Jakarta Butuh Revolusi Budaya!

For many of us, June and July were the most favorite months during our childhood. It was when we had a long holiday. Some of you went to your grandparents’ house, went abroad or out of town, joined a short course, or just stayed at home and enjoyed the holiday. We had so much pleasure buying new books, uniforms, shoes, bags, and other school needs to start another new education year.

That is a sweet memory we never forget. At that time, we did not know and never thought how much money that our parents spent for our school fees and other things we needed for school. As time goes by, we can now see the reality of life which is not always as easy as our childhood.

A period of education year has ended and the new education year will start soon. Ideally, this is the chance for all people to improve their knowledge. However, das sein and das sollen not identical for all times. In fact, many people could not have the benefit of this. Until now, a big number of Indonesian citizens are uneducated not only in remote areas but also in big cities like Jakarta and Bandung.

In 2003, 6.025.940 people in Central Java, more than 20 percent of total population, did not finish their primary school. In Banjar, Ciamis, West Java, in the year 2004, more than 50 percent only finished their primary school. This is the truth that we can’t deny and should be our concern.

There are a lot of reasons behind this problem. High cost of education becomes the main reason. Nowadays, there are programs of free school in some areas in Indonesia. In West Jakarta, a primary school already has this program. Some schools in Surabaya and other areas in Indonesia also have this program. Unfortunately, that’s not enough to fulfill the needs of education for all Indonesian citizens. Read the Full Article!

Thanks to Al Gore and other environmentalists the concern of global warming is rapidly growing throughout the world, mostly in the West. In America, for example, people talk this issue every day. At bookstores people are reading books and magazines giving them instructions how to be green and be part of a global movement to save the earth.

As a response to public awareness, industries are helping their customers to become greener and greener. Supermarkets are stocking their shelves with organic and eco-friendly products. Whole Foods Market, the world’s leading retailer of natural and organic food, is growing fast by giving its customers a promise that the food they buy will help saving the earth.

Despite the fact that U.S. government is still unwilling to sign the Kyoto Protocol, every day new organic products are filling supermarkets’ stock lists in America. Now they have organic apple, organic bread, organic burgers, organic lipstick, and a bunch of other organic products.

Someone once told me that organic chicken tastes better than the regular chicken. I got confused and complained, “How could that be?” She explained that an organic chicken is fed only with organic grains, never given any antibiotics and hormones, and raised in a stress-free environment. Now I know that a happy chicken tastes better. I later added, “We have that kind of chicken in our country too, it’s called ayam kampung.” Keep Reading and Let’s Save the Earth!

This article was published by The Jakarta Post on February 12, 2008.

A recent statement by Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, a much respected, loved and admired leading ulema and a former president of Indonesia, who said he is a descendant of princess Champa, whose son Tan Eng Hwan was known by his given Indonesian aristocrat name Raden Fatah, is a breath of fresh air for all people of Chinese descent in Indonesia, and those who believe in a multicultural society.

For once, a strong and charismatic religious leader of the majority has unabashedly and courageously broken the silence by being openly pluralistic and multiculturalistic. Gus Dur has set an example that being ethnic Chinese is not something to be embarrassed about nor to be feared; instead, it is to be acknowledged wholeheartedly.

Like Gus Dur, Barack Obama, a strong American politician who is on his way to becoming the first president of African descent, has also embraced his ethnicity with a lot of grace and composure. So has Eric Liu, a strong columnist, journalist, political analyst and a member of one of the most admired think tanks in Washington DC, who wrote the best-selling memoir The Accidental Asian. A rare personality of militant toughness and philosophical softness, Indonesian Army (Ret.) Brig. Gen. Tedy Jusuf is another exemplary case of a strong person with a multiculturalistic perspective.

While Gus Dur has probably lived his whole life not as a “typical” person of Chinese ethnicity in Indonesia, Obama, who has mixed blood of American Caucasian and native African, has consciously chosen to live in a black neighborhood in a Chicago suburb and to adopt the lifestyle of most African-Americans.

Liu, an American born whose parents were immigrants from Taiwan, has also consciously chosen to declare himself a Chinese, as stated in his memoir in bold letters.

Cited from his book, “Chinese civilization as transmitted to the Overseas Chinese depends, ultimately, on consent rather than descent. Chineseness isn’t a mythical, more authentic way of being; it is just a decision to act Chinese.” Read the full article

This article was published by The Jakarta Post on March 5, 2008. Read the article on The Jakarta Post, here.

This is the country where I was born. This is the land where I spent most of my childhood and early adult life. This is the place where I first learned how to cry and this is also the place where I learned how beautiful it was to laugh. This is God’s beautiful paradise and it is called Indonesia.

I’m not sure if I have the right to claim myself an Indonesian. What are the qualifications to be called Indonesian? I don’t live in Indonesia at the moment, does that fact make me unqualified for such title? Look at my proud name, it doesn’t sound like an Indonesian name. But, I do speak Bahasa fluently. I do love to eat rendang and sop buntut. I do have Indonesian friends who shared the pain and joy in my past. So, can I call myself an Indonesian?

But if an Indonesian is simply someone who lives in Indonesia then I should be called more than just a regular Indonesian because I have lived in various places in the country. I was born in Jakarta but soon my family moved to Cirebon. After that, I had the opportunity to live in more cities like Dumai in Riau, Malang in East Java, Cimahi in West Java, Semarang in Central Java, and Kebumen in Central Java. In Malang I first learned how to speak Bahasa Jawa, an ability that so I’m proud of. And after spending three years abroad I came back to Indonesia and spent six years in Jakarta.

Now, I have been living in Washington, D.C. for more than 16 months. And if you ask me whether or not I enyoy living in this country with no doubt I will say that I have so much fun. What’s better than living in America in this 21^st century? What’s better than living in a country where you don’t have to worry to find a tukang ojek or warung rokok every time you try to locate an address? Just go to Google Map or Map Quest on the internet and get the exact directions of the place that you want to go to. And if you are too lazy to do that you can get yourself a GPS for less than $500 that you can put on your car dashboard and it will tell you when to turn right or left. I mean, what’s better than living in a country where ordering a pizza can be done on the screen of your computer? Read the full article

This article was published by The Jakarta Post on December 21, 2007.

As a layperson who was born and raised in one of the most diverse countries in the world with one dominant religion, and who eventually came to reside in a secular multiculturalistic country, I have come to learn a lot about how to respect and accept others who are different, either by choice or not. It is interesting to note the various facets of interreligious and multiculturalistic relationships in a world that is getting boundary-less, as they are key to a better tomorrow for all.

To be interreligiously literate requires one simple gesture: intellect-based acceptance, not merely tolerance. Acceptance is crucial because it brings forth the best in every human being, while tolerance may come with some reservations to living in peaceful coexistence.

Historically speaking, the fundamental notions of both Indonesia and the United States were based on virtues. And most good virtues, if not all, can be found in most religious and spiritual teachings.

As human beings, we possess the so-called “multiple intelligences”, borrowing Howard Gardner’s term. And for us to comprehend the world around us, including religious and spiritual teachings, we use some, if not all, of our eleven intelligences.

They are linguistic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, spatial intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, musical intelligence, naturalistic intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, spiritual intelligence, existential intelligence, and moral intelligence.

In a nutshell, there are two types of intelligence: one that comes from the head (mind) and one that comes from heart (feeling or emotion-based). Ideally, faith itself should be based on mind and heart, as stated by Tariq Ramadan, an Islamic scholar, in “In the Footsteps of the Prophet”. Read the full article