nin's journey

Stay Human. RIP Vittorio Arrigoni.

2011-04-15T22:17:00.001+07:00

Hi, there.

How's life? It's been one hell of a ride, isn't it?

A dear friend of mine once said, tidak ada yang namanya hari baik dan buruk. Everything's a state of mind. Semua hal tergantung bagaimana kita melihatnya.

Today is just one of those days.

Saya sudah berhenti menonton berita di tipi entah sejak kapan, tapi kita memang tidak bisa selamanya lari dari kenyataan hidup. Tidak bisa selamanya bersembunyi di antara rutinitas harian dan berdiam diri dalam riuhnya lalu lintas informasi. Yep. Saya bisa mematikan kompi dan tv. Tapi tidak mengubah hal-hal yang terjadi di luar. Dan sebaliknya, ketika saya membaca hal-hal yang terjadi hari ini dan menulis saat ini, hal-hal itu juga tidak berubah. Things happen, whether we want it or not.

Dan itu terjadi, terus-menerus. Berulang-ulang. Sampai kita mati rasa.

Fakta bahwa yang namanya kekerasan setua makhluk bernama manusia ini juga tidak menolong. Kekerasan ada sejak manusia ada. Bagi yang percaya kitab-kitab suci, ada Habil dan Qabil, Abel dan Cain. Bagi penyuka sejarah...tak terhitung statistiknya. Bagi saya pribadi, seorang teman sekolah yang menyatakan tidak apa-apa membunuh atas nama tuhan. Tuhan siapa? Entahlah...

Rumah ibadah yang ditutup selalu bukan milik 'kaum' kita. Mereka yang ditakut-takuti dan dihina selalu 'berbeda', mereka bukan 'kita'.

Bom yang terjadi di luar sana selalu mengenai orang lain. Bukan kita. Bukan anak-anak kita. Bukan orangtua kita. Dan kita berani dengan sombongnya bicara, menyakiti orang lain itu tidak apa-apa, 'for a greater good', 'for heavenly cause'?

Selama bukan kita. Begitu? Dan akan selalu ada yang bisa disalahkan. Fingers of blame always pointed outward and never inward.

Kapan giliran kita?

Apa yang didengar dan dilihat anak-anak setiap hari? Apa yang ditanamkan dan dicontohkan?

Dogma. Pengkotak-kotakkan. Labelisasi. Generalisasi.

Sejarah selalu berulang. Dan akan selalu berulang.

Should we stop humanity, destroy the human beings, to stop violence?

Saya mengenal seorang Vik, Vittorio Arrigoni, lewat blognya Guerilla Radio sekitar tahun 2008. Saat itu saya masih rajin menulis tentang Palestina di blog saya. Saya telah berhenti menulis, tulisan terakhir saya di blog itu adalah juni tahun lalu. Vik, yang selalu mengakhiri tulisannya dengan "Restiamo Umani" atau "Stay Human" masih terus menulis dari Gaza. Vik sendiri berasal dari Italia dan bergabung dalam ISM (International Solidarity Movement) Palestina, sebuah lembaga yang juga didirikan oleh Huwaida Arraf, seorang Palestina-Amerika beragama Kristen. Selama di Gaza, Vik seriing menemani petani dan nelayan Gaza dalam melakukan pekerjaan mereka. Di lengan kanannya, sebuah tato bertuliskan "Resistance" dalam bahasa arab. Senin besok ia seharusnya pulang ke Italia untuk menjenguk ayahnya yang sakit.

Vik, 36 tahun, diculik Kamis lalu, dan ditemukan tewas Jumat pagi tadi. Informasi sementara, penculiknya adalah kelompok Salafi, yang menganggap Hamas terlalu moderat.

Based on histories, it could be just life as we know it. The senseless violence.

Makes us wonder, why God creates us on the first place...

Dan saya diingatkan lagi oleh dua kata itu.

Restiamo Umani.

Rest in peace and love, dear brotha. May god bless you, insya Allah.

For the rest of us, stay human.

thought of the day

"A man does what he has to do, whatever the personal consequences, whatever the obstacles, the dangers or the pressure. This is the basis of all human morality". (Giovanni Falcone)

G'nite, good people. May peace be upon you.

Internet Killed The Hasbara Star

2010-06-09T06:36:00.002+07:00

A great summary on Israel's propaganda.

It seems that Israeli hasbara is getting a bit tougher in the age of the internet. I mean, who's going to believe "a land without people, for a people without a land" when there are ten YouTube videos to prove you wrong?

We Shall Overcome

2010-06-07T15:44:00.000+07:00

Dedicated to people of Palestine and Gaza Freedom March

Thank you, Roger Waters.

deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall overcome someday

Leila Abu-Saba

2010-05-22T12:50:00.002+07:00

It's been a long time.

Sudah lama tidak menghabiskan waktu di blog ini. Sudah lama tidak berkunjung ke orang-orang istimewa yang saya kenal lewat nin's journey.

Salah satunya adalah Leila Abu-Saba. Seorang wanita Arab-Amerika dengan blognya Dove's Eye View. Dia menulis banyak hal mulai dari keluarga, resep-resep sampai masalah Palestina. Tulisan favorit saya adalah To Make Peace in The World, tentang nasihat putra Leila yang berumur 7 tahun untuk presidennya. Saya ingat meninggalkan komentar di blognya, tertanggal 21 Mei 2009, setahun yang lalu.

Tahun ini sangat sedikit saya mengunjungi nin's journey. Proses menulis di situ lebih berat dibanding di sini, yang hanya membutuhkan pikiran kusut untuk diurai...semacam mengeluarkan energi negatif. Hanya tiga tulisan yang bertanggal tahun 2010 disana. Dan tempat-tempat yang sering saya kunjungi dulu sekarang hampir tak pernah terlirik.

Sampai tadi pagi.

Saya melihat daftar blog-blog disitu dan, akhirnya, membaca tulisan "The Dove at Peace" di bawah nama blog Leila. Dan...she's gone. Pada 8 Oktober tahun lalu. Setelah perjuangan lima tahun melawan breast cancer.

Saya tidak percaya butuh lebih dari setengah tahun sampai saya menyadari hal ini...

“So please, friend, bless what you have and let go of fear for the future. Today is the only day you have got. You are breathing. Enjoy your breath. You are alive. Enjoy your life. You have a daughter and parents. Love them. Bless everybody who comes across your path. And the work? Whatever. Bless your work, too. Bless your town, your bills, your possessions. You are lucky to be here for all of it. If some of it gets taken away, well fine, something else will take its place. You are an amazing confluence of billions of variables and nobody else is having your life right this minute.

Enjoy! And don't worry about hope. Just breathe and appreciate your breath. Everything arises from that.” ~ Leila el-Saba, 1962-1009

Rest in peace, dear sister.

Forget Saving The Planet

2010-04-22T10:17:00.004+07:00

Save the planet.
Itu motto yang paling sering muncul di status facebook di Hari Bumi ini.

Dan saya dipaksa sedikit berpikir.
Bumi sudah ada sebelum kita, manusia. Dan sepertinya masih akan bertahan melalui semua global warming dan ice age seperti jutaan tahun sebelumnya. Bumi bisa menanggung hal-hal buruk yang kita lakukan padanya. Tapi KITA, baca : manusia-bodoh-serakah-tamak-hausdarah-sombong-arogan-seperti-saya, akan menghilang karena perbuatan kita sendiri.

Kita akan mati sebelum Bumi mati.
Mungkin kita harus bertanya pada dinosaurus apakah bumi perlu diselamatkan.

Mother Earth will outlive every single homo sapien.

Saya termasuk orang yang percaya semua punya jiwa. Bunga-bunga rumput mungil di pojok halaman, cacing tanah di sela-sela akar tanaman, lebah dan serangga yang keluar masuk rumah, pohon akasia dan rerumputan di bukit belakang, makanan yang kita makan, air hujan, awan, matahari, angin, batu-batu...

Jiwa-jiwa itu memancarkan energinya ke setiap mahkluk di sekelilingnya.
Makanan yang kita makan memberikan energinya sehingga kita bisa bernafas, berpikir dan bergerak.
Dan hidup ini adalah siklus.
Kita memancarkan energi ke jiwa-jiwa lain.

Sebagai seorang ibu, anak-anak merupakan indikator yang paling jelas tentang energi yang saya pancarkan, tentang suasana hati saya. Ketika saya gelisah mereka akan gelisah. Ketika saya sedih, mereka sepertinya tau. Ketika saya marah, mereka akan mengkerut menjauh. Dulu ketika mereka bayi, saya tidak akan bisa menenangkan tangis mereka jika saya sendiri ingin menangis kecapekan atau kesepian.
Semakin dewasa sepertinya kemampuan itu semakin memudar dan menghilang. Empati kita semakin tipis bahkan jika melihat a cry for help atau tangan menengadah. Kita terburu-buru, penuh perhitungan dan kecurigaan.

Kita bernafas tapi tidak merasakan jiwa-jiwa itu bergerak.
Kita mendaki gunung, berenang di lautan, dan berjalan di bumi tapi meninggalkan bekas-bekas kerusakan dan sampah dimana-mana.
Kita hidup dari merusak hutan dan tanah.
We're just growing old and dying.

Dan kita bertanya-tanya, "How to save the earth?"

Energi dan Jiwa tak pernah menghilang. Hanya bisa kembali kepada-Nya. Sang Jiwa Yang Maha Energi.

So, save yourself, love yourself.
By loving all beings.
By being one with earth.

"...When people pour or sprinkle on the Earth fragrant and pure substances like perfume and fragrant milk, the Earth does not feel proud. But when people pour upon the Earth unclean and bad-smelling substances...the Earth does not feel anger, hatred, or shame. The Earth has the capacity to receive, embrace, and transform everything." ~ Touching The Earth, Thich Nhat Hanh.

*terima kasih untuk semua yang mencoba menyelamatkan bumi. we'll die trying. keep up the good work, mates.

simple things to do to save yourself

Earth Hour

2010-03-27T13:14:00.004+07:00

Maaf, saya tidak akan menganjurkan mematikan lampu malam ini. Tidak sebelum saya menyelesaikan tulisan ini.
Tahukah kamu sisi lain dari Earth Hour?

sebagian besar lilin dibuat dari parafin, yang juga berasal dari hidrokarbon dan menghasilkan emisi karbondioksida. Berapa juta lilin yang dinyalakan malam ini?
kita menghabiskan satu jam dalam gelap yang nyaman, dengan tombol lampu hanya sejauh jangkauan tangan. Bagaimana jika menghabiskan satu bulan tanpa pendingin, kulkas dan penerangan?
The carbon sense coalition menginginkan 'earth hour' diganti dengan 'blackout night' dan dilakukan di hari terpendek dan terdingin dalam setahun.
Bjorn Lomborg, penulis The Skeptical Environmentalist menulis, "It is vital to make solar and other new technology cheaper than fossil fuels quickly so we can turn off carbon energy sources for a lot longer than one hour and keep the planet running...Fossil fuels literally gave us an enlightenment, by lighting our world and giving us protection from the fury of the elements. It is ironic that today's pure symbolism should hark back to a darker age."
berkumpulnya orang-orang untuk berpartisipasi dalam acara Earth Hour di kota masing-masing, akan menghasilkan keramaian dan kemacetan yang mungkin akan menambah emisi karbon.

Jadi, mematikan lampu sejam.
Apa gunanya?

Well, sebenarnya mirip berpuasa, kalau saya bilang.
Apa gunanya berpuasa, toh setelah maghrib kita kembali makan minum dan have sex, err make love. >.<
Tapi ada yang bilang dengan berpuasa kita tau apa yang dirasakan sodara-sodara kita yang kesulitan dan kekurangan.
Atau dengan berpuasa kita melatih kontrol diri ketika sangat menginginkan sesuatu yang tidak boleh diinginkan .
Atau dengan berpuasa kita lebih humble dan simple.
Atau dengan berpuasa kita semakin kurus dan pengeluaran belanja bisa dihemat, asal buka puasanya ngga neko-neko.

Hmm...jadi kangen bulan puasa...
Heheh ^^

Jadi, apakah sejam mematikan lampu terlalu dirasa bull@#$^ sampai menghalangi kita melakukannya? Atau kita termasuk yang ngga suka ikut-ikut dan lebih suka 'melawan arus'? Kalo ingin melawan arus, lawanlah arus penggunaan bahan bakar fosil dengan tidak menggunakan kendaraan bermotor dan, well, kejutan, tidak menggunakan listrik selama lebih dari sejam.
Bagaimana dengan earth month? Satu bulan? Bisa? Saya sih ngga. Kalo mati lebih dari 6 jam disini sih sering. Apalagi daerah-daerah terpencil yang belum tersentuh PLN.
Lakukan dengan tidak bekerja di perusahaan pertambangan yang meratakan hutan-hutan di Kalimantan (termasuk suami saya berarti...).
Lakukan itu dan kita sangat boleh berbangga hati tidak ikut mematikan lampu malam dari jam 20.30-21.30 waktu lokal malam ini.

Satu jam yang simbolik memang. Tapi satu jam lebih baik dari tidak sama sekali. Dan satu jam yang sebaiknya diikuti dengan pemikiran-pemikiran baru untuk ke depan.
Pengolahan sampah. *Dimas aja tau mbuang sampah sembarangan itu ngga boleh, "Joyokk!!"
Penyerapan air tanah.
Penanaman pohon dan lahan hijau.
bla bla bla...

When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse.

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

And high up above earth or down below
When you're too in love to let it go
But if you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Tears stream, down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears stream down your face and I...

Tears stream, down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face and I...

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you.

Dan siapa tau, mind over matter berlaku malam ini.
Ketika jutaan pikiran berfrekuensi sama untuk menyelamatkan Ibu Bumi dan Ibu Alam, siapa tau, we will fix Her.

So, lets be positive. Think about earth healing and world peace tonight.

Who Will Save Your Soul?

2010-03-01T07:21:00.004+07:00

Chilling and horrible thoughts.

Harvard fellow's modest proposal: starve the Gazans and their babies.

Barbara Brown wrote of Apartheid South Africa:

' [White] South Africans who express a [concern with Black population growth] perceive a close relationship between population growth rates and political instability. There are two variants of this approach. The first holds that a growing black and unemployed population will mean increased poverty which will in turn lead to a black revolt. . .

In an opening address to a major private sector conference on 'population dynamics' in South Africa, the president of the 1820 Foundation argued that 'Rapid population growth translates into a steadily worsening employment future, massive city growth . . . and an increase in the number of poor and disadvantaged. All are rightly viewed as threats to social stability and orderly change.'

A second, but smaller, group believes the black threat arises simply out of the changing ratio of white to black. This group sees that 'THE WHITES ARE A DWINDLING MINORITY IN THE COUNTRY' and argues that this situation will lead to a 'similar reduction of white political authority'.

Some argue for birth control on even more overtly racist grounds, but few people in leadership positions do so, at least publicly. Debates in the House of Assembly have included remarks to the effect that blacks are unable to make a contribution to South African society and so should be encouraged to limit their numbers. The organiser of a 'Population Explosion' conference, a medical doctor who is deputy director of the Verwoerd Hospital, argued that whites must organise a family planning programme for blacks because the latter group is biologically incapable of exercising foresight.'

- Barbara B. Brown, "Facing the 'Black Peril': The Politics of Population Control in South Africa," Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2(Jan., 1987), pp. 256-273, this quote pp. 263-64.

A brillian piece from Leila.

The ghastliness of it all was best summed up by an exchange between the mock Dan Halutz and Doron Almog to the real Martin Kramer on Twitter:

danhalutz RT @doronalmog: @DanHalutz Remember that time u, me, & @Martin_Kramer debated @Harvard over drinks on how to get rid of those superfluous Gazans? Good times

danhalutz @DoronAlmog Of course! @Martin_Kramer was all about the “pro-natal subsidies” and you just wanted to bulldoze those Gazans. Me, I like F16s

danhalutz @Martin_Kramer Dear Sir: I admire your brilliant ideas but fear ending pronatal subsidies will not eliminate superfluous Arabs fast enough.

danhalutz @Martin_Kramer: I say replace ‘pronatal’ subsidies with ‘pro-morbid’ ones: cluster bombs, white phosphorus, napalm. Let’s co-author a paper!

Till We Meet Again, Gus

2009-12-31T12:09:00.002+07:00

Artikel dibawah ini ditulis oleh Duncan Graham, seorang jurnalis Selandia Baru di blognya Indonesia Now.

FAREWELL GUS DUR: President RI 20 October 1999 - 23 July 2001

I interviewed Gus Dur for a book on Indonesia and spent most of the time laughing at his jokes. There's one below. He was an extraordinary man, a true democrat, liberal, learned and impossible to dislike. History should treat him kindly - just as he treated others. His impact on Indonesia endures leaving it a far better country after the ravages of Soeharto.

THE BIG DEBATE
By Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur)

Back 10 centuries ago, just before the Crusade was launched, the Pope decided all Muslims had to leave Jerusalem peacefully or there’d be bloodshed. Naturally there is a big uproar from the Muslim community. So the Pope strikes a deal. He proposes a debate with a member of the Muslim community. If the Muslim wins the debate, all the Muslims can stay. If the Pope wins, all the Muslims will have to leave.

The Muslims realise they have no choice. They look around for a champion who can defend their faith. No one wants to volunteer, it's too risky. But they finally pick their representative, an old Mullah who unknowingly agrees without understanding what he’s getting himself into. He agrees on the condition that neither side is allowed to talk but communicate by miming, as he’s almost deaf. The Pope agrees.
The day of the great debate comes. The Mullah and the Pope sit opposite each other for a full minute before the Pope raises his hand and shows three fingers. The Mullah raises his middle finger. The Pope waves his fingers in a circle around his head. The Mullah points to the ground and stamps his right foot. The Pope pulls out a wafer and a glass of wine. The Mullah pulls out an apple. The Pope stands up and says: ‘I give up. This man is too good. The Muslims can stay.’

An hour later the cardinals are all around the Pope asking what happened. The Pope says: ‘First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up one finger to remind me that there is still one God common to both our religions. Then I waved my finger around me to show him that God was all about us. He responded by pointing to the ground and stamping his feet, telling me that God was also right here with us. I pulled out the wine and the wafer to show that God absolves us from our sins. He pulled out an apple reminding me of the first sin. He had an answer for everything. What could I do?’

Meanwhile, the Muslim community has crowded around the old Mullah in total astonishment. ‘What happened?’ they ask. ‘Well’ says the Mullah, ‘first, he said we Muslims had three days to leave Jerusalem. I told him - up yours! Then he said this whole city would be cleared of Muslims. I told him none would leave this land!’

‘And then?' asks a woman. ‘He took out his lunch and I took out mine,’ says the Mullah.

The power of the mind lies in perceiving differences; the power of the heart lies in perceiving similarities
Kekuatan pikiran terletak dalam menerima perbedaan; kekuatan hati terletak dalam menerima persamaan.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un
انّا للہ و انّا الیہ راجعون
We indeed belong to God, and we indeed toward him are returning.

Hedy Epstein

2009-12-29T17:53:00.003+07:00

From Mondoweiss.

The sweetest and bravest grandmother ever.

You're Not Done Yet, Neither Are We.

2009-12-29T16:25:00.005+07:00

A Message to World Leaders from Global Youth.

In daily life, buy local and reduce our domestic waste.
My kids know now that they can start helping our world by recycling kardus susu and burying the kitchen scraps.
Small actions. Big changes.

The Emperor's Clothes

2009-12-27T19:46:00.001+07:00

"The Emperor's Clothes"
by Invincible

Phase 1: Air strikes all day and all night
Phase 2: Rockets hit the Gaza strip with phosphorus
Phase 3: Ground attack how we gonna counteract?

Boycott Divest and Sanction

Israel– you should be ashamed
Kill and maim 1,000's of civilians in our name
Claim you hitting terrorists but children in your aim
Even murder relief workers blood spilling from they brain
While they tried to drive the ambulance, damn they couldn't stand a chance
Even bomb students, hospitals, mosques, Rafah, and Khan Yunis
Shot em in the back like the cops to Oscar Grant…
And in each case the good ol' united states sponsored that
7 million a day that we pay tax and AIPAC's lobbyists is robbin us
Sometimes it feels like they're ain't no stopping this
BUT now no body can deny it cuz you made it too obvious
Naked truth exposed like the emperor's clothes
The struggles getting hotter and the temperature rose
Since 1948 when you formed the state
Palestinian people still defending their homes
They aint been surrendering, NO

Boycott Divest and Sanction
Cuz they even bombed the United Nations

Look, i'm Israeli, my government's so arrogant
War criminals who call Palestinians terrorists
For resisting extinction and occupation
Comparing this to genocide and reservations of Native Americans
Its a massacre! Kick out they ambassadors!
Divest from their apartheid like South Africa
Boycott em like King to Montgomery buses,
Show them we want peace but only with real justice
They murdering the media and witnesses left
We gonna stop shopping at all the businesses that invest
In building they settlements and gentrifying our corners
Illegal walls over there and the US-Mexico border
Build a worldwide movement til the truth is heard
And supporting the Israelis who refuse to serve
All the C.O.s who AWOL when deployed to Iraqi stations
All the people rallying while the cops are chasing
If we enlisted in the system we got an obligation
We ain't got the patience, time to stop the occupation

Boycott, Divest, and Sanction
Til there's right of return for displaced and reparations

We Remember

2009-12-27T17:17:00.006+07:00

Khulood Ghanem's diary.

My father told us that we have one god and it is one death either by rocket, by car, by gun, there is no difference and you have to die with your dignity and get rid of your fear.

The Tragedy of Gaza, the West Bank and Israel by Chris Hedges. Full text inThe language of death.

The incursion into Gaza is not about destroying Hamas. It is not about stopping rocket fire into Israel. It is not about achieving peace. The Israeli decision to rain death and destruction on Gaza, to use the lethal weapons of the modern battlefield on a largely defenseless civilian population, is the final phase of the decades-long campaign to ethnically cleanse Palestinians. The assault on Gaza is about creating squalid, lawless and impoverished ghettos where life for Palestinians will be barely sustainable. It is about building ringed Palestinian enclaves where Israel will always have the ability to shut off movement, food, medicine and goods to perpetuate misery. The Israeli attack on Gaza is about building a hell on earth.

The use of terror and hunger to break a hostile population is one of the oldest forms of warfare. I watched the Bosnian Serbs employ the same tactic in Sarajevo. And I watched the Bosnian Serbs, like the Israelis, attempt to justify their systematic destruction of the city, with thousands of dead and wounded, on a few paltry Muslim mortars and light arms fire. Those who orchestrate such sieges do not grasp the terrible rage born of long humiliation, indiscriminate violence and abuse. A father or a mother whose child dies because of a lack of vaccines or proper medical care does not forget. A boy whose ill grandmother dies while detained at an Israel checkpoint does not forget. Families who carry the broken bodies of their children to hospitals do not forget. All who endure humiliation, abuse and the murder of those they love do not forget. This rage becomes a virus within those who, eventually, stumble out into the daylight. Is it any wonder that 71 percent of children interviewed at a school in Gaza recently said they wanted to be a “martyr”?

A poem, by David Radavich

GAZA GUILT
I confess: I didn’t really see
the grief-stricken girl
by the seashore.

I didn’t know her suffering.
I’ve only seen pictures.

That’s why it
didn’t seem real.

But I felt for her
genuine pain.

And images came
to me—

just as they are
not now

unlocking their shapes,
their unforgettable
colors.

You will please
forgive me.

Honesty is best.

Even dull honesty
with no ripped-off heads
bloody and toy-like

that only have
been imagined by

the privileged
who in their silence

collude
and oppress.

I am safe and warm.
I have food. And money.
I don’t see bodies

torn by war
for breakfast.

The blind can
never do justice.

a sleeping angel of Gaza (RememberGaza.com)

Do not forget.
Act. Don't mourn.

D for Damar, D for Dimas

2009-12-25T11:44:00.004+07:00

Facts about Dam and Dim.

Damar adalah si early bird, atau early worm, orang yang bangun paling pagi dan langsung nyanyi-nyanyi keliling rumah. Tapi kalo dah capek dan kena bantal langsung pingsan.
Dimas adalah si gudel (anak sapi-dee), karena kalo tidur ngebo. Udah dibolak-balik, digendong keluar kamar, dinyalain kartun kenceng-kenceng, ditimbun bantal, dikitik-kitik, diuyel-uyel, dicubit-cubit...semua
kecuali disiram air, ngga bakal bangun. Pantesan pipi Dimas ngga kempes-kempes. Rekor bangun pagi jam 11 siang.

Damar suka nyanyi dan joged. Panggilannya di sekolah? Jacko. Sekarang lagi suka nyanyi jingle bells dan paling suka berbahasa indonesia yang baik dan benar. "Mamah, aku sangat kecewa." atau "Aku mau mengambil spidol untuk menggambar tetapi spidolnya terlalu tinggi aku tak bisa menggambilnya."

Dimas suka maen sepak bola dan lompat timbun. Lompat timbun itu lompat dari kasur atas ke kasur bawah, sebelum lompat ngambil ancang-ancang sambil mbaca mantra, "lima tujuh lima tujuh...", maksudnya mau ngitung satu dua tiga tapi versi dimas. Last step, lompat jauh sambil teriak, "TIMBUUUNNN!!!" Malanglah orang yang kebetulan lagi di kasur bawah. Ketimbun 14 kg pipi dan lemak.
Si Park Dimas Sung ini kalo maen bola ancang-ancang larinya bisa sampe 50 meter. Kalo lari kayak ada per di kaki.

Damar lagi ribut minta pohon natal. Karena ngga dikasih ganti pengen menghias pohon cemara kecil di halaman depan rumah.
Dimas lagi heboh minta ulang taun, soalnya dijanjiiin baru dibeliin maenan lagi kalo ulang taun. Next month.

Damar rambutnya lurus jegrak. Kalo disuruh potong rambut mirip disuruh nyemplung sumur.
Dimas kriwil-kriwil. Kalo lagi keringatan kepalanya jadi mirip rambutan.

Damar bisa diminta matiin tipi, dengan catatan sudah dibilangin sebelumnya, "setengah jam lagi matiin ya" atau "habis little einstein matiin ya".
Dimas harus pake sesi nangis, rebutan remote, kejar-kejaran, dan terakhir saking malesnya pindah dia ngompol di kasur di depan tipi. Padahal aku dah ngga inget kapan dia ngompol di kasur. Wew. Red Alert.

Damar lagi seneng bikin kue, nyetak dan ngasih hiasan. Yang paling nyenengin, dia suka makannya juga.
Dimas...yaahh, masih tahap ngremes-remes adonan sambil ditambahin eces disana-sini.

Damar suka susu strawberry. Dimas susu coklat.
Damar suka es krim conetto mini rasa blueberry. Dimas suka rasa strawberry. Mamahnya suka dua-duanya.

They're both the same, but they're not.
They're both D, but as different as A and Z.
Their hugs are the best cure for a weary heart and a wandering mind.
They keep me connected and disconnected.
They're my Planetaia, my wandering stars.
They teach new things and new point of views every single day.
They remind me of the who,what,where,when,why and how.

The best of all, their face never fail to send a sign,
"everything's gonna be okay, mommie, it always is."

Spirit of Christmas

2009-12-24T11:42:00.006+07:00

December this year reminds me of two sad things.
December 26th 2004, The Sumatra tsunami.
December 27th 2008, Gaza bombing.
*I'll leave century, kpk and lunmay thingies out of this note, sorry.

This is how christmas was in Gaza before the bombing, December 25th 2008 :

Christmas in Gaza: No Trees, No Celebrations

For the first time, Hazem Al-Jilda, a Christian from Gaza, and his family could not light the Christmas tree at their home because of the electricity black-out caused by the lack of fuel, due to the Israeli siege on Gaza.

'We only have electricity for six hours a day because Israel is not letting any fuel supplies into Gaza's only electric power plant,' said Al-Jilda (34). 'We missed the happiness of lightening the Christmas tree this year.'

'I have never seen such a sad Christmas,' he said. 'This year, there are almost no traditional Christmas celebrations in Gaza because of the siege and Israel's refusal to give Gaza's Christians permits to visit Bethlehem.

About 4,000 Christians live in the besieged Gaza Strip. Most of them belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, while the rest follow the Latin Church Christmas calendar, which falls on December 25.

Yea, as a matter o' facts, there are christians in Gaza. And they're suffer the same, since they too are Palestinians.

Anyway, we all know the story of Gaza after that christmas day.

This year, a true spirit of christmas

Christmas In Gaza by Fr John Dear, National Catholic Reporter

Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it, because he is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, his place is with those others for whom there is no room. His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power, because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present. -- Thomas Merton

In the true spirit of Christmas, on Christmas day I'll leave for Gaza to join some 1,300 people from 40 nations -- as well as an expected 50,000 Palestinians -- and together undertake a nonviolent march to the Erez northern border crossing leading into Israel. We'll arrive on the first anniversary of the diabolical Israeli bombing attack in which 1,400 Palestinians perished, the vast majority civilians.

The journey represents my attempt to break through the commercialism and sentimentality of Christmas. By this journey I’m trying, in a modest way, to enter the Gospel story itself, mindful that Christmas celebrates the God of peace having come to the poor, having emerged from among the poor. God emerged from among the marginalized, the homeless, the refugees, the outcast, the occupied, the targeted peoples of the world. I journey in the Christmas hope that "peace on earth" comes first of all in places like Gaza.

So, while most of us have already forgotten, some people remind us what humanity is all about. It's borderless.

There are too many people, and too few human beings. ~Robert Zend

Merry christmas, my friends.
May peace and justice prevail on earth.

Quote of the day : " When you are greeted with a greeting, greet in return with what is better than it, or at least return it equally…Surely, Allah takes account of all things.” (An-Nisa’ 4: 86)

Happy Anti Corruption Day

2009-12-09T07:17:00.003+07:00

Kemarin aku menjemput Damar ke sekolah. Akhir minggu nanti akan ada pentas di mal (-.-'), memperingati (so-called) hari ibu. Selain nyanyi si Jegrak juga bakal baca puisi. Dan tidak ada yang lebih menghibur selain anak-anak umur 2-5 taun yang berlatih untuk pentas.

Ketika akan pulang dan membuka pintu mobil, seorang ibu tua berbaju lusuh dan menggotong karung menyapa, "Dek, mau mangga?". Jarang-jarang dipanggil dek..
Akhirnya aku dan Damar jongkok di pinggir jalan ngobrol sama ibu itu.
Rumahnya jauh. Satu plastik berisi 5 butir mangga dijual 12 ribuan. Sekarung mangga tadi dibeli dengan harga 85 ribu. Sekarung berisi belasan plastik.
Akhirnya kubeli mangganya seharga sebuah majalah national geographic traveller terbaru yang memuat 55 gunung terindah di indonesia.

Mahal? Tidak kalo mengingat si ibu tua ini naik-turun bukit-bukit di Balikpapan di bawah terik matahari Desember sambil menggotong karungnya.

Sebelum pulang aku dan Damar ke Hero dulu, mau beli jamur. We're addicted to mushroom lately. Seplastik seharga 15 ribu. Di persimpangan menuju Balikpapan Baru seorang anak berkulit hitan legam menawarkan korannya, "Cuma 2000, buk!". Di pinggir jalan ada anak lain yang lebih kecil, duduk sambil menyipitkan matanya karena terik.

Aku menyesal tidak membawa susu kotak di tasku.

I was just like any other hypocrit who felt sorry for them but didn't do a think to make things better.
That old woman, those street children, would they still be doing what they're doing if we're not one of the most corrupt country in the world?

I guess there's only one thing money won't buy, and that's poverty.

“Heaven is above all yet; there sits a judge.That no king can corrupt.”

Happy Anti Corruption Day.

Question of The Day

2009-12-05T21:50:00.004+07:00

Pernahkan kamu membaca quote ini,

Children find everything in nothing; men find nothing in everything.

Penulisnya adalah Giacomo Leopardi, seorang penyair dan filsuf Italia yang hidup pada tahun 1798-1837.

Ingatkah kita masa-masa kecil ketika hari dimulai dengan pertanyaan dan diakhiri dengan pertanyaan? Aku ingat pernah berpikir bahwa di salah satu bintang di atas sana ada seorang anak perempuan kecil yang sedang menatap ke bumi. Aku ngga ingat apakah pernah benar-benar bertanya pada orang lain.

Atau ketika saat ini kita cukup diberkahi untuk memiliki manusia-manusia kecil dengan tenaga kryptonit tak kenal lelah yang tak berhenti bergerak dan berbunyi, sempatkah kita berhenti sejenak merenungkan pertanyaan mereka?

"Mah, kenapa laba-labanya terbang?" ketika melihat laba-laba turun naik di dekat kasur mereka, tanpa terlihat benangnya.

"Kenapa kita ngga punya christmas tree?" sewaktu melihat pohon natal plastik di mal.

"Kenapa sampah dapur dikubur?" saat melihat rutinitas menggali-gali mamahnya.

Jadi teringat suatu siang waktu aku dan anak-anak nonton KBS, channel Korea, tentang multikultural family. Si istri berasal dari Bali dan tinggal di Korea Selatan mengikuti suaminya yang asli sana. Suatu saat berliburlah mereka ke Bali. Waktu ada adegan keluarga itu mengejar-ngejar babi untuk di-babi guling, anak-anak takjub. "Kasian!", kata Dimas waktu si babi diiket di tongkat.
Kemudian sampai ke adegan ketika si babi sudah matang kecoklatan dan mulai diiris-iris untuk dimakan bersama.
Tiba-tiba Dimas bilang, "Mamah, mau makan ituuu!!!", sambil nunjuk ke tipi.

That was an awesome moment.

"Kenapa ngga boleh?"

Ketika kita menghadapi pertanyaan-pertanyaan ajaib seperti itu, sebagai orangtua, dan manusia, kita diajak membuka kembali cakrawala pikiran kita. Dan keyakinan kita. Kita kembali dipertemukan dengan keraguan-keraguan yang dulu sebagai seorang anak kecil pernah kita rasakan.

Jika beruntung, kita akan bertemu dengan pertanyaan yang bahkan kita sendiripun masih mencari jawabannya. Bukan cuma pertanyaan kenapa adek bayi ada atau gimana tivi ada gambarnya..those are some pretty challenging questions too >.<

Tapi seperti ketika Sam, 11 tahun, di Ways to Live Forever (versi Indonesianya berjudul Setelah Aku Pergi, terbitan Gramedia) mempertanyakan Pertanyaan-Pertanyaan Tak Terjawab, The Questions That Nobody Answer, No. 6. "Kenapa sih orang mesti mati?"

Why Do We Have To Die Anyway?

Atau pertanyaan nomor dua, yang dicoba dijawab oleh Sam dan temannya Felix.

Questions Nobody Answers No.2, Why does God make kids get ill?
[proposed solutions]
1.He doesn’t exist. (Felix)
2.God is really evil. (Felix)
3.God is like a big doctor. It doesn’t matter to God if you die, because you just go to heaven, which is where He lives anyway.(Sam, to which Felix responds, “That is the biggest load of crap I ever heard. God gives you cancer to teach you how good riding a bike is?)
4.There is no reason. (Felix)
5.There is a reason, but we’re too stupid to understand it. (Sam)
6.We did something awful in the past life and this is punishment. (Felix, who insisted it be included as not to discriminate against Buddhists)
7.We’re perfect already. Being ill is like a present. Like...like a Get-Into-Heaven-Free Card. (Sam)

At the end of the day, nenek Sam menjelaskan bahwa kematian adalah seperti berubahnya ulat menjadi kupu-kupu. Bagaimana ulat merasa takut menjadi kepompong yang tertidur dan sendiri.

Menurut Sam,

What she means is, it’s the next stage in a life cycle. Like turning into Spider-Man was the next stage in Peter Parker’s life cycle. So you shouldn’t be frightened, you should be excited. But I’m not frightened anyway. It’s only going back to wherever you were before you were born and no one is frightened of before they were born.

All those quoestions.

Pertanyaan-pertanyaan 'aneh' yang ketika kita beranjak dewasa mungkin masih akan muncul di saat-saat yang sepi. Ketika menatap langit-langit kamar menjelang terpejam. Ketika menengadah ke bintang di langit kelam. Ketika terdiam dan menghela nafas panjang.

I really didn't mean to make some rhyme here. Bad habit -.-'

Tidak semua orang cukup beruntung untuk mempunyai tempat bertanya. Terutama pertanyaan-pertanyaan ajaib yang mengerutkan kening 99.99% orang yang mendengarnya. Dan kemudian menyarankanmu ke ustad atau ke psikiater dengan wajah khawatir.

We were often told not to ask anyway, when we were younger.

Jadi,
ketika manusia-manusia kecil itu bertanya, dengarkan dengan sepenuh hati. Semoga mereka mengantarmu ke jawaban dari keraguanmu sendiri.

"Kenapa kamu menikah?"
"Kenapa kamu punya anak?"
"Kenapa kamu beribadah atau tidak beribadah?"
"Kenapa kamu menangis atau tertawa?"
"Kenapa kamu mencintai atau membenci?"

"Untuk apa kamu hidup?"

Maybe I will make my own questions nobody answer one of these days.

Where am I? Who am I?
How did I come to be here?
What is this thing called the world?
How did I come into the world?
Why was I not consulted?
And If I am compelled to take part in it,
Where is the director?
I want to see him

~ Soren Kierkegaard

Jewish Friends of Mine

2009-11-26T15:46:00.004+07:00

My first eye opener was Yehuda Shaul with his breaking the silence. I was so amazed by him.
I wrote about it on my facebook, wondering what the comments would be. That was before the Gaza. Turned out I was not the only one. Some of us did think beyond that old tired line "jews are our enemy".

And I wrote more and more about 'friendly jews'. I found more and more people, regardless their religion, were true friends of Palestine. More than us, muslim people.

So I was so glad to read this article, on Jakarta Post.

We should learn more about each other. And put aside some old dogma and prejudice. Cause deep down inside, we are all the same.

Little Things, Always the Little Things.

2009-11-22T08:48:00.003+07:00

Mark Twain said "Remember the poor, it costs nothing".

Apa sih, definisi "poor"? Miskin?
Hidup dibawah 1 $? Di bawah 2 $?
Tidak punya rumah? Tidak punya pekerjaan?
Hopeless? Homeless?

Jangan salah.
Ada yang merasa 'miskin' itu karena tidak punya mobil mewah.
Ada yang merasa 'miskin' ketika ngga bisa beli blackberry terbaru.
Ada yang merasa miskin karena ngga beli baju bermerek di mal.
Ada yang merasa miskin karena ngga dapet keistimewaan dan kemudahan yang dimiliki para pejabat dan orang 'hebat'.

Miskin karena selalu merasa kekurangan.

Tapi lupakanlah miskin yang itu, balik ke miskin yang ada di berita akhir-akhir ini.

Seorang nenek dipenjara karena 'memungut' 3 biji buah kakao.
Seorang kakek dipukul dan diseret karena menentang penggusuran.
Seorang PSK dibiarkan tenggelam di kali ketika sedang dikejar-kejar.
Aku yakin kalo digoogle maka akan panjang sekali daftarnya...

Dan tulisan kali ini bukanlah ingin membahas dari sudut hukumnya bla bla bla, karena sudah mahfum sekali bahwa hukum itu bukanlah keadilan. Law is not justice. It never is.
Tapi ingin bertanya pada sendiri, have I remembered enough.
Lebih lagi, have I done enough.

Seorang sahabat berkata,
"Dee, lahir-belajar jalan ngomong-tk-sd-smp-sma-kuliah-kerja-nikah-punya anak-memastikan anak mengikuti hal2 tersebut-mati adalah, devil cycle. I dont know where's thing 'so-called' life on that cycle"

Aku bilang, dia harus mengalami semuanya dulu baru bisa tau.

Dan dijawab,
"No i dont have to. Just by thinking about what our country had become. Its a sad fact that there's actually only few people give it a damn, because they been trapped on their own tired old line. There's no time to think about others. Let alone the nation. Busy to save their own asses, and they dont even realize that's what's happened. Its a false joy"

There. My life is a false joy.
And we're just some kinda robot.
How nice.
Just perfect for this gloomy cloudy november days.

Tapi tentu saja, ini harusnya suatu kritik membangun.
I'm still searching the constructive part.

Kritik membangunnya mungkin adalah bagaimana kita bertanya pada diri sendiri, "Apa yang salah dari komunitas kita? masyarakat kita? negara kita? Is it the custom? The education system? What?"
Jika belum terjawab, masih ada pertanyaan selanjutnya yang menunggu, "Apa solusinya?"

Aku selalu berpikir, sesuatu dimulai dari hal terkecil. Dari diri sendiri. Satu demi satu.
Klise.
Tapi sesuatu itu klise mungkin karena itu memang benar.
And yea, I haven't done enough. I'm crawling.

So, when my simple so-called life, with my simple kinda family, seems not enough..well, I cannot blame my idealistic sarcastic friend. We can always agree to disagree, right?
Just don't expect me to stop believing that maybe we, stupid silly nerdy simple people, can actually make a difference. By doing little things.

2 simple things to remember and share with dynamic duo (again):
1. Simpen krincing kita
2. Pisahin dan kurangi sampah dengan ngubur sampah dapur.

Last but never least...listen to your children. Respect them. So they'll listen and respect others.
Do you realize that your children spend less than 20 years with us, then go on to spend another 60 years, 70 years, 80 or maybe even more on this planet. What goes on in our home with them today seems so small it hardly even matters in the grand scheme of things. Yet what we do in our home can affect society for many years to come.

Itu salah satu solusiku, mate, ketika kamu nanya apa nanti Damar Dimas sempet mikirin negaranya.

Bertanya pada Damar the jegrag and Dimas the jambul.
Ketika mereka pengen roti tawar instead of nasi buat makan siang, aku bukan bilang, "Harus makan nasi! Mamah udah capek-capek masak! Arrgghh! Grrrr! Aum!" and so on.
Tapi aku bertanya, "kenapa ngga mau makan nasi?" dan dijawab Damar, "nanti mah, abis makan roti."

Pertanyaan. Jawaban.
Pilihan. Konsekuensi.

Semoga dengan memberikan mereka pertanyaan dan pilihan, someday when they're older, mereka bisa menentukan pilihan yang terbaik bukan cuman untuk diri mereka sendiri tapi juga lingkungan di sekitar mereka. Semoga mereka, entah itu mengikuti 'that tired old line' atau sebaliknya menjadi biksu selibat yang mengabdikan diri untuk menyelamatkan dunia, menjadi manusia yang bermanfaat.

This stupid simple me is still learning, for God sake!

(www.art.com)

The Beating of A Single Heart

2009-11-17T08:16:00.000+07:00

I felt quite aweful aweful this morning.
A perfect combination of fatigue, lack of sleep and lack of gratitude.
Then I watched this video.

From commondreams

The Beating of A Single Heart
by Jonathan Mann

You hear it everyday
sometimes in the subtlest ways
sometimes it's in your face
But nonetheless it's there
"Go back to where you came from"
"They're taking all our jobs"
"They shoul learn to speak English"
"They are lazy, foreign slobs"

It is fear
that can sonsume you
Fear
will make you close your eyes.
But it is love
that can bloom you
let you open up to the sun and realize

We're all the same
underneath our skin
same beating hearts
same blood within

And in the future
as we embrace
We'll feel the beating of a single heart
of the human race.

We're told it's not enough
to consume more than our weight in stuff
when things are getting rough
we oughta buy more

Make it! Pack it! Ship it!
Buy it! Use it! Toss it!

Afterall, isn't that what we're made for?
With no regard
for the impact
our tireless consumption has

from all the beef
to the big smoke stacks
We're messing up the only home we have

Put down your wallet
and go outside
March around
get wide eyed

Cause in the future
We'll take care of this place
And the beating of a single heart
of the human race.

We've heard it all before
there has always been war
From the chimpanzee's roar
and the rocks he hurled

But we must evolve
to find another way to solve
all the disagreements in this world
Well it won't be simple
Nothing ever is
But in that complexity is grace.

Cause in the future
bound by respect
We'll feel the beating heart of a human race.

Thanks Jonathan Mann! It really brightened up my day.

Buaya dan Komodo

2009-11-10T17:58:00.004+07:00

Siapa lagi yang bisa dipercaya?
My poor country...

The latest update of criminalization of KPK, the Jakarta Pos

The police and those devil's advocates, those corruptors...I cannot hate those people more.

Negeri Para Bedebah
Ada satu negeri yang dihuni para bedebah
by Adhie Massardi

Lautnya pernah dibelah tongkat Musa
Nuh meninggalkan daratannya karena direndam bah
Dari langit burung-burung kondor menjatuhkan bebatuan menyala-nyala
Tahukah kamu ciri-ciri negara para bedebah?
Itulah negeri yang para pemimpinnya hidup mewah
Tapi rakyatnya makan dan mengais sampah
Atau menjadi kuli di negeri orang
Yang upahnya serapah dan bogem mentah
Di negeri para bedebah
Orang baik dan bersih dianggap salah
Dipenjarakan hanya karena sering ketemu wartawan
Menipu rakyat dengan pemilu menjadi lumrah
Karena hanya penguasa yang boleh marah
Sedangkan rakyatnya hanya bisa pasrah
Maka bila negerimu dikuasai para bedebah
Jangan tergesa-gesa mengadu kepada Allah
Karena Tuhan tak akan mengubah apa suatu kaum
Kecuali kaum itu sendiri mengubahnya
Maka bila melihat negeri dikuasai para bedebah
Usirlah mereka dengan revolusi
Bila tak mampu dengan revolusi, dengan demonstrasi
Bila tak mampu dengan demonstrasi, dengan diskusi
Tapi itulah selemah-lemahnya iman perjuangan.

2009-10-31T10:11:00.005+07:00

I've been away from internet for quite some time. And it's been quite uncomfortable here since we're lack of water and electricity. But hey, who am I to complain?? ^^
Me and my family, we're still consider ourselves as the luckiest person on earth no matter what. We have a place to stay, jobs to be done, food on the table, back and front yard to burry our kitchen scrap, books to read, people to love and plenty of sunshine and breezy wind.

Little small things that make our world goes round.

A little upset for the update of Ezra Nawi in Tikun Olam...Bless you, Ezra...
But this one is a good news, from mondoweiss.

When humanity goes beyond religions and politics.

We Want Peace

2009-10-09T12:11:00.002+07:00

Kravitz recorded the anti-war song "We Want Peace" as the US began invading Iraq. The song was performed with musicians from Iraq (Kadim Al Sahir), Palestine (Simon Shaheen), and Lebanon (Jamey Hadded).

Here is once again in our face
Why haven't we learn from our past
We're at the crossroads of our human race
Why are we kicking our own ass

A Not So Desperate Mommie

2009-10-09T08:45:00.005+07:00

Ada perang besar akhir-akhir ini.
Antara Dimas dan the rest of pasukan D (plus mbak yuk).

Dimas Arga Nurtsany, jagoan kecil berambut ikal tipis itu sedang memasuki tahap pemberontakan. Ngga diajak jalan, nangis. Diajak jalan, nangis.
Dimasakin ikan, nangis. Dimasakin ayam, juga nangis.
Disuruh jangan nangis, tetep nangis. Disuruh nangis terus, tambah nangis.

I was wondering whether to collect his tears since the lack of water here.

Pagi ini, aku nyepeda ke warung untuk beli beras. Langit Balikpapan tidak seperti hari-hari sebelumnya, biru tanpa awan. A good day to eat ice cream with the space cadets. Jadi akhirnya pindahlah satu es krim coklat dan satu es krim strawberi ke tas belanjaan. Sampai di rumah es krim coklat langsung lenyap dimakan dimas yang memang sudah sebulan dilarang makan es krim karena batuk. Dan mulailah perang baru, on how to invade and occupy his brother ice cream.
Ketidakadilan itu kulawan dengan niat, kata-kata dan tindakan. Tindakan maksudnya time out di teras belakang.
Dan berakhir dengan tangisan disana-sini.
But, as usual, this time justice prevails.
Es krim Damar terselamatkan.

Key word is konsisten.
Dan non-violence. Ku-bold karena aku masih sering sekali harus berjuang sekuat tenaga menahan godaan untuk mencubit atau membentak. Saat-saat ketika anak 2 dan 5 tahun membuatmu merasa seperti anak 5 taun juga. Sama-sama ingin ngeyel, sama-sama ingin marah, sama-sama ingin mewek.

"Dimas, mamah ngga mau dipukul!"
"Imas mau mukul!"
"Mamah ngga mau!"
"Imas mau!"
"Ngga!"
"Mau!"

and so on...

Remember Gandhi said?
"I first learned the concepts of non-violence in my marriage."

A reminder for myself :
Bagaimana kita mengajarkan konsep non-violence ke anak-anak jika sebagai orangtua kita ngga bisa mencontohkan hal itu?
Satu cara jitu untuk menekan amarah adalah memposisikan diri kita di mata anak-anak. Apa yang dia liat di diri kita ketika pukulan, cubitan atau bentakan siap berterbangan?
Gabungan antara medusa, sadako dan dewi persik?

So, please, please...Gusti paringana sabar, paringana eling, sluman,slumun slamet donya akherat.

Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said. -Anonymous

It's just another Friday.
I hope it'll be a good friday for everyone, including everyone in government (semoga tikus-tikus berkurang, I get sick reading the same news and watching the same face everyday), Padang, Kenya (I saw the malnutrition problem there in aljazeera yesterday), Jerusalem, Gaza, and in every corner of the world.

We'll be doing gardening and learning to do backyard composting tomorrow.

Al-Aqsa Sanctuary: The Palestinian Spirit

2009-10-08T20:30:00.003+07:00

Al-Aqsa Sanctuary: The Palestinian Spirit
by Simone Daud

The future

Though I am entirely secular and ethnically Galilean Christian from the villages surrounding Nazareth, I hope that the day will come when the wall and tanks fencing us into our camps fall. I hope that our tragedy ends. I hope for the day when the indigenous people of Palestine, weak and landless herded into crowded camps, will be able to freely pray in al-Aqsa temple. Free from brutality, and free to quench their spiritual thirst in the Muslim compound. Free to pray in what we call Beit al-Maqdas, the Muslim Holy of Holies.

We are not beasts to be herded through checkpoints, we are not vermin to access our temple through Clinton's tunnels, the walls surrounding our prison's will fall.

Let my people pray, bring down the wall in Palestine.

al-athan call for prayer

For many centuries the call for prayer has emanated from al-Aqsa menanrates. For centuries the call has dominated the winds of Jerusalem. The Palestinians being weak without facilities to effectively resist see in the morning athan call for prayer a defiance. We shall one day be treated with dignity. We are human.

A third intifada?
Perhaps that's exactly what the occupier wants.

Aku Tidak Tahu

2009-09-25T11:40:00.003+07:00

MONO
oleh Gunawan Muhammad

Pada suatu hari di abad ke-7, dua orang Madinah bertengkar. Yang satu Muslim dan yang satu lagi Yahudi. Yang pertama mengunggulkan Muhammad SAW ”atas sekalian alam”. Yang kedua mengunggulkan Musa. Tak sabar, orang Muslim itu menjotos muka Si Yahudi.

Orang Yahudi itu pun datang mengadu ke Nabi Muhammad, yang memimpin kehidupan kota itu. Ia ceritakan apa yang terjadi. Maka Rasulullah pun memanggil Si Muslim dan berkata:

”Janganlah kau unggulkan aku atas Musa. Sebab di hari kiamat semua umat jatuh pingsan, dan aku pun jatuh pingsan bersama mereka. Dan akulah yang pertama bangkit dan sadar, tiba-tiba aku lihat Musa sudah berdiri di sisi Singgasana. Aku tidak tahu, apakah ia tadinya juga jatuh pingsan lalu bangkit sadar sebelumku, ataukah dia adalah orang yang dikecualikan Allah”.

Riwayat ini dikutip dari Shahih Muslim, Bab Min Fadla’il Musa. Dalam buku Abd. Moqsith Ghazali yang terbit pekan lalu, Argumen Pluralisme Agama, hadis itu dituturkan kembali sebagai salah satu contoh pandangan Islam tentang agama yang bukan Islam, khususnya Yahudi dan Kristen.

Pada intinya, Moqsith, sosok tenang dan alim yang mengajar di Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif Hidayatullah ini, datang dengan pendirian yang kukuh: Islam adalah ”sambungan—bukan musuh—dari agama para nabi sebelumnya”, yang sering disebut sebagai agama-agama Ibrahimi.

Tapi yang bagi saya menarik adalah kata-kata Muhammad SAW yang dikutip di sana: ”Janganlah kau unggulkan aku atas Musa”, dan, ”aku tidak tahu…”.

Kini kata-kata itu tenggelam. Kini sebagian ulama merasa di atas Rasulullah: mereka merasa tahu keunggulan diri mereka. Mereka akan membenarkan Si Muslim yang memukul Si Yahudi. Mereka bahkan mendukung aniaya terhadap orang yang ”menyimpang”, walaupun orang lain itu, misalnya umat Ahmadiyah, membaca syahadat Islam.

Dari mana datangnya kekerasan itu?

Saya sering bingung. Satu kalimat suci terkadang bisa membuat orang jadi lembut, tapi satu kalimat lain dari sumber yang sama bisa menghalalkan pembunuhan.

Mungkin pada mulanya bukanlah agama. Agama, seperti banyak hal lain, terbangun dalam ambiguitas. Dengan perut dan tangan, ambiguitas itu diselesaikan. Tafsir pun lahir, dan kitab-kitab suci berubah peran, ketika manusia mengubah kehidupannya. Yang suci diputuskan dari bumi. Pada mulanya bukanlah Sabda, melainkan Laku.

Tapi juga benar, Sabda punya kesaktiannya sendiri setelah jadi suci; ia bisa jadi awal sebuah laku. Kekerasan tak meledak di sembarang kaum yang sedang mengubah sejarah. Ia lebih sering terjadi dalam sejarah Yahudi, Kristen, dan Islam: sejarah kepercayaan yang berpegang pada Sabda yang tertulis. Pada gilirannya kata-kata yang direkam beku dalam aksara itu menghendaki kesatuan tafsir.

Kesatuan: jangan-jangan mala itu datang dari angka ”satu”—dan kita harus bebas dari the logic of the One.

Kata ini dipakai Laurel C. Schneider dalam Beyond Monotheism. Pakar theologi itu menuding: ”Oneness, as a basic claim about God, simply does not make sense.” Dunia sesungguhnya melampaui ke-satu-an dan totalitas.

Schneider menganjurkan iman berangkat ke dalam ”multiplisitas”—yang tak sama artinya dengan ”banyak”. Kata itu, menurut dia, mencoba menamai cara melihat yang luwes, mampu menerima yang tak terduga tak berhingga.

Tapi Schneider, teguh dalam tradisi Ibrahimi, menegaskan ”multiplisitas” itu tak melenyapkan yang Tunggal. Yang Satu tak hilang dalam multiplisitas, hanya ambyar sebagaimana bintang jatuh tapi sebenarnya bukan jatuh melainkan berubah dalam perjalanan benda-benda planeter.

Dengan kata lain, tetap ada ke-tunggal-an yang membayangi tafsir kita. Bagaimana kalau terbit intoleransi monotheisme kembali?

Saya ingat satu bagian dalam novel Ayu Utami, Bilangan Fu. Ada sebuah catatan pendek dari tokoh Parang Jati yang bertanya: ”Kenapa monotheisme begitu tidak tahan pada perbedaan?” Dengan kata lain, ”anti-liyan”?

Pertanyaan itu dijawab di catatan itu juga: sikap ”anti-liyan” itu berpangkal pada ”bilangan yang dijadikan metafora bagi inti falsafah masing-masing”. Monotheisme menekankan bilangan ”satu”. Agama lain di Asia bertolak dari ketiadaan, kekosongan, sunyi, shunyat, shunya, sekaligus keutuhan. ”Konsep ini ada pada bilangan nol,” kata Parang Jati.

Bagi Parang Jati, agama Yahudi, pemula tradisi monotheisme, tak mampu menafsirkan Tuhan sebagai Ia yang terungkap dalam shunya, sebab monotheisme ”dirumuskan sebelum bilangan nol dirumuskan”.

Ada kesan Parang Jati merindukan kembali angka nol, namun ia tak begitu jelas menunjukkan, di mana dan bila kesalahan dimulai. Ia mengatakan, setelah bilangan nol ditemukan, manusia pun kehilangan kualitas yang ”puitis”, ”metaforis” dan ”spiritual” dalam menafsirkan firman Tuhan. ”Ketika nol belum ditemukan,” tulis Parang Jati, ”sesungguhnya bilangan tidaklah hanya matematis.”

Dengan kata lain, mala terjadi bukan karena angka satu, melainkan karena ditemukannya nol. Tapi Parang Jati juga menunjukkan, persoalan timbul bukan karena penemuan nol, melainkan ketika dan karena ”shunya menjadi bilangan nol”.

Salahkah berpikir tentang Tuhan sebagai nol? Salahkah dengan memakai ”the logic of the One”?

Di sebuah pertemuan di Surabaya beberapa bulan yang lalu saya dapat jawab yang mencerahkan. Tokoh Buddhisme Indonesia, Badhe Dammasubho, menunjukkan bahwa kata ”esa” dalam asas ”Ketuhanan yang Maha Esa” bukan sama dengan ”eka” yang berarti ”satu”. Esa berasal dari bahasa Pali, bahasa yang dipakai kitab-kitab Buddhisme. Artinya sama dengan ”nirbana”.

Setahu saya, ”nirbana” berarti ”tiada”. Bagi Tuhan, ada atau tak ada bukanlah persoalannya. Ia melampaui ”ada”, tak harus ”ada”, dan kita, mengikuti kata-kata Rasulullah, ”aku tidak tahu”.

~Majalah Tempo Edisi 02 Maret 2009~

Agama seharusnya menjadi sumber kedamaian di muka bumi. Kita, si manusia lah, yang menciptakan siklus kebencian.

Links of the Day

2009-09-24T06:23:00.010+07:00

What do you think?
From bendib. Thanks Fatemah for the link.

Hate Thy Neighbour
Thanks for the interesting post, MERC. Liam Bartlett from Channel 9 on 60 minutes blog,

Trying to understand the Middle East peace process is a bit like attempting to unscramble an egg so we travelled to Israel to get a first-hand look at just how hard it might be to even begin a so-called 'road map to peace'.
t might be to even begin a so-called 'road map to peace'.

At the very heart of the problem are the Jewish settlers, now occupying large tracts of land that the Palestinians say are really theirs. The settlers are essentially squatting on whatever piece they choose and constructing houses and towns in a defiant gesture of "now that I'm here – it's all mine".

from bendib

French Police Clear Migrant 'Jungle', Arrest 278

But Immigration Minister Eric Besson said action had to be taken against migrant trafficking rings. "What I want is to dismantle this 'jungle', which is the operating base for human traffickers," Besson told RTL radio.
Activists opposed the raid however. "It's a scandal," said Jean-Claude Lenoir of the Salam migrant support group. "We can't have soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and treat Afghans seeking refuge here with such little dignity."

Anti Corruption Songs by Slank
You know what I hate more than terrorism? Corruption! A Lot, a lot of corruption! Try to live in this country and you'll find them everywhere. Sometime I think I have no respect left for my own government. Indonesia regularly appears on lists of the most corrupt countries in the world, and in the most recent global corruption survey by Transparency International, Indonesia scored a 2.6, with 10 being the cleanest rating.

The situation looks grim now, since the KPK (The Corruption Eradication Commission)chairmen have been named as suspects by police.
Here's the update.

On going battle between KPK and the police
Q+A-Indonesia's corruption court bill

Korupsi membunuh bangsa...Corruption kills.

Photo from tbelfield.wordpress.com

Pictures of Us

2009-09-21T07:38:00.011+07:00

Katanya a picture is worth a thousand words.
Aku suka menulis, suka membaca juga. Aku suka mengambil foto, tapi ngga suka difoto. Konon, mataku keliatan lebih sipit kalo di foto...Nah. I lied. Mataku memang dari sananya sipit, seperti itu --> ~_~
Tolong jangan ditinggal lari atau sembunyi kalo aku ketawa.

Anyway, these days were quite...errr...interesting. At least for me.
There were goods, there were bads. There were cools, there were hots. There were laughters, there were tears.
But my mind is blank tonight, so I'll just put some pictures instead.

One of a million things to keep your kids busy.

Damar dan Dimas mbantuin masang lemari baru

Lebaran cookies time! One of our fave time.

A beautiful mess.

Jadi pasang indovision lagi. Demi playhouse disney. Demi liga Inggris.

Dimas : "Ini apa, om?"
Si Om : "Ini kabel"

Rahasia kue enak : eces Dimas.

Mommie : "lagi ngapain, nak?"
Tole Dimas : "lagi motong ikan paus"

Blue and green. A perfect match.

A small hill behind our home. Setiap merasa capek atau galau cukup memandang kesana...

Foto yang diambil oleh Damar dari tempat kita shalat Eid.

Early morning of Eid this year

You can't see it, but there's a beautiful thin crescent moon in the sky

the final shade of sunset

Kegiatan malam lebaran. Nungguin ember penuh. Great. And after that, night exercise. Good for your biceps.

Lebaran with no water. Back to basic, nggotong ember keluar masuk rumah.

And that's a wrap.
Eid Mubarak, everyone! May God bless us always.

I can hardly open my eyes...so ready to sleep and dream about Jogja.
You can hide now.

Eid Mubarak

2009-09-19T17:01:00.004+07:00

picture from Jewssansfrontieres
Artikel yang ditulis setahun yang lalu. Another great post from Jews sans frontieres. A blog always worth to read.
Thank you, Nedster.

This marks only the second year since 9/11 that my hometown has lit up its remaining tallest building green for Eid.

Everyone remembers the CNN film of a few Palestinians dancing in E. Jerusalem on 9/11. I recall watching that & feeling more than a little irked, having just come from a candlelight vigil with the WTC smoldering in the background & spending part of the day standing on line to donate blood for the wounded -- who never materialized -- that anyone could find a reason to rejoice in the pointless destruction of my city.

Fifteen months later I traveled to Palestine for the first time. In January of '03, I witnessed the biggest single-day orgy of home demolition in the West Bank since the beginning of the occupation, in the village of Nazlat Issa. Nazlat Issa was a thriving commercial center in the northern West Bank that straddled the Green Line. At least 60 shops were destroyed by the IDF that day. After the major part of the destruction was done, I was coughing amidst the rubble, something easily set off since the weeks I'd spent breathing in the debris of 9/11, and that caught the attention of a local pharmacist. He advised me to drink water, and regretted he didn't have anything from his shop to give me, as it had just been flattened.

Quite all right, I assured him, and when I explained the origin of my cough, I got a very common reaction from him, the one most Palestinians expressed as soon as they'd find out I was from New York -- deep sadness for what my city had gone through. Now I was savvy enough not to have expected to find a troupe of 9-11 celebrants prancing about the West Bank, but I was still quite moved at this widely-expressed commiseration. After all, my co-religionists, many of them being settlers with Brooklyn accents, were busy ethnically cleansing these folks, and my country was financing it. But it really took the cake, this pharmacist standing in the rubble of everything he had, and there he was busying himself expressing effusive sorrow for MY loss & worrying about my cough.

Caked with mud as we all were, and wanting to get away from the dust and the terminator-like machines still ripping away at the remains of the buildings, the pharmacist took myself and two other US Jewish activists to his family's house. He was a superb host, even on such a lousy day, occasionally getting a bit sunken when he talked about how he didn't know how he was going to support his family or mused on what would become of his village. But he brightened up considerably when one of my compatriots surged off an overstuffed sofa and burst into a fabulous interpretation of a Shakira-style bump & grind while the chanteuse blared over Lebanese MTV. We merrily egged him on, clapping in unison, and the one female activist amongst us gamely attempted to ululate. The pharmacist's mother made me tea with an herb picked from their garden -- worked wonders on the throat.

So the picture above is in appreciation for that fellow -- I hope he & his family are doing well this Eid; him and all the other Palestinians who've plied me with their hospitality, wisdom, humor & forbearance in my too brief visits to their beleaguered & beautiful homeland.

Selamat Idul Fitri. Maaf lahir dan batin. May the peace and blessings of Allah be on each of you!
Eid Mubarak!

And Shana Tova ( good year) to our Jewish friends.

Sabra dan Shatila

2009-09-17T07:59:00.004+07:00

First thing I saw this morning, a reminder from Gabriel Ash. Thank you, Gabriel.
Remembering Sabra and Shatila.

Pertama membaca tentang Sabra Shatila di buku dr. Ang Swee Chai, From Beirut to Jerusalem. Simply heartbroken. Dan 27 tahun setelah tragedi itu, dan tidak ada yang berubah dari keangkuhan dan kekejaman Israel, aku mungkin mengerti kenapa rakyat Palestina bisa begitu membenci penjajahnya.
Indonesia berjuang selama ratusan tahun membebaskan diri dari penjajahan Belanda, jadi mengapa kita memandang rendah perjuangan bangsa Palestina? Mengapa kita menyebut mereka teroris?

"YOU take my water, burn my olive trees, destroy my house, take my job, steal my land, imprison my father, kill my mother , bomb my country, ... I am to blame: I shot a rocket back."

~ sabbah's haitham blog

Jadi ingatlah Sabra dan Shatila, 16 September 1982.

“Where was the sun when anger burst at Sabra and Shatila? Where was I? At what party, careless, when I red the news? And where were you – you so eager to defend the oppressed – when the massacre happened? Where is the pride of men? Where were you my friend with the sleeping conscience?”

~ Sabra Y Chatila, An argentinean song by Alberto Cortez

Skygazing

2009-09-13T07:51:00.006+07:00

Dini hari ini langit lumayan cerah, so I guess I'll stay awake till sun rises. Kepalaku yang dua hari ini dipenuhi pertanyaan to be or not to be, to do or not to do, rasanya perlu didinginkan.
Being an undecisive person, skygazing has always been a sweet escape to me...

A quick glance to the south.
Ada Fomalhaut, the Lonely Star. Atau Fum Al Hut yang artinya mouth of the fish. Salah satu dari dari empat penjaga surga menurut kepercayaan Persia kuno. Tiga koleganya yang lain adalah Aldebaran di Taurus, Antares di Scorpius, dan Regulus di Leo.
Ke arah kiri atas, Achernar. Akhir an Nahr atau River's End. Si Achernar adalah Alpha Eridani, bintang paling terang di rasinya, adalah akhir dari sungai mistik Eridanus, yang membentang dari kaki Orion di Utara sampai ke Selatan.

Formalhaut dan Achernar (dengan stellarium)

Masuk ke rumah dan keluar lewat pintu belakang, berdiri sendirian di backyard yang gelap menghadap ke northeastern sambil sedikit was-was ngelirik kanan kiri. Dalam hati berdoa semoga ngga ketemu tikus, ular, kecoak ataupun yang suka pake baju putih sambil melayang-layang...*glek!*
Damn, paranoid gara-gara kotak penghasil kuntilanak bernama tipi >.<

Ah, go away you scary thoughts! Shuh!

Sampai mana tadi?
O well, Up up in the sky, first we'll see the old moon, lagi bertamu ke Gemini ditemani oleh Pollux, Castor dan planet merah Mars. Di atasnya Aldebaran dapat terlihat jelas sebagai mata Taurus di Hyades, kepala Taurus yang berbentuk huruf V. Aldebaran atau Al Dabaran artinya adalah The Follower, karena Aldebaran selalu mengikuti Pleiades, bahu dari taurus sepanjang waktu. Pleiades atau the seven sisters, terlihat seperti konstelasi mini yang terdiri dari bintang-bintang yang umpek-umpekan, istilah jawanya. Si bintang tujuh ini disebut juga Kemukus oleh orang Jawa, karena bentuknya yang seperti asap. Berdesakan, dengan 6 bintang yang bisa dilihat dengan mata telanjang. Mereka adalah Alcyone, Asterope (Sterope), Celaeno, Electra, Maia dan Taygete. Plus Merope yang ngga terlihat mata telanjang karena diisukan menikah dengan seorang mortal bernama Sisyphus.
Wew, kayaknya jaman dulu cerita macam inpoteinmen udah ada >.<

Gosip lengkapnya bisa dilihat di sini.

Orion, Taurus (Pleiades & Hyades), Gemini, Auriga, Canis Major dan Canis Minor, Moon and Mars (dengan stellarium)

Okeh, balik ke jalan yang benar.

Ke arah timurnya ada Orion sang pemburu, setia terlihat setiap malam. Rasi bintang ketiga yang kukenali setelah Scorpio dan 'tea pot' sagitarius di langit sore. Orion hanya akan terbit jika scorpio tenggelam. Letaknya pun berseberangan. Katanya, Orion takut akan bisa si Scorpio, musuh bebuyutannya.
Paling jelas dikenali dari dua bintang terang, Betelgeuse (arabic yad Al Jauza : the female on of the middle) dan Rigel (arabic Rijl : kaki), dan tiga bintang di sabuknya, Mintaka, Alnitak ( the belt) dan Alnilam (the string of pearls). Sementara bahu orion ditandai dengan Bellatrix.

Orion Sang Pemburu

Orion atau Lintang Waluku ditemani oleh dua anjing, Canis Major dengan Sirius dan Canis Minor dengan Procyon.
Lebih ke kiri, di langit utara, satu bintang terang bernama Capella di rasi Auriga.

Twingkle twingkle little star
how I wonder what you are...

Ah, Moon -- and Star!

Ah, Moon -- and Star!
You are very far --
But were no one
Farther than you --
Do you think I'd stop
For a Firmament --
Or a Cubit -- or so?

I could borrow a Bonnet
Of the Lark --
And a Chamois' Silver Boot --
And a stirrup of an Antelope --
And be with you -- Tonight!

But, Moon, and Star,
Though you're very far --
There is one -- farther than you --
He -- is more than a firmament -- from Me --
So I can never go!
~ Emily Dickinson

Finally, malam telah berakhir. Benang kusut di kepala belum juga terurai.

Malingsial and Malaysians

2009-09-02T19:40:00.005+07:00

When so many people from both sides, Malaysia and Indonesia, show their immaturity and shortsightedness, here is a rapper who knows the difference between Malingsial/Indonsial and Malaysians/Indonesians.

Copy My Style Again ~ Saykoji

You copy my style
You copy again
Apa plagiat di negara lo lagi ngetrend?
Ku tetap sabar tetap kau kuanggap friend
But sooner or later i gotta take my stand

Udah bolak balik sampe balik kebolak
Temen gue sampe keselek pas makan kolak
Lagi lagi berulang ulang terus terjadi
Tetangga bikin ulah lagi bikin sakit hati

Suka ngaku ngaku kagak malu malu
Punya indonesia di klaim satu satu
Apa memang kalian yang gak mampu mampu
Buat budaya sendiri efek gak ampuh ampuh

Baca rambu rambu, bangsaku berbudi luhur
Tapi usik terus, reputasi mu masuk kubur
Jujur gue bangga jujur gue bersyukur
Elo ngaku ngaku berarti progress lo mundur

Panas ku bertutur kreasi bicara
Walau sudah jelas identitas ku dijarah
Joe farizal aja bisa minta maap
Masa yang lain kagak nyadar kagak tanggap

You copy my style
You copy again
Apa plagiat di negara lo lagi ngetrend?
Ku tetap sabar tetap kau kuanggap friend
But sooner or later i gotta take my stand

Bukan mo sok nasionalis sombong mengangkat alis
Bukan mo sok gangster bukan sok sadis
Walau lagi ngetop bukan gue sok ngartis
Tapi bales pake lagu paling praktis

Marah marah di internet, udah pasaran
Ngomel ngomel di pasar kagak sabaran
Kaya cacing kepanasan jenggot kebakaran
Rasanya gatel pengen ngasih tamparan

Tapi gue orang nya cinta damai
Walau rasanya sulit untuk santai
Amunisi di samping nyiur melambai
Pakai musik rap ku siap membantai

Memang satu rumpun masih sama melayu
Tapi melayu saykoji keras dan gak kemayu
Selendang rocker ku agak mendayu
Tapi coba ajak gue battle rap ayuk!!

You copy my style
You copy again
Apa plagiat di negara lo lagi ngetrend?
Ku tetap sabar tetap kau kuanggap friend
But sooner or later i gotta take my stand

Salute to Saykoji!

And hatemongers, Stop bashing around.
Your words show the world who you really are.

Stop talking about war!

You know who's going to inherit the world? Arms dealers. Because everyone else is too busy killing each other.

~Yuri Orlov, Lord of War

How to make the case for Israel and win

2009-09-02T04:12:00.004+07:00

How to make the case for Israel and win (thanks to gabriel ash, again)

You need to understand just one principle:

The case for Israel is made of four propositions that should always be presented in the correct escalating order.

1.We rock
2.They suck
3.You suck
4.Everything sucks

Wait! One more thing :

5.Islam sucks

Wew. Should've tone down my sarcsm level this Ramadan.
-.-'

Ramadan Note

2009-08-22T06:16:00.003+07:00

It's Ramadan! A holiest month for us muslim. A month for fasting, praying and giving. One whole month to recharge our faith and feed our soul.
And I've just learned from Velveteen Rabbi, that this year our Muslim holy month of Ramadan overlaps with the Jewish month of Elul.
Like Ramadan, Elul is also a month to reconnect with God.

We can never love our neighbour without knowing them. And it's nice to know that we have something in common.
It's time to start reaching out and learning about others. Looking for similarities rather than differences.

Happy fasting!
May we have a good and blessed Ramadan.

A Birthday Wish

2009-08-15T10:59:00.007+07:00

I would love to meet this amazing man and give him a hug. But now, I just wish on August 16 he will be free from all chargers.
He has been pronounced guilty of assaulting a police officer who was demolishing a Palestinian house on July 22, 2007.

Guilty for what?
For saying "Very funny soldier? That the kids will be sleeping outside, that's funny?"?

Ezra Nawi and the laughing soldiers

August 14, a personal letter from Ezra:

This is not the first time that I stand trial for my beliefs. But it is the first time that they will probably be able to stop me.

I always knew that many people silently supported me, and that if I ever got into trouble they would stand behind me. This moment has come.

I have been harassed and targeted throughout the years, because I embody three elements which provoke bigotry in the Israeli society: I am a homosexual, I am a Mizrahi Jew, and I devote all my time to fighting for the human rights of Arab Palestinians.

I am a simple person. I did what my heart told me to do. Looking back, I know that what my friends and I have done is changing the harsh reality of the occupation in the whole area of south Hebron. I feel that now the Israeli authorities are punishing me on a personal level.

I would like to believe that my personal adversity will inspire and motivate individuals to actively oppose the occupation.

Thank you,

Ezra Nawi

In this sad sad world, we need more people like you..
Bless you, Ezra.

Cukuplah Karena Kita Sesama Manusia

2009-07-20T11:56:00.005+07:00

Hidup terus berjalan.
Bagi keluarga Timothy McKay, Garth McEvoy, Evert Mokodompis dan korban bom JW Mariott/Ritz Carlton mungkin tidak semudah itu. Istri Evert bahkan baru saja melahirkan anak keduanya sehari setelah bom meledak.

Pagi ini aku tertegun membaca satu artikel di Tribun Kaltim. Judulnya Ightiyal dan Bom Bunuh Diri. Salah satu isi tulisan itu adalah :

Teror bom itu telah membuat Indonesia menangis. Menangis karena dengan aksi itu, citra Indonesia kembali masuk dalam kategori negara yang tidak aman. Menangis karena pecinta Manchester United kecewa berat karena jadwal laga Indonesia All Stars verus MU di Stadion Gelora Bung Karno dibatalkan. Umat Islam Indonesia juga ikut bersedih, karena aksi pelaku teror bom bunuh diri itu serta merta meninggalkan citra buruk umat Islam di mata dunia.

Juga disebutkan tentang MUI yang harus menunggu empat tahun (setelah Bom Bali I) untuk menyatakan fatwa haram untuk aksi bom bunuh diri. Fatwa tersebut dikeluarkan 10 November 2005.

Tanpa mengurangi makna dan maksud baik penulis, aku bertanya-tanya "Seegois apa kita ini?" Apakah Indonesia menangis karena telah jatuh lagi korban-korban tak bersalah, telah bertambah lagi anak-anak yatim atau piatu dan telah muncul lagi korban-korban luka yang mungkin akan cacat seumur hidup..... atau karena MU tidak jadi datang??? Mana yang lebih penting? Nyawa manusia atau citra?

Dan ketika aku membaca di tulisan tersebut tentang seorang Syeikh Sholih Al Fauzan di Arab Saudi yang menyatakan bahwa

Ightiyal (membunuh dengan rahasia dan sembunyi-sembunyi) dan perusakan (pada sumber-sumber pemerintahan di negeri kafir) adalah perkara yang tidak boleh. Karena akan menyebabkan kejelekan terhadap kaum muslimin dan menyebabkan pembunuhan dan pengungsian terhadap kaum muslimin, ini perkara yang tidak boleh

...aku mulai merasa sedikit mual.

Apakah segala sesuatu harus berputar di sekitar kita, kaum muslim?
Apakah tidak cukup alasannya karena semua manusia punya hak hidup yang sama?
The same flesh, bone, blood, heart and mind?

Beberapa hadis dari Nabi Muhammad (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) yang sangat menekankan agar kita menjauhi kekerasan :

Deal gently with the people, and be not harsh; cheer them and condemn them not.

That person is nearest to God, who pardons, when he has someone in his power, one who would have injured him.

Assist your brother or sister Muslim, whether he be an oppressor or an oppressed. 'But how shall we do it when someone is an oppressor?' Muhammad said, 'Assisting an oppressor is by forbidding and withholding that person from oppression.'

The best jihad (lit. striving) is a just word before a tyrannical authority.

All God's creatures are His family; and he or she is the most beloved of God who tries to do most good to God's creatures.

Faith is a restraint against all violence, let no Mu'min commit violence.

May Allah bless us with His love, and the love of those who love Him. May Allah fill our hearts with love.
Wallahu'alam bissawab. Only God knows the best.

Jakarta Meledak Lagi

2009-07-17T14:39:00.005+07:00

What's the difference between a drone attack and a suicide bomber? Both use robots, and at the end of the day, both puppeteers get to go home to their families and act like nothing happened that day. Or act like something happened and proud of it.

Apa yang kalian inginkan?
Mengacaukan negeriku?
Tidak puas dengan pemilu?
Permainan kekuasaan?
Mengklaim satu kebenaran di atas yang lain?
Berperan menjadi Tuhan?

The circle of violence won't solve anything.
Whoever you are, you stupid and coward people who are trying to destroy my country, I pray your family won't suffer the same fate as the victims of the bombings of the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton today.

Our deepest condolences.
Jakarta meledak lagi.
Indonesia menangis lagi.

Tikus, Cicak, Buaya, Manusia...

2009-07-15T19:06:00.003+07:00

Pagi hari. Sambil ganti baju.

Aku : " Gimana dugemnya semalam? ^^ "
Dia : " Gitu deh.."
Aku : Sigh...
Aku : " Jadi ngurusin hanky pangky bisnis gitu sekarang ya..."
Dia : " Semalam akhirnya nyebut angka...."
Aku : " Haaa??? "
Dia : " Itu sih murah. Taun kemarin mintanya something point something billion. "
Aku : " Whaattt??? Terus? "
Dia : " Ya, ntar kuterusin ke bosku. "
Aku : " Terus?"
Dia : " Ya, terserah keputusan yang di atas. "
Aku : " That's it? Bakal dikasih? "
Dia : " Itu dia. Sebenernya kita ngga salah apa-apa. Cuma dipersulit aja. "
Aku : " Ngga bisa dilaporin ke KPK kah? "
Dia : " Hehehe, I wished. "
Aku : " Ngapain kita marah-marah sama anggota DPR atau jaksa korup...kalo ternyata yang terang-terangan di depan mata kita ngga bisa berbuat apa-apa. "
Dia : " Aku pasti bakal protes ke bos. Tapi bukan keputusanku hasil akhirnya. "
Aku : " Jadi selama ini bikin SIM ngga nembak, tilang ngga minta damai, nolak amplop dari supplier, nolak titipan...ada artinya ngga sih? "

Di sini aku salah. Maklum emosi. Mulailah dari yang kecil, mulailah dari diri sendiri...gitu kan?
Jadi pasti ada artinya. Walau saat ini rasanya tidak ada artinya...

Aku : " Mau gimana memutus lingkaran setan ini? Apa mereka yang minta-minta seperti itu padahal mereka digaji dengan uang rakyat ngga takut memberi makan anak-istrinya uang haram? "
Dia : " Lha mereka agamanya (tiiiiitttt).
Aku : " So? Semua agama ngga ada yang menghalalkan korupsi, suap, KKN... Itu yang korupsi banyak yang pake embel-embel haji. Kalo mereka minta 300 juta ke kantong mereka itu bukan masalah agamanya apa tapi orangnya gimana"
Dia : Sigh.
Aku : " Seperti memberi makan tikus..."
Dia : " Masih mending. Ngasih makan tikus ngga dosa. "

Siang hari. Via sms.

Aku : " Aya naon semalam? pake nulis status begitu, hun?"
Dia : " Ya soal permintaan orang-orang itu semalam. Perasaanku galau "
Dia : " Bos tadi pagi malah bilang 'bagus, kok cuma segitu'. Kok begini..."

Saat ini.
Sedih.
Marah.
Bingung.

Aku : " DAMN!!!!!"

Happy Voting, Indonesia!

2009-07-08T05:24:00.003+07:00

It's voting day!
And it's too late to be a pessimist.
We can choose only the best of the worse.

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Cartoon of The Day

2009-07-01T19:10:00.007+07:00

By Carlos Latuff

Smile and Help

2009-06-30T17:05:00.014+07:00

"Bassem" means smile.

"Ezra" means help.

Apa persamaan yang dimiliki Ezra dan Bassem? For me, they're both amazing human being.

Manusia suka mengkotak-kotakkan sesamanya.
Berdasarkan agama. Bangsa. Suku. Warna kulit. Status.
Padahal kita semua sama. Flesh and bone. Heart and mind.

Apa persamaan Ezra dan Bassem?
Keduanya percaya bahwa keadilan dan hak asasi manusia harus ditegakkan.
That humanity and justice shall prevail.
Keduanya mengorbankan diri mereka untuk itu.

Bassem tewas ketika melakukan protes damai menentang pembangunan tembok pemisah di Bil'in.
Ezra Nawi akan menjalani masa hukumannya 1 Juli besok.

Ketika sebagian dari kita masih sibuk mempermasalahkan perbedaan dan mengklaim superioritas, seorang Bassem yang muslim Palestina dan Ezra yang yahudi Israel membuktikan bahwa tingkat kemanusiaan tidaklah terkotak-kotak. That humanity IS universal. Shame on people who think it isn't.

Berikut adalah surat pribadi Ezra Nawi yang dimuat di The Nation.

Israel's Man of Conscience

My name is Ezra Nawi. I am a Jewish citizen of Israel.

I will be sentenced on the first of July after being found guilty of assaulting two police officers in 2007 while struggling against the demolition of a Palestinian house in Um El Hir, located in the southern part of the West Bank.

Of course the policemen who accused me of assaulting them are lying. Indeed, lying has become common within the Israeli police force, military and among the Jewish settlers.

After close to 140,000 letters were sent to Israeli officials in support of my activities in the occupied West Bank, the Ministry of Justice responded that I "provoke local residents."

This response reflects the culture of deceit that has taken over all official discourse relating to the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

After all, was I the one who poisoned and destroyed Palestinian water wells?

Was I the one who beat young Palestinian children?

Did I hit the elderly?

Did I poison the Palestinian residents' sheep?

Did I demolish homes and destroy tractors?

Did I block roads and restrict movement?

Was I the one who prevented people from connecting their homes to running water and electricity?

Did I forbid Palestinians from building homes?

Over the past eight years, I have seen with my own two eyes hundreds of abuses such as these and exposed them to the public--therefore I am considered a provocateur. I can only say that I am proud to be a provoker.

Because I am a provoker, the police together with their allies have threatened me, beaten me and arrested me on numerous occasions. And when I continued to "provoke" them, they did not hesitate to out me as a gay man; indeed, they spread rumors among the Palestinians with whom I work that I have AIDS.

One of the reasons I have been singled out has to do with who I am. It is difficult to explain, but as a Mizrahi Jew (descended from Jewish communities in the Arab and Muslim world), a gay man and a plumber, I do not belong to the elite of Israeli society and do not fit the stereotype of the Israeli peacenik--namely, an intellectual Jew of Ashkenazi decent. Actually, the police officers who constantly arrest me and I are part of the same social strata. I was programmed like them, have a similar accent, know their jargon and our historical background is comparable. And yet, in their eyes I am on and for the other side, the Palestinian side.

This simple fact seems to disturb them so much that they have to vilify me; that is the only way their worldview will continue making sense. I threaten them precisely because I undermine the categories and stereotypes through which they understand the world.

But the policemen are only actors on this stage. The military, civil administration and the judicial system are all working with the police, and all of them together follow the commands of their masters, the Jewish settlers.

This unholy alliance is extremely dangerous, because for them the end--gaining full control of the Land of Israel--justifies the means. In order to advance this end they dehumanize the Palestinians; and because the Palestinians in their eyes are not human, everything is permitted. They can steal their land, demolish their homes, steal their water, imprison them for no reason and at times even kill them. In Hebrew we say damam mutar, taking their blood is permissible.

It is important to keep in mind, however, that the evil I confront every day in the West Bank could not have been carried out without the Israeli court system. Judge Eilata Ziskind not only mistakenly found me guilty but she instructed the court to invite a translator for the sentencing, as if I do not speak Hebrew; in her mind I, a Mizrahi Jew, am a Palestinian Arab--and Arabs are, almost by definition, guilty. My case is merely part of a pattern. All the crimes committed by the state and its proxies in the territories over the past four decades were made kosher by the Israeli courts. Therefore, the courts are just as much to blame for the ongoing cruelty.

Because I am a provoker the state subjects me to continuing harassment, and yet I have remained persistent. What strengthens me and gives me energy is the widespread and constant support I have always received from political allies. When I was beaten by settlers, when my car was stolen, when I was arrested, I never felt alone. I know that thousands of people, both in Israel and abroad, support what we in Ta'ayush (Jewish-Arab Partnership) are doing against the occupation.

"Ezra" in Hebrew means help, and I know that in times of trouble I can rely on my friends for help.

So, don't expect me to buy their lies. That Palestinians are terrorists. That Jews or Muslims or Christians are bad. That all Israelis are coldblooded occupiers. That women are being opressed in Islam.
That gay or bikini-clad women are ignorant people.

Jadi next time kalau ada yang mengatakan Palestina adalah masalah SARA, atau mendukung Boycott Israel adalah bodoh dan dangkal, aku hanya perlu mengingat Bassem dan Ezra. Dan yakin bahwa mereka tidak sendiri dalam perjuangan mereka.

We're all doing our part. I'm doing my teeny tiny little part by reminding you of Bassem and Ezra.

q7zjewapvb

Nike, Just Stop It.

2009-06-30T09:17:00.002+07:00

If they were friends of yours, would you say "Well hey, that's their lot and they've just got to deal with it. That's part of economic development."
If that was your brother or sister or your mother would you be so dismissive of the injustice that they're facing?

(Jim Keady,Just Stop It Campaign)
www.educatingforjustice.org
www.teamsweat.org

Behind The Swoosh

Heal The World

2009-06-26T17:59:00.003+07:00

Michael Jackson.
Damn, he was good! I mean his musics. Lagunya, suaranya, video klipnya...
No comment about the controversy. Who am I to judge...

Salah satu lagu Michael Jackson yang bikin "merinding" adalah Gone Too Soon, soundtrack film 'The Ryan White Story' yang menceritakan perjuangan seorang anak yang terkena HIV Aids saat menjalani perawatan hemofilia dan mengalami diskriminasi. Di Russiaville ( Indiana, AS), Ryan dilarang melanjutkan sekolah karena 117 orangtua (dari total 360 murid) dan 50 guru menandatangani petisi untuk melarang Ryan bersekolah. Orangtua Ryan menempuh jalan hukum dan ketika Ryan diijinkan kembali bersekolah, 151 murid memilih tidak masuk sekolah. Dan sebagai seorang pengantar koran, Ryan juga mengalami penolakan dari orang-orang yang tadinya berlangganan koran dengannya.

Keluarga Ryan akhirnya memilih untuk pindah ketika sebuah peluru ditembakkan ke rumah mereka.
31 Agustus 1987, ketika hari pertama bersekolah di SMA Hamilton Heights (Cicero, Indiana), Ryan akhirnya bertemu dengan lingkungan yang tidak takut untuk menjabat tangannya.

Ryan White meninggal 8 April 1990 (18 tahun), beberapa bulan sebelum kelulusannya.

Gone Too Soon. Like a comet blazing 'cross the evening sky
Like a rainbow fading in the twinkling of an eye
Shiny and sparkly and splendidly bright
Here one day gone one night
Like the loss of sunlight on a cloudy afternoon
Like a castle built upon a sandy beach
Like a perfect flower that is just beyond your reach
Born to amuse, to inspire, to delight
Here one day gone one night

Like a sunset dying with the rising of the moon
Gone too soon.

Dan entah kebetulan atau tidak, waktu membaca tentang Amazon Uprising kemarin, lagu Earth Song lah yang terlintas.
Jadi ceritanya, beberapa waktu yang lalu terjadi Tiananmen-nya Amazon. Alan Garcia didukung oleh perjanjian Free Trade dengan AS membuat ke(tidak)bijakan yang memungkinkan perusahaan asing untuk mengeksploitasi 45 juta hektar (hampir 70% hutan amazon) tanpa persetujuan dari komunitas lokal, dalam hal ini suku Indian Amazon. Untuk melawan korporasi besar (industri kayu, minyak dan pertambangan) dan pemerintah kapitalis, komunitas suku asli Indian yang tidak memiliki senjata dan hampir tak tersentuh listrik menggunakan segala cara yang mereka bisa. Memblokade jalan, menyandera kantor-kantor industri pertambangan, berdemo dengan membawa busur dan panah. "We will fight together with our parents and children to take care of the forest, to save the life of the equator and the entire world.", kata pemimpin mereka.
Respon dari Garcia? Menyatakan kondisi darurat di Amazon dan mengirimkan helikopter militer yang menembak ke arah demonstran. Korban dari aparat dan demonstran berjatuhan.

Hey, what about yesterday
What about the seas, the heavens are falling down
I can't even breathe
What about everthing, I have given you
What about nature's worth, It's our planet's womb
What about animals, We've turned kingdoms to dust
What about elephants, Have we lost their trust
What about crying whales, We're ravaging the seas
What about forest trails, Burnt despite our pleas
What about the holy land, Torn apart by creed
What about the common man, Can't we set him free
What about children dying, Can't you hear them cry
Where did we go wrong
Someone tell me why

What about baby boy
What about the days
What about all their joy
What about the men
What about the crying man
What about Abraham
What about death again

Do we give a damn

Tapi yang ekstraordinary, kali ini korporasi-korporasi itu kalah. Indegenious people yang menang. Kongres Peru mencabut dua undang-undang yang memungkinkan perusahaan pertambangan untuk mengebor hutan Amazon.

Diamond, oil and land for blood...do we give a damn?

Dan tentang rasisme, tentang SARA (reminds me of this stupid presidential campaigns...), ingat video klip dahsyat Black or White?

They Print My Message
In The Saturday Sun
I Had To Tell Them
I Ain't Second To None
And I Told About Equality
An It's True
Either You're Wrong
Or You're Right

So, did we get his messages?
Rest In Peace, bro. Thanks for your music.

Neda and Basem

2009-06-24T17:30:00.006+07:00

Exactly what I had in mind.

From Gabriel, Jews sans frontieres.

Shame on CNN for caring about the death of non-violent protesters according to the interests of U.S. foreign domination. The love these journalists professes for Neda is just as racist as the their indifference towards Bassem. Indeed, it is the same racism.

Broadcast the death of Bassem!

Bassem Abu Rahme is the 18th individual to be killed by israeli forces during a demonstration against the Wall.

His name was Basem, which means smile, and that is how he greeted everyone. But we all called him ‘Pheel’, which means elephant because he had the body the size of an elephant. But Basem had the heart of a child.

He loved everyone, and because of his sweetness and ability to make us laugh, everyone loved him. Basem was everyone’s friend: the children talk about how he would play with them, scare them and then make them laugh. He would tend the garden in the playground and bring toys and books to the kindergarten. The old ladies in the village talk about how he used to visit, to ask after them and see if they needed anything. In the village, he seemed to be everywhere at once. He would pop in to say hello, take one puff of the nargila, and be off to his next spot. The morning he was killed he went to the house of Hamis, whose skull had been broken at a previous demonstration three months ago by a tear gas canister projectile - the same weapon that would kill Basem.

Basem woke Hamis and gave him his medicine, then off he went to visit another friend in the village who is ill with cancer. Then a little girl from the village wanted a pineapple but couldn’t find any in the local stores. So Basem went to Ramallah to get a pineapple and was back before noon for the Friday prayers and the weekly demonstration against the theft of our land by the apartheid wall. Pheel never missed a demonstration; he participated in all the activities and creative actions in Bilin. He would always talk to the soldiers as human beings. Before he was hit he was calling for the soldiers to stop shooting because there were goats near the fence and he was worried for them. Then a woman in front of him was hit. He yelled to the commander to stop shooting because someone was wounded. He expected the soldiers to understand and stop shooting. Instead, they shot him too.

People came to his funeral from all the surrounding villages to show Basem that they loved him as much as he had loved them. But those of us from Bil’in kept looking around for him, expecting him to be walking with us.

Pheel, you were everyone’s friend. We always knew we loved you, but didn’t realize how much we would miss you until we lost you. As Bil’in has become the symbol of Palestine’s popular resistance, you are the symbol of Bil’in. Sweet Pheel, Rest in Peace, we will continue in your footsteps.

— Mohammad Khatib, member of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements

More on Bil'in Village here.

Blog About Palestine Day 2009 - The Harvest

2009-06-23T16:53:00.002+07:00

Hey! I found my name there.
Along with the other post about Nakba.
Will read them all as soon as I have the time.

The list.

Thanks, Young Activist and Karin, for correcting my English and translating Palestina In My Mind into Germany.

Keep on spreading the truth!

Oranges And Olives

2009-06-23T15:05:00.006+07:00

I have some blogger friends from Palestine. I never met them face to face, but I knew them from their words. Their hopes, their fears, their angers, their pains, their courages, can be found in their stories.
Two of them are Ned in Ramallah and alajnabiya ( I think she's in West Bank). They haven't write for some times now, and I miss their posts.

Alajnabiya, she posted great pictures from her yard.
Like this one, from her last post on March 31.

While Ned, his last post was on March 27.
Here is his first post on July 2006.

Well, well, well... finally I got my blogspot. It has indeed been a tiresome journey- Like all journeys in this country, Palestine.
So I try every single blog name I could think of, first the traditionals country name, city name etc... it kills me that people have used up names I would have liked to use, when they have not posted a word since 3 years ago.
I liked one of the spots, which had an entry labelled first post, but apparently it was also the last.
so all the names are taken, it amazes me how many Israelis are out there on cyber space. They have taken up even arabic names like Al-Quds.
So I want on to try metaphorical names. I try milk and honey... that's taken too... but anyway I would not take a biblical name.
So this was it, Oranges and (O)lives... very Palestinian... Since we are mainly farmers.. and Since everyone out there knows that Jaffas are the best oranges in the world- oranges that you should not buy, of course. First because they are stolen, second because they help the celptocrats* steal more.
It is turning out that I am jumping from one topic to the next. So I will end now by mentioning what I intend to do. Basically, I am a Palestinian, a very concerned one. I see things happening around me, and I keep thinking that everyday there is something about Palestine that I wish to shout out to the whole world.
So here I shout.

I'm waiting for his newest shouts :)

I hope they're alright there. God bless them all.

HOME

2009-06-23T12:58:00.002+07:00

20% of the world’s population consumes 80% of its resources.
The world spends 12 times more on military expenditures than on aid to developing countries.

5,000 people a day die because of dirty drinking water.
1 billion people have no access to safe drinking water.

Nearly 1 billion people are going hungry.
Over 50% of grain traded around the world is used for animal feed or bio fuels.
40% of arable land has suffered long-term damage.

Every year, 13 millions hectares of forest disappear.
One mammal in 4, one bird in 8, one amphibian in 3 is threatened with extinction.
Species are dying out at a rhythm 1,000 times faster than the natural rate.
Three quarters of fishing grounds are exhausted, depleted or in dangerous decline.

The average temperature of the last 15 years has been the highest ever recorded.
The ice cap is 40% thinner than 40 years ago.
There may be at least 200 million climate refugees by 2050.

Lets be responsible consumers & think about what we buy, it's too late to be a pessimist.

It's time to come together! What's important is not what's gone but what remains. We know that the solutions are there today, we all have the power to change. So what are we waiting for?

It's up to us to write what happens next... TOGETHER.

I cried today, and not because of some soapy korean dramas.
Mataku mberambangi karena menonton "HOME"nya Yann Arthus-Bertrand.
Film dokumenter ini dimulai dengan terbentuknya bumi. Dan bagaimana bumi berubah begitu cepat dalam tahun-tahun terakhir. You have to watch it to know what I mean.

Film tersebut juga menceritakan tentang hutan Kalimantan yang, dengan kecepatan perusakan seperti sekarang, akan hilang dalam sepuluh tahun ke depan. Hal ini terutama karena pembukaan lahan untuk perkebunan kelapa sawit.
Contoh perusakan hutan primer yang digantikan untuk hutan industri yang lain adalah hutan eukaliptus di Australia dan Tasmania serta deforestasi Amazon dan hutan Amerika Selatan untuk tanaman kedelai (soybean).
Satu hal yang paling teringat, pernyataan bahwa bagaimana free trade bisa dianggap fair trade, jika satu pihak memanen dengan tangan sementara yang lain dengan mesin.

Menceritakan film ini ke Dewo akan berujung dengan perdebatan "Is global warming a myth?" ^^
Dia lebih berpihak ke Michael Chrichton dengan State of Fear-nya.

Tapi karena :
-menghemat listrik dan air (Sedih juga sejak pindah ke Balikpapan dan mendapatkan listrik di kompleks menggunakan genset. Yang berarti mau pemakaian listrik dikit atau banyak konsumsi bahan bakarnya sama...),
-memilah dan membuang sampah pada tempatnya,
-mengurangi pemakaian plastik (inget untuk mbawa-mbawa tas belanja kalo ke Maxi atau Hero!!),
-membeli sayuran dan bahan pangan lokal (mulai merambah ke brand-brand lokal karena aku mulai milih torabika/kapal api, bukan nescafe walopun nescafe diproduksi di dalam negeri),
sebisa mungkin adalah solusi harian di keluarga kami... perdebatan itu akhirnya jadi kurang begitu penting.

Reminiscing (warning : for mellow minds only)

2009-06-05T08:50:00.008+07:00

Balikpapan mendung pagi ini.
Sambil menunggu listrik yang pagi-pagi masih dangdutan berkat maintenance genset aku merapikan tumpukan di bawah meja komputer. Dan menemukan organizer hitam lusuh jaman kuliah.

Di halaman pertama ada catatan kuliah Etika Bisnis Pak Raka "You don't have to cheat to win" dan "There is no right way to do a wrong thing". Atau "If you always confronted with easy choices you don't build a character".
Catatan ini kutulis di balik skrap PTI dengan tabel berisi 'Prefabrikasi', 'Fabrikasi' dan 'Assembly'lengkap dengan CO Saw, Circ. saw, Planner, Jointer, Disc Sand, dan Drill Press-nya... :)

Di halaman-halaman selanjutnya ada beberapa coret-coretan tentang
"asistensi SISPROD-12.30"
"tenis bareng mas ganthang!!"
"PR MI chapt 9-10"
"PR Mankua (2 biji!)->tighten"
"tanding bola 97 vs 98, nonton?"
"April, 30, 2001..HAPPY B'DAY DEAR POEJI...asik, makan-makan!!!"
"May, 7, 2001...a half year!!"

Ah, aku mellow kronis sekarang ^^

Lalu beberapa lirik lagu :
'Dan' SO7, di bagian bawah kertas tertulis July 20, 1999 dan sebuah tempelan kulit kerang yang entah dari mana. Apa dari meru betiri ya?
'With You' Boyzz Bario, July 27 1999. Midnite song ketika belajar di Ciheulang.
'Meniti Pelangi' Andhien, 'Sendiri' Coklat, 'Nada Indah' Glenn, 'Kosong' Pure Saturday, 'We fly so close' Genesis, lagu-lagu KLA..

No wonder i was so messed up back then :)

Sebuah puisi yang kusalin dari buku puisi yang kubaca di perpustakaan British Council di ITB, my comfort zone selain meja-meja di lantai bawah Perpus, lapangan tenis depan SC Timur dan jogging track Sabuga.

Judulnya Night Physician.

I love the moon
sometimes as much as I love the sun.
The moon offers a place to hide-
the night rider who comforts me
when the sun has done with me.

Not always but more often than not
I am not quite sure
if the moon is friend or enenmy;
true, it does offer protection
from the public glare,
but it also locks me in myself,
makes me aware of how unimportant I am
and destroys all those high ideals I had.

That perhaps is where the moon becomes a true friend
for it reminds me of man's equality,
it breaks down fears and prejudices
and restores a man's belief in himself
and in his fellow man.
Night is the healer of the summer wounds
that patches up the sky
in readiness for the day.

Di halaman berikutnya sebuah puisi sisa-sisa patah hati yang kutulis di Jogja, Juni 2000.

Angin menerbangkanku sampai kesana
Alun-alun Suryakencana yang beku
semak-semak edelweiss yang tertidur
jejak setapak yang mengabur

Masih kudengar langkah-langkah kaki kita
berlari, melompati batu demi batu
menempuh satu tanjakan lagi
mencoba mengejar matahari
Lelah kaki, deru detak jantung,
kalah oleh inginku melihat keindahan Tuhan
yang selalu kelihat sambil mengenangmu.

Kita telah disana, sahabat tercinta.
Sungguh, Puncak Gede tak akan pernah seindah itu,
langitnya tak akan berwarna sebening itu,
matahari tak akan kurasakan sehangat pagi itu, 1 Agustus 1999.
Dan dirimu sahabat, tidak akan pernah lagi ada disampingku
seperti saat itu.

Perjalanan yang tidak ada akhirnya.
Dan ketika kita tidak lagi menolah ke belakang
yang kulakukan hanyalah mencoba mencapai puncak-puncak lainnya
menyelesaikan pendakian demi pendakian selanjutnya
dengan hanya berpijak di bumiku sendiri,
tanpa uluran tanganmu.

Dan angin kembali meniup wajah lelahku
menerbangkanku kesana
alun-alun suryakencana yang beku
semak-semak edelweiss yang tertidur
dan jejak setapak yang mengabur.

Geez..As cheesy as one two three ^^

Di bagian Address kubaca nama-nama familiar. Nomor telepon yang kalau ku-dial hampir pasti tidak akan diangkat oleh nama yang sama.

Artanti 022 -2516453
Cristin 022 -2501353
Deddy Wijaya 0274-864131
Erdhani 0274-868833
Estiworo Tyas 022 -2512737
Elis 021 -4714144
Gamet 022 -2509747
Ganthang 022 -2513407
Jupri 022 -6006328
May Sari 022 -6648168
Trisasi 0274-882639
Trisa 022 -2504366
Taryanto 022 -2503102
Wedha 022 -2515842

Di bagian finance, kutemukan post it kuning kecil dengan tulisan :

Kopi Papah 33.000
Makan makan 4.500
nelpon 600

Waktu itu tiap pulang ke Jogja aku selalu menelpon rumah dan nanya apa kopi papah masih ada. Biasanya aku membelikan kopi Arabica kesukaan Papah di sebuah toko kopi tua di daerah ABC. Bapak penjualnya pernah mengijinkan aku dan Papah masuk ke gudang penyimpanan dan pengolahan kopi yang remang dan harum.

Suatu hari kalau ke Bandung aku harus membeli kopi Arabika lagi..

Dan sekarang awan gelap di langit Balikpapan telah berubah menjadi hujan.

If We Tolerate This...

2009-06-03T15:01:00.003+07:00

From Ryan Kusuma's blog.

If you tolerate this, your children would be next! Free Ibu Prita!
by Ryan Kusuma

First of all imagine this. As a nursing mother of a newborn baby, you were jailed for a corporate setup crime. One public complaint email, and you were charged for name poisoning under the new handicapped IT law. And you're weren't covered by the consumer protection right.

This is a practice of the abuse of power by a corporate hospital (!) under a faulty law which is represented by the lawyers behind the son of a national mass-murderer (T.S.).

This is not a case of internet publishing ethics. Not a case of irresponsibility. What Ibu Prita has to say is not just some made-up lies. This is a case of public muting.

And this is the proof that UU ITE is cleary defected. Otherwise there would be no misinterpretation (as according to Mr. Cahaya, Applied Tech. General Director of Mins. Comm & Informatics).

Free Ibu Prita Now!

Join the Cause: http://bit.ly/W62QW

------------------------------------------------
Here's the translation I did from the original letter
------------------------------------------------

Don’t let my case happened to other lives. Especially childrens, elders and babies. Whenever you’re taking a treatment, becareful of the hospital’s luxury and “international” title, because the more luxurious the hospital is, and the smarter the doctors are, the more frequent the patients tests, drug sales, and injections.

I’m not saying that all international hospital are like that but I had to face this case at Omni International Hospital. Exactly on August 7th 2008 at 20.30 pm. With high fever, I came to the Omni International believeing that that hospital had an international standard, with of couse a good medical talent and management.

I was asked to go to the ER dan got my body temperature checked, and the result was 39(C) degrees. And then after the blood test, my thrombosit level is 27.000, which the normal level is 200.000. I was informed and handled by dr. Indah (general) and declared that I’m obliged to be admitted. Dr. I did the lab test recheck with my blood sample and the result was still the same, which is thrombosit 27.000.

Dr. I asked which specialist doctor I want to have. But I asked for her reference because I’m totally uncommon about this hospital. Then the reference is dr. H. Dr. H checked my condition, and I asked my condition, he explained that I had a dengue fever.

Since that night, I was infused and given injections without any explanation or a patient’s or family consent of the injection’s purpose. The next morning, dr. H visited me and informed that there’s a revision to the previous night’s test. It is not 27.000, but 181.000 (a lab test could be revisioned?). I was surprised but dr. H kept on giving instructions to the nurse to give me a variation of injections which I don’t know and with out my or my family’s consent.

I asked back what I’m really having, and the answer is still the same, that I had a dengue fever. I’m so concerned because I have two toddlers at home. So I chose to think positively about the hospital and the doctor that I can quickly recover and I believe I was medicated by a professional international-standard doctor.

Since that Friday, I was given a variation of injections in which with every one weren’t given any explanation from the nurse, and everytime I asked for an explanation, they didn’t have any satisfactorial explanation. It is impressed that the nurse were only doing the doctor’s order and the patient had to accept it. One box of the patient’s cabinet is full with infusions and needles with lots of syringe.

My left hand was starting to swollen. I asked them to stop the infusion and injections and asked to see dr. H. But the doctor still didn’t came after I was transferred to another room. Afterward my body temperature kept on rising to 39 degrees and came a replacement doctor which I don’t know his specialty is. After being checked, that doctor just said that he should wait for dr. H.

The next afternoon came dr. H with orders to the nurse to gave a few more drug injections. I asked the doctor what I’m really having and he explained I’m having an air virus. I asked that then I’m not having a dengue fever. But dr. H explained that dengue fever is still an air virus. I was rehooked with the infusion on the right hand and given a painful injection.

Later that night I was given a couple of syringe at once and I imidiately had breathing troubles for fifteen minutes and was given oxygen. The shift doctor came but only to said to wait for dr. H.

So that night I was still infused. Although my right hand had swollen like my left. I forcely asked stop the infusion and denied anymore injections or medication.

The next day me and my family came and demand dr. H to meet with us. But the promise were always delayed and he finally came later at night. My husband and brothers demanded an explanation from dr. H about my condition, the injections, the early lab test result with 27.000 revisioned into 181.000 and my breathing trouble, which had never happened before in my entire life. My condition is worsening with my left neck and left eye swollen.

Dr. H didn’t gave any satifactory explanation. Moreover, he then started to gave more instructions to the nurse for medications and not to use the infusion. We debated about my condition and asked for his responsibily on this from my first test result that I could have been not admitted in the first place. Dr. H blamed the lab departement and could not gave any satisfactory explanation.

The next day my condition kept on worsening with my right neck swollen and body temperature came back up to 39 degrees. But I insist not to be treated at this hospital and to be transferred to another hospital. But for that I need a complete medical data and once again I got fooled with fictious medical data.

In that medical record, it is explained that I’ve been excreting fine while I been having trouble with it since I was admitted at this hospital without any follow up. Then the lab result that was given is with my thrombosit at 181.000 not 27.000.

I insisted to be given the medical data lab test with 27.000 but was surprised the the 27.000 lab result was not printed and the printed one is 181.000. The head of the lab is dr. M and after I angrily complained the doctor said that the 27.000 lab result were in the Omni management. I forced to meet the management who held the certain lab result.

I filed a written complaint to the Omni management and accepted by Og (Customer Service Coordinator) and I was for a receipt. In that receipt it is only written as a suggestion not a complaint. I got really fooled by the Omni management with the Og staff that had no service to the customer at all but to taunt my action in asking a written complaint receipt.

I had become totally fed up and asked to a written statement from the hospital lab about my first lab result is 27.000 and not 181.000. It is the reason I was to be admitted to this hospital in the first place, although with the real thrombosit level of 181.00 I could have not been admitted.

Dr. G responses, as the one who is to be held to my complaint is that it was unprofesional at all. Not accepting complaint, he deflected that the lab had not given the 27.000 lab result as informed by dr. M. I asked for a meeting with the lab, management, and dr. H, but couldn’t be done with reasoning that it is to be discussed with the upper (management) and promised to be given the written statement at 4 pm.

After that, I went into another hospital and taken into care with my condition need to be taken care in an isolation room because my virus is infectious. According to the analisis, this is a childhood disease which is mumps but has worsened becaused it has swollen. If it is infected to a grown up men could cause impotency and women to cause pancreatitis and cysts.

I was surprised to hear it and really angry to the Omni hospital for lying to me with the analyzed the dengue fever and had given me multiple high dose injecions that cause breathing troubles. I asked about those injections to the new hospitally and found out that I’m prone to high dose injections and caused my breathing troubles.

My husband came back to Omni hospital to asked to the promised 27.000 lab result but faced with uncertain negotiations and a delay request to it could be deliverd the day after to my home. The next morning I waited the news from my house and until 12 pm no one from Omni came with the letter.

I called dr. G as the complaint manager and told me that his courier just about to go to my house. But until 4 pm in the afternoon I waited and still no one came into my house. I called dr. G again and he said that the letter want delivered to someone named Rukiah.

This is an outrageous lie. There’s no one in my house named Rukiah. I asked for my address confirmation, but he said it is difficult to find it and would take a long ting. The logics are in the receipt note should have the address, right? That’s why I called that all of the Omni Management are big liars. Becareful with their games that played someone lives.

Especially with dr. G and Og, had no hospitality and ethics on customers service and not in accordance to the international standard stated by this hospital

I told dr. G, I will come to Omni to take the statement and when my husband came, it its only passed to the receptionist and the contents broke our hearts.

The management only said their sorry for our inconvenience and it is not stated anywhere about the first lab test mistake that says 27.000 and later revisioned into 181.00 and gave the injections that cause my condition to worsened from before I was admitted.

Why does we insisted to get the statement? We want to know that the 27.000 lab result is real or fictious so that the Omni hospital could admit inpatients.

And after we’ve been fooled with promises, the truth is that my 27.000 lab result is fictious and I shouldn’t have been admitted as an inpatient in the first place and no need for injections and breathing troubles and my worsening health could have been treated well.

It cost me my health. Maybe because the costs are covered with insurances that this hospital could take my insurance limit as much as they could. But this hospital doesn’t care about the side-effects of this greedyness.

Mr. Og recommended that I met with the operational director of the Omni hospital (dr. B) but me and my husband are already fed up to follow the lying games with my condition still sick and admitted in another hospital.

Thankfully I’m recovering but there’s still an eye condition in which its upper membrane are torn and infected by the virus to my sights are blurry and I can’t stand to much light exposure and this takes a fair time to heal.

In every human lives there will be one’s paths and destiny. That’s right. But, if a human live got played around by a hospital that is trusted to heal is just disappointing.

May God gave the conscience to the management and doctors of Omni hospital to be remided that someday they too will have family, childrens, parents that one day will need a medical care. May it not happened as to what I had to go through at this Omni hospital.

I’m hoping that one of the readers are the staff or doctors or managemen of Omni hospital. Please say to dr. G, dr. H, dr. M and Og, don’t let your gracious work gone to waste for your company. I must informed that dr. H also practise in RSCM too. I’m not saying that RSCM is bad but be carefull about the healh treament from this doctor.

Regards,
Prita Mulyasari
Alam Sutera
prita.mulyasari@yahoo.com
081513100600

Free Ibu Prita!

2009-06-03T09:00:00.004+07:00

Sementara koruptor berkeliaran, anak mantan presiden yang membunuh jaksa muncul di infotainment dan rumah ibadah dirusak...aparat negara ini malah menangkap seorang ibu rumah tangga yang berjuang mendapatkan perawatan kesehatan yang jujur dan profesional.

Read Prita's case in here or here. Juga perkembangannya di sini.

Aku sendiri pernah punya pengalaman dengan Omni. Waktu itu Dimas terkena serangan asma. Kami ke klinik anak di Omni, dan Dr J langsung menyarankan Dimas opname bahkan tanpa memeriksa (hanya melihat dari seberang meja). Dewo yang dari kecil memang sering asma langsung menolak, karena menurut dia asma bukanlah penyakit yang perlu diopname.

Keluarga kami memang sebisa mungkin menjauhi dokter atau obat-obatan. Mungkin karena dari Damar bayi pernah beberapa kali mengalami ketidakcocokan dengan dokter anak.Kalo anak-anak flu batuk biasa biasanya kami jaga tetap makan minum bergizi, istirahat diperbanyak dan minum madu atau kencur. Kalo demam dikompres dan banyak minum.

Hal-hal yang membuat kami menjauhi rumah sakit, dokter dan obat adalah :
Dokter yang tidak komunikatif, bahkan terkesan arogan dan sombong kalo diberi pertanyaan.
Obat-obatan yang banyak dan mahal, padahal hanya flu atau batuk. Apalagi antibiotik yang terbukti sebaiknya tidak diberikan sembarangan ke anak kecil. Bukannya sembuh malah merusak kekebalan dan fungsi tubuh.
Bukan rahasia lagi bahwa dokter dan rumah sakit mendapat komisi dari obat dan produk yang dijual. Bahkan beberapa rumah sakit berusaha menghalangi ibu baru untuk menyusui bayinya secara eksklusif dan membujuk si ibu untuk memberikan susu merek tertentu untuk bayinya.

Semua pengalaman itu membuatku bertanya-tanya, apakah kode etik dokter masih dipegang oleh sebagian dokter itu? Apakah empati dan simpati masih mereka punyai bersama keahlian dan profesionalitas mereka?

Ketika pasien dan konsumen bertanya, meminta penjelasan, penindasan seperti yang dialami Prita kah yang pantas mereka dapatkan????

Demi anak-anak Ibu Prita, demi penegakkan hukum dan keadilan, demi rakyat yang merindukan Indonesia yang lebih ramah dan manusiawi...Ibu Prita harus bebas.

Dukungan untuk Prita di facebook.

Laki-laki Paling Baik

2009-06-01T09:25:00.003+07:00

Kasus Manohara Odelia Pinot sedang heboh-hebohnya.
Dan semua orang (termasuk saya ^^) sibuk berkomentar. Ada yang kasihan, ada yang mencela Malaysia, ada yang mengutuk KBRI di Malaysia dan Singapura, ada yang menghina si Ibu, bla bla bla...
Ah, yang penting dia sudah pulang.

Tapi sda beberapa hal yang menjadi pemikiranku.

Pertama, bagaimana kedutaan negara kita melindungi warganya di luar negeri. Sudah menjadi rahasia umum bagaimana buruknya kedubes dalam mewakili kepentingan TKI/TKW di luar negeri. KBRI di Malaysia pernah (atau masih?) menjadi sarang koruptor yang mengambil uang jerih payah pekerja migran kita. Dalam kasus Manohara ini dikatakan KBRI Singapura sempat menolak permintaan tolong Manohara dengan mengatakan "Hari Minggu kami libur, telpon lagi hari Senin."

Kedua, bagaimana institusi pernikahan yang seharusnya menjadi sarana untuk menuju kebaikan dapat berjalan sangat salah. Yaitu ketika agama tidak lagi menjadi pegangannya.

Beberapa contoh kejadian dengan latar belakang agama:

Seorang ustad muda yang sering muncul di infotaiment pernah berbicara di depan kamera "Jika seorang istri mengetahui betapa mulianya kedudukan suami di mata Allah, maka dia tidak akan mau menentangnya".

Seorang suami menghendaki istri untuk memilih antara menemani suami atau orangtua istri yang sedang sakit keras. Hal ini menyebabkan sang Istri memilih menemani suami dan tidak sempat bertemu lagi dengan Ayahnya.

Di mana Islam berperan di kejadian-kejadian di atas?

Dalam pengertianku Islam adalah Sunnah of Love, seperti yang ditulis Hymie Ali di blognya. Dan Tuhanku adalah Tuhan Yang Paling Penuh Kasih Sayang. Karena itu tidak ada manusia yang lebih rendah dari manusia lain. EQUALITY adalah hal yang sangat ditekankan dalam Islam.

Nabi Muhammad SAW mengatakan bahwa :

... Even as the fingers of the two hands are equal, so are human beings equal to one another. No one has any rights, any superiority to claim over another. You are as brothers. O men, your God is One and your ancestor is one. An Arab holds no superiority over a non-Arab, nor a White over a Black person, nor vice-versa, but only to the extent to which he discharges his responsibility to God and man. Only the God-fearing people merit a preference with God.

Dan bahwa belajar adalah kewajiban bagi setiap muslim, baik perempuan maunpun laki-laki. Jadi ketika di suatu sudut dunia ada sekelompok orang yang melarang anak perempuan bersekolah, bahkan menyiram mereka dengan air keras, itu bukan Islam.

Dalam lingkaran kehidupannya, seorang wanita dapat menjadi tiga peran :

1. Sebagai anak perempuan.
Nabi Muhammad mengatakan : 'He who brings up his daughters well, and makes no distinction between them and his sons, will be close to me in Paradise.'

2. Sebagai istri.
'The best from among you is one who behaves best towards his wife.' (Hadith)

3. Sebagai ibu.
Kita semua pernah mendengar bahwa 'Surga ada di telapak kaki ibu' dan bahwa Nabi Muhammad menekankan kata 'Ibu' tiga kali sebelum menyebut kata 'Bapak'. Dan ini berlaku untuk semua, tidak peduli gendernya. Jadi jika ada suami yang menghalangi istrinya untuk berbakti kepada orangtuanya, rasanya itu bukanlah suami yang sebaiknya diikuti dan 'tidak ditentang'. Karena kewajiban seorang istri terhadap suami tidak boleh menghilangkan hak orangtua terhadap anaknya. Begitu juga sebaliknya.

Nabi Muhammad adalah seorang suami yang tidak malu membantu istrinya mengerjakan pekerjaan rumah tangga. Beliau rela tidur di depan pintu rumah daripada membangunkan istrinya. Dan tidak pernah memaksakan kehendak. Bahwa dalam Islam pekerjaan domestik dan mendidik anak adalah PEKERJAAN. Yang bahkan lebih berat dari pekerjaan di luar rumah.

Jika sudah ada contoh sedemikian jelasnya, kenapa masih terjadi kekerasan dalam rumah tangga? Dan ketika telah terjadi kekerasan dan kriminalitas seperti itu kenapa masih ada yang membela pelaku kekerasan dan menyalahkan korban?
Ketika di dalam rumah sendiri tidak dapat dijalankan syariah yang benar bagaimana syariah dalam konteks yang lebih luas dapat dijalankan?

Anak-anak harus diberi pemahaman sejak dini, bagaimana menghormati orang lain. Anak-anak laki-laki harus mengerti bagaimana menghormati dan melindungi ibu dan saudara-saudara perempuan mereka. Untuk selalu berkata-kata baik dan siap menolong. Dan bagaimana mereka memperlakukan wanita di kemudian hari adalah cerminan perlakuan hormat mereka kepada ibu dan saudara perempuan mereka.

Anak-anak perempuan ditanamkan pentingnya pendidikan dan berpikir mandiri. Bahwa dengan segala kewajiban dan hak-haknya mereka adalah manusia yang sama indah dan mulianya dengan kaum laki-laki. Dan di masa depan mereka tidak akan membiarkan diri mereka diperlakukan tidak baik oleh siapapun juga.

Jadi, next time ada yang menyakiti atau memaksakan kehendak kepada istrinya, orang itu pasti lupa bahwa laki-laki termacho, teristimewa, terbaik adalah laki-laki yang paling lembut dan paling sayang terhadap keluarganya...
Sebaliknya, perempuan yang paling baik juga yang paling sayang sama suami dan anak-anaknya ^^

Ini adalah sebagian percakapan seorang Bedouin dengan Rasulullah (Khalid ibn al Walîd):

Q: I wish to be the richest man in the world.
A: Be contented, and you will be the richest man in the world.

Q: I'd like to be the most just man.
A: Desire for others what you desire for yourself, and you will be the most just of men.

Q: I want to be the best of men.
A: Do good to others and you will be the best of men.

Walahualam.

It Is About LIFE

2009-05-28T07:51:00.004+07:00

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

2009-05-27T20:47:00.004+07:00

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

2009-05-27T19:22:00.003+07:00

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

2009-05-21T09:25:00.005+07:00

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"

2009-05-20T17:59:00.005+07:00

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

2009-05-20T17:16:00.005+07:00

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

2009-05-15T20:26:00.004+07:00

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

2009-05-14T20:12:00.005+07:00

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

2009-05-09T08:00:00.007+07:00

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...

My last post, for a while

2009-04-10T21:47:00.011+07:00

Damar, the one with Doraemon pajama on Pajama's Day, the last day at school

Our home at independence day last year...

This tiny yard with its brown frog, green lizard and sometime, smelly little presents from our neighbour's cat...

Our perfect spot to watch this perfect evening Tangerang sky

We're really gonna miss this neighbourhood...

Lately, it's kinda hectic. Two more days before leaving our home at Bintaro.
Tomorrow the moving company will come to pack things up. The kids and I are going to leave Jakarta on Sunday evening.
Gonna miss a lot of things that we'll leave behind...

This is my last post from Jakarta, for a while at least.
My old compie will be sent with other stuffs, so I won't have any PC and internet connection until next month.

We'll see you again when we get there ^^
Thank you and have a great time, everyone!

Sh***!

2009-04-02T20:31:00.005+07:00

Ha!
Something happened tonight.
Ceritanya anak-anak lagi bikin konser. Ada kaleng bekas twister, ada toples kerupuk, ada panci, ada sendok...
And as usual, Dimas mulai bosan dengan instrumennya dan mulai menjarah alat musik mas Damar. Insiden pertama Damar cuma diam dan pindah ke panci lainnya. Dimas kukasih first warning. Insiden kedua Damar mendesah panjang dan Dimas dapat second warning. Insiden ketiga aku lupa nge-warning Dimas karena aku mendengar Damar bilang "Sh***!"

What??? Sh***????
I'm pretty sure we never said that "S" word in our home.

Akhirnya terjadilah interogasi seperti ini.

Aku : "Damar tadi bilang apa, nak?"
Damar : "Sh***."
Aku : "Apa?"
Damar : "Sh***, Mamaaahhh!"
Aku : "Sh**?"
Damar : "Iya. Sh***."
Aku : "Artinya apa itu, nak?"
Damar : "Domba, Mamaaahhh."

............
Phewww.
Ya begitulah. Aku masih ngga tau darimana Damar bisa menggunakan kata Sheep untuk situasi seperti itu. He must've been heard it from someone and somewhere, of course.
But my lesson for today, jangan berburuk sangka. And walk your talks. Really.

S is for Sheep, Mom!

Children

2009-03-26T00:57:00.004+07:00

Beautiful children.
Precious children like yours and mine.

Will I ruin the mood if I remind you about theirs?

A song for Palestinian children, Look Into My Eyes by Outlandish.

Shine a light for every Soul that ain't with us no more...

Picture Of The Day : Our Waste Management

2009-03-25T23:26:00.004+07:00

This picture's from the Independent. It said : A group of scavengers collect plastics for recycling at Jakarta's main garbage dump at Bantar Gebang district, Indonesia. A group can collect up to 2 tonnes of plastic a day and sell it for 2-5 million rupiah ($166-416).

Picture like this always make me sad.
Remember when the same Bantar Gebang killed some people in 2006?

Indonesian people are not used to waste management.
But we're getting there.

Intinya hanya kemauan, strong will. Seperti yang telah dilakukan oleh masyarakat Banjarsari, Cilandak, Jakarta Selatan. Mereka telah menerapkan 4R, "reducing, reusing, recycling and replanting", jauh sebelum warga perumahan mewah Bintaro akhir-akhir ini berlomba-lomba menerapkan green homes dan green environment.

Di rumah, kami sudah menerapkan pemilahan sampah selama 2 tahunan. Awalnya hanya karena ngga tega melihat pemulung memisahkan sampah plastik dan kertas yang bisa mereka jual dari tumpukan sampah basah.
Sekarang Damar dan Dimas pun sudah terbiasa membuang botol bekas susu mereka ke dus "botol susu".
Tadi pagi kami menjual koran-koran bekas dan menyerahkan mainan-mainan lama dan beberapa hasil menyortir tumpukan barang-barang di rumah ke bapak pemulung yang tiap hari lewat.
Sempet tarik-tarikan dulu sama Damar karena tiba-tiba dia ngga mau melepas mainan pesawat dan trolinya yang sudah rusak. Mungkin perasaanya saat itu sama dengan perasaanku waktu Dagadu favoritku ( Make Laugh Not War!) dari jaman kuliah dipensiunkan Dewo karena sudah berubah warna. Akhirnya air mata yang mengalir deras itu berhenti setelah tawar-menawar untuk membeli mainan baru kalo udah gajian.

Yang masih jadi PR, pengolahan sampah basah. Percobaan untuk bikin lubang biopori masih gagal. Ngga kuat muter alat pembuat lobang biopori... >,<
Apalagi sekarang mau pindah. Mungkin dilanjutkan di Balikpapan...

Tapi kemaren sempet berhasil mengolah sampah biji mangga dan rambutan. Caranya? Disebar di halaman! Dan tumbuh!!! Beberapa bibit pohon rambutan sudah dibagi-bagi ke tetangga. Ah, senangnya...^^

Before I'll stop writing, need to mention Earth Hour!
Or just visit http://www.earthhour.org/.

Hmmm,must start to think things to do with my children during that one hour, kalo mereka belum tidur.

A (Not So) Democratic Nation

2009-03-23T00:40:00.006+07:00

Again, another example of Western's freedom of speech and democracy.

Canada banned peace activist from entering the country.

The outspoken anti-war MP George Galloway has been banned from entering Canada on the grounds of national security.

Mr Galloway was due to give a speech in Toronto next week but has been deemed "inadmissible" to Canada under section 34(1) of the country's immigration act.

Mr Galloway, an opponent of the war in Afghanistan where Canadian troops are deployed as part of international forces, said the ban was "not something I'm prepared to accept" and pledged to use all means at his disposal to challenge the ruling.

And George Galloway's response is Canada can't muzzle me.

Go Galloway!

And here's something about Viva Palestina. Also, some great and hillarious articles by Mark Steel (Thanks, Mr. Steel!).

Out of Topic, but I'm so happy to read new posts from two people this morning (2 am @ Jakarta)!!!!!

Beautiful new spring pictures from Climbing Walls and a new post from Tabula Gaza.

update:
from a canadian blog

A few fascinating points about this interview:

- It takes Weinstein less than 2 minutes to bring up Hitler, Nazis and the death of 6 million Jews, making a strong case for Godwin's Law.

- Weinstein's depiction of Hamas as fanatical, hell-bent on the destruction of Israel, etc etc, is grossly incorrect, given the fact that Hamas has publicly stated that it would recognize Israel along 1967 borders.

- Weistein's rationale for banning Galloway: Canada says Hamas is a terrorist organization, therefore Galloway giving aid to Hamas makes him a threat to national security. Canadian NGOs have given aid to Hamas- yet for some reason they aren't threats to national security. Hmmm... all this relies on the Canadian government's assessment of Hamas being accurate, which would also assume that our government is not staffed by ignorant dolts.

- Check out Weinstein depicting anti-war church groups as targets with "links to terror groups" and randomly imply that they are Iranian proxies! Funnily enough, the JDL has its own ties to terror, and Weinstein was a spokesperson for Kach in 1994, which is considered a terrorist organization by Canada.

Last but not least, some facts to sum things up:
George W. Bush, responsible for anywhere from 99,000 to a million Iraqi deaths:
Welcomed into Canada.

George Galloway, whose activist work aims to prevent war around the world:
Denied entry into Canada.

Well said, my unknown fellow Canadian.

Shame On You, Kompas!

2009-03-18T10:14:00.004+07:00

Kompas today, A full page ads of Marlboro.

(Sorry bout the monkey, Dimas wouldn't let me move it when I took the picture)

Menteri Kesehatan India, Dr Anbumani Ramadoss merupakan tokoh yang melarang rokok diiklankan dan dipromosikan di media massa, media luar ruang, maupun jadi sponsor event olahraga dan pergelaran musik di India sejak Oktober tahun lalu.
Dan mulai 31 Mei 2009, ia bakal mewajibkan agar semua kemasan rokok memasang peringatan secara visual dengan gambar

Perhaps like these?

Selain sama sekali ngga enak dipandang juga pasti bikin harga rokok jadi lebih mahal.

Bagaimana dengan Pemerintah dan Menteri Kesehatan Indonesia??

1 Kite For Rachel, 14 Kites For Palestinians

2009-03-17T20:10:00.003+07:00

A great post from tales to tell.

Our Rafah ISM colleagues (both of whom worked with Rachel) invited us south for a commemoration kite-flying today; 1 kite to comemorate ISMer Rachel Corrie who was killed by Israel on this day in 2003, and 14 kites to commemorate the over 1,400 Palestinians killed by Israel in Dec 08/Jan 09. They also invited local artists to paint a section of the Israeli wall near where Rachel was killed.

My comrade J writes…

“Today is the 6 year anniversary of the murder of my friend and comrade Rachel Corrie. I was with her when she was crushed to death by a US-made Caterpillar Israeli Military Bulldozer as she stood nonviolently protecting a Palestinian civilian home. There are memorial services happening all over the country, I will be presenting and performing at one in Kansas City and will also be doing a live radio broadcast at 10pm
Central time that you can listen to online at http://www.kkfi.org/”

He’s written a poem for Rachel today and I will finish with some words from it

…

…So many remember you, but forget the thousands of Palestinians
They remember you but have never heard of Tom, or James, or Nabila or Ali…

As I’ve traveled this land speaking of your last stand
Still clutching to your hand, extending out of the sand

I accept that I cannot pull you out
But we
Might keep the rest of us
From being pulled under…

A Girl vs Soldiers

2009-03-17T18:45:00.005+07:00

I love korean drama. Such a girlish thing to do of course.
I've been thinking to learn korean languange but never had the time. Watching this video really brought me a new feeling for korean people. At least some of them look beyond the western's typical propaganda of Palestinian resistance.

This is wayyyy much much more worth to watch than any kdrama I've ever watched!!

And what a brave woman, I'm speechless...
I'll surely google her later. Hope she and her peace activist friends stay safe there.

I'm glad I'm using LG and not Nokia >,<

Thanks Young Activist, for posting this video.

update:

I'm back from my googling! Here's from Kim Petersen,Dissident Voice :

W (World Wide Weekly), a culture and current events program on MBC (Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation) in Korea, showed a video depicting the courage of an unarmed woman using her body to prevent Israeli soldiers from shooting at Palestinian children.

The Korean announcer states: “Sometimes Palestinians’s thirst for freedom leads to intense confrontation. Armed soldiers attack. The Palestinians defy them with stones and run away. They are the targets of Israeli soldiers. Rubber bullets with high killing power sometimes threaten lives. But then, a girl’s voice cries out, “Stop, stop, stop.”

This she shouts as she places her body in front of a soldier to prevent him from a getting a line of fire on the children.

She tries to reason with the soldier, asking him if he understands. “You are shooting at kids.” She offers the simple way for the soldiers out from the situation: “Just pull back.”

The Korean announcer comments, “One Palestinian woman blocks the muzzle of the gun. Her action surprises the soldiers. She resolves to stop the Israeli gunfire even with her unarmed body.”

“What are you shooting at? Why are you shooting at them?” the courageous woman asks as the soldier tries to position himself above her. She raises her arms.

In the background other soldiers begin shooting. The woman flinches at the sound of gunfire, but she holds her ground. World View News Service identifies the woman as Huwaida Arraf. Arraf is a Palestinian-American who co-founded the International Solidarity Movement in Jerusalem. Since she is a Palestinian-American activist, she probably knows of American solidarity activist Rachel Corrie and her fate, further boosting the valorous credentials of Arraf.

The Korean announcer says, “Despite her last ditch effort in throwing her body before the guns, even a slight peace is hard to come by. This is the cold reality of this land.”

Apart from ill-gotten booty, those who wield preponderant power are in a no-win situation. There is no gain from using violence on someone smaller or weaker. If clever, the powerful counterpart will withdraw, status still intact. To use violence on the weak and lose would make one a laughingstock. To use violence and beat the weaker counterpart would expose oneself, at best, to be a bully and a coward — and worse, a craven war criminal.

Thanks to Yang Hyesun for the translation from Korean. Thanks also to Ron Saba for the screen shot and steady flow of information on the terrible situation in Gaza.

Remembering Rachel Corrie (1979-March 16, 2003)

2009-03-16T17:45:00.011+07:00

My thoughts go out to them :

Rachel Corrie, she's only a year older than me...

Tom Hurndall, a 21-year-old photography student, was shot six years ago in Rafah, Gaza.

James Miller, After he died, his colleagues finished the film, with an ending he had never envisioned: his own killing. Its title was “Death in Gaza,” and it won a host of awards, including three Emmys.

Fadel Shana'a, a 23 years old palestinian journalist.

Tristan Anderson, hope he'll recover...

and every Humanitarian workers, human rights activists and journalists in Palestine.

And whose gaze turned from one of trust to astonished alarm? The driver, who trusted that Rachel would leap away before it was too late? Or Rachel, who trusted that the driver would halt the vehicle one tread sooner?

Ever more relevant is “Season of the Camomile” by the late Palestinian poet Samir Rantisi, written in 1988, soon after the killing of an Israeli and a Palestinian near the village of Beita. An excerpt:

How many more ordinary mornings
will fill us with horror
and transform our day to another sky;
who chose us
to be the victim and the symbol
to be the beginning of the beginnings,
the moment of historical trial;
we, the two dreamers,
the routine, the ordinary,
who chose us
to be the heart of the conflict
and the crossroads of time
…

why didn't you find someone besides me to be a symbol?
why didn't they find someone besides you to be a victim?
why could they only find Beita in the spring.

pictures from :
(http://rememberpalestine.blogspot.com)
(http://electronicintifada.net)
(http://palsolidarity.org)

Just Get Out! (dan sedikit tentang katak dalam tempurung)

2009-03-16T16:08:00.004+07:00

Manusia itu kadang seperti katak dalam tempurung, terutama kalo dia berada di lingkungan yang homogen. Apalagi kalo dia adalah bagian dari yang mayoritas.

Waktu SMA, aku pernah mendapati seorang adik kelas yang ngga bisa jadi ketua kelas walo dia mendapat vote terbanyak. Kenapa? Karena dia termasuk yang minoritas. Hal yang sama berlaku dengan posisi ketua OSIS atau ketua-ketua lainnya, kecuali ketua seksi olahraga atau seksi agamanya. Di SMA itu juga aku menghadiri pengajian yang menyatakan bahwa kami berdosa belajar di sekolah negeri "yang campur ikhwan dan akhwatnya". Juga bahwa shalatku tidak akan diterima karena aku tidak memakai jilbab.

Apa SMAku itu sekarang masih seperti itu ya...

11 tahun setelah lulus SMA, banyak hal yang membuka wawasanku walopun aku berkutat di rumah, anak-anak, arisan dan pengajian ibu-ibu :)
Thanks to my hubby, yang rela membayar koneksi Flash dan langganan indovision. Juga sedikit pengalaman selama 4 bulan di tempat lain yang mengubahku jadi minoritas, di Australia.

Terkadang kupikir yang menunjukkan diri kita sebenarnya adalah bagaimana cara kita memperlakukan orang-orang di "bawah" kita. Bukan, maksudku bukan level kita lebih tinggi atau gimana...tapi lebih ke arah orang-orang yang menjadi minoritas, yang kemampuan fisik, ekonomi atau sosialnya lebih rendah, bawahan kita di pekerjaan, dan anak-anak kita.
Apakah kita sering merendahkan atau memarahi mereka.
Bahasa apa yang kita gunakan ketika berinteraksi dengan mereka.
Apakah kita tersenyum dan memandang mata mereka ketika berbicara.
Apakah kita mau mencoba berempati dan menempatkan diri kita di tempat mereka.
Apakah kita memperlakukan mereka dengan adil, like we'd wanted to be treated.

Ketika keluar dari lingkungan 'mayoritas-homogen' kita, akan banyak terlihat hal baru. Bahwa dunia itu bukan hanya berputar di lingkungan kita. Bahwa banyak sudut pandang dan sisi dari hal-hal yang sudah kita take it for granted.

Dan ketika itu terjadi, sudah saatnya kita berhenti melihat judul dan sampul. Berhenti menilai dari nama dan titel. Dan mulai melihat isi, substansi dari semuanya. The lesson for me : Stop generalizing things. Stop stereotyping people. And Start Introspecting.

Keluar dari tempurung. Get out from the cave.

Just Get Out! kutemukan di situs Jews Sans Frontieres (JSF), Jews without borders. Penulisnya, Gabriel Ash, menulis ini tahun 2002 setelah pembantaian Jenin.

Call the army home. Call the occupation off. And get out of the Occupied Territories. Just get out!

Don't mumble about how "difficult" or "complex" the situation is. It isn't. You are the oppressor. You are the occupier. You park your tanks on plundered land. You fill your swimming pools with stolen water. You kill and destroy in order to inherit. So don't bullshit about "the situation." Just get out!

Stop abusing people. Stop abusing language. Stop spinning your own moral cocoon. Stop turning your country and your people into a metaphor of evil. Just get out!

Don't wait for Bush. Don't wait for Arafat. Don't wait to negotiate with the mythical Palestinian leader who will finally accept your dominion. There is nothing to negotiate about. Just get out!

Take your rabid Jewish fundamentalists from Kiriat Arba and Beit El with you. Load them on buses and pump the gas pedal until the hills of the West Bank vanish in the rear mirror. Just get out!

Gather your thugs from the borderless "border police," give them scholarships and send them to school again. Let them discover there is more to life than beating people to a pulp. Just get out!

Take your checkpoints, with all their petty humiliations and deadly snipers, with you. And just get out!

Send the Shin-Bet packing. After 35 years, the world had enough of your clever jailers and torturers. Take them with you and just get out!

Let your hideous bulldozers loose on the illegal settlements of Ma'ale Edomim, Har Homa and Gilo. There is plenty of demolition work for them there. Let them continue until the mountain line bears no more memory of your rape. Then just get out!

Don't apologize. Don't justify. Don't explain. There is nothing left to explain. Honestly. Just get out!

Don't even worry about the thousands of olive trees, symbols of peace, you uprooted. Someone will plant them again.

Just get out!

Photo Of The Day

2009-03-13T15:23:00.003+07:00

From sabbah blog

No Parents Zone

2009-03-13T14:08:00.006+07:00

Sebagai full time mom, atau housewife, atau Ibu Rumah Tangga (you name it...), salah satu kerjaan sehari-hari adalah antar jemput sekolah. Damar sekarang sekolah di PlayGroup dekat rumah. Dan karena malas bolak-balik biasanya aku akan menunggu di luar pagar sekolah dengan berbekal bacaan atau sekadar mp3 player. Lebih sering sendirian. Tapi jika ibu-ibu yang lain ada yang nunggu juga biasanya pojok di bawah pohon mangga tempat para penunggu akan ramai. Seperti hari ini. Obrolannya berkisar dari politik, buku, fikih seksual (ah...^^), dan bagaimana cara menyita hp anak SMP kelas 2 yang mulai ada video pornonya >,<
Yang terakhir adalah dilema dari temanku yang anak tertuanya sudah remaja. Hmmm...dipikir-pikir, sebenarnya masalah Dimas mogok mandi atau Damar ngga mau makan tempe belum ada apa-apanya ya...

Anyway, sharing dan guyon emak-emak begini lumayan memberi pencerahan. Apalagi karena sehari-hari yang dihadapin adalah dapur, kompor, wortel, pampers, ompol dan anak umur 2 dan 4 taun yang sering terlalu sibuk menyusun balok kayu atau lego sehingga ngga denger mamahnya ngajak ngomong. Ah, my precious dynamic duo ^^

Hari ini ketika bermain di halaman sekolah Damar dipukuli oleh seorang temannya sementara guru-guru tidak melihat. Damar hanya nangis. Dia salah satu dari sekian anak yang ngga pernah memukul. Reaksi pertamaku adalah lari masuk ke dalam halaman, memegangi tangan anak itu dan bilang "Tidak boleh mukul!" Lalu aku peluk Damar dan bilang "Jangan diam saja kalo Damar dipukul ya". Akhirnya kuserahkan pada gurunya dan kulihat Damar dan anak yang memukulnya tadi bersalaman.

To be honest, I was angry. Aku emosi sama anak 3,5 taun. Malu-maluin...
Jadi my lesson today, stay out from No Parents Zone. Minta gurunya lebih mengawasi anak-anak dan keluar saja. Kita tidak akan bisa mengawasi anak kita 24 jam seumur hidupnya. Berikan bekal buat mereka mandiri dan berani membela diri sendiri. Teach them compassion and common sense. Bagaimanapun juga itu tugas kita sebagai orangtua. It's another never ending journey.

Anti Korupsi Versi Dewo

2009-03-09T08:08:00.002+07:00

Long weekend...di rumah saja.
Nanti sore mau ngajak anak-anak berenang ^^

Ada pengalaman Dewo yang menarik. Kejadiannya malam Sabtu kemaren di jalan tol menuju kota. Karena terdorong ke bahu jalan oleh truk Dewo disuruh menepi oleh polisi. Dan sempat ngotot-ngototan sama pak polisi selama 30 menit.

Kira-kira seperti ini.
Pak Pol : Bapak saya tilang ya, silahkan ke pengadilan tanggal 20 Maret.
Dewo : Wah Pak, saya terima ditilang tapi tanggal segitu saya sudah di Kalimantan.
Gimana kalo saya bayar di ATM saja?
Pak Pol : Udah ngga bisa Mas Dewo, sekarang semua harus ke pengadilan.
Dewo : Kalo gitu sidang sebelum tanggal 20 saja, pak.
Pak Pol : Wah, ngga bisa
Dewo : Kalo gitu saya nitip bapak saja, saya minta tanda terimanya.
Pak Pol : Wah, ngga bisa pak. Udah deh, saya bantu saja.
Dewo : Ha? Bantu bagaimana Pak? Lha, saya mau bayar tilang kok.

Akhirnya setelah bolak-balik seperti itu setengah jam di tengah kemacetan jalan tol, temannya yang dari tadi duduk di dalam mobil polisi keluar dan bisik-bisik sama polisi satunya.
Endingnya? "Udah Pak, pergi saja deh!"

Lho?
Jadi sebenarnya gimana sih, Pak Polisi?
Garuk-garuk kepala...

Adakah yang bisa ngasih info terbaru tentang pertilangan?

Anyway, I'm so proud of my husband ^^
Say no to corruption, start from tiny little things.

Back On Track

2009-03-07T16:38:00.006+07:00

I haven't wrote for...what? 2 weeks?
Hmm, a lot of things and thoughts. Didn't have enough time for all of them.
Plus, Damar and Dimas need my time more and more everyday. Dimas will sit in front of me or climb my back everytime i turn on my computer ^^

Also, it is that easy to forget, like i've wrote before. And it's easy not to write. It's easy just to live our everyday life without being haunted by depressing thought, or affected by hatred you can find everywhere on the net.

I visited hummusmonster's blog today. He wrote "A person could have never completed that journey."

I guess he's right.

Well, I read this letter in The Jakarta Post

The fragile ceasefire in Gaza has been broken by both sides. The Israeli actions are understandable, even if one does not support them: They are designed to stop ongoing rocket fire upon its civilians.

The continued Palestinian rocket fire cannot be so easily sympathized with. There is no element of defence in the Palestinian rocket fire.

The aims of the Palestinian rockets are to kill and maim, and to entice Israel to react. If anyone is interested in creating peace, the key is, as it always has been, stopping Palestinian violence.

Michelle Moshelian
Givatayim, Israel

Having reading a lot of, I mean A LOT OF, articles and comments about Israel-Palestine, I think this letter is the worst of their kind.
This is my comment (still waiting for moderation at the time i write this post):

Another bad justification and Hasbara failure for Zionist's occupation and crimes againsts humanity. Israel must stop building illegal settlements, stop demolishing homes and farms, stop the land grabbing (as described by UN, EU, ICJ and NGO's like Btselem, Amnesty International etc), stop humiliating people using check points and stop Israeli violence.
Just because I'm Indonesian doesn't mean I don't read Haaretz or Btselem. Check your facts again!

I'm back on my track on this journey again.

On my daily basis, my children are my best distraction.
This is Damar with his classmates and teachers.

We are so blessed...
I wish every child in the world can live a happy and peaceful life...

Israel's Back Yard

2009-02-19T19:22:00.004+07:00

I owe this post to one brave woman who gives her testimonials in Israel's Back Yard.

She's an Israeli PhD student, and an activist of MachsomWatch – Women against the Occupation and for Human Rights. She writes in Hebrew and then one of her friend, Aryeh, translating for her in English. Her first post was Checkpoint 101:with photos.

I still can't express how i felt when i read it...

The About page really gives me a true meaning of the word 'courage'.

Why?
I didn’t always think the way I think today. I was, what I label today as a “couch-leftist”. I sided with the Left, but thought they tend to exaggerate and above all tend to conspiracies and paranoia. I can’t recall exactly how I got up from my couch. I only know it was a slow process, burdened with excuses. For years I wanted to join the olive harvest. Every November I asked a good friend of mine to come with me. And when he didn’t show up, I had a great excuse: I have no one to go with.

But eventually I got up from the couch. It happened about four years ago (2005). I joined the demonstrations in Bil’in. A harsh dissonance, familiar to any Israeli peace activist. When the Palestinians started shouting Allāhu Akbar, I wanted to go stand by the soldiers, to ask for their protection.

Bil’in was too violent an experience for me. In one of the demonstrations – when I was no longer straddling at the back of the procession – as we were approaching the Wall, a shrapnel of a smoke grenade went in my eye. When I came home I knew I was not going to give up, but that I was going to look for something else. I thought of MachsomWatch. I didn’t believe I could fit in, they seemed much older, “a bunch of grandmothers”, but the checkpoints intrigued me. A few weeks went by. One Friday morning on Ben-Zion Blvd. I spoke with a group of Women in Black. I asked them about MachsomWatch. That’s how I met Alex. I arranged to meet her on Sunday.

Alex and Susan picked me up by Hassan Bek Mosque in Tel Aviv. At the time I was living in Kerem ha-Teimanim. We started at Jubara, from there went to Anabta (Tul Karm). It was December, I was shivering. A group of some twenty Palestinians was waiting at the side for the car check to finish, and the soldiers will signal them – a small gesture of “come here”. I went to stand by them. Even today, always when it’s possible, I stand with them. But ultimately they remain in the corrals, and I leave, return to Tel Aviv, to my comfortable life in a sunnier side of the world.

We moved in to Beit Iba, west of Nablus. We stood for three hours behind the carousels. From there we went to Jit Junction, and from there to Za’tara at Tapuah Junction. In the evening, after saying goodbye to Susan I went walking in the alleys of the Kerem. It was cold and it was late, but I didn’t want to go home. I was living alone at the time. I went to the Mitbahon for dinner. Then a shower, and I went to sleep.

A few weeks ago I called Susan. I was at Beit Iba checkpoint. A Palestinian who caught a ride with her forgot his cellphone in her car. She told me – she says this often – “I didn’t think you would come again. You were really trembling”.

It’s hard to describe the process I’ve been through. It’s a complex, sad, painful and aging process of sobering. I don’t always fully understand it. But today I know that the Left wasn’t exaggerating. These are activists, who went to see things for themselves, and were exposed to Israel’s back yard, and returned from there with some insights. It’s worth listening to them. We have seen something which you haven’t.

This is my comment for her:

Here in Indonesia I saw the picture and heard about checkpoints in Israel and occupied territories. But never like this. Not the details. Thank you for your courage to tell the real story for us on the other side of the world.

And this is what she wrote for me:

Hello Nina, Thank you for your comment. Please refer your friends to our blog, if possible.

So, here I am, telling you my friends, to please read her honest and painful-to-read story...

Quote Of The Day

2009-02-18T19:30:00.004+07:00

I found this quote in this site

What do the colors of the Palestinian flag represent?

Green is for the land of Palestine,
White is for the peace in which the Palestinian people lived before they were made refugees,
Red is for their blood spilled trying to liberate their land, and
Black is for their life under occupation.

We will eat salt, but we will not bow our heads for anybody other than God, because we are faithful to the rights of our people and our nation. We will not betray it.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh

(picture from www.sott.net)

To Gaza, With Love

2009-02-18T17:00:00.003+07:00

It's an article, written by Medea Benjamin. She's a peace activists, a co-founder of the feminist anti-war group Code Pink: Women for Peace, and involved with the anti-war organization United for Peace and Justice.
For Los Angeles Times she's "one of the high profile leaders of the peace movement". But of course, for some she's a terrorist supporter.

For me, she's a brave and courageous woman.

This is what she wrote in common dreams

When I traveled to Gaza last week, everywhere I went, a photo haunted me. I saw it in a brochure called "Gaza will not die" that Hamas gives out to visitors at the border crossing. A poster-sized version was posted outside a makeshift memorial at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. And now that I am back home, the image comes to me when I look at children playing in the park, when I glance at the school across the street, when I go to sleep at night.

It is a photo of a young Palestinian girl who is literally buried alive in the rubble from a bomb blast, with just her head protruding from the ruins. Her eyes are closed, her mouth partially open, as if she were in a deep sleep. Dried blood covers her lips, her cheeks, her hair. Someone with a glove is reaching down to touch her forehead, showing one final gesture of kindness in the midst of such inhumanity.

What was this little girl's name, I wonder. How old was she? Was she sleeping when the bomb hit her home? Did she die a quick death or a slow, agonizing one? Where are her parents, her siblings? How are they faring?

Of the 1,330 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military during the 22-day invasion of Gaza, 437 were children. Let me repeat that: 437 children-each as beautiful and precious as our own.

As a Jew, an American and a mother, I felt compelled to witness, firsthand, what my people and my taxdollars had done during this invasion. Visiting Gaza filled me with unbearable sadness. Unlike the primitive weapons of Hamas, the Israelis had so many sophisticated ways to murder, maim and destroy-unmanned drones, F-16s dropping "smart bombs" that miss, Apache helicopters launching missiles, tanks firing from the ground, ships shelling Gaza from the sea. So many horrific weapons stamped with Made in the USA. While Hamas' attacks on Israeli villages are deplorable, Israel's disproportionate response is unconscionable, with 1,330 Palestinians dead vs. 13 Israelis.

At the end of her article she wrote that On March 7, she will return to Gaza with a large international delegation, bringing aid but more importantly, pressuring the Israeli, U.S. and Egyptian governments to open the borders and lift the siege.

Many members of the delegation are Jews. We will travel in the spirit of tikkun olam, repairing the world, but with a heavy sense of responsibility, shame and yes, compassion. We will never be able to bring back to life the little girl buried in the rubble. But we can-and will--hold her in our hearts as we bring a message from America and a growing number of American Jews: To Gaza, With Love.

What impressed me most were the comments posted by common dreamers, the readers.

dakinirise February 17th, 2009 3:22 pm
Thank you, Medea, for your truth-telling, your passion, committment and compassion. I am honored to be a part of CODEPINK. May your words of heart and humanity reach out and help to mightily transform peoples thinking, beliefs and actions. May the Great Goddesss of Compassion look after you all on your journey to Gaza -- and always. Blessed Be.

IzakFriend February 17th, 2009 3:22 pm
I always assume that Jews who confess that we are really Nazis and that the Arabs have the righteous duty to kill us, are creations of Arab agit-prop.

Jim Glover February 17th, 2009 6:36 pm
Izak,
You are full of false assumptions and need Help.

Daga February 18th, 2009 12:55 am
It is a sad fact that persecuted people often becomes persecutors, the same way a molested child becomes a child molestor. The psychological mechanism behind this paradox transformation is, I believe, self-justification.

The "Blut und Boden" ideologies in Nazism and Zionism are identical, and the difference between Avigdor Liebermann and Julius Streicher miniscule.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Streicher.

Instead of criticizing people like Medea Benjamin ,Uri Averny , Norman Finkelstein , Noam Chomsky etc, you should support them. When the zionist locust swarm has been removed from Palestine, and their mad philosophy but a bad dream. All that stands between the jews and the unison condemnation from the rest of the world are those "Self-hating Jews"

npwr.luv February 17th, 2009 3:35 pm
M E D E A,

Bless you for your stalwart conviction and daily movement toward creating a humane world and alleviating the onerous pathological warmongering of the US & Israel -- and foremost for those generations of innocent children.

You are a heroine of epic proportion, and although the bleak realities so often must cloud your horizon, please be assured that millions of us stand alongside you in ALL of this.

My hope is that you are sustained to continue evermore and in alignment with ever larger numbers of shared souls that are seeking the PEACE and tolerance that is our birthright.

Namaste

Siouxrose February 17th, 2009 5:46 pm
Sioux Rose

NAMASTE: Wonderful words that I totally agree with, and I stand with you and Medea. I love what she had to say about the over-arching power of compassion, and who should be and should have been moved most by it.

m156 February 17th, 2009 3:44 pm
I always assume that Jews who confess that we are really Nazis and that the Arabs have the righteous duty to kill us, are creations of Arab agit-prop.

Gilad Atzmon's take on the canard of "self-hating Jew" is always interesting:

When it comes to criticism raised by a "Jew," Zionists get into a real problem. Because Zionism is supposed to be the "final solution" for all Jews, wherever they are, any criticism made by a Jew must be eradicated..."self-hating" is basically a form of psychotic mode. The Zionists actually admit that something went wrong in the process of Jewish reproduction. A member of the community "lost his mind". First, it saved the Zionists, themselves, from taking any criticism from a "mad man". Second, it warns the rest of the world not to take the criticism seriously, the man is apparently "mad"...With Israeli atrocities on the TV screen night after night, people start to realize that the "mad," "self hating Jew" might have something crucial to say. We better listen to him.

And it was getting better and better.

Susan Schwartz February 17th, 2009 4:55 pm
Mrs. Benjamin, I'm sorry you feel the death toll of only 13 Israelis is too low, so please add the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust to your total count.

Horrified February 17th, 2009 5:12 pm
and what has the six million holocaust victims got to do with the bloodshed Israel unleash on the Palestinians today.. Please do not pull the holocaust card to gain sympathy for Israel aggression. It is so overused that no one is falling for it anymore.

opeluboy February 17th, 2009 5:19 pm
Horrified, I make it a point not to respond to Zionist propagandists on this site, but thanks for doing so yourself. That was one of the most illogical, idiotic and smugly putrid responses I have seen here. I can only imagine her reaction to the little girl buried alive. Probably said something like "Nits make lice." God damn these people.

Susan Schwartz February 17th, 2009 5:22 pm
Perhaps so that the State of Israel lives and is not washed away by anti Semitism again! NEVER AGAIN!!!

Horrified February 17th, 2009 5:28 pm
the only antisemitism that is happening is by non semitic Khazar Jews on semitic Palestinians. Now go take your holocaust whining/ramblings to some other forums!!

Jonah February 17th, 2009 5:53 pm
Where can I find, in person, degenerates such as IzakFriend and the Schwartz? I hate the Israeli and Jewish people ten times more than I ever did due to their posts on CD. And you can call me bigot, anti-semite or any name you want to call me, I will own up to all the epitaphs GLADLY!! I could never wage war on defenseless people. So go screw yourselves. I shall make a 1000 copies of this picture and the article and their posts to put on every car in as many church parking lots this coming Sunday. All Folks should at least pass out the article and picture.

I can copy and paste every single comment there, since they were so refreshing.
Not for IzakFriend and the Schwartz, of course.

Dead Cell February 17th, 2009 11:01 pm
Izak and Scwartz, or whatever the hell your names are:
You people are pathetic. Keep being smug and coy about what's really going on over there. You people are a pain in the ass of the world-and from what I see, you always have been. The day will come when all your self congratulation will come to a very abrupt end. Every day that passes shows israel becoming more and more unrecognizable to the world. Your people are becoming more and more savage-it's becoming normal. It seems that one half of the israelis are being held hostage by the israeli Zionist baboon government. Go ahead and declare war on 7 billion non-jews and see what happens-you'll be chosen all right...
To the rest of you good Jews and Arabs out there who are working for peace no matter what, I salute you!! Keep fighting the good fight. The rest of those Zionist bastards can swim and drown in their own shit for all I care. Go ahead and kill each other already-so we can go about living again. You people are just not worth the effort.
cheers!

freespeechlover February 17th, 2009 11:20 pm
Susan, it won't work anymore. Regardless of 6 million European Jews being killed during the Holocaust, this does not justify the slaughtering of over 1300 Palestinians. It's ye olde "two wrongs do not make a right." And besides. I know you are one of the many trolls sent to sites like this. So this is my last comment regarding your post.

Thanks Medea for a great account. Very moving and accurate.

Yes, thank you Medea Benjamin.
And yes, the hasbara handbook, the propaganda (or whatsoever they call it) has expired. But they'll find another. Like Gilad Shalit.

Kids Can Be Cruel

2009-02-18T14:17:00.004+07:00

Yup. Itu Damar. Ketiga dari bawah.
Happy as it seems.

Tapi kemarin, ketika nemenin Damar main di taman, aku mendengar dua orang anak laki-laki cowok di kompleks (5 dan 6 tahun) berkata: "Ah, ngga mau ah, maen sama kamu! Kamu aneh!", dengan tampang se-you're-nerd-stay-away, mungkin.
Saat itu Damar sedang ngeliatin anak-anak yang lagi maen sambil pura-pura motret pake mainan kalengnya.
Waktu damar bilang, "Say cheese!" sambil 'motret', anak-anak itu ngetawain lagi, "Aneh! Aneh!"

Damar? As usual cuma diam. Ngga terlihat tertekan atau sedih atau marah.
Lima menit kemudian dia sibuk motret-motret lagi.

Well, kids.

By the way, akhir-akhir aku sering nulis tentang Palestina. Bukan kenapa-kenapa sih, memang itulah yang ada di kepalaku. Dan karena ada beberapa teman blogger di luar Indonesia, jadi sedikit banyak kucoba nulis dengan bahasa Inggris.
Beberapa tulisan tentang agama, satu tulisan tentang orang-orang Rohingya (sangat-sangat berempati sama mereka...), satu dua tulisan tentang Pemilu dan korupsi.

Wew, ternyata banyak sekali yang bisa ditulis...PRku banyak juga ^^

Semacam kliping buat Damar dan Dimas nantinya.

And for now, I guess I want to read my dynamic duo this poem:

I'm Glad I'm Me
by Phil Bolsta

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don’t understand why everyone stares
When I take off my clothes and dance down the stairs.
Or when I stick carrots in both of my ears,
Then dye my hair green and go shopping at Sears.
I just love to dress up and do goofy things.
If I were an angel, I’d tie-dye my wings!
Why can’t folks accept me the way that I am?
So what if I’m different and don’t act like them?
I’m not going to change and be someone I’m not.
I like who I am, and I’m all that I’ve got!

(http://www.gigglepoetry.com)

Stealing The Land

2009-02-16T11:56:00.006+07:00

If they thought the conflict in Holy Land was all about Gaza and Hamas, think again. This is what happens on a daily basis in Occupied Territories.

This is the story.

Thanks to International Solidarity Movement.

Prior to 1979, most Palestinian land was expropriated under the rubric "for military purposes." While the land may have been initially used for the billeting of military units, in many cases the area was quickly turned over to civilian settlement.
This method of land acquisition fell into abeyance following an Israeli High Court ruling prohibiting the seizure of land for military purposes when it was, in fact, intended for civilian settlement.
Following the High Court ruling, the military government relied in part on Military Order 59 (Order Concerning Government Property) to declare unregistered land state property.
As the military government had suspended the registration of land in 1968, it was relatively easy for the Israeli authorities to expropriate vast amounts of land under this procedure.

Rja Shehadeh, a Palestinian lawyer and writer who lives in Ramallah wrote about this systematic land grabbing by Israel in his book, Palestinian Walks (Jalan-Jalan di Palestina : Catatan Atas Negeri Yang Menghilang, penerbit Gramedia).
A touching, honest and beautiful story.

A sad story...
_______________________________________
update from Haaretz:

Some 1,700 dunams of land in the northern part of Efrat were declared state land last week, paving the way for the West Bank settlement to start the process of seeking government approval to build there.

The Civil Administration issued the declaration after rejecting eight appeals by Palestinians against the move. A ninth appeal was accepted, and the land covered by this appeal was consequently removed from Efrat's jurisdiction

With such actions, you can’t tell the world that Israel wants peace.

Reflections

2009-02-15T09:14:00.003+07:00

Another great programmme by Al Jazeera English, Reflections of War.

Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) for Palestine.
Because Indonesia doesn't have any diplomatic relationships with Israel, I need to learn more about this movement.
And also, In Yuli Ahmada's blog I found this interesting post about IIPAC (Indonesia-Israel Public Affairs Committee).
Here's IIPAC's blog.This site is in Hebrew and English.

Gaza convoy leaves London.
This convoy will travel 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometres) through France, Spain and North Africa, crossing from Egypt into Gaza at Rafah in early March.

Will write more about these topics.
Now, family time!

Atheist Bus

2009-02-12T21:09:00.004+07:00

And this is the bus driver's thought.

This game of theological ping-pong looks set to continue for some time, and should remain not only harmless but also irrelevant, just so long as the Jews, Muslims and Hindus don't join in.

Harmless and irrelevant are not words I'd use to describe another bus that's appeared on the scene during the past few months. This newcomer depicts the actor Daniel Craig in his guise as James Bond. Fourteen feet high he stands, at the rear end of a double-decker, looking immaculate as he loads new bullets into his handgun. He seems laid-back and nonchalant, emptying the spent cartridges on to the ground.

Obviously any driver who objects to being the purveyor of such messages is in the wrong job. Bus drivers aren't meant to have feelings. I've been driving buses in London on and off for 20 years and I don't particularly like the glorification of guns and weapons in ads for movies. But if I refused to drive a bus I'd be failing in my duties. After all, that's what we're paid for.

Bayangkan kalau ini terjadi di Indonesia...sudah bakar-bakaran bis kayaknya.
>,<

Free Palestine!

2009-02-12T13:19:00.004+07:00

Thanks Chet, for mentioning this.

(picture from haaretz.com)

Banner hanging over the Bronx Expressway reading 'Free Palestine'
(Jews Against the Occupation)
Another banner was spotted over New York's entrance to the Cross Bronx Expressway, at 179th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan on Wednesday morning.

"We know from our own history what being sealed behind barbed wire and checkpoints is like, and we know that 'Never Again' means not anyone, not anywhere - or it means nothing at all," he said.

Strong Words

2009-02-11T17:59:00.003+07:00

JEWISH SOCIALISTS SAY:

stop the bombing and the siege
end the occupation
and give peace a chance!

Jewish Socialists condemn the Israeli siege and bombing of the Palestinian people in Gaza. We express our solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza, and in the occupied territories, and with those Israelis who oppose their government and its war.

We support those young Israelis who would rather go to jail than serve in the armed forces of occupation and war.

We call upon our own and other governments to cease supporting Israel's aggression, and put pressure on Israel's leaders to halt this war, lift the blockade, and end the occupation of Palestinian lands.

The Jewish Socialists' Group has many differences with the politics of Hamas. This war, on a largely defenceless people, is not about Hamas. It was Israeli forces that broke a four-month long ceasefire with a raid killing six Palestinians on November 4. This attack was launched as Hamas and Fatah were agreeing a unified approach. On November 5, Israel stepped up its siege of Gaza, on land and sea, which has brought warnings of human and environmental disaster.

Even so, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told a European parliamentary delegation that Hamas was prepared to declare a long-term truce with Israel, and negotiate for a Palestinian state within 1967 borders. (Amira Hass, Haaretz (November 15 2008)

Evidently, Israeli leaders, including Labour Defence Minister Ehud Barak, were not interested. They had already planned this war. A couple of days after Haniyeh's spech the Israeli navy seized Palestinian fishing boats and crews.

Israel's military-political elite don't care about poorer Israelis, mainly from Arab countries, whom they shoved out to exposed places like Sderot. They have not even evacuated the children. They did not care about captured soldier Gilad Shalit, whose release they could have negotiated long ago, had they and their US backers not preferred a pretext for war, in Gaza and then Lebanon, where Washington wanted to test its latest bombs.

Every people has the right to resist occupation. But the tactic of hitting civilian targets like Sderot is wrong, and the Israeli government has used it to raise public support for war against the Palestinian people. Even so,

500 Sderot residents petitioned asking the government not to escalate the conflict but to seek peace.
A majority of Israelis thought their government should negotiate with Hamas or whoever else the Palestuinian people elected.
A majority of people on both sides wanted the cease fire to continue, and would be prepared to share this land in a just peace.

But 40 years of occupation have so poisoned Israeli politics that Barak and Olmert are competing with the far-right Benyamin Netanyahu to show who is best at waging war. The Israeli Right has been encouraged by neo-cons and right-wing Christian fundamentalists in the United States, who want Israel to spearhead a major Middle East war.

The majority of Americans, including more than 75% of American Jews, voted for Barack Obama and change. Obama's wooing of the unrepresentative Zionist lobbyists AIPAC, and Hillary Clinton's pledge that if Israel was attacked, America would "obliterate" Iran, suggest change is yet to come. The Israeli forces may have timed their attack before Obama takes office, but he has said only that he "understands" them. EU leaders have urged a ceasefire, but Israel continues to enjoy EU trade privileges and a promised closer relationship".

If we want to help the Palestinian people and those Israelis who want a genuine peace, we have to change our own government's policies. Jewish Socialists, together with our friends in European Jews for Just Peace, and similar bodies in the United States and Canada, are campaigning for this.

Alongside solidarity with the Palestinian people, we have a special job - to challenge leaders who claim to speak for the Jewish community, but subordinate its interests to Israeli policy and its reactionary allies. We say politicians must stop listening to the Zionist Lobby - and stop using it as an excuse!

Jewish Socialists stand for peace, freedom and equality in the Middle East, and for unity to fight antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism and every other kind of prejudice here and now.

source : jewist socialists' group

He's Free

2009-02-11T17:36:00.002+07:00

From facebook :

LATEST UPDATE FROM THE RIZK FAMILY

Wednesday February 11th, 4:00am

Philip is out, he is safe and home with his family.
He requests that all upcoming planned protests and marches still take place to end siege on Gaza.

Tilang atau Damai?

2009-02-11T10:48:00.003+07:00

Temanku mengirim email tentang form merah dan biru dalam 'pertilangan'.

SLIP MERAH, berarti kita menyangkal kalau melanggar aturan Dan mau membela diri secara hukum (ikut sidang) di pengadilan setempat.
Itupun di pengadilan nanti masih banyak calo, antrian panjang, Dan oknum pengadilan yang melakukan pungutan liar berupa pembengkakan nilai tilai tilang. Kalau kita tidak mengikuti sidang, dokumen tilang dititipkan di kejaksaan setempat, disinipun banyak calo dan oknum kejaksaan yang melakukan pungutan liar berupa pembengkakan nilai
tilang.

SLIP BIRU, berarti kita mengakui kesalahan kita dan bersedia membayar denda.

Kita tinggal transfer dana via ATM ke nomer rekening tertentu (kalo gak salah norek Bank BUMN).

Sesudah itu kita tinggal bawa bukti transfer untuk di tukar dengan SIM/STNK kita di kapolsek terdekat dimana kita ditilang.
You know what!? Denda yang tercantum dalam KUHP Pengguna Jalan Raya tidak melebihi 50ribu! dan dananya RESMI MASUK KE KAS NEGARA.

One of the most corrupted institution in Indonesia is Police Force. While corruption in judicial institution is the most costly.

Tentu tidak semua polisi korup. Aku yakin masih banyak polisi-polisi jujur yang menghidupi keluarga dan menyekolahkan anak-anaknya dengan gaji yang mepet (God bless them...)
Seorang polisi muda yang menjadi ketua RT di kompleks perumahanku di Balikpapan dulu adalah seorang yang sederhana dan berdedikasi. Dia hanya memiliki sebuah motor tua dan rumah cicilan yang belum dikeramik lantainya. Seorang yang idealis dan rajin menjadi muadzin di mushola kecil di kompleks.

Pengalaman mengenai polisi lainnya waktu aku kuliah di Bandung, tahun 1998. Aku ditilang karena berbelok ke kiri sewaktu lampu merah menyala. Maklum kalau di Jogja hampir di semua perempatan kita bisa langsung belok kiri. Aku distop dan diajak ke pos. "Dik, ini sidangnya hari rabu jam 9 pagi ya!" Kujawab, "waduh Pak, hari itu saya ujian" Si Bapak Polisi akhirnya mengganti form tilangnya dan menyuruhku membayar ke bank dan mengambil SIM di kantor polisi.

The point is,
sebenarnya nggak salah polisi juga kalo mereka sering minta uang damai. Kalau ngga ada yang minta damai, kalau semua orang ngga pakai calo dan uang untuk bikin SIM dan keperluan lain, polisi juga ngga bisa korupsi.

Dengan sangat, sangat, sangat malu aku mengakui kalau SIMku sekarang masih SIM 'haram', SIM nembak. Sedang berusaha mengambil SIM 'halal', ASAP!
Dewo, sudah berhasil melewati semua ujian teori dan praktek dan sudah punya SIM halal. Butuh 3 kali ujian praktek mobil sampai dia lulus. Bandingkan dengan ujian SIM di Jepang!!! Ada yang ratusan kali ujian belum lulus juga.

Jadi, kalau ada yang ngeluh kenapa budaya berkendaraan di jalan umum kita ancur, ya mungkin karena memang kita ngga tau aturan lalu lintas (salah satunya ya aturan tentang form merah dan biru itu). Kenapa ngga tau? Ya, karena SIM-nya nembak!

As simple as that.

Coba liat di jalan tol. Hitung berapa mobil yang menggunakan lajur kiri untuk menyalip atau melewati batas kecepatan.

Believe me! At the end of the day, pendidikan dan faktor ekonomi rasanya berpengaruh kecil dalam masalah sopan-santun berkendaraan.

The Bad and The Good : More About Refuseniks

2009-02-10T16:03:00.003+07:00

The Bad
Reading this kind of 'democracy' makes me sick.
I always wonder why 80-90% of them support the war or 'campaign'. This is why.

The Yisrael Beiteinu youths gather for a final consultation as dozens of elderly party supporters slowly make their way into the white tent where the movement's conference is being held, behind the Plaza Hotel in Upper Nazareth.

The youths, ages 16-18, many of them good friends from school, had stood for a long time before the event began at the intersection near the hotel, waving Israeli flags and shouting "Death to the Arabs" and "No loyalty, no citizenship" at passing cars.

This country has needed a dictatorship for a long time already. But I'm not talking about an extreme dictatorship. We need someone who can put things in order. Lieberman is the only one who speaks the truth." Adds Edan Ivanov, an 18 year old who describes himself as being "up on current events":

"We've had enough here with the 'leftist democracy' - and I put that term in quotes, don't get me wrong. People have put the dictator label on Lieberman because of the things he says. But the truth is that in Israel there can't be a full democracy when there are Arabs here who oppose it.

"All Lieberman's really saying is that anyone who isn't prepared to sign an oath of loyalty to the state, because of his personal views, cannot receive equal rights; he can't vote for the executive authority. People here are gradually coming to understand what needs to be done concerning a person who is not loyal."

That's not freedom of speech, my friend!
That's far from democracy, in case you didn't know.

On "election day" at the school on January 5, MK Miller drew boisterous applause when he gave a fiery speech denouncing anyone who dared to demonstrate against the operation in Gaza, and called for "the people who support those who fight against us" not to be given equal rights.

Slansky requested a chance to speak and addressed the students: "If anyone repeats the undemocratic things said here by Miller on my exams, I will deduct points from his grade." The high-schoolers responded with a hail of boos.

"I told Miller I couldn't grasp what he meant to say, because one of the most important democratic principles that we teach is the limits of authority, and freedom of expression," Slansky said this week.

"After they booed, I realized I didn't have a chance there. It was a very unpleasant feeling, obviously. I understand that there's an issue of election propaganda, but when a candidate speaks this way to students whose critical abilities are lacking, who don't have that broader view - it just shows how much work I have left to do."

Is it upsetting?

"Of course it's upsetting, but what should we do? Just give up? Stop teaching civics? To blame the school for the students being intolerant and non-pluralistic is to make a very dire accusation. It's the society in which we live. I can't be the last one to put on the brakes. I do my best."

"On the first level, of conveying the basic principles of democracy, the teachers are quite successful ... On other levels, such as inculcating democracy as a worldview and translating these values to the classroom, we see other things. You can have discussions in civics class and study entire texts, and then suddenly a boy says to a girl, 'Shut up, you slut,' and the teacher doesn't stop everything right then and there. When that happens you lose the connection between what's being taught and what's happening. In my daughter's class, the kids told a joke that went something like: 'How long does it take an Arab woman to get rid of the trash? Nine months,' and the teacher didn't stop or say anything to them about it."

Do schools also teach messages that contradict democratic education?

"In the school system there's a discrepancy between the official curriculum and the 'unofficial' curriculum [including what's known as Shelach], Land of Israel studies that have a nationalist bent, and preparatory workshops for the army and the Gadna pre-military youth corps. The [Holocaust-related] trips to Poland could have been an occasion to teach broader humanistic understanding, but they end up being all about 'Then we were weak and now we are strong - We won't give them another chance to kill us.'

"When I talk in civics class about the Arab minority, and about its uniqueness in being a majority that became a minority, my students argue and say it's not true that they were a majority. When I go to the history teacher and ask her why the students don't know that in 1947 there was a certain number of Arabs here, and in 1948 there was a different number, she becomes evasive and says it's not part of the material."

The failure of the school system is evident not just in student's opinions, but sometimes in their actions, too. There have been a number of disturbing incidents: On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day last year, dozens of Jewish youths attacked two Arab youths after seeing a message on ICQ urging them "to put an end to all the Arabs walking around the Pisga [Pisgat Ze'ev]"; youths took part in the violence against Arabs in Acre last October; and just this week, Jewish youths from Tiberias went after a young Arab with clubs as he was walking on the city's boardwalk.

What kind of person will they grow up to be?

The Good
I have more and more respect for these young men and women.
On Saturday evening (february 7th), the refuseniks spoke to Palestinian on Bethlehem.

Five young Israelis who refused military service defied a ban on Israelis entering Palestinian Authority territory on Saturday evening to share their tales of prison, isolation, and struggle with an audience outside the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

On Tuesday Israelis are expected to elect the most right-wing government in recent memory, but these five, represent a countervailing force, however small, to an Israeli society that appears more than ever to be in the grip of the right wing. On Tuesday, Israelis will go to the polls in parliamentary elections in which the top slot is expected to go to the right-wing Likud party, and the third largest share of the votes to Avigdor Lieberman’s “Israel Our Home” party, one of whose slogans is “No loyalty, no citizenship.”

“Refusing is a break from the Jewish-Israeli consensus,” said 22-year-old Alex Cohn, “It’s the beginning of a journey, not an end.” Cohn spent a total of five months in a military prison in 2005 for his refusal.

The refuseniks’ message of moral objection was welcomed by at least some of the Palestinians who attended the panel. One student from Bethlehem said, “Every day I go to school at the Al-Quds university, which is in a town next to Jerusalem. I have to pass through a checkpoint twice a day. So, statistically speaking, if I’m standing in front of five Israelis, they’re probably going to be pointing guns at me. Instead I’m standing here applauding you.”

The young Israelis also talked about what 19-year-old Mia Tamarin called “the stamp of the refuser,” the social isolation they face in a society where everyone is a soldier. Tamarin, a committed pacifist who spent two years in an educational program where she met women from all over the Middle East, said that her decision to refuse also led her to leave home.

Alex Cohn also said he faced tension with his family. “When my brother heard he called me very angrily, saying ‘you’re going to rot in prison,’” he said, then recalling that his brother changed tones, “’You’re going to sit in prison and read books while I’m risking my life.’”

Israel’s rightward lurch going into Tuesday’s elections, Cohn said, “is like falling down a cliff. It’s a nightmare. We can only hope that people wake up from this nightmare.”

“But,” he added, “Maybe it will lift the mask of Israeli democracy, and there will be more pressure on Israel from the outside.

Courage to refuse.
Courage to do the right thing.

Right or Wrong It's My Country?

2009-02-10T14:25:00.002+07:00

I always kinda like President SBY. He seems more sincere than other politicians.
And we've made progress on our corruption index last year.

Transparency International, a watchdog group that compiles a widely watched corruption index, gave Indonesia a score of 2.6 out of 10 for 2008, up from 1.9 in 2003, and ranked it 126th out of 180 countries surveyed.

The news is here

Not something to be proud of, though, 126th out of 180 >,<

I read something about him again today. In the ceremony of National Press Day and the 63rd anniversary of PWI (Indonesian Journalist Association)he said that "Right or wrong It's my country" is not enough.

It should be Right is right and Wrong is wrong. That's the concept of loyalty for our country. Why don’t we just say since right or wrong is my country. Let us assure our country is right and not wrong.

Beritanya di sini dan sini.
Here's our press freedom index.

He's not perfect of course, but I guess I'm going to vote for him this year. Perhaps...

Gusti Allah Tidak 'Ndeso'

2009-02-09T19:06:00.003+07:00

Renungan hari ini.

Emha Ainun Nadjib: Gusti Allah Tidak “Ndeso”
Beragama yang Tidak Korupsi
Oleh: Faisal

Suatu kali Emha Ainun Nadjib ditodong pertanyaan beruntun. “Cak Nun,” kata sang penanya, “misalnya pada waktu bersamaan tiba-tiba sampeyan menghadapi tiga pilihan, yang harus dipilih salah satu: pergi ke masjid untuk shalat Jumat, mengantar pacar berenang, atau mengantar tukang becak miskin ke rumah sakit akibat tabrak lari, mana yang sampeyan pilih?“

Cak Nun menjawab lantang, “Ya nolong orang kecelakaan.”
“Tapi sampeyan kan dosa karena tidak sembahyang?” kejar si penanya.
“Ah, mosok Gusti Allah ndeso gitu,” jawab Cak Nun.
“Kalau saya memilih shalat Jumat, itu namanya mau masuk surga tidak ngajak-ngajak, ” katanya lagi. “Dan lagi belum tentu Tuhan memasukkan ke surga orang yang
memperlakukan sembahyang sebagai credit point pribadi.

Bagi kita yang menjumpai orang yang saat itu juga harus ditolong, Tuhan tidak berada di mesjid,
melainkan pada diri orang yang kecelakaan itu. Tuhan mengidentifikasikan dirinya pada sejumlah orang. Kata Tuhan: kalau engkau menolong orang sakit, Akulah yang sakit itu. Kalau engkau menegur orang yang kesepian, Akulah yang kesepian itu. Kalau engkau memberi makan orang kelaparan, Akulah yang kelaparan itu.

Seraya bertanya balik, Emha berujar, “Kira-kira Tuhan suka yang mana dari tiga orang ini. Pertama, orang yang shalat lima waktu, membaca al-quran, membangun masjid, tapi korupsi uang negara.

Kedua, orang yang tiap hari berdakwah, shalat, hapal al-quran, menganjurkan hidup sederhana, tapi dia sendiri kaya-raya, pelit, dan mengobarkan semangat permusuhan. Ketiga, orang yang tidak shalat, tidak membaca al-quran, tapi suka beramal, tidak korupsi, dan penuh kasih sayang?”

Kalau saya, ucap Cak Nun, memilih orang yang ketiga. Kalau korupsi uang negara, itu namanya membangun neraka, bukan membangun masjid. Kalau korupsi uang rakyat, itu namanya bukan membaca al-quran, tapi menginjak-injaknya. Kalau korupsi uang rakyat, itu namanya tidak sembahyang, tapi menginjak Tuhan. Sedang orang yang suka beramal, tidak korupsi, dan penuh kasih sayang, itulah orang yang sesungguhnya sembahyang dan membaca al-quran.

Kriteria kesalehan seseorang tidak hanya diukur lewat shalatnya. Standar kesalehan seseorang tidak melulu dilihat dari banyaknya dia hadir di kebaktian atau misa. Tolok ukur kesalehan hakikatnya adalah output sosialnya: kasih sayang sosial, sikap demokratis, cinta kasih, kemesraan dengan orang lain, memberi, membantu sesama. Idealnya, orang beragama itu mesti shalat, misa, atau ikut kebaktian, tetapi juga tidak korupsi dan memiliki perilaku yang santun dan berkasih sayang.

Agama adalah akhlak. Agama adalah perilaku. Agama adalah sikap. Semua agama tentu mengajarkan kesantunan, belas kasih, dan cinta kasih sesama. Bila kita cuma puasa, shalat,
baca al-quran, pergi kebaktian, misa, datang ke pura, menurut saya, kita belum layak disebut orang yang beragama. Tetapi, bila saat bersamaan kita tidak mencuri uang negara, meyantuni fakir miskin, memberi makan anak-anak terlantar, hidup bersih, maka itulah orang beragama.

Ukuran keberagamaan seseorang sesungguhnya bukan dari kesalehan personalnya, melainkan diukur dari kesalehan sosialnya. Bukan kesalehan pribadi, tapi kesalehan sosial. Orang beragama adalah orang yang bisa menggembirakan tetangganya. Orang beragama ialah orang yang menghormati orang lain, meski beda agama. Orang yang punya solidaritas dan keprihatinan sosial pada kaum mustadh’afin (kaum tertindas). Juga tidak korupsi dan tidak mengambil yang bukan haknya. Karena itu, orang beragama mestinya memunculkan sikap dan jiwa sosial tinggi. Bukan orang-orang yang meratakan dahinya ke lantai masjid, sementara beberapa meter darinya, orang-orang miskin meronta kelaparan.

Ekstrinsik VS Intrinsik

Dalam sebuah hadis diceritakan, suatu ketika Nabi Muhammad SAW mendengar berita perihal seorang yang shalat di malam hari dan puasa di siang hari, tetapi menyakiti tetangganya dengan lisannya. Nabi Muhammad SAW menjawab singkat, “Ia di neraka.” Hadis ini memperlihatkan kepada kita bahwa ibadah ritual saja belum cukup. Ibadah ritual mesti dibarengi ibadah sosial.
Pelaksanaan ibadah ritual yang tulus harus melahirkan kepedulian pada lingkungan sosial.

Hadis di atas juga ingin mengatakan, agama jangan dipakai sebagai tameng memperoleh kedudukan dan citra baik di hadapan orang lain. Hal ini sejalan dengan definisi keberagamaan dari Gordon W Allport. Allport, psikolog, membagi dua macam cara beragama: ekstrinsik dan intrinsik.

Yang ekstrinsik memandang agama sebagai sesuatu yang dapat dimanfaatkan. Agama dimanfaatkan demikian rupa agar dia memperoleh status darinya. Ia puasa, misa, kebaktian, atau membaca kitab suci, bukan untuk meraih keberkahan Tuhan, melainkan supaya orang lain menghargai dirinya. Dia beragama demi status dan harga diri. Ajaran agama tidak menghujam ke dalam dirinya.

Yang kedua, yang intrinsik, adalah cara beragama yang memasukkan nilai-nilai agama ke dalam dirinya. Nilai dan ajaran agama terhujam jauh ke dalam jiwa penganutnya. Adanya internalisasi nilai spiritual keagamaan. Ibadah ritual bukan hanya praktik tanpa makna. Semua ibadah itu memiliki pengaruh dalam sikapnya sehari-hari. Baginya, agama adalah penghayatan batin kepada Tuhan. Cara beragama yang intrinsiklah yang mampu menciptakan lingkungan yang bersih dan penuh kasih sayang.

Keberagamaan ekstrinsik, cara beragama yang tidak tulus, melahirkan egoisme. Egoisme bertanggungjawab atas kegagalan manusia mencari kebahagiaan, kata Leo Tolstoy. Kebahagiaan tidak terletak pada kesenangan diri sendiri. Kebahagiaan terletak pada kebersamaan. Sebaliknya, cara beragama yang intrinsik menciptakan kebersamaan. Karena itu, menciptakan kebahagiaan dalam diri penganutnya dan lingkungan sosialnya. Ada penghayatan terhadap pelaksanaan ritual-ritual agama.

Cara beragama yang ekstrinsik menjadikan agama sebagai alat politis dan ekonomis. Sebuah sikap beragama yang memunculkan sikap hipokrit; kemunafikan. Syaikh Al Ghazali dan Sayid Quthb pernah berkata, kita ribut tentang bid’ah dalam shalat dan haji, tetapi dengan tenang melakukan bid’ah dalam urusan ekonomi dan politik. Kita puasa tetapi dengan tenang melakukan korupsi. Juga kekerasan, pencurian, dan penindasan.

Indonesia, sebuah negeri yang katanya agamis, merupakan negara penuh pertikaian. Majalah Newsweek edisi 9 Juli 2001 mencatat, Indonesia dengan 17.000 pulau ini menyimpan 1.000 titik api yang sewaktu-waktu siap menyala. Bila tidak dikelola, dengan mudah beralih menjadi bentuk kekerasan yang memakan korban. Peringatan Newsweek lima tahun lalu itu, rupanya mulai memperlihatkan kebenaran. Poso, Maluku, Papua Barat, Aceh menjadi contohnya. Ironis.

Jalaluddin Rakhmat, dalam Islam Alternatif , menulis betapa banyak umat Islam disibukkan dengan urusan ibadah mahdhah (ritual), tetapi mengabaikan kemiskinan, kebodohan, penyakit, kelaparan, kesengsaraan, dan kesulitan hidup yang diderita saudara-saudara mereka. Betapa banyak orang kaya Islam yang dengan khusuk meratakan dahinya di atas sajadah, sementara di sekitarnya tubuh-tubuh layu digerogoti penyakit dan kekurangan gizi.

Kita kerap melihat jutaan uang dihabiskan untuk upacara-upacara keagamaan, di saat ribuan anak di sudut-sudut negeri ini tidak dapat melanjutkan sekolah. Jutaan uang dihamburkan untuk membangun rumah ibadah yang megah, di saat ribuan orang tua masih harus menanggung beban mencari sesuap nasi. Jutaan uang dipakai untuk naik haji berulang kali, di saat ribuan orang sakit menggelepar menunggu maut karena tidak dapat membayar biaya rumah sakit. Secara ekstrinsik mereka beragama, tetapi secara intrinsik tidak beragama. [ed.AYS]

Sumber : Jalal Center

Philip Rizk

2009-02-09T13:33:00.003+07:00

Aku baru membaca tentang Pilip Rizk hari Minggu yang lalu di Jews Sans Frontieres. Berita lain ada di Reuter.
Kemudian hari ini di facebook kutemukan update terbaru dari keluarga Rizk.

LATEST UPDATE FROM JEANNETTE and CHRISTINA RIZK

Monday Feb. 9th 5:40 am

At 1:30am when we had just gone to bed the doorbell rang. 5 plain clothed men and two in full riot gear and machine guns stood outside our door. They wanted to enter to search the house. We found out that they were looking for evidence against Philip. Two men entered and began searching through the papers of our home office. In the meantime we contacted a German Embassy official and a professor from AUC as well as some friends. They all came immediately many others were awake and praying.

The police left but returned soon after to ask my father to go with them and write up a report about the fact that they had searched our home. Of course, we did not trust them. Then they insisted to pass by his office where they would continue the search. In the meantime Amnesty International had contacted us and an wonderful lawyer arrived just in time to firmly tell the secret police that they could not take any further actions without a police warrant. We closed and locked the front door and settled in to see what would happen next. The secret police was waiting downstairs for orders that never came. At 5a.m. they finally left.

Philip, 26 tahun, adalah seorang aktivis kemanusiaan, pembuat film dan penulis yang pernah tinggal di Gaza selama 2 tahun. Dia menulis tentang gaza dan palestina di blognya Tabula Gaza. Ini adalah tulisan terakhirnya sebelum ditangkap polisi Mesir.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Rafah to Close

Word on the street is that Egypt is closing Rafah crossing to all journalists and doctors entering or exiting Gaza on Friday.

Does this mean more bloodbaths to come?

Hal ini membuatku mempertanyakan lagi suatu hal yang sejak setahun lalu kupikirkan ketika menulis Breaking the Silence. What the hell is wrong with Egypt????
Sementara ini yang kutemukan tentang pemerintah Mesir dan perbatasan Rafah, satu-satunya perbatasan Gaza dengan negara selain Israel. Setahun yang lalu Aljazeera menjawab beberapa pertanyaan seputar perbatasan Rafah.

Seperti yang kita tahu, toh pintu Rafah tetap ditutup selama blokade Gaza.Pemerintah Mesir memberi kontribusi yang cukup besar terhadap penderitaan penduduk Gaza dengan menolak membuka pintu Rafah tanpa ijin dari Israel.

Anyway,
I hope Philip Rizk will be released soon, safe and sound.

What They Found In Gaza

2009-02-09T11:42:00.002+07:00

A group of 8 lawyers from National Lawyers Guild in the United States, who have come here to the Gaza Strip to assess the effects of the recent attacks on the people of gaza. They spent five days interviewing communities particularly impacted by the recent Israeli offensive, including medical personnel, humanitarian aid workers and United Nations representatives.

And this is what they found.

Targeting of Civilians and Civilian Infrastructure

We spoke to Khaled Abed Rabbo, who witnessed an Israeli soldier execute his 2-year-old and 7-year-old daughters, and critically injure a third daughter, Samar, 4-years old, on a sunny afternoon outside his home. Two other Israeli soldiers were standing nearby eating chips and chocolates at the time on January 7, 2009. Abed Rabbo recounts standing in front of the Israeli soldiers with his mother, wife and daughters for 5 - 7 minutes before one of the soldiers opened fire on his family

United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)

John Ging, the Director of Gaza Operations for UNRWA reported that Israeli forces fired missiles at UNRWA schools in Gaza City, Jabalyia and Bet Lahiya. The United Nation compound in Gaza city was also hit with white phosphorous shells and missiles. Ging noted that al United Nations buildings and vehicles all fly UN flags, are marked in blue paint from the top, and that during hostilities the UN personnel remained in constant contact with Israeli authorities.

Misuse of Weapons

Our delegation has heard allegations of the use of DIME (Dense Inert Metal Explosive) weaponry, white phosphorus and other possible weapons whose use in civilian areas is prohibited. We have also heard of the use of prohibited weapons, such as flachettes. We have found our own evidence of the use of flachette shells, which we will combine with evidence collected by Amnesty International to push for further investigation. We have not found any conclusive evidence of the use of DIME, though we believe that this warrants further investigation and disclosure by the Israeli military.

Our findings overwhelmingly point to the use of conventional weapons in a prohibited manner, specifically, the use of battlefield weaponry in densely populated civilian areas. Customary international law forbids the use of weapons calculated to cause unnecessary suffering.

Preventing Access to Medical and Humanitarian Aid

Zaytoun neighborhood, which came under attack and invasion by ground foces on January 3, 2009. The Palestinian Red Crescent received 145 calls from Zaytoun for help, but were denied entry by Israel. Bashar Ahmed Murad, Director of Emergency Medical Services for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society told us that "a lot of people could have been saved, but hey weren't given medical care by the Israelis, nor did the Israeli army allow Palestinian medical services in."
When paramedics were finally allowed to enter on January 7, Israeli forces only gave them a 3-hour "lull" to work and prohibited ambulances into the area. Instead they forced paramedics park the ambulances 2 kilometers away and enter the area on foot. Murad told delegation members how they had to pile the wounded on donkey carts and have the medical workers pull the carts in order to help the most people possible in the short time they were given.
After the 3 hours were over, the Israeli army started shooting toward the ambulances. The Red Crescent was not able to reach that area again to evacuate the dead until January 17, 2009 when the Israeli army pulled out.

Al-Shurrab Family

On January 16th, Israeli forces shot at the jeep of Mohammed Shurrab, 64 years of age, and two of his sons, Kassab and Ibrahim, aged 28 and 18 as they were returning from their fields. Mohammad was shot in the left arm and Ibrahim was shot in the leg.
The elder son, Kassab, sustained a fatal bullet wound to the chest, being shot multiple times after being ordered out of the car. Mohammad, bleeding from his wound, contacted the media, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and a number of NGOs via mobile phone in order to acquire medical assistance.
Israeli forces denied medical relief agencies clearance to reach them until almost 24 hours after Mohammad, Ibrahim and Kassab had been shot. Earlier that morning, Ibrahim had succumbed to his wound and died. Mohammad Shurrab and his sons were shot during a so-called "lull" in Israeli ground operations, which Israeli forces had agreed to in order to allow humanitarian relief to enter and be
distributed in the Gaza Strip.

International humanitarian law also prohibits attacks on medical personnel, medical units and medical transports exclusively assigned to carry out medical functions. Delegate members saw ambulances seriously damaged and destroyed, some apparenly deliberately crushed by Israeli tanks. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society and the Palestinian Ministry of Health informed delegates that 15 Palestinian medics were killed and 21 injured in the course of Israel's assualt

War crimes indeed.

A Roller Coaster

2009-02-02T23:20:00.006+07:00

Browsing and reading something on the internet is like riding a rollercoaster.
Sometimes you read something like this horrible article, nothing but a racist's opinion, and you're down. You're upset, you're sad.

And then you read this hiden truth and you're back on track again. Shorta. Cause you know, perhaps even the truth cannot change those ignorant and brainwashed minds.

Killing people in random for whatsoever reason is terrorism, They said.
Dropping bombs and shooting civilians in a dense-populated area is self defense (Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza), They said.
Killing opposition leaders is a brutal act used by a terrorist regime, They said.
Assassinating leaders from the so-called terrorist organization or 'evil country' is a heroic act (MEK, Israel), They said.

Just change the subject. And it'll all change.
They can easily and shamelessly lie.

On Iraq :

Lie #1--They Attacked Us: Iraq Supported Al Qaeda
Lies #2 and #3--Imminent Threats: Iraq's Bio-Chem and Nuclear Weapons Programs
Lie #4--It Will Be Easy: Iraq as a "Cakewalk
Lie #5--The Moral Justification: Iraq as a Democratic Model

On lebanon :

The killing of 4 unarmed UN monitors. At least 10 phone calls were made to Israeli commanders over a period of six hours warning that artillery and aerial bombardments were either dangerously close to or hitting the monitors' building. Tzipi Livny said ""There will never be an [Israeli] army commander that will intentionally aim at civilians or UN soldiers [sic]"

On Gaza:

Simon Peres at Davos, "Why did they fire rockets? There was no siege against Gaza. Why did they fight us, what did they want? There was never a day of starvation in Gaza."

Why am I ranting about them again?
Maybe because they're the 'Great Democratic Nation'? Free speech, anyone?

And the Ups part for my rollercoaster tonight is Islamicate : islam doesn't speak, muslims do.
Always a great site to visit.

Ketika Aku Tidak Menulis

2009-02-02T21:48:00.005+07:00

Ketika aku capek dan 'my body is not so delicious' (ckckckc...),
ketika batere alkaline-nya Damar Dimas tidak perlu di-charge seharian,
ketika asisten andalanku, Mbak Yuk, pulang kampung nengok Putri tercintanya,
ketika aku pikir aku ndak bisa menulis.

Aku menulis lagi.

Hanya melepaskan diri dari mengepel susu tumpah,
mengelap ingus dan muntah,
mengganti baju dan celana yang basah,

Hanya libur sebentar dari membujuk Damar makan wortel,
menghela nafas waktu Dimas cuma mau baksonya dan menolak kol,
menahan nafas ketika mereka kejar-kejaran dan berakhir dengan Dimas koprol,

Hujan deras seharian,
ndak sempat ngeluarin jemuran,
Jakarta banjir dan macet, jadi semacam kebiasaan.
Like my mom in law said when we moved 'temporarely' to this city, "you'll get used to it"
Pehuleesss....

Masak perkedel kentang dan sup di dapur sementara anak-anak menaburkan semua jenis barang di penjuru rumah. Termasuk coco crunch dan jeruk.
Mengalah ketika Dimas mengganti 'Tak ada yang bisa'nya Andra & The Backbone di RCTI dengan dvd Pak Pos Pat.
Mengunci pintu kamar jam 3 siang, dan tertidur sejam sementara anak-anak masih melompat-lompat di atasku.
Hmmmm, gimana caranya supaya batereku lebih long lasting dibanding batere mereka....

Jam 10 malam.

The boys are sleeping now. All of them. Including their dad.

Yayyyy!!!!!

Introspeksi hari ini : Harus lebih sabar.

January 31st (for my father)

2009-01-31T20:48:00.006+07:00

Today is my father's birthday.

I still remember his face.
I still remember his voice.

I still remember how he explained the news in the newspapers when i was 6, since i read all kind of things back then.
I still remember how he told me that i could be anyone i wanted to be.
I still remember how he made a swing and a hammock for us in our backyard.
I still remember playing in the rain with him and my sisters.
I still remember how he used to stay behind his closed working room door for hours.

I still remember how he asked me to go study to other city when I was 12, to pursuit a better education.
I still remember how I missed my family a lot.
I still remember how lonely it was.

I still remember how I've became more independent year after year.
I still remember how i got angry when he didn't like my hiking and travelling hobby.
I still remember how unreal it felt when he was sick again.
I still remember I was standing in front of the phone, miles away from home, didn't know what to tell him. Didn't have a clue what to say to him.

I still remember how proud his face was, in my graduation. Just few months before that day.
That day, on October 2003, I still remember that I didn't have a chance to said thank you or i'm sorry.

Today would have been his 63rd birthday.

I wish he were here so i could give him a big hug.
i wish he were here to watch Damar and Dimas.

"Dear Lord, forgive me my sins, and the sins of my parents, have mercy on them both as they have looked after me when I was little" (A muslim prayer for her parents)

I miss you, Pah.

To everyone who read this :
Take your time to call your parents. Say hi. Say how much you love them.
Or just call them to hear their voices...

"G*#LOK!"

2009-01-30T17:14:00.006+07:00

Baru sampai di rumah setelah mengantarkan mbak Yuk ke tempat ngetem angkot dekat Bintaro Plaza. Pulang ke rumah dalam kondisi hujan ditemani Damar yang tertidur di kursi sebelah supir dan Dimas yang nangkring di atas rem tangan. Not safe at all, by the way! Jangan ditiru!

Di sepanjang jalan pergi dan pulang diklakson mulu oleh mobil-mobil di belakangku karena aku beberapa kali ngasih jalan sama pejalan kaki, motor atau mobil yang mau nyebrang.

Di perempatan sebelum Sekolah Internasional Jepang, perempatan dimana lampu lalu lintas seringnya cuman jadi pajangan, aku (yang dalam posisi lampu hijau) hampir menabrak kendaraan-kendaraan dari arah kanan-kiri yang pasti melanggar lampu merah. Dan seorang supir angkot, bapak-bapak berjanggut, dari arah kanan melewatiku sambil berteriak, "GOBLOK!"

Phew.
Wew.
Well.
(Sigh)

Bapak supir angkot yang pasti tidak akan membaca tulisanku ini, semoga Bapak selamat sampai tujuan.
Semoga setoran Bapak tidak seret.
Semoga anak-anak Bapak bisa sekolah dan harga-harga bahan kebutuhan masih bisa dijangkau oleh keluarga Bapak.
Semoga tidak ada laki-laki dewasa yang berteriak "Goblok!" kepada anak perempuan, istri atau ibu Bapak.

My Islam and His Islam : About Woman

2009-01-30T14:56:00.003+07:00

Hmmm, read these articles and think.

women character, about how women have this 'genetic' bad character. Just because they're women. "Too fast to judge, cursing a lot, and ungrateful to their husband.”

marriage. This is about how a wife should and shouldn't do according to Islam. That a wife should be devoted to his husband, while a husband should be devoted to his mother.

I don't know about the writer's perception of Islam, but my perception of Islam is full of love Islam, full of peace Islam. And doesn't judge human by their gender Islam. Nor hate others for their race and religion. And This is Islam I will teach my children.

Walahualam. Only God Knows.

Wonderful article from a muslim woman.

Radical Feminism, a la Islam
by Umm Farouq

Someone asked to explain what my wearing HijabMan's "This is What a Radical Muslim Feminist Looks Like" T-shirt means.

It would mean that I am a female Muslim who takes the rights that have been decreed to me by my Creator.

I'm not subservient or meek, nor do I accept cultural idiocies as replacements for my God-given religion. It does not mean that I am not faced on a regular basis with situations involving choosing culture over religion, because I am. However, I grew tired long ago of being a sucker, as did the feminists from the movements that spurred from the 1920s suffragettes to the 1970s ERA-ers to ladies like the feminists of today featured in the film Borat who were horrified by his (unbeknownst to the poor ladies) satirical woman-bashing Khazak rhetoric. I will choose my religion, because I know I can always back up my actions with proof. You and your backwards cultural whatevers can go fly. They are fluff and nutter. I am substance.

Watch me get up and walk out of a room, because I will. If taking my rights means to you that I am haughty, so be it. Let the haughtiness begin.

Let me repeat: I am not subservient or meek. I speak from my heart. When there is an injustice, I roar.

As a radical Muslim feminist I know my rights as a wife, which are to be fed, sheltered, clothed, and cared for in a way befitting to me. I have the right to a marriage contract which safeguards me in case of a divorce. Man, it's a pre-nup that was given to women over 1400 years ago. Please find that in the Western law books! Fourteen hundred years ago in England, women were either witches or hysterical. Muslimahs were neither. Which do you want, a divorce, or your head? Muslimahs could keep both.

Anything I choose to do for my husband in the home, such as cooking, cleaning, and general care of the household, are not required of me, but rather are charities. I choose to be benevolent towards him because it makes both of us happy and helps to create a loving environment, and I know my reward will be with Allah. But if I'm down and out, like I am today, you better believe he'll bring home the Popeye's and I'll need a foot massage. It's a two-way street.

As a radical Muslim feminist, by the will of Allah I will empower my children with educational opportunites and give them the means, even if it requires that I not buy new clothing or eat the foods I really desire; even if it makes me give up the computer or the telephone or trips overseas--my children will have a way out because I refuse to allow them to live a life they do not want. I have three daughters. They must be empowered with knowledge.

Being a radical Muslim feminist also means that I will teach my son to wash his own clothing, cook his own food, mend his own holes, and most importantly, own his own behavior. I will not run after him with a plate and spoon when he is 26 years old, worried about his potential starvation. He will be self-sufficient, giving, and will respect me and his sisters and his wife. If he fails in any of these areas, then I will know that my mothering of him was a failure, too, and that I joined the ranks of the women who have propagated generations of no-good 'i am entitled to everything' empty Muslim men. May Allah protect me from that.

As a radical Muslim feminist, I will not tolerate double standards.

But guess what? I'm not radical at all, nor am I a feminist. I'm just a Muslim.

That, in a nutshell, is what the T-shirt means to me.

Maybe one day I'll add to this, but right now I have kiddies who want to paint.

Pasar Tradisional, Nasibmu Kini.

2009-01-28T11:48:00.003+07:00

Berita sedih siang ini. Pasar Koja dibongkar.

Bagaimana Jakarta bisa jadi tempat yang aman dan nyaman untuk hidup, kalau orang mencari uang dengan halal pun dipersulit. Alasannya peremajaan, tapi apa iya? Sudah bukan rahasia lagi kalau pembongkaran dan penggusuran biasanya untuk kepentingan segelintir orang. Dalam hal ini seringnya pemegang modal besar.

Berapa banyak Hipermarket yang lokasinya berdekatan dengan pasar tradisional?
Berapa banyak pedagang lama yang tidak bisa berdagang lagi karena harga sewa baru yang tidak terjangkau?

Sedih.

Nomor atau situs mana yang bisa dihubungi untuk menanyakan kebijakan pemerintah tentang ini?
Pemerintah Amerika mungkin rajanya standar ganda, tapi paling tidak rakyatnya tau mau kemana menyuarakan pendapatnya (diluar pendapat itu diperhatikan atau tidak).

Akhirnya cuma bisa memulai dari yang paling bisa dilakukan, memilih untuk tidak belanja di hipermarket-hipermarket itu. Terutama yang dari luar negeri. Memilih membeli di pasar tradisional dan pedagang sayur keliling. Memilih memakai produk pertanian dalam negeri.

Pasar Koja. Pasar Rawasari. Pasar Barito.

Jakarta memang butuh lahan hijau. Tapi jangan pedagang kecil terus yang digusur.
Kalau berani, gusur juga Mal-mal mewah di Kelapa Gading, Pondok Indah, Senayan dan perumahan elit di jakarta utara yang menghilangkan daerah resapan air dan lebih merugikan terhadap lingkungan.

Jiwa 'Israel' ternyata ada dimana-mana (jaaahhh...Israel lagi disalah-salahin!). Termasuk di pembuat kebijakan yang menghilangkan hak mencari nafkah pedagang kecil.

Artikel tentang Perda Pasar

Refuseniks : Courage to Refuse

2009-01-24T01:06:00.006+07:00

Akhir-akhir ini mbaca komentar-komentar di dunia maya membuatku pusing. Baik itu di kompas, indonesiamatters, independent, bbc uk, et cetera. Mungkin komen-komenku juga bikin orang yang mbaca pusing. Don't know >,<

Akhirnya mulai mbuka Haaretz, Jpost dan blog-blog lain. Most of the time i found something more interesting.
Seperti situs-situs ini :

1. www.couragetorefuse.org
2. www.breakingthesilence.org.il
3. www.btselem.org
4. www.dw-world.de
5. www.marksteelinfo.com
Yang lain...nanti ku-update kalau nemu lagi ^^

Sementara semua orang (termasuk aku) berdebat kusir, ada satu pernyataan dari 'the real players'. Para refuseniks. Tentara IDF yang menolak untuk ikut berpartisipasi dalam misi okupasi.

Yup, OCCUPATION. In case y'all didn't notice.

Tujuan tentara-tentara ini adalah "to end the occupation and bring peace to Israel".

Ini pernyataan mereka. The Combatant's Letter

We, reserve combat officers and soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, who were raised upon the principles of Zionism, self-sacrifice and giving to the people of Israel and to the State of Israel, who have always served in the front lines, and who were the first to carry out any mission in order to protect the State of Israel and strengthen it.

We, combat officers and soldiers who have served the State of Israel for long weeks every year, in spite of the dear cost to our personal lives, have been on reserve duty in the Occupied Territories, and were issued commands and directives that had nothing to do with the security of our country, and that had the sole purpose of perpetuating our control over the Palestinian people.

We, whose eyes have seen the bloody toll this Occupation exacts from both sides,

We, who sensed how the commands issued to us in the Occupied Territories destroy all the values that we were raised upon,

We, who understand now that the price of Occupation is the loss of IDF’s human character and the corruption of the entire Israeli society,

We, who know that the Territories are not a part of Israel, and that all settlements are bound to be evacuated,

We hereby declare that we shall not continue to fight this War of the Settlements.

We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people.

We hereby declare that we shall continue serving the Israel Defense Force in any mission that serves Israel’s defense.

The missions of occupation and oppression do not serve this purpose – and we shall take no part in them.

No religion argument. No historic rhetorical. No blame game.
Just common sense and humanity.

Shame on us.

Talking about double standards

2009-01-23T22:59:00.002+07:00

British Broadcasting Corporation and Anti-Semite paranoia.

The BBC has refused to broadcast a national humanitarian appeal for Gaza, leaving aid agencies with a potential shortfall of millions of pounds in donations.

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), an umbrella group for 13 aid charities, launched its appeal yesterday saying the devastation in Gaza was "so huge British aid agencies were compelled to act".

But the BBC made a rare breach of an agreement dating to 1963, saying it would not give free airtime to the appeal. Other broadcasters followed suit. Previously, broadcasters had agreed on the video and script to be used with the DEC, to be shown after primetime news bulletins.

The BBC, which has been criticised in the past over alleged bias in its coverage of the Middle East, said it did not want to risk public confidence in its impartiality. A BBC spokesperson said: "The decision was made because of question marks about the delivery of aid in a volatile situation and also to avoid any risk of compromising public confidence in the BBC's impartiality in the context of [a] news story."

The DEC's chief executive, Brendan Gormley, said: "We are totally apolitical ... this appeal is a response to humanitarian principles. The BBC seems to be confusing impartiality with equal airtime."

DEC appeals have recently raised £10m for the Congo and £18m for Burma.

An ITV spokesman said the broadcasters, after assessing the DEC's needs, had been unable "to reach a consensus necessary for an appeal".

Sky said: "By convention, if all broadcasters do not carry the appeal, then none do. The decision was effectively made for us."

Reminds me of Chelsea fans who had no faith in Avram Grant, and accused of being anti-semites. And so did the british press. Super sensitive people, jews people. They seem to be the only victim in every occasion. State of the Victims, State of Israel.

This decision seems to be based on a reaction to accusations of bias over Gaza coverage. Well I guess these are The Rules of the Western Media in dealing with the Middle East 1.0 :

Rule 1: See the Middle East through Israeli eyes.
Rule 2: Treat American and Israeli governmental statements as hard news.
Rule 3: Ignore the historical context.
Rule 4: Avoid the fundamental legal and moral issues posed by the Israeli occupation.
Rule 5: Suppress or minimize news unfavorable to the Israelis.
Rule 6: Muddy the waters when necessary.
Rule 7: Credit all Israeli claims, even if wholly unfounded.
Rule 8: Doubt all Palestinian assertions, no matter how self-evident.
Rule 9: Condemn only Palestinian violence.
Rule 10: Disparage the international consensus supporting Palestinian rights

And The Rules of the Western Media in dealing with the Middle East 2.0 :

Rule 1: In the Middle East, it is always the Arabs that attack first, and it's always Israel who defends itself. This is called "retaliation".
Rule 2: The Arabs, whether Palestinians or Lebanese, are not allowed to kill Israelis. This is called "terrorism".
Rule 3: Israel has the right to kill Arab civilians; this is called "self-defense", or these days "collateral damage".
Rule 4: When Israel kills too many civilians the Western world calls for restraint. This is called the "reaction of the international community".
Rule 5: Palestinians and Lebanese do not have the right to capture Israeli military, not even a limited number, not even 1 or 2.
Rule 6: Israel has the right to capture as many Palestinians as they want (Palestinians: around 10000 to date, 300 of which are children, Lebanese: 1000s to date, being held without trial). There is no limit; there is no need for proof of guilt or trial. All that is needed is the magic word: "terrorism"
Rule 7: When you say "Hezbollah", always be sure to add "supported by Syria and Iran"
Rule 8: When you say "Israel", never say "supported by the USA, the UK and other European countries", for people (God forbid) might believe this is not an equal conflict.
Rule 9: When it comes to Israel, don't mention the words "occupied territories", "UN resolutions", "Geneva conventions". This could distress the audience of Fox.
Rule 10: Israelis speak better English than Arabs. This is why we let them speak out as much as possible, so that they can explain rules 1 through 9. This is called "neutral journalism".
Rule 11: If you don't agree with these rules or if you favor the Arab side over the Israeli side, you must be a very dangerous anti-Semite. You may even have to make a public apology if you express your honest opinion (isn't democracy wonderful ?).

You can find the double standards here.

So much for free press.
So much for human rights.
Well, what the hell BBC, Palestinians will survive without your free airtime.

Refugee = Pengungsi (part 1)

2009-01-23T20:51:00.008+07:00

Refugee :
noun
1. a person who flees for refuge or safety, esp. to a foreign country, as in time of political upheaval, war, etc.
2. political refugee : a person who has fled from a homeland because of political persecution.

Hari ini Hassan Wirajuda mengatakan bahwa Indonesia tidak akan menerima pengungsi Myanmar, Rohingya, karena mereka 'economic migrants' dan bukan pencari suaka politik (political asylum seeker). Beritanya ada di sini.

I don't get it.
Kenapa mereka bukan pencari suaka politik?
Ini menurut Amnesty International.

Amnesty International is concerned that the local Myanmar authorities’ policies regarding the Rohingya population in the northern Rakhine State result in violations of a wide range of their basic human rights. While the general human rights situation in Myanmar is far from satisfactory, the Rohingyas suffer from specific deeply discriminatory polices targeting them. The vast majority of Rohingyas are effectively denied Myanmar citizenship; subjected to severe restrictions on freedom of movement; forced labour; forced evictions; and extortion and arbitrary taxation

Kenapa Indonesia, dalam hal ini Deplu atau pemerintah pusat, tidak mau menerima pengungsi yang mengalami perlakuan tidak manusiawi di tanah airnya, Myanmar, dan mengalami kekerasan dari militer Thailand dalam perjalanan mereka mencari kehidupan yang lebih baik?

Not the 'we-have-our-own-problems' answer again. C'mon.
We can send docters, diplomates and money to Middle East, why can't we help the refugees who come knocking on our door?

Artikel lain tentang pengungsi Rohingya.
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update : from what i saw on news at least the sabang people and authorities were helping Rohingya people, and not sending them to drift on the ocean like Thai navy.
Aku masih berharap pemerintah Indonesia bisa memikirkan solusi yang lebih baik dari mendeportasi pengungsi Rohingya kembali ke rejim militer Myanmar.
Treat others as you want to be treated. That's all.