Annuqayah and the Environmental Concern

This video is an example of environmental program in Annuqayah islamic boarding school (Pesantren Annuqayah) Guluk-Guluk, Madura, East Java. Indonesia.

Mrs. Hasbiyah, as you’ve seen in the video, has been involving with this program since 2002 when she was a student (santri) in Annuqayah. Now she is a leader of local community (Sumber Makmur) that actively conserve, develop, produce, and promote the use of herbal medicine particularly in her nighbourhood. Basically, she has a weekly informal meeting with the community member (the member is about fourty women), and initially they pray together, recite the Qur’an, and learn about religious teaching. Beside that, the community produce herbal medicine and local food.

Through this traditionally typical local community in Madura, she has made an important effort and contribution to change the way of people think about health, medicinal plant that recently tend to be abandoned by the young generation in Madura, and also about the importance of caring and preserving the biodiversity in the environment to improve the quality of life.

This kind of program has been initiated and assisted by Annuqayah Community Service Bureau (Biro Pengabdian Masyarakat Pondok Pesantren Annuqayah) since its foundation in 1979. The foundation of this bureau affirm the religious orientation of the religious leader (kiai) in Annuqayah. They believe that religion is not only deal with ritual and eschatological things but also must have a contribution to concrete situation of the people. To do so, in the pesantren, it is not enough for students to learn only religious knowledge. Not all the students in the pesantren are expected to become a kiai (religious leader). The most important goal of religious based education in pesantren is that after they are graduated, the students could make a contribution, or give assistance and service to the people based on religious values.

In the first years after it was founded, the bureau has several program, such as reforestation and encouraging people to plant trees in their yard (Guluk-Guluk, Madura is a barren area, the soil is dominantly lime store rock), helping people to have access to clean water, and other program to improve the economy of the people. The idea and the implementation of these programs mainly take advantage of the local community that routinely carried out a meeting. The kiai, the religious leader of the typical local community, facilitate a discussion and propose the idea of the environmental project.

Thanks to hard work and participation of the community, in 1981 Pesantren Annuqayah received the prestigious Kalpataru environmental award from the Ministry of Environment Republic of Indonesia for reforestation program.

The program of the Bureau since its foundation has been developed based on the values of participation and cooperation. Through the program, the bureau tries to encourage people autonomy to improve the quality of life. But the most important message of the program is that religion should play a role to a better world and environment.

In the recent time, the program to promote and nurture environmental awareness in Pesantren Annuqayah not only carried out by the bureau. Environmental awareness now is also become one of the main focus in the boarding and formal education in Pesantren Annuqayah. Madrasah/schools in the pesantren now have a strong attention to environmental program and try to respond to contemporary challenge of environmental problem. One of the example is the attention to reduce the plastic waste in the school neighbourhood and also in the boarding. The school and the boarding make a strict rule to control the plastic waste.

The other important thing to be underlined is that the effort to raise environmental awareness in Pesantren Annuqayah also depends on the availability of exemplary figure that consistently practice the ecogreen life style in the daily life. Some figures of kiai in Pesantren Annuqayah actively promote the environmental awareness through their practice.


Short speech at Eco-Islam Conference, Karachi, 23 November 2019.

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An Orientation to Applied Ethics

Erasmus Mundus Masters Course in Applied Ethics would begin on September 1st with Introduction Days in Linköping University, Sweden. Unfortunately, I will miss this Introduction Days. But the MAE Consortium have sent a book for me, Perspectives on Applied Ethics (Göran Collste, ed.). I received the book on Monday, July 5th. They want me to have read the book before I arrive in Europe. The book contains seven articles about applied ethics written by professors and lecturers of this program and would be a preliminary papers on the Introduction Days that will be held before the Masters Course begin.

Those articles explore various themes on applied ethics, reflecting the wide scope of applied ethics and its place in the discourse of philosophy. From the first page, I can feel that this book is a kind of academic book. But the most important thing, this book really gave me a thought-provoking warming up before the course is kicked off. This book inducted me to the interesting discussion on applied ethics.

The first essay, written by Bo Petersson (Professor of Philosophy, Linköping University), invited me to a deep and radical reflection about the ethics. Professor Petersson examined his reflection with critical reviews and analysis on the essay of Paul van Tongeren, “On the Beginning of Ethics” (in G. De Stexhe & J. Verstraeten (eds.), 2000, Matter of Breath, Foundations for Professional Ethics, Leuven: Peeters). In fact, I couldn't read the original and complete version of this essay—I don't have access to the book. But it's not a problem. I could still follow the clear explanations.

The essay of van Tongeren itself actually is an analysis of Book I of Plato's Republic about the birth of ethics. And Petersson emphasized and analyzed van Tongeren's with some critical reflections. I got, at least, three important points from this chapter. First, about the birth of ethics. Reflecting on Plato's text, Petersson underlined that there was a moment when ethics was born. By ethics, it means ethical reflection both meaning reflection within ethics and reflection about ethics (meta-ethics). There is such situation when ethical reflection doesn't needed. Van Tongeren mentioned about archaic period, it's about period before 600 BC, when society and the rules were static and they were not questioned.

In the classical period, from 600 BC to 300 BC, the static society breaks up. Through wars and expanding trade, people became aware of other cultures and other habits and systems of evaluation. On this intense interaction of people, the meaning of the moral concepts were questioned, and this inquiry constitutes the beginning of ethics. The breaking up event of this socio-cultural situation might be started in the level of individual.

I have two important questions on this point: first, is there such a group of people right now living in a social conditions when people had a fixed place within a society and they don't need ethical reflection? Second, what is the feature of fundamental changes in society that make the ethical reflections being important?
The second point of this article is about the threat to ethics. Relativism and traditionalism threaten ethical reflections with different strategies. Both relativism and traditionalism render ethical inquiries as an activity (inquire, ask) meaningless. Relativism believes that there are no true and definitive answers to meta-ethical questions, and traditionalism believes that the authorities know the answers to meta-ethical questions and we also know them through the authorities. So, the threat of ethics is such situation that make the reflections useless.

Just like my second question on the first point, we also could explore this second point criticizing the situation when the ethical reflections are necessary.

The last point of this article is about the deep meaning of ethics itself. If our inquiry leads us to an answer which we have all reasons to believe to be true, that would mean the end of our inquiry. Is the ethics, as an activity, would be ended on this point? I think that this point, once again, examine our understanding of ethics and ethical reflection. In my mind, maybe this is an entry point to applied ethics. Ethics, and ethical reflection, have strong relation to the practices in our every day life. There will be an intense interaction between moral concepts and our understanding to factual life. On this point, I feel that Professor Petersson have invited us to the real field of challenging applied ethics.

The second article by Professor Göran Collste (Linköping University), the MAE Programme Coordinator, carried on the access to applied ethics by giving us clear and brief description about applied and professional ethics. Three point was emphasized concerning the rise of applied ethics: wide spread of secularization characterized by moral autonomy of individual, new moral problems facing the society due to new technical possibilities, and philosophical response to a new social situation. Professor Collste wrote that applied ethics appeared when ethics itself was in decline—that was in the 1960. Applied ethics as the art of reflecting in moral dilemmas and moral problems indicate a turn from descriptive ethics to normative ethics. I remembered, Kees Bertens mentioned applied ethics as a contemporary development of normative ethics in his book, Etika (Gramedia, Jakarta, 2002).

Professor Collste asserted that applied ethics not just the application of ethics to special arenas of human activity. It implies interplay between theory and practice, between experience and reflection and between intuitions and principles. To describe this in detailed explanation, Professor Collste tried to discuss about early born babies, so called neonates, using applied ethics framework, particularly reflective equilibrium of John Rawls' theory as a method. In this example, Professor Collste clarified how this method works: structuring argumentation in applied ethics, for decision making, or for justification.

Second part of the article explained about the professional ethics, a moral reflection in work that has its basis in the practice of a profession. Professional ethics contains two parts: the common goal of the profession, and rules for behaviour. It function is as a guide to the professionals facing difficult moral decision and as a reference for those professionals who want to act fairly.

I found something interesting on this part of the article, especially concerning my recent activities as a teacher in a rural school religious communities. The complex of crisis haunted in my contemporary social condition of my country has also seen as a failure of system of education. Educational institution have failed to response the challenge of the age so we only have the leader with egoistic and narrow vision, people has a minimum solidarity toward poor people, and so on. Teacher, as a key actor on educational institution, has a weak and peripheral vision on his profession. It seems that the guide for their activities now is not a clear vision of their noble profession.

I anxiously reflect this point based on my experiences. If the ethics itself always be connected with concrete moral dilemmas, now I feel that the moral dilemmas could be not only as “concrete” or explicit one. The significance of professional ethics might be clear in the long term and broader context.

The Third article, “Ethical Pluralism” by May Thorseth (NTNU), seems to give additional explanation about threat to ethics as Professor Petersson explained, focusing on relativism. Thorseth made clear why relativism epistemologically and morally problematic. As we know, moral relativism recognized that we get a plurality of different standard of justice. Moral claims are true only relative to some standard of framework. So, moral relativism has the lack of common standards for judging between different cultures. Hence, moral relativism allow for the rise of two opposite views of the same action.

If we back to the explanation of Professor Petersson, we underline that this situation make the ethics as activity has no significance.

I think the key problem of moral relativism concerns with different moral values and judgments in different society and culture. Thorseth then discussed how we considered the differences. Thorseth differentiated moral relativism and value pluralism. Value pluralism is the root of ethical pluralism as a third alternative between relativism and absolutism—another threat of ethics. Value pluralism recognizes the differences, respects other moral values, but still makes an appeal to some moral claims. Value pluralism leaves open the possibility to interfere another moral system when it is in fact not good. In this context, tolerance and respect was put on positive meaning. Abstaining from substantive judgment could be a kind of moral relativism.

The next chapter written by Marcel Verweij (Utrecht University), “Moral Principles and Justification in Applied Ethics”. In this article, Verweij explored the roles of principles in moral theory in applied ethics. The important conclusion in this article is: that it is a misunderstanding of moral principles and ethical theory to see principles as devices designed for answering moral problems. There must be a great effort to do to achieve moral judgments—not only by basing a principle upon a particular moral case.

Moral principles are to much general or abstract to provide practical guidance in decision making. In addition, a different principle could point to another directions of moral stand. Verweij tried to place the moral principles in a proportional role. Moreover, Verweij implied that applied ethics and ethical reflection will be a challenging and complex enterprise. The main feature of philosophical way of thinking should be invited to help us to achieve better result. So, it is obvious that in applied ethics, interpretation and critical thinking also have a great importance to be maintained.

If the first four chapters of this book give a general and rather theoretical perspectives on applied ethics, the last three chapters focused on particular concern of applied ethics. The article of Professor Frans W.A. Brom (Wageningen University) highlights the interplay of concrete legislation and public morality based on the case of animal protection legislation in the Netherlands. Professor Brom put forward the expressive-communicative function of legislation, that constitutes an audience in society. Individuals in society become an audience because they share a certain language. The legal framework pre-structures the moral discussion and moral deliberation.

Professor Anders Nordgren (Linköping University) wrote about the interdependence of ethics and science. One important idea explored here is about moral responsibility of scientist, and Nordgren put forward three aspects of this: responsibility “of”, “to”, and “for”. Who is responsible in science? To whom and to what are scientists responsible? For what are scientists responsible? Nordgren also asserted that scientists responsible for the application of the science as well.

The last chapter, written by Rune Nydal (NTNU), is about the social contract between science and society. The discussion on this chapter focuses on the interaction between epistemic aspect and ethical-political aspect on the development of science. Philosophical discourse, mainly on applied ethics, had tried to clarify the conditions for true scientific activity on the one hand and true political activity on the other hand. Nydal asserted that education has an important role to enforce and adjust the ideals of this social contract.

Reading this book with an in-depth approach will give the reader an orientation to applied ethics as a new developing discipline in philosophy. Our runaway world affected the relation and interaction of people, and it aroused new question on various problem of ethics—not only about relation between people, but also with animal and nature.

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The Existence of Woman in the Family: Ethical Perspective of Simone de Beauvoir

My thesis at Faculty of Philosophy Gadjah Mada University Yogyakarta Indonesia is a library research deals with “The Existence of Woman in the Family: Ethical Perspective of Simone de Beauvoir” (2007). Its background is based on the concern about the oppression to woman in the family. Woman is treated without humanity, has no freedom to transcend; and all of this perceived as natural and usual. Meanwhile, philosophy has not much concern and interest to examine this problem, which has important ethics implications.

This research is devoted to trace the answer of the following questions: How Simone de Beauvoir criticizes the problem of woman’s existence in the family from ethical and philosophical perspective? What are the relevance and the contextual meaning of her critics? This research concentrates particularly on two important works of Beauvoir, The Second Sex and The Ethics of Ambiguity. This research stand on feminism as a theoretical frame—or more specifically, woman perspective. This means that the problems which explored viewed from the standpoint and main purpose to make the interest and voices of woman to be clear and evident. This theoretical perspective assumes that all human being, in the level of individual and society, man and woman, have the same moral obligation that is to create together an unconstrained space in order to make all individual get their dignity as human being.

This research concludes two important things. First, patriarchal civilization had violated the ethical meaning of the family as a medium to combine two independent existences, so that woman cannot bring the true meaning of her freedom, her existence, and her transcendence into reality. Man and the most member of community considered woman only in term of reproductive function. They simplified woman only as a body. As a result, woman trapped in the immanence, and she tends to hide in the comfort of “protection” of man and let her transcendence thrown away by her bad faith (mauvaise foi).

Beauvoir give an ethical frame should be nourished in the family, namely partnership relation based on friendship and generosity, to encourage the realization of freedom of individual. Based on the ethics of ambiguity, Beauvoir argued that we must also consider the other as the extension of our endeavour to generate our freedom—this is the difference between Beauvoir and Sartre, while Sartre recognized relation with the other as inherently conflictual. The partnership should be provided to promote and restore the ethical meaning of the family and to flourish the manifestation of woman’s freedom in the family. To put it simply, we must bring the ethical meaning of the family back by wiping the patriarchal paradigm and attitude in society with constant actions. Actually, in my opinion, this effort will be strategic if it begins from the realm of family itself. But, of course, this will be a challenging situation to manage the ambiguity between man and woman in the family.

The second conclusion relates to the contextual meaning of Beauvoir’s ethical perspectives. In the contemporary situation, ethical critics and ethical frame of Beauvoir about the existence of woman in the family find its important and contextual meaning in the context of globalization, capitalism, and consumerism. After more than fifty years from the publication of The Second Sex, we can assert that the condition of woman is generally better. Many women have good position in public area and our society. Many women in the family also achieve financial independence, so they have spacious and broader opportunity to engender the meaning of freedom and transcendence.

But global order of the new world creates a new challenge to the woman’s freedom. Globalization, capitalism, and consumerism, have decreased the positive values endorsed by feminism, and women face a serious problem again concerning her freedom. If patriarchal culture had defined the body of woman in the frame of function of reproduction, then now we find that the body of woman has to fight for the myth of beauty. The meaning of freedom tends to be superficial, in a sense that it reduces the core meaning of freedom, that freedom must be a project of transcendence and doesn’t mean submission to the logic of capitalism. This situation is also a new threat for the essential meaning of freedom and the ethical meaning of the family. In this context, the ethical perspectives of Beauvoir have its vital significance.

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Welcome to Erasmus Mundus Masters Course in Applied Ethics

My interest to apply Erasmus Mundus Masters Course in Applied Ethics based on my reflection after I had graduated from Faculty of Philosophy Gadjah Mada University Yogyakarta and involved with some projects in Annuqayah (Islamic boarding) in Sumenep, East Java, Indonesia.

I tried to develop a program, let's say, Course of Ethics to introduce and promote the students with a little bit radical-philosophical insight concerning socio-cultural phenomena in their interaction with other people from different culture in this cosmopolitan and globalized world. I do believe that socio-cultural challenges in our time are so complex, and we need better solutions and strategies to prepare our new generation facing the future. I suppose that strengthening their moral perspective could be an entry point to build their character.

Besides promoting basic concepts of ethics, I also involved in applied ethics projects in a community in the school where I teach. This community particularly consists of students from high school level that have an environmental awareness. Main activities of this community intended to promote and foster the environmental values in the school community and society. Actually, for Annuqayah in general, environmental issues are not a new concern, because in 1981 Annuqayah had achieved “Kalpataru” award from the Ministry of Environmental Affairs of Republic of Indonesia. So, my focus to encourage and keep the green values in existence based on philosophical and ethical approaches aimed to support and sustain those values with new persuasive methods.

After two years I have been engaging with these projects, it seems to me that I need to enhance and pursue advanced studies in applied ethics. By applying for Erasmus Mundus Masters Course in Applied Ethics offered by the MAE Consortium, sponsored by European Commission, I do hope to strengthen theories and discourses on applied ethics. After browsing through the MAE Consortium homepage, I found that syllabus offered by the course is very fascinating.

Because of the scarcity of authorities and references of applied ethics in Indonesia, I do believe that the program will give a significant contribution not only for my projects but also for my institution and my country. In addition, I am sure by joining this program I can learn much from various resources provided in the three partner institutions of ethics (the MAE Consortium). It would also be a valuable opportunity to meet and discuss with multi-disciplinary professors, fellow scholars, and students around the world when I involved as fellow of this program.

I sent my application to the MAE Consortium in the first week of January 2009. Information about the admission result came to me by email from the Consortium on the 1st April. The MAE Consortium by its selection committee has decided to nominate me for an Erasmus Mundus Scholarship. But the final decision about the scholarship was in the European Commission. On the afternoon of 1st May 2009, I had a surprising email congratulating for my success obtaining this Erasmus Mundus scholarship. Thanks God!

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The Spirit of Ting Ting Jahe

For a long time, I didn’t eat this candy: Ting Ting Jahe. Actually, about a year ago, I eat this candy when I acrossed Madura strait by ferry. But the candy was not the original Ting Ting Jahe—it was not my childhood candy. I saved the piece of paper wrapping around the candy.

I never had a dream to meet and eat this memorable candy again that morning. It was in Malang, in an environmental education workshop held by British Council, when Ibu Stien Matakupan brought this candy and offered me. Along with Pak Suryo Wardhoyo, I enjoyed eating this candy that morning. What a nice surprise!

Enjoying that candy, I had a little discussion with Ibu Stien and Pak Suryo about this candy. I showed them the wrapping of another Ting Ting Jahe saved on my wallet, and I tried to compare it with the “original” one.
The original Ting Ting Jahe has a register at the National Agency of Drug and Food Control Republic of Indonesia. In the package, it is written: “FOR INDONESIAN MARKET ONLY”. From this text, I believe that this candy is an export commodity. I had found the real answer when I browsed internet yesterday, and I found this candy sold in Amazon.com. Yes, it is this Ting Ting Jahe, produced by PT Sindu Amritha Pasuruan.

From another source, I got one more important information about this candy. According to John Joseph Stockdale, an English traveler, on his book, Island of Java, it is mentioned that on 1778 the Dutchman sent this candy to Europe—about five thousand kilogram! European people like this candy so much.

Most important thing of this candy is about four different languages written on its package: Indonesian, Arabic, Javanese, and Dutch. For me, this mean that this candy is a kind of symbol of a peaceful multicultural heritage of our long-historical interaction between various ethnic groups in Nusantara. It seems to be a product of our local wisdom.

I am so impressed with the fact that this herbal candy could survive until now. I hope our people could give good appreciation for this bonbon—and maybe the spirit of its history and survival.

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Against Culture of Fear

Meicky Shoreamanis Panggabean, Keberanian Bernama Munir: Mengenal Sisi-Sisi Personal Munir, Mizan Pustaka, Bandung, December 2008, 290 pages


Military forces had significant role during Indonesia New Order regime. But their roles tend to be negative. Thirty years in the course of the regime, military forces didn’t act as the guard of national defence. They served the regime to secure its power and protect its policies from people’s resistance. In this context, we can easily understand that according to Louis Althusser military forces are a part of Repressive State Apparatus.

In the realm of New Order regime, anyone who opposed government policy will be stigmatized as an extreme left/right-winger, betrayer of Pancasila, communist, or anything else and the military forces, in the name of national stability, will use their authority to fight down the opposition movement in any way they want.

As a result, New Order regime established the culture of fear among the citizen. People were afraid of expressing their opinion and critics to the government. Mass media applied self-censorships to ensure sustainability of their business.

This book recounts a fascinating story about Munir, the defender of human rights in Indonesia. Panggabean, the writer of this book, focused his narration to the bravery of Munir to reveal the human rights violation carried out by state apparatus, especially military forces. She explored personal aspects of Munir to catch the spirit of his life.

Munir Said Thalib, born in 1965, first came to public prominence when he founded the human rights organization KontraS (Commission for Disappearances and Victims of Violence) on March 20, 1998, two months before the resignation of Soeharto. KontraS engaged intensely on advocating the victims of politics of violence. Between late 1997 and early 1998, in the twilight of Soeharto regime, twenty three pro-reformation activists were abducted, including Wiji Thukul, and KontraS fight for exposing this sensitive case into public sphere.

Based on this specific concern, Munir with KontraS gradually broke down the culture of fear and political silence among people. Munir emphasized that Indonesian people were not critical of the authoritarianism of the regime because of this culture. Munir encouraged people to speak up against oppression of the regime. Besides advocating the victims, Munir used various ways to revitalize spirit of the fight towards despotism and political violence. He set billboards contained the list of the victim of political disappearances on the strategic places to remind people about the violence.

Panggabean, who had worked as a volunteer in KontraS Munir in 1998, gave us several good pages of her interview with Munir, when Munir told about a mother of a victim of political disappearances, Mrs. Tuti Koto, which was afraid to speak out when her son, Yani Afri, was disappeared on July 1997. When Tuti reported the case to KontraS, Munir helped her to speak up the case, until she was brave to give a public speech in front of the armies. Munir underlined that this was a great achievement in the context of culture of political silence.

Fighting the culture of fear actually wasn’t a new activity of Munir. When involved on the case of Marsinah murder in 1994, we can saw Munir’s position at that time which showed his strong character to confront the power and pressure of military. He also involved in advocating the victims of Priok in 1984 and Lampung in 1989 and others, the cases that have strong connection with military. For his courage and dedication in fighting for human rights and the civilian control of the military in Indonesia, Munir received prestigious Human Rights Livelihood Award in 2000 from Sweden.

Fighting spirit on what Munir have done to fight the culture of fear maybe was a result of long education started in his family. Panggabean described detailed narration about Munir’s neighbourhood where he had grown up: discipline and confident character of his mother, his interaction in the market when he was a youngster and must help to earn his family with his brothers to live on, his experiences and his interactions with his friends, etc. One of his impressive experiences is when Munir was a junior high school student reported a murder of his neighbor in Batu Malang to the police. That was his early struggle for his own fear and maybe also his initial encounter with the meaning of justice and humanity in the context of social life.

This book has an important meaning in the context of Indonesia at this time, at least in two perspectives. First, as we know, the death of Munir, after more than four years, still became a mystery, and disclosure of this case is a must as an effort to sustain the fight of Munir itself against culture of fear and political violence. This book reminds us about our duty to insist revelation and subsequent investigation of this case and to educate people to bravely fight oppression and violence. Second, this book is an inspiring treasure to keep the spirit of Munir in existence, which is his courage, integrity, enthusiasm, and commitment to humanity. Panggabean successfully revived these spirits with his a remarkable account on Munir’s everyday life.

Related link:

>> Catatan Kehilangan dari Wafatnya Munir

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Pseudo-Perfection

This week I had two different experiences of perfection. First, it happen when I picked up my passport at Immigration Office of Surabaya.

One of my first impression when I dealt with process of making passport at that crowded office, I think about perfection. I had a little trouble with my official name. On my all official documents (document of identification, birth certificate, etc), my name spelled as “M Mushthafa”. The officer at the registration division asked me to write a statement to clarify the abbreviation of “M” on my name. He said that actually no abbreviation accepted in all official documents. I think that this regulation is right and good. This regulation points up the system of perfection that everybody registered by his full name. But I wondered why the officer at the Civil Registration Office and at school didn’t apply this regulation? Maybe this is a new regulation—maybe.

According to this regulation, I had to change my official name for my passport. So, I wrote a formal statement explaining that “M” in my official document means “Muhammad”.

A week later, when I went to the Immigration Office to an interview session, I found that my name written as “Mohammad Mushthafa” on a new typed form of application. After that session, I reminded the officer about my true spelled name consistent with the statement that I had written before. Then, the officer wrote a notice on my form of application about my true spelled name. When I had left the office, I wondered: did the officer read my statement—the statement that I wrote after the officer told me about the regulation?

I conclude that the system of perfection tried to be established by this regulation at this office has no function when I picked up my passport yesterday. In my passport, my full name spelled: “Muhamad Mushthafa”. I lost one letter on my new full name.

What is a name, said Shakespeare. I remembered this quotation yesterday after I had read my new full name. Because I am a kind of perfectionist person, I complained to the officer about this clumsy mistake. What did they say? For a while, they discuss each others about this, and finally said: “This mistake has no effect to your departure and your business abroad, Sir. And if you want to correct this mistake, we need at least three weeks to process your new passport. ”

Hhhaah? When I heard this explanation, I think about pseudo-perfection. Even if the system tries to ensure the perfection, finally the man always behind the gun. And we know the image of our bureaucrat in this country.

My second experience about the perfection was when I organized three School Climate Challenge Competition Teams of SMA 3 Annuqayah to write the final reports for their four months projects. During a week, I supervised their activities writing the final reports. After their school activities in the morning, I quarantined them at the library for this reports. Everyday, they often stop to work and take a rest just after midnight.

I know that my demand for the perfection of the final reports had terrified them as a student. I know that I have applied a strict discipline during this isolation. But I told them that our complete and perfect reports would be a determining factor for our success on this prestigious competition. We had done great endeavor for our projects, and we must describe all our strenuous efforts on the reports.

Of course, the meaning of perfection in this second experience is not rigorous, quantitative, and measurable. If the perfection is identical to the final result, the meaning of perfection in my second experience mostly is about the maximum effort—it mainly deals with the process. It has no control system, while in the first experience the perfection controlled by some procedures and support systems—but failed. Nevertheless, in our attempt to be perfect, finally we had satisfactory outcome. I think my students will agree with me.

From these two different experiences of perfection, I knew that the commitment will be the first factor to get the best result in the context of perfection. However, too obsessed to be perfect without considering the real fact maybe will make us frustrated, and I think it also a kind of pseudo-perfection too in its substantial meaning.

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Against Plastic Rubbish

Contemporary people have minor sensitivity to conduct with nature. They used to do something and had no painstaking consideration about the impact of their behaviour. The massive use of plastic as a popular package in Indonesian society in general illustrated their unawareness about the hazard of plastic rubbish. Plastic packages are not just unfriendly to the environment but also dangerous to human health. Kompas (August 6, 2008), national daily newspaper, reported that during 2008, 2.1 ton million of plastic and any product made of plastic had produced, and 952 ton thousand of it was used as packages, and 80% of it was potential to be dangerous waste. Plastic gives a practicality of use to the people but has no good impact for the nature.

From this background of situation, I had involved in an environmental project of School Climate Challenge Competition held by British Council Indonesia for about four months (February-May 2009) with my four great students at SMA 3 Annuqayah Guluk-Guluk Sumenep as a team. They are Khazinah, Irul Nur Jannah, Sulhatus Sayyidah, and Siti Nujaimatur Ruqayyah.

On this prestigious competition, we set up a series of activities in a climate challenge project—namely “Saving the Earth from the Hazard of Plastic Rubbish: Toward Ecofriendly Life Style”—to anticipate serious threat of plastic rubbish. This project aimed to disseminate information and awareness concerning to the hazard of plastic rubbish among school communities and others, so that the students and people will have a concrete contribution to save the earth and give a simple, precise, consistent, and integrative responses to the climate challenge.

During this challenging project, we had managed some environmental programs and activities to achieve this objective. Those programs include socialization in several school communities and people association around Sumenep district (Guluk-Guluk, Ganding, Gapura, Batang-Batang), television and radio talk show (Madura Channel and Ganding FM), etc. This program aimed to spread out information about the hazard of plastic rubbish. We also had collected plastic rubbish from Annuqayah landfill near our school as a campaign against plastic rubbish.

Our socialization and campaign had succeed decreasing plastic rubbish around school and people’s neighbourhood by reuse the rubbish to be creative accessories, like school bag, pencil case, etc. The production of these handicraft was just as a medium to arise people’s awareness about the hazard of plastic rubbish. By doing this activity, we had received good support from school communities and people to reduce increasing volume of plastic rubbish by collecting the rubbish and give it to our team to be produced. We also sold those products in an exhibition, so we also had a financial support for our own environmental activities.

The best achievement of out project is about supports and responses from school communities and people in general. Some schools that were our partner—we visit and socialize there—now are trying to develop the same environmental activities in their schools.

To assure sustainability of this project, we planned to recruit new cadres in our school, organize capacity building for our team and community, develop educational network on environmental issues in Sumenep, and other supporting activities and programs.

Related link:
>> Sekolah Berbasis Proyek
>> Pameran Kreativitas untuk Masa Depan Bumi yang Hijau

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Environmental Week Still Continues

Environmental week still continues. After celebrating Earth Day 2009 with several environmental activities, that are environmental workshop, live television interview, and my involvement on some activities of School Climate Challenge Competition team, the following week, I had, at least, two valuable environmental activities. On Tuesday, April 28, with SCC full team, I went to Batang-Batang, a sub-district in northeast Sumenep—Banuaju Timur, exactly.

We had two main activities in Banuaju Timur. First, socialization at SMK Bina Mandiri about plastic rubbish. Our team presented their activities on recycling plastic rubbish and discussed about climate change in front of approximately thirty students at that school. Four members of the team confidently gave their presentations. We had a very enthusiastic discussion at that time. They submitted questions, suggestions, and supports to our team. Ninety minutes had gone, and we left the school with joy.

Plastic rubbish team had done a good job. Then, gula merah (Javanese sugar) team took over the SCC team control. At midday, the team started to do a deep research on siwalan (Asian palmyra palm, Borassus flabellifer). Three students and one teacher—the other teacher could not participate this interesting research—digged all informations about gula merah and siwalan. We did the research mainly in one of villager’s house, observing the process of making gula merah closely.

But this field study was not only about gula merah or siwalan. The team tried to focus to the context of conservation of gula merah and siwalan. Of course, they connected this issue with climate change problem, and implicitly conveyed the message of building environmental awareness and promoting ecofriendly values.

Actually, this team had done a similar research at another village about a month ago—at Brungbung, Pragaan. So, the team had a comparison data as a basis of their research. However, they found another important data at this opportunity. The villagers told about widespread logging activities in their rural community. Furthermore, siwalan climbers, the key person to exploit the tree, are rare to be found. The values of siwalan trees degenerated, and this make the conservation of siwalan tree now really in danger.

Sharing and discussing with the villagers at Banuaju Timur was a fascinating chance, not only about environmental issues, but also about cultural heritage of Madura. As considered before, conserving gula merah and siwalan trees actually has a wide-ranging impact, including cultural and economic.

We left Banuaju Timur at 02.00 p.m., and drop in Gapura to visit a friend to make an appointment about socialization in his school. We also went to Pasar Anom Sumenep to buy some traditional kitchenware.

My second activity was talk show at Ganding FM 104.10 at Saturday, May 2. This talk show held to celebrate the National Education Day. I did the talk show with plastic rubbish full team. We discussed about education and our environmental activities in our school. I took that opportunity to underline contextual education on our school curriculum.

At 09.30 a.m., the talk show began. Two hours left with an interesting discussion. We also discussed with audiences from Guluk-Guluk and Ganding by phone. Some of them gave good appreciation, some of them criticized rubbish management on Annuqayah in general, and one of them seemed to underestimate our environmental activities.
We had a really precious experience that day. And we know that our environmental activities still go on.

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Blue

Why do I like blue colour? This question arose out of the blue, when I was sitting on a stool in the corner of school courtyard yesterday.

I looked at the blue sky that noon. The sky was clear, and it was a bright day. Once again, the blue colour came into question, as I remembered the sea. Unexpectedly, my mind was full of the image of blue sky and blue sea met in the horizon. New simple questions arose again, sparkling in my mind, bring me to the answer.

From the sky and sea, I know that blue is a colour of our limitedness in front of the Infinite. The real blue still saves the flickering stars, pearls, and any mysterious and precious things to be found.

Sky and sea, what is the true colour of you? When I just can see the blue, is that the real of you?

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Environmental Week

This week, I had several environmental activities. First, I had an environmental workshop held by Community Development Bureau of Pondok Pesantren Annuqayah. The theme of this workshop is “Global Warming, Local Cooling”, and participants are thirty Annuqayah teachers. This workshop conducted on Tuesday, April 21, at MAK Annuqayah. Facilitator of this workshop is Ridho Saiful Ashadi, former Executive Director of WALHI (Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia—Indonesian Forum for the Environment) East Java.

The workshop began at 10.00 a.m., two hours late from the schedule. Mas Ipul, the facilitator, delayed his departure from Surabaya because his wife borne approximately at midnight.

Actually, this workshop didn’t really satisfy me because plot of discussion during the workshop didn’t go on as I expected—at least based on the schedule that I received before. The discussion primarily focused on developing social transformation in general. Environmental issues had a minor space to be discussed here. Mas Ipul said that the most important thing to develop local cooling movement is concerning to framework of idea. Mas Ipul introduced new method of thinking called “Asset-Based Thinking”. This reminded me to positive psychology developed by Martin EP Seligman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, which I knew from his book, Authentic Happiness. Mas Ipul explored this method of thinking extensively.

In fact, I can understand his choice to underline this approach in front of environmental and social problem on the whole. Environmental movement needs new, fresh strategies and power. But, in my opinion, environmental awareness as a basis of environmental education for the teachers should be built up by a sufficient supply of information and knowledge. OK, Mas Ipul said that such information is very easily found on internet webpages. The teachers just need to type the keyword on the search engine webpage and they will have a great deal of information and knowledge to encourage their environmental insight. But the fact is Annuqayah teachers are generally not acquainted with internet and information technology. And I’m almost sure that those who are familiar enough with internet maybe have a little concern to environmental issues.

When the workshop had finished, I thought that this workshop must be followed by another environmental workshop, or even an integrative action managed by Annuqayah teachers or at their respective schools. This subsequent workshop should reach to the core issues of environmental education, that environmental education is about our moral education—our ethical attitudes to the nature.

My second activity is a live interview at local television, Madura Channel, Sumenep. This interview held on Thursday, April 23, one day after the celebration of Earth Day. The theme is about environmental education. More exactly, about my experience accompanying environmental community at SMA 3 Annuqayah Guluk-Guluk Sumenep. This community concern on specific issue, that is plastic rubbish. The students recycled plastic rubbish in school neighbourhood to be creative accessories, like a school bag, pencil case, etc. Their activities got public attention through publication of mass media.

In that session of live interview, I tried to make the idea of Earth Day become more concrete through the example of my students’ activities. I tried to turn the discussion on the focus of ethical perspective, but the interviewer still focused to my students’ activities and achievements.

During the live interview, there was an interesting comment from Pak Gani, an audience who is a teacher in Sumenep. He said that my students’ activities, that are recycling plastic rubbish to be a handicraft, are not creative achievements. Pak Gani said that other individuals and communities in Indonesia also had done the same creation, including Pak Gani himself. So, Pak Gani challenged me and my students to initiate a truly new creation related to environmental project.

To be honest, I believe that our environmental activities are not a genuine project. But I’m very sure that every project has specific complexities in its local context. Those are the real challenge of every social project. Furthermore, plastic rubbish increases around us, so we cannot underestimate this fact and have to make a concrete response in our community.

My third environmental activity this week is a voluntary work with my students cleaning up our base camp of our environmental project on School Climate Challenge Competition British Council. Our school participated in this prestigious competition by managing three environmental projects, that is recycling plastic rubbish, conservation of the Asian palmyra palm (Borassus flabellifer), and organic fertilizer.

We cleaned up the dirty area at the corner of our school area this morning until midday. We are very contented with the result of our hard work. We think that we will be more enthusiastic to manage our project.

Yes, this environmental week give me valuable supplies to encourage the struggle on environmental issues.

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Money Politics Around Us

Indonesian people had taken part in legislature election yesterday. Regardless of many critics of people toward some aspect of the election, including the preparation of the election, controversy about fixed list of voters, questionable capacity of the candidates of legislature, abstentions (non-voters), etc., we can say that the election had held successfully.

But I was very sorry that I cannot attend at the election booth when the ballot has been counted. I cannot look closer at the counting process because I had another job yesterday. I cycled around Annuqayah, and I had not enough time to pay close attention to the counting.

Last night, in the midst of my business, I had a little talk about the result of the election in some local voting booth with some colleagues. They are moslem students (santri) in this pesantren. They told me some valuable information about the result and something connected with the election yesterday.

They gave emphasis on the contested local candidates, especially the members of big family of Annuqayah. They mentioned numbers. From this starting point, they notified me such a bad news about the students. They reported about “the dawn attack”, a term for the practice of money politics just before the election.

To be honest, this dawn attack actually is not a new method to get supports and obtain votes. But I really shocked to hear that because the students, that is santri, who had learned and absorbed religious values in pesantren, fell into the temptation of the money politics. In fact, they not only had injected by a set of religious values. They also had learned civic education in their formal education. They are without doubt well-educated persons.

But the religious values and their complicated concept about democracy has no meaning in front of the dawn attack. I really amazed to know that something knocked them down were a pack of cigarette, instant noodles, a ten thousand rupiah, or even “wrapped rice”. They are the price of their votes.

When my colleagues told me about the money politics around this religious educational institution, a such radical conclusion arose on my mind: that our moral-religious education and civic education had failed. I know that this is an inconvenient conclusion. Moreover, for the candidates who still have honesty and sincerity, and they lose in this election by way of the dawn attack, this is really a bitter truth. But of course this will remind us that the struggle to civilize our society requires more energy and better strategy.

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For whom the People (don’t) Hope

A few days before the Indonesian legislature election will be held on 9 April 2009, I wonder what do the people think about this election. Do they still keep their hope for the betterment of their lives? During the time of public campaign provided by General Election Commission, I didn’t see glittering campaigns in my district except a little that I read the news in mass media. I found cold responses from people’s everyday talks concerning this election. The exited interest maybe only on the money politics. I conclude that people’s enthusiasm to discuss and participate to this election tend to be decreased. Some people talk about political apathism, the indifferences of people’s participation in this celebration of democracy.

Bringing to light on this case and revealing from a more radical question, I wonder what do the people think about this election. More exactly: do they think that they will vote their representatives, their leaders—people who speak, act, and struggle on behalf their interests and aspirations? I am increasingly doubtful that they have this kind of point of view. Political corruption, the conduct of member of legislative assembly and the candidates, even in this reformation period, frustrated and shrunk their hopes to this election. I read about the candidates who were arrested for criminal causes on the magazine: distributing marijuana, ecstasy, or illegal drugs, even stealing motorcycle.

I was really disappointed when I thought that this election had lost its ethical meaning, its substantive meaning. How many times, material and social cost had wasted for this election? Is it fair enough if I hope nothing—maybe just a little? As an individual, what should I do? Thus, importantly, I wonder for whom the people must hope?

Ooo the true leader of our community, please save our nation.

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One Night in Jogja

I had a nice trip to Jogja last weekend. Actually, this trip should be done before the weekend, because I want to take advantage of Maulid holiday. But my unhealthy condition for about one week constrained the plan. The main purpose of this trip is to accompany my mother to visit Pesantren Nurul Ummah Kota Gede, where my little sister has been living for seven months.

As usual, we departed for Jogja at night, after Isya’. Last Thursday night, we left to Jogja at 08.40 pm. We had an exiting ride that night—as the trip on the way home too. We rode a new bus, serving for a recovered route: Sumenep-Jogja. But the driver, conductor and his assistant, were the new comer for this route.

We arrived at Jogja at 06.30 am. The street was crowded. I tried to join to the crowd on the city bus for a little while. The atmosphere of Jogja started to penetrate me. The conductor, passengers in the morning, and traffic.

I took a rest in my brother’s dormitory until noon. At 1.30 pm, I went out to the Ikapi Jogja Book Fair 2009. This event held at Jogja Expo Center. I tried to contact my friends to come with me to the Book Fair. But finally I went alone, because they had already had appointments with their friends.

Book hunting is always interesting for me. On the Book Fair, I seek through the stack of books, trying to find some cheap, unique, uncommon, and fascinating books—the books that I didn’t find them in the common bookstore. I went around the exhibition area for more than one hour, and I was frustrated because I just got one book on the Insist Press Publisher.

At last, I left the exhibition and went out to a new book store near UIN campus. Its name is Yusuf Agency. The store sells used and cheap books. This would be an interesting books-hunting. Among the dusty shelves, I was looking for a surprise. At last, I found a series of books about easy scientific experiments written by Janice Pratt VanCleave, a winner of Phil Delta Outstanding Teacher of the Year 1982. The books are about physics, biology, chemistry, astronomy, and geography. It seems that the books are especially designed for kids, but I think they are also suitable for junior or senior high school students. These books were enough to cure my weary day.

After dinner, I went out to my friend’s dormitory at Gowok. I spent the night there with my friends—one night in Jogja. Next day, Saturday, I went along with my mother and my brother to Pesantren Nurul Ummah Kota Gede. We were there until 11 am.

We left Jogja at 7 pm. One night in Jogja—it seems that it was a too short nostalgic trip. But I have to compromise on this. At least, I got something new on this trip—new experiences, new books.

During the way home, I really enjoyed the way of the driver handle the bus. He often overtook another vehicles in front us. It’s like a bus-racing. So, I didn’t sleep at the bus until we got near to Jombang.

On the way home, I wonder when I can make a satisfied memorable trip to Jogja. I am waiting for that moment. Always.

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Made of Rain

Last night, when a group of flying termites swarmed about the lamp on the veranda in front of my room, I was curious to know about their life cycle. I just had a little information about them. And, actually, that information is such common sense knowledge, not scientific.

From experience of life, I know that flying termites usually come at night after rain fell. Always after rain. They swarm about the light, crashing their bodies into the shining lamp. I don’t really know why they seem to be so obsessed by a source of light.

It is said that they originated from termites, a small insect like an ant that does a lot of damage by eating wood and papers. They break through the wall, destroy plastics, cable and other blockage. They produce the offspring in their colonies. The female termite can produce eggs until 36.000 eggs per day for 50 years. What a number! Unfortunately, I never see their kingdom.

Living in the darkness, maybe they yearned for the light when they became a flying termite. But all creatures maybe are still surrounded by principle of absurdity. When they were about to come to the light, and finally collided with the lamp, their wings came down towards the ground. Their bodies chased down their couple golden wings.

Their obsession couldn’t be satisfied. That was an irony. They walked slowly in the ground, and small house lizards hunted them skillfully to complete their adventures and fates.

Thinking and learning about flying termites reminded me to someone who is completely obsessed by rain. He even feels that he was made of rain. I wonder does he think that he is a flying termite. O life!

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Closer: Love and the Will to Power

Last Wednesday, I watched a movie from my own collections. The title is Closer. The movie, directed by Mike Nichols and released in 2004, starred by Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, and Clive Owen. Actually, I bought this VCD last year, January 8, 2008 in Surabaya. But I had just watched it this week.

Closer is a romantic drama about four people trapped in a complicated love story. They are Larry (Clive Owen), Anna (Julia Roberts), Dan (Jude Law), and Alice (Natalie Portman). Plot of this movie is somewhat puzzling, moving quickly between the scenes. But, the bright dialogues and fascinating performances of the actors made me keep watching and follow the stream of this intriguing story.

This love story actually is also about the impact of chance meetings, instant attractions, and betrayals. In the beginning of this movie, two strangers, Dan and Alice, met in an accident, and I knew that the meeting wouldn’t stop right there. Then, Dan and Alice became a couple of lovers.

Another chance meeting was between Larry and Anna. Larry, a dermatologist, unexpectedly met Anna at London Aquarium after he had an appointment with his mysterious friend when he surfed at internet chat room—in fact, the mysterious friend of Larry was Dan, the friend of Anna. This meeting also had subsequent affair de coeur—they married.

A witty, dangerous, and complicated love story began when the two couples met together at Anna’s Photo Exhibition. Love affairs is about to be started, and the affairs devastated the romantic relationship between them. The meaning of love became problematic, not only a romantic. At this point, we can understand that love also has a strong connection with deception, egocentrism, betrayal, and revenge.

For me, this is the most interesting part of this movie. This point reminded me to Sartre and Nietzsche. I remembered my Course of Ethics last week when discussed about the Others. Sartre argued that relations between freedoms are inherently conflictual. The other is a threat. So, Sartre didn’t believe in love. In love, there is self-deception.

And Nietzsche spoke about the Will to Power. Interestingly, he emphasized that the Will to Power is not only about politics, knowledge, and relation with the others. The world is the Will to Power. Nietzsche brings the Will to Power to the ontological perspective.

This movie gave me a good example about the tension between love and the Will to Power. Of course I didn’t believe in Nietzsche and Sartre who tend to annihilate the possibility of sincerity between people. For me, this movie confirmed the ambiguity and strict negotiations in our relations with the others, and the pervasive power of our egocentrism.

I really enjoyed watching this movie. Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, Jude Law, and Natalie Portman presented quite good performance in their respective roles. Most importantly, this movie challenged me to think of deeply and gave me fresh perspective and reflection about our relations and about love.

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When the Alien Comes

“This journey really exhausted me,” I whisper to myself, when I am surrounded by cloudy sky, thundering wave, and an inconvenient absurd twilight. Strong biting wind drives away the ancient spirit of the sea. I stand alone staring at the sun while it has been going down to keep his spirit safe from the darkness.

I wonder where am I going from here. In my solitude, I think that I am leaving for a place that I don’t really know where it is. An unknown country where strangers walking around me. I feel that I am moving away from my initial destination, from the substance of my life, from my primordial home. I am really worried about it, thinking about mystifying path that I will pass alone and I lost my way. The idea about alienation haunts me.

As the wind get to rage, I try not to be knocked over by these terrifying notions. One thing that I am sure: I can’t overlook such acute problem. I am asking myself when these ideas exactly come to me. I am thinking about the weapons and tools that I must prepare. I am thinking about a hundred possibilities that I may deal with. Because I don’t know where the journey will get to the end.

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Of Environmental Education

I have been engaging to environmental education activities since a year ago. My interest to involve in this project became strong after I had participated in Environmental Teachers’ International Convention 2008 last year. In that event, I was awaked by abundant facts of environmental problems caused by man’s exploitation and activities. Actually, I have had such information about environmental problems—not only from the convention. I had written an essay about environmental problems when I was a senior high school student fourteen years ago.

But the convention not only gave me information and knowledge. It gave me enthusiasm, spirit, and the soul of environmental education. Implicitly, it had accentuated the ethical and emancipatory objectives of the environmental actions. It emphasized that environmental problems have strong relation to our moral attitudes, about how human being sees the natural world, wildlife, even the Creator. To some extent, it has a profound connection with spiritual world view.

In epistemological context, environmental problems are often associated with natural sciences, and sometimes with social sciences. Both sciences, according to Jürgen Habermas, actually have no deep concern with emancipatory values. From Habermas explanation we can conclude that both sciences almost sweep away all human interest from knowledge—i.e. divorce praxis from theory. And then such knowledge and sciences married with positivistic paradigm.

With this background, integrative actions of environmental education, as far as my understanding, try to return the emancipatory values (“the interest”) to its place and make scientific activities as a critical self-reflection of human being. And technical-instrumental interest and practical interest of natural and social sciences originate from interest of reason itself, that is emancipation. Term emancipation as a general concept or value can find its synonym from different thinkers, like liberation, etc.

If we put the problem of environment and environmental education in this perspective and sustainably encourage acting in this standpoint, we will have radical and critical actions of environmental education. And I think those who involve in these projects perhaps will find themselves struggling hard on ideological battleground. Determination, patience, consistency, sincerity, persuasive and cooperative actions, etc., maybe will be the best weapons for this battle, because, particularly in this battle, we frequently have to fight against ourselves.

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I Want a Ring, You Give Me Crescents

A week ago, a friend of mine send me a short message. He told me that Heaven will give me a ring. “A silver ring,” he said. He invited me to receive the ring in a beautiful place, entitled as Smiley Gate. He provided me a sophisticated tray to accept the awaited gift. “You can take your students with you to the ceremony. But don’t be late, because you just have one chance,” he said.

Unfortunately, I cannot satisfy his invitation. Actually, I have no good reason to make him disappointed. Maybe I just infected by demophobia combined with slight xenophobia, and I can’t bear this phobia that day especially because the absurd feeling invaded me in recent times. So, only my students come to take their rings with joy to the ceremony.

Then, I made my own ceremony in my own stage. I did my best to heal my disappointment.

My simple salver made from used cardboard lining with sheet of papers. This idea came to me after I had browsed the internet. Two students helped me to create that. And the outcome was great.

I had waited for roughly one hour. But the ring still hid. I wondered why it was reluctant to touch the simple salver, the simple stage. Until around 90 minutes, finally, the ring sent the crescent to me. A tiny bright crescent glowed in the darkness of the cardboard.

But the real amazing magic came not in the cardboard. It came under the trees. The trees came to be the wizard’s broom, presenting the crescents in the wall and the surface of the ground. The beautiful silver crescents danced as the wind blew.

When the sun went down, the crescents faded away. Maybe they took a long trip to a beautiful place in the west together with the sun. Maybe they sailed to nowhere. Maybe they sailed to eternity.

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The Rich Country and the Irony of Electricity

In our time, modern people have high necessity to technology, even those who live in a rural area, like me. In an extreme expression, modern people were enslaved by technology. I’m certain about this when in current several months, I’m troubled by the electricity. Working with computer, the electricity suddenly was off. I have rescued by the UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) for a few minutes and I had time to shut down my PC safely.

This incident occurs almost every day. Sometimes it’s happens just for a few seconds, a few minutes, and sometimes until more than 10 hours. Many activities, official and individual, ceased. The scheduled plan has to be postponed. The UPS cannot give more help for the emergency situation for computer. It’s just prevention for further damages.

But actually there are another Indonesian people who have worse situation than me. Tempo Interactive wrote that more than 30 thousand villages in Indonesia have no electricity. Faisal Basri asserted that only a half of household that have electricity in Indonesia—Thailand supplied 84 % of total household with electricity. I think this is really an irony of our rich country. We have much kind of resources that can be turned into supply of energy. But the fact is so ridiculous.

Yesterday night, when the electricity was off, I read the last section of the novel by Andrea Hirata, Edensor, in the dim glow of a candle. But the spirit of the storyboard ignited me to finish the book. I found a kind of nostalgic feeling that night, blended by stream of stunning words in the novel. The life span of the candle not so long, but fortunately I can reach the last word of the novel before the candle has gone out. And when the candlelight was finally extinguished, the darkness came back to its throne. And that night, the irony of electricity lasted for several hours.

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