Archive

Author Archive

Sajak: Kita 2012?

December 31, 2011 Leave a comment

sejuta masalah
berbicara minta jawaban
sejuta derita
menjerit minta pengakhiran

kekuasaan diatas
membawa celaka!
ya, sudah tahu itu
terus gimana kalau begitu?

kebolongan
bergema rhetorika
sunyi
kosong bunyi

Categories: Poems

SAJAK: Pejalanan Meninggalkan Jakarta pakai Taksama Pagi

December 15, 2011 1 comment

Sepanjang keluar dari Jakarta sumpek-sumpek rumah di pinggir rel
Realitas sudah menjadikan lingkungkan tak lebih dari sebuah sel
Kemiskinan bekerja sebagai sipir yang menjaga ketat
Kereta api lewat menuju tempat yang lebih indah, hati hanya tambah kesumat.

Categories: Poems

Professor James Peacock’s Review of “Unfinished Nation: Indonesia Before and After Suharto” from JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY ASIA

December 13, 2011 Leave a comment

Reproduced from Journal of Contemporary Asia, Volume 41, Issue 3, 2011

Review by Prof James Peacock, University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill).

Max Lane (London: Verso, 2008)
Unfinished Nation: Indonesia Before and After Suharto, by Australian researcher and activist Max Lane, is excellent in many dimensions. It offers a compact yet comprehensive overview of Indonesia since independence. It brings to light little known information while expertly reviewing the important basics. It is a great read; I bought my copy in England and read it non-stop back to the USA. Max Lane is an excellent writer, as one would expect from one of the world’s best translators of Indonesian; he is known as the translator of the trilogy novel by Indonesia’s finest twentieth-century writer, Pramoedya Ananta Toer. For those who do not know Indonesia and for those who do, this is a superb book.
Categories: Indonesian Politics

ARTICLE: Indonesia: Strikes and protests as discontent rises – by Max Lane

December 11, 2011 Leave a comment

The simmering discontent throughout Indonesia regularly overflowed throughout October and November. There were student protests against the Yudhoyono government, attacking corruption, economic injustice and political manipulation of local government, in cities including Jakarta, Jogjakarta, Cirebon, Samarinda (in Borneo), Makassar, Surabaya and Kediri.

There were also demonstrations in Papua, after an incident in which police disbanded a political meeting in Jayapura, killing at least six people. Hundreds of others were arrested, ordered to strip to their shorts and made to squat in the sun for a long period. Days later demonstrations demanded a referendum on the region’s status, including an option for independence.

Categories: Indonesian Politics

ARTIKEL: Mencari Jalan Membangun Harapan – Mengenang Sondang Hutagalung BY Max Lane

December 11, 2011 3 comments

Pada Desember 10, seorang lelaki berumur 22 bernama Sondang Hutagalung meninggal dunia akibat 98% dari tubuh terbakar. Sulit membayangkan rasa sakit yang dideritakannya selama melawan maut di rumah sakit.  Yang lain daripada yang lain, lelaki muda ini tidak kebakar dalam sebuah kecelakaan tetapi membakar diri.

Dia tidak meninggalkan sebuah surat yang menjelaskan niatnya dia  tentang tindakan mengambil nyawanya sendiri dengan cara yang penuh penderitaan ini. Mungkin Sondang  mau menunjukkan rasa cemasnya yang dalam bahwa sebagian besar rakyat Indonesia masih menderita kemiskinan. Sondang aktif di organisasi mahasiswa Himpunan Advokasi-Study Marhaenis Muda untuk Rakyat dan Bangsa Indonesia (Hammurabi). Dia juga memimpin komunitas Sahabat Munir. Dia membakar diri di depan Istana Kepresidenan, mungkin ingin mengatakan presiden Yudhoyono sebagai kepala pemerintahan yang  “gagal mensejahterakan rakyat.”  Mungkin juga dia terinspirasi oleh kasus seorang pedagang kaki lima Tunisia (Marhaen Tunisia) yang melakukan hal yang sama yang kemudian memicu pemberontakan oposisi di negeri tersebut, sehingga Presidennya jatuh.

Bisa saja terjadi – dan memang sudah terjadi – debat atau diskusi tentang benar atau salahnya tindaknya Sondang ini. Tetapi mengingat rekor kegiatan Sondang, minimal kita harus menghormati dia dan mengenangnya sebagai orang yang sanggup mengorbankan nyawanya dan menderitakan kesakitan fisik yang luar biasa dalam harapan bahwa ini akan berguna buat rakyat Indonesia.

Karena itu aku salut pada saudara Sondang, mahasiswa Universitas Bung Karno  yang pernah gerak buat kaum marhaen dan korban pelanggaran HAM. Saya membaca juga bahwa dia pernah juga terlibat aktivitas solidaritas dengan rakyat Papua korban kekerasan. Sekali lagi salut!

Dinamika Menghadapi Kegagalan Mensejahteraan Rakyat

 Di Morocco kasus orang membakar diri memicu sebuah pemberontakan oposisi yang massif. Di Indonesia belum jelas sepenuhnya bagaimana nanti dampak daripada tindakan Sondang. Teman-teman mahasiswanya dari UBK sudah mengaraknya ramai-ramai ke kuburan. Ada versi bahwa lagu DARAH JUANG yang didedikasikan ke Sondang. Universitas mengangkatnya dengan pemberian gelar kehormatan. Mahasiswa-mahasiwa menyatakan tekad untuk meneruskan perjuangannya Sondang melawan pimpinan hedonis.  Simpati sangat meluas, meski juga ada yang mempertanyakan tindakannya sebagai perbuatan politik. Kita belum tahu sepenuhnya bagaimana warisan perbuatan dia ke depan. Read more…

Categories: Indonesian Politics Tags:

POEM?: A JAKARTA MEMORY FROM 42 years ago – by Max Lane

December 10, 2011 1 comment

We were talking about food last night and a memory came back to me – for the umpteenth time.

Narrow and dark and most of all hot. If I ended up at a back table, 3 or 4 metres inside, the sweat would pour from forehead and my hair would be wet enough to comb again in just 20 seconds. And the prickly heat itchiness would invade. Better to get a table at front, and visit only at night. So narrow, maybe 2 or 3 metres, and even narrower at the front – maybe one metre or 1.5 metres. It was narrower at the front because half the width was taken up with the kitchen. Sitting at the front one was almost being on the footpath. Sabang Street, in central Jakarta, in 1969 was a fun street. It was almost all restaurants, cafes and other eateries, with a row of Chinese owned general stores – also selling smuggled gin – and another row of photocopy shops, so needed for all the documents necessary for almost every activity in Indonesia.

Read more…

Categories: Musings, Poems

SAJAK: MALL – sekali lagi

December 10, 2011 2 comments

Mall!
Mewah;
Etalase
Selera;
Tenagaku
disewa;
Kantong
Kecewa;
sistem,
tercela.

Categories: Poems

POEM: “We are!”

December 9, 2011 Leave a comment

“We”
“We are the 99%”
A declaration of a tiny few, 100 or 1,000 or 10,000
In this park or on that street corner,
under baton blows, or faces painted with capsicum sting,
or laughing or shouting in discussions.
Just a few “we”.

A creative “we”
Declaring is beginning
A “we” on the offensive demanding to exist
Constituting itself in activity
Straining to embrace the whole in its journey
“We are the 99%!” searches for its maps.

Categories: Poems

ARTICLE: Why Occupy is so politically explosive – by Max Lane

December 8, 2011 1 comment

It has been more than two months since the Occupy Wall Street actions began in New York. The occupation in Zuccotti Park ended after the New York City government mobilised the police for a middle of the night raid. However, the political activity that it set in motion in the United States has not stopped. Not only have occupations and pro-Occupy demonstrations and pickets taken place throughout the US in hundreds of locations, but large mobilisations and even strikes, such as that in Oakland, California, have been possible. These have usually been in defence of the “right to occupy” in the face of police attacks.

Read more…

Categories: Political commentary

SAJAK: MALL

December 8, 2011 Leave a comment

Gua menelan kita
Kacau ribet lalulintas luar hilang lenyap
Nikmat tergantung kantong
Musik rekaman tidak bisa menghilangkan jiwa senyap

Categories: Poems
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 49 other followers