new home.
Besides the mosquitos, we love this place. The sky is bluer, the sun is hotter, the air is fresher and at night, the stars are brighter.

I guess I'll just post some great thoughts by some people for this time.

Mother's Day is celebrated on different days throughout the world.
It's on december 22nd in Indonesia, second sunday of May in US, and March 21st in Palestine.



Yesterday I found this letter in my mailbox.

Dear diah,

How will the terrible devastation in Gaza make us safer?

I write to you as a Jewish woman who is both American and Israeli. I have lived in Israel for over 50 years, and I can tell you that I have had enough of wars and insecurity.

America keeps on sending us billions of dollars in weapons every year. And yet, Israel has become the least safe country for Jews to live in (except for war zones such as Afghanistan, where no one is safe).

Nowhere else in the world since WWII have we Jews lived through 12 wars/battles/campaigns--all in less that 61 years.

Nowhere else in the world since WWII have so many Jews been killed in violence--over 23,000 since Israel came into being.

Nowhere else in the world have so many Jews been injured.

And yet, we have no security. 61 years of the use of force have not brought us Israelis one iota of security.

To make matters worse, those of us who are seeking peace find ourselves harassed by the Israeli police. A number of my colleagues have had their computers confiscated, been called to interrogations, or have been made to sign declarations forbidding them to talk with one another. To add insult to injury, the police actions were carried out on Israel's Memorial Day to send a subtle message to the public that our activism may compromise Israel's security.

Our crime? We dared to ask questions. We dared to ask whether militarism was the only way. We are undeterred. We will continue asking.

It is your time to ask too.

If you are an American, please take a moment right now to call on Congress to ask the question: what happened with your US tax dollars in Gaza?

If you live in another country, ask yourself whether your government is involved in this trade of weapons and destruction.

Here in Israel, we do not need more US weapons. We need you to help us achieve peace-real peace.

There can be no peace, however, until the Palestinians have justice. The Palestinian catastrophe since 1948 has included expulsion from their homes and lands, and for those who remained in the West Bank and Gaza, extra-judicial executions, land confiscations, no freedom of movement, nor the freedom to build homes and communities, Palestinians live always with the fear of Israeli military incursions. Since September 29, 2000 Israel has killed 6,248 Palestinians. 1,487 of these have been children.

Israel's Memorial Day is the saddest day in the year for me, not only because of those who are already buried, but because of all those who might be killed for generations to come unless you help us achieve a just peace.

Sincerely,

A 77 year old grandmother who immensely wants her grandchildren and all the children in the area to have a future to look forward to.

And this morning I read this article, written beautifully by a mother.

In the Name of Mothers Around the World
by Jodie Evans

Women know that war is SO over. We know it in our hearts, in our guts, in our wombs. We know that the madness in Iraq and Afghanistan has to end, that we cannot keep sending our children to kill the children of mothers across the globe. Last month at an appearance in Turkey, President Obama himself said “…sometimes I think that if you just put the mothers in charge for a while, that things would get resolved.”

It is nearly 140 years since Julia Ward Howe wrote her Mother’s Day Proclamation, a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco–Prussian War. It flowed from her feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level. Every year since CODEPINK began in 2002, we have worked to remind the public and media that Mother’s Day isn’t really about Hallmark and Teleflora, but was a call for women to gather in “the great and general interests of peace.” Howe knew then what we know now. It will take women’s leadership to undermine what have become the USA’s greatest exports: Violence, Weapons and War.

They want answers. What they hear in the media makes no sense. Why are we leaving more soldiers and private mercenaries in Iraq and not getting out on the date promised? Why are we moving soldiers to Afghanistan when our military has told us there is no military solution? How can we end the violence and protect the women? How can we turn our back on the women and children in Gaza? Why is the military budget larger than under Bush (and that’s not counting another supplemental on Iraq and Afghanistan tacked on)? Why are we spending so much money on destruction, when Obama himself said in his inaugural address, “people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy”?

(http://www.thewe.cc/thewei/images2/aljazeerah_inf_jan2004_images/hurdoday1.jpe)

And the newest massacre in Afghanistan.

This article said it all.

Call it a Massacre, Not a Mistake
by Yifat Susskind

Yesterday, as many as 150 people were killed by US warplanes while they were huddled in their houses in Farah, Afghanistan.

So today, as Afghan President Hamid Karzai meets with President Obama, US officials in Afghanistan are heading to the site of the latest US massacre.

That's not a word we often use to describe the mass killing of civilians by US forces. Instead, reports of Afghan civilian casualties are followed by a now-routine pattern of official denials, self-investigations and apologies.

Yesterday's killings are now in the self-investigation phase, in case you're wondering. The denial phase was short because villagers who survived the attack trucked about 30 mangled corpses of children, women and other non-combatants to their local governor's office in order to prove that civilians had been killed.

Soon enough we'll be hearing the official "regrets." I don't want to hear them. I'm sick of the twisted logic that allows the US military to drop bombs on people and then claim it was a mistake when the bombs land on people. You don't deliberately do something with a known outcome and then get to call the result a mistake.
A massacre is a large-scale, indiscriminate killing; which is precisely the known outcome of the US air strikes in Afghanistan. So let's call this a massacre. And let's work to end the air strikes before another Afghan family has to hear how sorry the US military is.

Yifat Susskind is MADRE's Policy and Communications Director.

Or these strong words by Robert Fisk.

And of course, the reason is quite simple. We live, they die. We don't risk our brave lads on the ground - not for civilians. Not for anything. Fire phosphorus shells into Fallujah. Fire tank shells into Najaf. We know we kill the innocent. Israel does exactly the same. It said the same after its allies massacred 1,700 at the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila in 1982 and in the deaths of more than a thousand civilians in Lebanon in 2006 and after the death of more than a thousand Palestinians in Gaza this year.

And if we kill some gunmen at the same time - "terrorists", of course - then it is the same old "human shield" tactic and ultimately the "terrorists" are to blame. Our military tactics are now fully aligned with Israel.

The reality is that international law forbids armies from shooting wildly in crowded tenements and bombing wildly into villages - even when enemy forces are present - but that went by the board in our 1991 bombing of Iraq and in Bosnia and in Nato's Serbia war and in our 2001 Afghan adventure and in 2003 in Iraq. Let's have that inquiry. And "human shields". And terror, terror, terror. Something else I notice. Innocent or "terrorists", civilians or Taliban, always it is the Muslims who are to blame.

(http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/050h4Jv5LEazO/610x.jpg)

Happy mother's day...