12 Months, 12 Books.

"Don't ever apologize to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library. Don't apologize to this author for buying books second hand, or getting them from bookcrossing or borrowing a friend's copy. What's important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people. The most important thing is that people read... "

-- Neil Gaiman

(click for larger image)

What a good year for literature world 2009 is! And, well, here are some books I've read this year that leave deep impression to me -- not all books in this list is 2009 releases, but you know ,this list is about the book I HAVE READ this year, not the book released this year. I guess there are big differences in that two. Alright, enough digressing, enjoy!


1. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Perhaps the best graphic novel I've ever read (and consider how many graphic novels I've read, I think this book is highly exceptional.)


2. White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

Funny and smart. White Tiger is culturally (ir)relevant and politically (in)correct portrayal of the daily life in India, the book also deals with such topic like economy inequality in the world, globalization, at some points the book even mocks the religious beliefs of the world, and mainly, the book is talking about OUTSOURCING. Yes, this is a book about outsourcing.


3. Rant by Chuck Palahniuk

Actually I read 3 Palahniuk books this year, Rant, Lullaby and Pygmy, but I chose to put Rant on the list simply because it is epicly strange, tasteless, ultra-violent and totally gross (and all that Palahniuk's trademarks.) If you're not familiar with Palahniuk's works, do yourself a favor: don't read this book.


4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

A book about book. Beautifully written and incredibly moving, some literature critics even dubbed it, "Harry Potter and The Holocaust" (since it took place in Germany around World War 2) and I kinda agree with those critics, because -- after all -- just like Rowling's Harry Potter series, this book really has its own magic.


5. The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo

Famously known as the notorious Stanford Prison Experimenter, Zimbardo is my favorite 'classic mad scientists' (in other dimension, he could be Lex Luthor -- minus the baldness.) I finished reading his 'Lucifer Effect' last year, and it is a sin to me not to read his newest.

P.S: the self-scoring Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) in this book is really a great fun.


6. Blankets by Craig Thompson

I could list Blankets as one of the greatest book I've ever read, in par on every regard with such classics like James Joyce Ulysses, Huxley's Brave New World and Steinbeck's Grape of Wrath. Seriously. Blankets proves once again that graphic novel is not only for children and under-age readers, graphic novel should be considered as serious as any other literature media.


7. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

If there's any kind of serious literature (i.e, a novel) that mention Galactus, Fantastic Four, Atari and otaku, you can bet it's on my reading list. Strange yet appealing, the book is all about Walt Whitman meets Star Wars, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez meets anime characters. Fun read for those who are familiar with both 'sophisticated, heavy' literatures and popular culture.


8. The Reasons I Won't Be Coming by Elliott Perlman

A collection of short stories by Elle's magazine writer, Elliott Perlman: some of the stories here are heartwarming, some are energetic and uplifting, some others are just depressingly suicidal, but in the whole they are all beautiful and well-written.


9. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

This book analyzes the detailed process of how society acquired info, gossips, trends and all those 'spreading-like-disease' stuff and a warning: this book is highly contagious. Actually I read 2 others Gladwell's books this year: Blink and Outliers, but still, my hat goes off for Tipping Point simply because it is the most fun to read.


10. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Actually this is a 2008 book, but I've just managed to read it around this year's January, and yup, Gaiman recrowned himself as the world's best storyteller, his magic still works effectively and charms all the readers.


11. On Beauty by Zadie Smith

A descendant of past female authors like Austen, Rand or Woolf, Zadie Smith (and the above, Marjane Satrapi) is now the leading female author in literature world, their writings aren't the usual 'chick-lit' or sappy romance like Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, and for that -- I bet my money for it -- I think Smith would still be heavily talked for years to come.


12. Lowboy - John Wray

A paranoid, delusional teenager thinks he got only 10 hours to save the world, so he escapes his asylum and all of his heavy medication, to get on board the train in New York subway. Imaginative and inspirational, at the end of the book you'll ask yourself: "what is normal?" and you'll probably think that 'normalcy' is just a social consensus.

Happy 2010.
Keep on reading.

The Plague of Civilization

click the image for larger, sharper version.

"Our greatest civilizations have always been destroyed by epidemic disease."

-- from 'Rant' by Chuck Palahniuk

Take a look at these examples:

Plague of Athens, 430 BC
A killer typhoid that kickassed almost the entire Greek civilization to grave.

Antonine Plague, 165-180 AD
Influenza throughout Italy, killed almost five million in all. Imagine during their sickness, that's a five million in a 'sneeze-choir'.

Plague of Justinian, circa 540-800 AD
Start in Pelusium Egypt, then to Constantinople. During the 300 years of infection, the plague successfully killed half of the population in both city.

The Black Death, start circa 1300 AD until the 18th century
This plague is single-handedly responsible for the deaths of almost 30 to 50 million Europeans during its infection. The Black Death wasn't a single plague attack like earlier cases, This pandemic is a series of smaller plague outbreaks that happened in various part of Asia and Europe, (numerous major cases including syphillis in France, the Plague of Boyolali London, etc) these series of events are perhaps the greatest plague outbreaks ever recorded in history. Beside the T-Virus in Resident Evil series. Little known was the fact that the plague started NOT in Europe, but in Asia -- it spread throughout Europe following the trade route of ship and caravan.

Syphillis (or the French Disease), 1497-1501
Actually this was also a part of Black Death epidemy (and outbreaking mostly in Europe, specifically in France), but since it is SYPHILLIS, I must give it a special place. This is SYPHILLIS and to list it under the account of Black Death plague only shrouded the great name of SYPHILLIS.

Smallpox, 1518 until 19th century
Believed to be brought by some European voyagers, the smallpox was spread quickly (and got its fame) among Native Americans, specifically in Mexico and Peru. This plague was suspected to be the cause of the extinction of entire Easter Island population -- except the giant face statue.

Cholera Pandemic, 1817-1823
Began in Calcutta and other parts of India, and quickly spread to the rest of South Asia, extending to Middle East, Russia and China, later the outbreak event in India was also translated into a movie by Michael Bay, titled Transformers 2: Love in The Times of Cholera (sorry, Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

Malaria, Rabies, bintitan , Anthrax, HIV/AIDS, Leper, kapalan , TBC, Typhus, gondongan , SARS, H1N1, late 1800s until 21st century.
Due to the amazing progress in scientific world and the advance of medical research, more virus/parasites/diseases are found during our era. Though plague outbreak seems to possess lesser threat to nowadays people in contrast to those in ancient times, still, we mustn't let down our guard. Because the pattern seems unnatural to me: those plague outbreaks seems like a stubborn reoccurring kind. They kept coming back like boomerang.

It's funny to see how the prophetic sayings on the opening of this note is actually true: every generation, every era of civilization must dealt with their own specific disease. As history records, epidemic disease had a long and intimate relationship with human civilization. Like pillow to bed, or chopsticks to Chinese food, diseases followed us, stalked us and ambushed us at most unpredictable time. Even fictional history and folklore also had its own story of plague outbreak, one of the most famous was probably God's curse upon Egypt as written in the Old Testament, the Book of Exodus.

Haunted by the reoccurring event of mass death caused by epidemic diseases, each era bears the burden to find the remedies and the cures of the problem so that the later generation can be saved from suffering the same fate. That's the plot that had been continuously played for almost two millennium of human civilization. See how we struggle to find the cure for AIDS, cancer, and everything? That's our burden, our curse. History repeats itself. The pattern resurface again and again. In the old days we got Mary Mallon, the first carrier for Typhoid, then in modern days we got Gaëtan Dugas, the first ever patient for AIDS (codenamed: Patient Zero). Start from unknown source, transmit itself to some carriers, then. Boom. Colossal plague outbreak.
Natural occurrence, or fabricated happenings? You decide. As the theists would put it, perhaps all these diseases were some kind of God-tests for mankind. (Oh, how I giggled for that explanation.) Or could it be some capitalist conspiracies to sell more vaccine, more medicine to the already-suffered victim? Sounds out of place, but I'm no conspiracy theorist, so I remain silent for this one. And if, indeed, our time would also be ended in terrible plague outbreak like earlier era (because, history repeats itself.) I hope we'll die in rabies epidemic, cause that's the closest thing we got to zombie apocalypse: everywhere people goes insane, biting and chewing random objects, screaming, running around. Hoho. So much fun :D

Flare: A Visual Narrative

 

(Actually, it would be clearer if I wrote it in words. But, you know since my memories -- and inspirations -- were too visual to be translated into words, so I choose to keep it in the most original form.)

 

“You didn’t notice me”, she said. “You busy yourself with your world, your rational world. Your compass and ruler.”

But he can only look at the outside of things. He can only look at this world rationally, not emotionally. On the inside, he’s dead. He doesn’t feel her. He’s soulless and hollow.

So he waved goodbye to the unborn baby, who stays at mother’s womb during the winter – and crash-landing to the world, violently, in spring.

And he know, he’s no savior for her. For he, himself, got a problem of his own. So he dethrone his King, only to find another nail to crucify someone other. A theory of hundreds years old. A scientific formula of Redemption.

And they both run. Across the Pacific, probably to China mainland. Where they can blend in with far too many people in Beijing. Too many people of the earth.

 

So they run. Their lungs, hearts and all of their internal body organs scattered along the road. But they run.

The Creative Fuel

 

 

There’s only two condition for me to being stay productive and creative: upbeat or beat-up. I can never go in-between, it’s horrible.

Cin(T)a, Indonesia.

I know it's a long pause since my last post--in which I promised to write a philosophical review for the movie Cin(T)a. Well, now that it's happened, enjoy:

Indonesia is not a monotheistic nation, nor it is an Islamic nation (as many foreigner perceived it to be). Indonesia is a multi-religion, multi-theistic nation. Indonesia is a Pancasila country, a principle that considers as its first testament the belief in oneness of God, so that all religions achieve in equal footing. The funny side is that Indonesia allowed their citizens only to held one of the 'official' 5 religions: Islam, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Buddhism, and Hindu--this restriction for religion numbers allowed in the country was a ridiculous law, and nobody sure why it was created the first time. Cin(T)a movie picked up this theme, and played the concept around it.

As a modern movie, Cin(T)a falls into what other Indonesian movies fall for: westernization. Well, it's not a bad thing though; in fact it had been prophesized since the earliest time of Indonesia's origin. The most astounding prophecy came from famous philologist/anthropologist Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana who sees that Dutch colonization over Indonesia would--over time--brought a new dawn to the whole society and culture. STA even segregate Indonesia into two categories: the Indonesia and pre-Indonesia.

 

Indonesia	Pre-Indonesia
Westernized	Traditional
Dynamic	Static
Free to change	Chained (terikat) by tradition
United	Divided

 

If we sees what constitutes the Indonesia and Pre-Indonesia, we could see the movie Cin(T)a better, for it is undoubtedly tackling on the process (and the pain of) a nation in moving. Indonesia--right now--is on an enormous time of transformations, moving from the old paradigm to the new one. What the movie says is that if we want to travel ahead to the Indonesia prophesized by STA and all those great thinkers of the past, we should liberate the inanity of the old times. Sadly, many people see religion, politics, race and gender problems as separate entities and belong to different dimensions, while evidently they're not. They're one and all in Indonesia's cultural and social problem. Talking bout Indonesian culture, we got to map out our memories back to '30s: by the middle of the 1930s, the Indonesian literary personality and philosopher, Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana, instigated a debate that was to be known as ‘the polemics on culture.’ For him, there had not been anything to be called ‘Indonesian culture’ in the earlier history of the Archipelago (or Nusantara). In the pre-Indonesia period, the peoples of the Archipelago never had a unified political and cultural identity. In other words, Indonesian culture was something of the future rather than of the past. Moreover, for him, if the Indonesian culture was based on the past, it would create problems. One of the problems was that each group would try to dominate the national culture.

And so, the debate over 'Indonesia culture' had never ended ever since: what it is, what it was, and what it would become. In the early '40s, a group of educated scholar led by Ki Hadjar Dewantara tried to engage in the debate through the involvement of mass education. What they wanted was to offer an alternative model of education in which intellectualism was combined with loftier feeling and strong moral commitment. Likewise, they opposed individualism and egoism not in order to eradicate one’s feeling of dignity, but to cultivate a strong personality ready to sacrifice oneself for the good of the people. Only through this type of education, he said, could one produce students who were proud of their own culture and ready to dedicate themselves in the struggle for independence. This pioneering come to fruition in post-Independence era, when a bunch of intellectuals, artists and orators called 'Generation 1945' arise, rocketing such names as Chairil Anwar, Asrul Sani, or Rifai Apin to national famous. Therefore, unlike Alisjahbana or Ki Hadjar, The 1945 generation pushing the culture forward without apparent classifications of who should get revolutionized, and who shouldn’t. They now declared the universalism of culture without distinguishing the West from the East, they even put it in a document titled Surat Kepercayaan Gelanggang in 1950:

 

“We are the true inheritors of the world culture, and we shall develop this culture in our own way...

We do not bind anything with the Indonesian culture...

Revolution for us is putting new values on outdated values that have to be left behind. We are of the opinion that revolution in our country is not finished yet."

 

This spirit, this philosophy is what moves the nation forward, until came the stumbling block of New Order regime (led by ex-president Soeharto), that put all those development and progress backward. It's true that during the Soeharto regime, Indonesia is known as one of the development leader in Asia--particularly in economic growth. And it's also true that The Suharto family was directly involved in many of the enterprises that contributed to the tremendous expansion of the Indonesian economy – and benefited handsomely from them. In one or more sector, Indonesia seems well and healthy, but beneath it was dark and bloody secret of a nation. The uncover of truth behind Soeharto's centralized regime brought a disruption to the whole country, politically, economically, socially and culturally. After successfully toppled Soeharto's regime, the Indonesian people began to reclaiming what once theirs: the right to voicing opinion. Many political parties and civil alliance formed after the full-scale ground-breaking riot in 1998: something that was strictly forbidden during Soeharto's regime. These parties, these alliances are fortified themselves with many ideologies, many beliefs and one of the most prominent is religion. The most devastating fact was that these alliances and parties are not seeking for one goal in the name of Indonesia, they went separate way. They don't seek cooperation: they want competition. This is what moves the nation backward. Away from the dream of past thinkers like Sutan Takdir, Chairil Anwar, or ex-President Soekarno. This idea of separation and segregation is approaching more of ‘Pre-Indonesia’ notion prophesized by STA. And this problem is presented beautifully in the movie Cin(T)a. The unhealthy social dynamics of Indonesia was rendered just correctly into a coherent movie narrative: of how religion, race and culture are upsetting interpersonal relationship among society. The two main characters in the movie: Cina and Annisa, brilliantly illustrate the analogy of majority and minority class in Indonesia. Annisa is a Javanese-Muslim, a majority in Indonesian, while Cina is a Chinese-Catholic, the symbol of stigmatized minority of Indonesian people. The sense of mistrust and seclusion in regard to their special affiliation emerged not only from their own mindset, but also from the macroscopic societal life specifically their own nation.

In one of the unforgettable scene in the movie, Annisa and Cina watched together the television news about the bombings on Christmas Eve in many churches throughout Indonesia. The silence that fell along the scene gave a reflective pause for the audience, as if interrogating us, inquiring us: "who is to blame?"
The Muslims? The radical Christians? The militant separatists? The political activists?
No. I think there's no one to blame. Enough with all the blaming in this country. No special fragment in our society need to be avoided or slaughtered again. If only we could see that there's only us facing the mirror. When we looked into it, only our faces stare back at us. There's no one else. We're fully responsible for what we've done. God won’t save us, unless we save ourselves first. Just like what portrayed in the movie: the killing can’t be undone, we can’t resurrect the dead. The best we can do is to accept it and keep moving forward. I think the whole movie tried to send us that message. Though Annisa and Cina meet the bitter end, but they keep going with their own lives. And one significance that I could remember from the movie is that in the end, no matter what religion you believe in, what God you worship, what races you represent, what language you speak, the most important is this: LIFE GOES ON. Don’t sweat yourself over small stuff like text in the Bible, the blabbering about God, hair or skin colors, because while you busy yourself with scrutinizing the details, you forget that all around you the earth keep on rotating, the changes keep on happening. And what once you perceived as absolute truth, can sometimes collapse into irrelevant details. What once was a dead end, at other time can be a wide, open door for you to enter, freely…

 

"A change should also take place in the religious identities which have been often just as dividing and just as strongly antagonistic in social and cultural life as national identities have been. Viewed from the present background of the universality of the truth of scientific knowledge, religious beliefs and faiths with their rigid dogmas and rituals show an embarrassing backwardness and narrowness of concept and ideas."

~ Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana, A Dynamic Anthropology in a Decisive Epoch

Cin(t)a

 

(this is a technical review for the movie, cin(T)a. The philosophical review will be posted soon.) 

I'm not a big fan of Indonesian domestic movies. I skipped many of them for various reason, but mostly is this: technical flaw and bad storytelling. The movie cin(t)a is an anomaly. From the first time I heard about it--in May 2009, the premiere in London--I'm buying the premise, which came in its tagline:

 

"They can't love each other, because they call God by different names."

 

The premise saying much, and I quickly drawn to it. For as long as I can recall, there are hardly any movies in Indonesian cinema history that talked about love and religion. That particular theme had been an internal obsession of mine, since it was personally related to my life: my parents marriage was a cross-religion one. My father was still a Moslem when he married my mother, who is a Roman Catholic, father converted to Catholic three years later. Me too, personally I have an experience (yes, an experience. Singular, not plural.) involving religion-troubled relationship with a girl--that forced us to lose each other. The movie Cin(t)a felt like a heaven sent to me, finally, there's a movie that will speak out what my heart wants to say. And does it speak good? Yes, and no.

First thing first, an acknowledgement: this movie is an independent movie. It didn't get a nation-wide screenings like any major motion picture would do. Lucky I can catch one. Cin(t)a told a love story about Cina, a Chinese-Indonesian guy who just entered his university days in Architecture major, and Annisa, an actress who happened to attend the same university as Cina did. There are so much differences between the two: Cina is Roman Catholic devout and Annisa is a Moslem, Cina is a 19 years old and Annisa is 24, Cina came from middle class background and Annisa is a rich actress, etc etc. The first half hour of the movie is dedicated to the explanation of both the main character. The movie did it well. Fluent and honest, the movie scrutinized both main character's daily routine, problems and lifestyle. Cina had a problem with his father, who persistently forced Cina to took his scholarship to Singapore, while Cina prefer to stay in Indonesia. Annisa got a problem of his Final Project which ordered her to make an architectural design for alternative housing in urban environment, he failed the Project three times before, and became very desperate of it. This academic problem of their ended up in the meeting of the two lovebirds. Cina, who excel in plan modeling and spatial geometry, agreed to help Annisa finishing the Project.  From here, the movie's well-written script started to get more interesting. Cina and Annisa began to form a strong bond to each other by the process of constructing Annisa's Project. They spent much time together in their campus, Annisa's home or Cina's rented house: talking and teasing, chatting and flirting each other only to found out that they believe in different religion, different God. As they getting closer to each other, they found out that love doesn't only conquer all in the world: it also the outer-world resident - God(s). The two lovebirds often discussed God in their daily chit-chat or date, referencing the Poso riot, Palestines vs Israelis. etc etc.

 

"Believers, Jews, Christians and Sabaeans—all those who believe in God and the Last Day and do what is right—shall be rewarded by their Lord; they shall have nothing to fear or to regret."

~ Sura 2: al Baqarah verse 62

In Indonesia, cross-religion marriages (or relationship) were rare to be found. It's only under a very special privilege that cross-religion marriage can be held here, usually by specific appointment and approval from Ministry Department of Religion (Kementerian Agama) or District Attorney. That's why the topic of forbidden love in the terms of religion are such a sensitive issue to be discussed in Indonesia. The movie bravely bring the issue to the surface, yet sadly it was 'blurred' by the over-idealistic tone of the filmmakers. They mashed up the religion issue with far too many other issues: politics, education, capitalism, art, science and so on. It's too much, you can hardly see the focus. The movie relied much in the dialogues to move the story forward, usually between Cina and Annisa, but sometimes it was delivered by other casts as well.
The dialogue in the movie was full of philosophical blabbering and scientific quotes, from Cina's own-made Newton Law (“Law 1: Beauty had a negative correlation with intelligence. The more beautiful a girl is, the more stupid.”) to Annisa's famous lines: "God is a director." The dialogues in this movie tried to be witty and intelligent, yet they appeal only to some audiences only--perhaps, the lesser intelligent audiences, who appreciates dialogue in 'Transformers' more than 'The Godfather'. This kind of audiences will be pleased and amused by the movie 'supposedly-intelligent' dialogues, because they never heard them anywhere before.  Yet, to a more educated and enlightened audiences, the dialogue fell flat and rather childish. The movie even boasts itself as 'thinking' movie: a sign of over-idealistic tone by the filmmakers. Famous quotes and controversial one-liner ("...mungkin saya kurang Muslim untuk menjadi pemimpin.") were displayed wall-to-wall, they shown in each scenes, filled every dialogues and voice over. To like them or hate them it was your call, but to me myself, I only found one or two memorable line from the movie that was worth remembering. The others were nothing more than just repeats from what I've already knew -- John Stuart Mill, some Bible references, Newton's Law and so on. I have no hatred against the dialogues, I just wish it was more accurately delivered to Indonesian audiences.

 

"Kenapa Tuhan nyiptain Atheist? Cape tau disembah setiap saat!”

~ Cina, dari film Cin(t)a

But apart from the minus point in dialogue writing and the overly idealistic script, everything in Cin(t)a is well. Technically superb and fluent in narrative, the movie really speaks volume. Unlike most of Indonesian movies, the movie had some memorable scenes that works for me: the times when Cina and Annisa decorated Christmas tree with ketupat, the times when the passage from Al Buqaroh 62 was delivered, Cina-Annisa debated in a moving merry-go-round, the Church bombings news in Christmas Eve (to which Cina replied, "memang mayoritas di Indonesia itu muslim, jadi buat apa bangun gereja banyak-banyak?") and of course the romantic scene between the two love-drunks. Those scenes was easily remembered thanks to the great cinematography of the movie. The movie was shot mostly in still camera and extreme close-ups to the cast, though sometimes it depleted the dynamic sense of the movie, but somehow the 'quiet' atmosphere of the movie resonate in more poetic feels. This is great to me. But I'm afraid to larger audiences this is when the confusion happened: what was shown visually in the screen are not in sync with what was delivered in the speech.  The speech were spoken fast, heated and intense, while the camera going static, slow and stagnate. Truly, this is happening a lot in independent/ art movie, yet if the audiences are not prepared and familiar for such treatment, the result are full-scale boredom. And there are more 'breakthrough' that Cin(t)a made defiantly from other Indonesian movies, my favorite was the 'breaking the fourth-wall' scene that happened twice: when Annisa looked and directly speak to audience, "God is a director" and when the crew finally revealed themselves at the near end of the movie. Cin(t)a is really a well-made movie, and if you're familiar with Indonesian cinema, especially the major ones, you will feel a really unique experience when watchin it. Cin(t)a may not suggest the audience to have a well-literacy in visual media like movie or video, but at least don't feel betrayed to what's shown in screen. Don't protest or ask your money back, keep in mind this is an independent movie, not a visual feast like Merah Putih. But indeed the movie also us to have open-mindedness, acceptance and maturity, for there are many scenes in this movie that could be wrongly translated if the audiences are strict and close-minded. Well, I mean how well could you accept these sayings?

 

“Religion brings fight. It’s better if none.”

"Tuhan memang suka dipuja dan disembah, but all the time?”

"Lebih baik ga usah ada Tuhan, ga usah ada agama, ga ada perang!”

 

if you're not prepared for those dialogues, go run away and watch the crappy G.I Joe instead, and you'll regret because you just passed an excellent movie hailing from Indonesia. It's a fresh air for indie Indonesian cinema. Despite some flaw it made, actually it's faaaar more greater than any major Indonesia movie played in theatres recently. When entering the screening auditorium tonight, at first I thought I'll go for a 'lecturing' movie with boring moral message and nihilistic lesson, but my thought gone after the very first few minutes of the film--especially when Annisa character walked in, Saira Jihan the actress was heaven sent, so beautiful. Now, go and watch it.

Merah. Putih.

(the post was written entirely in Bahasa Indonesia.)

 

"Mana mungkin? Mana bisa suatu bangsa besar dikalahkan? Kecuali mereka hanya pura-pura Revolusioner. Pura-pura! Belum apa-apa sudah kibarkan kain kafan! Mereka belum lagi kelaparan! Mereka belum lagi lecet!"

~ dari roman Larasati hal. 134, karya Pramoedya Ananta Toer, 2000.

 

Sore itu penulis duduk di teras rumah, leyeh-leyeh setelah kepanasan berjemur untuk angkat kamera mendokumentasikan perayaan kemerdekaan Indonesia di kampungnya--belum lagi ia juga habis menyaksikan film aksi perang berlatar Revolusi Indonesia masa Agresi Militer Belanda berjudul Merah Putih di teater mahal suatu mall ibukota. Segelas kopi di tangan kanannya, dan sebatang kretek di tangan kirinya, ia memandang lurus ke lapangan tepat di depan rumahnya, tapi pikirannya tentu tidak berada di tanah 10x26 meter itu. Pikirannya jauuuh melayang, ke arah Banten era J.P Coen, dengan Sultan Agung tampak gagah di atas benteng. Lalu seketika pindah, kini di jaman pra-Proklamasi, melihat tampang-tampang gagah para intelektual yang berkomplot membuat Indische Partij di tahun 1912, lalu sumpah penuh khidmat para pemuda pada 28 Oktober 1928. Belum lagi selesai, pikiran penulis sudah melayang lagi, ke arah jaman pasca-Proklamasi, segala romantisme para seniman jenius angkatan '45. Melihat sosok Chairil Anwar, dan Asrul Sani, gagah berani berorasi lantang menentang pasukan sekutu, ikut morat-marit kebingungan setelah pusat pemerintahan dipindah ke Yogyakarta. Lalu terbit era '50-an, ada sosok Pak Pram yang pernah diwawancara Bapak penulis, W.S Rendra yang baru saja berangkat ke Panggung Apresiasi Kekal. Lalu di era '60-'70, era bahaya menurut Bapak, ada Goenawan Mohammad yang berulang kali ludes dimakan garong Orba, ada Mas Sutardji CB yang nyeleneh dan sempat dianggap aneh. Belum lagi si Sri Paus Kesusastraan Indonesia: HB Jassin. Dan setelah mengambang lama di kilatan sejarah, penulis kembali terdiam. Dengan pelan ia masuk ke kamar tidur, memutar 'Mata Berdebu' milik band 2000-an, SORE.

Kilatan sejarah tadi sempat kembali lagi ketika penulis mulai menekan-nekan tombol di atas remote TV-nya. Semua stasiun TV memutar acara serupa: upacara penurunan bendera. Tradisi feudalistik, berbau militer, bahkan kadang serupa dengan pemujaan buta ala fasis. Upacara, yang walaupun terus diserukan sebagai simbol penghormatan Pahlawan oleh berbagai pihak dan satu upaya penegakan disiplin nasionalisme, namun tetap saja serupa angka nol buat penulis. Bukan, penulis bukan radikal, bukan komunis. Penulis cuma benci hierarki ketat dan birokrasi tidak berujung a la militer, kekakuan nihilisme, perintah-perintah dan komando opresif, hubungan majikan-babu itu. Sah-sah saja bilang penulis ini anarkis, toh Chairil Anwar pernah dapat seruan serupa, seperti yang difiktifkan Suman Djaya dalam buku AKU.

 

Seorang seniman lain yang hadir disitu, bernama Hadimaja, bahkan lebih sarkastis menimpali:
    "Anarkis!"

dari buku naskah ‘Aku’ karya Sjuman Djaja, adegan 62, hal. 55.

 

Penulis mengingat masa sekolahnya dulu, sebuah SMA Katolik di bilangan Pasar Minggu, Jakarta Selatan. Teringat seorang guru Sastra yang selalu menolak simbol militerisme seperti upacara itu, yang selalu bilang, "sekolah ini upacara setahun sekali saja! Tujuhbelasan saja. Buang waktu kalau harus tiap senin." Perkataan guru itu terus mengiang di kepala penulis hingga sekarang. Gaung tentang simbol nasionalisme dan jiwa patriotik tidak berkorelasi positif dengan penghormatan dan ketundukan penuh ala militer. "Affandi mesti potong birokrasi Pasukan Sekutu untuk beli cat buat lukisannya, Raden Saleh melukis 'Penangkapan Pangeran Diponegoro' yang kemudian dengan sarkasnya ia berikan kepada pemerintah Belanda." ujar si guru Sastra yang sebenarnya lebih cocok jadi guru Sejarah itu, "Semangat nasionalisme kita itu bukan semangat tunduk, bukan semangat militer kuli, bukan tunggu perintah tapi semangat berontak. Semangat liar. Ki Hadjar toh tidak punya nyali militer, kerjaannya cuma ngendon di perpustakaan dan belajar, tapi dia bisa berontak. Dia bisa bangun Taman Siswa." Sejenak penulis terdiam, terpaku menatap layar kaca 30 inci yang didalamnya berseliweran para pemuda-pemudi dalam balutan pakaian putih-putih, gagah berderap layaknya tentara beriring ke medan perang. Apa budaya militer sudah sedemikian terintegrasi dalam kultur ke-Indonesiaan? Penulis memalingkan mata dari layar kaca dan melihat ke arah meja makan. Bapak tengah terduduk sendiri, menikmati kopi hitam pekatnya dengan khusyuk. Seketika--hampir tanpa sadar--penulis bertanya, "buat apa sih Upacara bendera, pak?"

Bapak menoleh pelan, lalu menjawab kalem, "buat disiplin and spread influence awalnya. Gaya militer toh paling enak buat hal-hal kayak gitu, propaganda pasti jalan kalo di militer. Di orde baru ini relevan banget, tapi sekarang udah nggak begitu...bapak sih nggak ambil pusing, ini cuma simbol. Upacara nggak upacara, bapak tetep Indonesia." Penulis senyum, jawaban Bapak selalu melegakan. Kadang memang tidak selalu lengkap bahkan cenderung loncat-loncat, tapi selalu melegakan. Memang benar, upacara hanya simbol. Bukan kultur untuk direpetisi tiap Senin. Lah, kalau menurut teori psikologi sosial sesuatu yang cenderung diekspos dan dilakukan terus menerus bisa jadi kehilangan meaningnya. Upacara memang bisa jadi terus ter-reinforce, tapi tidak tertutup justru menimbulkan extinction. Maknanya hilang karena sudah terlalu lumrah. Taken-for-granted. Bicara tentang makna hilang, penulis jadi ingat film yang baru saja ia tonton beberapa jam lalu, tapi sudah hilang maknanya. Film Merah Putih, yang sama sekali tidak merah putih. Ya sudah, ada kok putihnya: para bule-bule impor yang ikut menulis naskah dan jadi kru film. Hasilnya? Wah, sebenarnya malu untuk cerita, mengingat tadi penulis sudah menjerumuskan nama-nama intelek Indonesia era lalu, tapi apa boleh buat--maaf, eyang-eyang sekalian--mari kita beralih ke sisi yang kurang intelek.

 

"Mereka memang konyol. Tidak kenal peluru bedil yang ditujukan ke dada. Tidak kecut hati tubuhnya berlumuran darah. Mereka datang lagi. Datang lagi. Ini membuat mereka yang berlindung dalam benteng semakin ketakutan. Kalau mereka mati, mereka mati di tanah orang, bukan di tanah air sendiri nun-jauh di sana di Nederland. Ini membuat semakin ngeri, apalagi setelah dengar teriak-teriak serbuan dari orang Mataram itu. Teriakan-teriakan itu semakin mendekati benteng dan mengulangi pertempuran yang belum berhasil tempo hari..."

~ dari cerita bersambung "Sang Gubernur Jenderal" oleh Rahmat Ali. Pertama kali diterbitkan sebagai cerita bersambung di harian Sinar Harapan (1 Januari hingga 1 Maret 1974)

 

Setelah tadi menonton, penulis sempat bercanda sedikit dengan kakak yang memang ikut menonton juga. Membuat istilah "sinetronized" untuk film-film Indonesia yang memang mutunya masih sinetron, kalau tidak secara teknik, ya secara naratif. Beruntunglah penulis dan kakaknya bisa bicara banyak di dua area itu: kakak penulis lama berkecimpung di dunia seni visual, sehingga jangan kaget kalau sekaliber Stanley Kubrick pun masih suka dicela karyanya oleh dia. Penulis suka memperhatikan aspek naratif dan penceritaan, ilmu yang tengah getol-getolnya ia geluti. Melalui pendekatan semiotik klasik, analisis mitologi dan archetype hingga perkembangan kognitif, penulis dengan mudah meng-amburadul-kan macam-macam cerita, mengintip detil-detil kecil yang tidak koheren dengan gambaran besar.
Perpaduan kritikus teknik plus cerita ini tadi sempet meringis-ringis di dalam studio bioskop menyaksikan betapa Merah Putih, film megah berbiaya besar itu tidaklah menjual banyak. Tenggelam dalam ambisi besar dan berton-ton pyrotechnic untuk kobaran api dan ledakan besar yang benar-benar tidak bergaung. "Yah, nafsu besar tenaga kurang ini sih," umpat kakak penulis mengomentari adegan film. Film ini tidak sempurna untuk kaliber jutaan dolar, "mending nonton 'Serangan Fajar' lagi deh." katanya.

Dimanakah letak kesalahan Merah Putih? Memberikan ekspektasi terlalu besar untuk penonton. Lihat betapa vulgarnya para produser film ini mengumbar janji, dengan dukungan si bule ini, si bule itu, si bule babunya Batman, si bule Star Wars, si bule tukang latih Tom Cruise, pokoknya si bule-si bule serba ditonjolkan. Bahkan sebelum menonton, penulis tahu lebih dulu tentang para bule ini ketimbang isi cerita. Si bule sampai diberi porsi ekstra di banyak adegan film. Moonlight Serenade dan dansa waltz di tengah kampung di Jawa Tengah membuat dada serasa kembang kempis, tak kuasa ingin teriak: KANCUUUUTT!! WESTERNIZED! Belum lagi properti dan segala arahan artistik yang tidak tepat, seragam-seragam para pejuang Revolusi yang seakan serba baru, dan akting "sinetronized" para pemain. Berbanding terbalik dengan literatur pasca Proklamasi yang selama ini tertera di benak penulis: karakterisasi luar biasa, setting detail dan mendalam serta cerita bermutu yang tidak terasa dipaksakan. Tapi jangan lagi ah menimbun kesalahan terus pada si bule...mungkin film Indonesia saja yang memang tengah di masa transisi. Seperti bayi baru lahir, masih merangkak, masih suka mengompol, membuat kesal dan tidak bisa berjalan sendiri. Masih ditunggu suplai naskah bagus serta sumberdaya manusia yang mumpuni. Dan siang tadi penulis ingat email lama dari karib yang bilang kalau Tetralogi Pulau Buru, mulai dari Bumi Manusia hingga Rumah Kaca juga akan segera diangkat ke layar lebar. Kalau yang ini naskah sudah pasti menggiurkan, ditambah iming-iming mas sutradara Garin Nugroho...jadi bermimpi kalau filmnya bisa sefenomenal bukunya yang sudah diterjemahkan ke 33 bahasa itu. Jadi bermimpi kalau film Indonesia bisa cemerlang lagi, seniman Indonesia bisa berkarya kaliber Raden Saleh lagi, intelek Indonesia bisa berargumen seanggun PM Sjahrir lagi. Jadi bermimpi jauh disana para intelek komplotan Indische Partij, para alumni kongres pemuda tahun 1928, para seniman, para politikus, para pejabat militer era tua tersenyum melihat kami disini sekarang, para pemuda era baru menyongsong masa depan, yang semoga saja tidak sekelam masa jajah Belanda, Sekutu atau Jepang dulu. Hambatan kami memang beda, eyang-eyang, buyut-buyut, tidak lagi musuh berdarah-daging, tapi copet-lari-cepat yang namanya ketidakacuhan dan ketidakpedulian, yang tanpa sadar dan secepat kilat mengambil suara-suara vokal kami, merampas hak berpikir dan berekspresi kami. Membuat kami menoleh ke arah yang salah. Semoga jangan pemuda tidak lagi berpikir intelek, tidak lagi berlantang, bertegas karena setan cuek bebek yang beraknya menutup mata kami. Yang kelaminnya menempel di etalase, membuat kami berpaling dan hanya menyerahkan diri pada estetika duniawi. Nyalakan korek, bakar kretekmu, tenggak pekat kopimu, lalu berangkat!

The Contrarians

(inspired by some late-night talk with my three of my High School friends in outer town some weeks ago. The four of us sat in the corner of a coffeeshop, talking for hours with some companions from extra hot latte and the strong smell of caffe americano.)

 

Most of the friends I made in my life, are excellent academics who are consummate in art, literature, music, fashion, philosophy or scientific studies like math, economics, physics etc. I dare to say that these people are the open-minded people, the one that always curious about the coming of new idea, new forms of expression. They're the first to react in intellectual challenge or exchange of opinions. In the name of Feynman, Planck or Einstein I dare to say they're all smart, actual and always relevant.

But it's start to bothering me when they began to think themselves as elitist, an exclusive segment of society that won't be touched by germs of mainstream and 'usual' and 'ordinary' stuff. It's hurting to see some of my friends began to isolate themselves by saying things like, "I don't listen to that kind of music, I only listen to indie band. The one people haven't heard before." or, "I think those clothings/gadgets/bands/movies/books are waaay too mainstream, it's like billions of people used/heard/read/watched them, I don't want them." This is when contrarian fallacy took them over. This is when they started to lock themselves in a prison they made themselves. They're rebelling to everything, it's become ridiculous. They thought they were so extreme and radical, it's become outrageous.
This obsession with "street-cred" reaches its apex of absurdity, declining everything just for the sake of being 'cool' and 'indie' and 'rare', and 'unique', and doing your own 'DIY movement.'

Why must we so often isolate ourselves in this way? I mean, it's okay to have your own ideology and choices of taste or aesthetics pleasures. It's always fine to stand in your own established road, to dress in your predictable stylistic trademarks: skinny jeans, cotton spandex leggings, tucked-in printed shirt, vintage flannel, fake eyeglasses and keffiyeh or silk scarf. It's great to listen to Peter Bjorn and John, The Shins, Frou Frou, Phoenix, or every others indie band out there. But at least, please, see what's on the other lane. I believe they will meet us halfway if we offer them a reasonable hill to climb and a meaningful experience for their efforts. To become an idealistic person is not to ignoring everybody else, not to mock the mainstream culture. You're not rebelling to the authority just because you sporting a leather jacket a la Joey Ramone, you're not a princess who lived freely in the glamorous '50s like Holly Golightly just because you've read Breakfast at Tiffany's, and indeed you're not Ubermensch and live transcendly above the others just because you've read Nietszche. Millions of people read them too, watched them too, listened them too, don't think we're so unique. It's just us that doesn't see it, because we don't want to. We're hiding behind the pillars that is our comfort zone: the social recognition of being 'unique'. (After all, if everybody's unique, then none is.) 

The elitist, the exclusives aim to prove that there is something inherently wrong with the limited world view of another, while their actual concern is to establish a few limits of their own. They saw the world in dichotomy: if it's not me/us, then it's them. They stubbornly protesting against mass society (that was stupid and illiterate, said the most radical of them), while it's them who shaped mass society to its best. By consistently taking the opposite stand, they reveal themselves as just as much a fashion victim as the mainstreamers they so despise and hated against. They don the glasses that is monochrome, therefore they only see the world in black and white. We do not grow to dislike something because it is popular, rather because we grow to fear we no longer enjoy it for the reasons we once did. We fear of the broken emotional connection between us and the thing we loved: that's why we always feel the wind of victory everytime we discover new bands others haven't or when we saw new movies or read new books before anyone did, before they became mainstream. And that’s that the life of the elitists and the exclusives: they’re busy keeping up with Joneses while the others really give any damn about them.

Up, Up and Away

know it's a late review for the movie Up, it's been 2 months since the first premiere in Cannes, but the movie just screened a few days ago in my country, Indonesia. Okay, here goes my initial thought for it: absolutely beautiful. In my life, I recall only few animated movies that could be considered as 'influential' and/or 'life-changing' (well, in fact, there are only two of them: Brad Bird's The Iron Giant, and Isao Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies) but today, as I've watched Up, I listed it as the third. It's a life-changing experience to see the movie. Yes, the effect brought by the movie was too powerful for me. In a sense, Up is typical of a more modern animated movie: rendered in high-tech CGI, featured in 3D and less dependent of hand-drawn character, but it does have something that modern cartoon couldn't offer: a story.

I know that animation movie shouldn't be compared to those of real-live movies. I mean, originally, animation movie wasn't meant to emphasized in the story. Most of the earliest cartoon were respected not for the story, but rather for their technical wonder and magic, Disney's Steamboat Willie and Silly Symphonies was a few example. They are famous because they pushed human life forward, technologically and culturally. But, it's no longer 1928, it's not the era of a mouse in red pants anymore. It's 2009, a time when 60 frames per second animation movie won't impress anyone. The technical wonderment once associated with animation movie is now getting irrelevant. Today's cartoon movie is not judged by fluid sequence of movement or the complexity of the making, but rather by the story and message it carried. Some successfully done it, and some flawed. For every Iron Giant made, there are more Bionicle: The Legend Reborn. For every Spirited Away, there are more Happily N’ever After. Today's animation movie – especially 2000s – depends heavily in over-simplified story, technological advance, and entertainment value without so much caring about characters, coherent plot and/or important message it could (and should) deliver.

The two top animated movies of mine gave a clear example of the power in visual narrative like cartoon. You don't have to be realistic in cartoon world, for this world is about analogies and allusion. Imagination and big ideas.  In fact, cartoon urged us to gave more thinking in the viewing process, because--like every neuroscientist said--our brain interpret visual stimulus NOT in literal way, but rather through the conception around it. When you see an apple in dinner table, you don't see an apple. The brain 'interrogates' the apple, and create a series of mental models around it according to your collection of discovery through various processing in your lifetime. A baby didn't see an apple like the way adults would have--because babies don't have any understanding of it yet, they are in different stage of cognitive development. And that's that about visual imagery like animated movies: it can be interpreted in so many ways. In the movie like Iron Giant, for example, we could ask, why did the alien have to be depicted as a giant robot instead of monster with fang or wings? The interpretation could've resulted in many hypothetical deductions. Maybe it was an allusion to the fear of technology, or maybe it was simply because robots are cool and could be accepted in larger audience segmentation. The guessing could be endless, the chance to exploration could be limitless and that's the magic of it. In animated movies, virtually, anything could happen. People can fly, cars can talk, clouds do have legs and arms, and so on, and so on. But the most successful animation in my opinion wasn't the one that gave too much room for explorations and wild guessing.  Such animations could be wander aimlessly without any apparent context, that's pathetic. For me, the most successful animation was the one that allow the audiences to imagining things, yet in the same time gave an appropriate context and set some boundaries and mental models, so that the audiences won't get lost in the feast of colorful allusion and analogy it presented. Up did that. Gloriously.

For years and years I've been waited for a movie like Up. Kudos to the makers, they really know something about the power of animation. Up, though took setting in real world inhabited by human, didn't bind us to stay realistic and force us to thinking in linear way. In opposite, Up still gave us a room for imagination and wild wonderment. The very first scene of the movie even depicts an adventurer cruising a lost land--something that won't happen in our ordinary life. The rest of the movie just got better. A shy boy, Carl Fredericksen who had this great dream to be an adventurer, met a boyish-girl, Ellie, a member of Grape Soda club. A spark of love started to grow between them and OMG it's sweet. ("You don't talk much...I like you", said Ellie in one of the most memorable scene in the movie). The first 20 minutes of the movie dedicated to the love life of Carl and Ellie. Their wedding, their domestic life and their old age was told in a very honest and consummate way--and when Ellie passed away, wow, I can't believe I can drop tears again for a movie. After that, the story is getting more interesting.  Carl, now lived alone, became a rude person and develop as strange, eccentric old-man. His meeting with a scoutboy, Russell, was so hilarious you'll laugh your ass off. (Oops, I should stop here, I won't give too much clue about the real story). Just keep in mind: when thousands of balloon popped out from Carl's chimney, you know you're in for a ride.  This is a ride of life for me. Carl, in his old age, finally found his passion and happiness, and that teaches me a lot. There are differences between pleasure and happiness, they're dogs of different breed and Up told me how to recognize one from another. It is a movie about adventure and dream, about visual feast and technological celebration, about coherent narrative and powerful storytelling. Up is a colorful, funny, imaginative and heartwarming experience, the one that'll last in my mind forever.

Society and The Rise of New Media

I was born and raised in my beloved city, Jakarta. Jakarta's air was the first air I inhaled when I born. I ate, walked, drank and educated upon its soil. And that's about being the first: you can never forget it. Yesterday's bombing in two luxury hotels in Jakarta (the J.W Marriott and Ritz-Carlton) was indeed a shock to me and my family. From the news coverage in television by local news stations to the latest tweets in my Twitter, from my friends' Facebook status updates to the text messages sent by relatives in my cellphone, the echoes of bombing incident in that morning was surrounded every corners of my house. We didn't even get out of the house, yet we still got the update. Every frightening seconds of it.

Media coverage. The press. The journalists. The reporters. Every means of publication and socialization, they're the third person of our life. The transcending distributor. I mean, how do we live without any aid by them? Imagine if there's no media, how do we got those news? Mouth to mouth rumors? First-witnessing the bombings? Being the victim? Hell. Let's no mistake upon this, but my opinion is: the means of publication and socialization are one of the fucking greatest forces in human history. Scharrer and Comstock in their book, The Psychology of Media and Politics (2005) gathered some statistical evidences about the effect caused by media to public opinion and perception--and to greater effect, the knowledge-making of public. Let's make a hypothesis for this: our first assumption was that public still have rationality upon what've been shown to them in media coverage. In other words, we may or may not directly influenced by media. We still have resistance to what's been shown to us.

Scharrer and Comstock brought up the evidence: resistance and denial of media sayings only happened in individual level. If, say, you're experiencing the events covered by media, directly, there are greater chances you're resisting the media publication. If you're the victim of the bombing, well, since you've experienced the bombing yourself, there are big chances you stop seeing the TV news again. Because you already know what's going on. Directly. First-hand experience. This is called the Spiral of Silence. (Noelle-Neumann, 1974)
The chances of resisting media coverage are getting less and less when you're among your group. And yes, the cause was only one word long: conformity. When perceiving the data shown by media in your groups, conformity is the norm. The perceived behaviors of others, governing our individual decision. Noelle-Neumann (1974, 1984, 1993) proposed that individuals regularly survey their social environments for cues about the prevailing balance among contending viewpoints. They look around for safety and shelter about which among contending viewpoints had the most support as well as which were rising or declining in public enthusiasm. The Spiral of Silence didn't bring any effect here, since none of the viewers are participants or direct observer of the events. The constituents that act in matter of Spiral of Silence to put into effect was the character of media attention. It must include sufficient argumentation by authoritative
individuals with the consequent legitimization of opposition to the majority to supply the necessary social support. When there is an event that draws public attention and raises public passions, such as a particularly repellant crime in the case of the death penalty, an institutionalized issue may become subject to the influence of the second factor (conformity): it will fall victim to ideological vituperation, and the spiral will be initiated. In the case of Jakarta bombings, the three first reaction I recalled was this:

1. The bomb was suspected as a sabotage attempt to cancel the MU soccer club visit to Indonesia (scheduled on July 20). I said this is being ridiculous, never in my life--in Jakarta--I recalled such devastating sabotage attempt in the level of business/ entertainment/ sport. Some rumors went off about the rival business of the event promoters planted the bomb. I said no.

2. The post-election crisis. This one is still at question. The political climate in Indonesia, I should say, was never in stable condition. It always fiery hot and bloody, with challenge came off, not just from the opposition to the ruling government, but also from the ruling government to the marginalized segment. The official speeches from Indonesian President, SBY, stated something about the 'unpredictable' condition about the post-election political climate. Can't say much about this one, I went fifty-fifty for this.

3. The JI. Jamaah Islamiyah, the Indonesian-based extremist militants (let's avoid the word terrorists), who were linked to the Al-Qaeda led by Bin Laden, was again the number one suspect in this bombing. Unlike the other bombing done in past time (the Bali bomb in 2005 and JW Marriot in 2003), this time I said I'd have some doubt to put JI in the #1 list. JI shared there with the political revolutioners in my suspect lists.

These three initial reactions were all drawn by media. The MU sabotage attempt was first out in some Indonesian internet forum and blogs. The second and the third one was almost official, as it came from the Indonesian government itself (broadcasted through every local TV news). Think about the Spiral of Silence here, I mean, statistically, how much is the percentage of witness, the direct-observer, the people who were experienced the events in first-hand compared to the passive viewers, the sit-in-front-of-TV-or-internet-type-of-people? I proposed, the conformity is playing large here. The third-person was our only reliable source of data. Basically in this situation, people are informed and knowledgeable, but act judiciously in the light of public opinion. The third-person effect glides easily from the support of one to the support of the other. It presents individuals as highly vulnerable to exterior influence.
But, remember it was 2009. Two. Thousand. Fucking. Nine. The new media has arise. Mainstream media such as news station is declining in the terms of public influence. Check Twitter. The so-called 'revolutionary site' of today. The Iranian election chaos was first confirmed in Twitter, and not by mainstream media. It was people, to be exact, the people who fall in the Spiral of Silence, yes, the first-hand experimenter, the direct observer. In Jakarta bombings, Indonesian local news stations are starting to break the news around 08.00, while the bombings happened 15 minutes earlier. In twitter, in the matter of second the bomb blasted, @danieltumiwa, the surviving witness who happened to held a meeting in Ritz Carlton coffee shop, tweeting the event from the exact location. The news delivered. Right on time. By the person who experienced it himself.
By this time, you may think I'm crazy if I said that this is the future of news coverage, but you'll see. What twitter (and other 'new media') did was basically skip our needs for the report from the third person. In this case, I won't say @danieltumiwa was the third-person. He is not. He's the victim and the word-spreader, not the event reporter.
And what good did this type of 'public-supplied' news done for us? It helps in eliminating the ambiguity and irrelevance of governing image in mainstream media publication. The contrast and compare is easily done. Just a click away, just a call away. I, for once, automatically called one of my cousins who happened to be in office in Mega Kuningan estate, seconds after the twitter updates suddenly flooded with Jakarta bombings news. The contrast and compare made here. It's easy, and it's basically skip the necessity to look upon the mainstream media, the so-called third-person. Hours later, calls after calls, tweets after tweets, I switched on the TV and finally look what the mainstream media offered. Well, it is not much different—if it’s not so behind—than what I found on the net.

I said that the bombings was geographically strategic, not in the terms of the destruction or the people who were victimized, but in the terms of media influence and technological advance. Jakarta was the capital city of Indonesia, so you can bet that the citizen of Jakarta are far more sophisticated. Culturally, economically and technologically advanced more than any other cities in Indonesia. There are many twitterers in Jakarta, many Facebook users, many people with megapixel camera phone with 3G and internet access, so yeah, the news coverage can be sourced from everywhere in Jakarta. If the bombings went off in another city, in my opinion, it'll be less talkable. It won't become trending topics in twitter, or made its rank to google news. They weren't legitimized source of news, the tweeps, but boy, do they spread the words? Yes. They are.
Now back to the power and means of socialization and publication, namely, the media. For long, they're a part of us all. The third person--who indirectly control our opinion and perception, but I said, in years to come, their effect won't be that great anymore. Iranian election and Jakarta bombings was the proof. People are the journalists, people are the news-maker. This is the era of history-making, of power-shift and more individual expression. The discourse and ambiguity may still exist, but the chance for contrasting and comparing is also bigger. The mainstream media basically held the old power of 'public influence', but hey, just some people can't do everything, but everyone can do something. Right?

Read also:

Comstock, George and Scharrer, Erica. 2005. The Psychology of Media and Politics. New York: Academic Press

‘Jakarta Bombings: Twitter User First on The Scene’, an article on Mashable.com

and here’s the full text of SBY, President of Indonesia, speeches concerning the attack (translated).

The images shown are via @kompasdotcom

A Flash of The Future (2 of 2)

Let me explain you with a story:

A man was found sitting in the middle of the desert in a contraption made of rocks, bits of lumber, and old, blown tires, which he was busily “steering” as if it were actually a vehicle in motion, a real car.
When asked what he was doing, the man said,
“Driving home.”
“You’re never going to get there in this,” he was told.
He said, “If not in this, then in what?” 

We’re like this man, busily trying to steer into the future in an assembled trash called 'programs'. Even after we’ve acknowledged that programs don’t work and never have worked, however, it still somehow seems natural to ask, “If not programs, then what?”
The answer would be simple. It's ridiculously simple, you may laugh at it: vision.
When things work, the forces that make them work are invisible. The universe at large is a notorious example of this. We tend only to see the result of something, not the process before it, nor the vision before the process. Newton’s genius was precisely the genius of seeing that which is so evident as to be unseeable. Every advance in science makes manifest a working that is cloaked by its very success. Before Newton, people didn’t wonder why unsupported objects are compelled to fall to the ground. They just figured, what else could they do? They have to fall to the ground, and that’s that.
Vision, imagination and curiousity are scarce in our world, the ability and will to look beyond what's been programmed is even more rare. To questioned everything and not just taking it for granted. People are amazed by the success of Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon, yet when being asked why did it succeed, the most possible answer we could hear is, 'it's simply succeed.' We never investigate, we never--ever--investigate and be curious.
What is it the cause of global warming? The best possible answer I've ever heard was simply because our earth was too old, and human lifestyle made the condition even worse.

Now, back to the saving the world thingy, the question I asked earlier was: who will save the world? And I said, it's not us--not the old minds with new programs, but instead, new minds with no programs at all that'll save this world. Why not new minds with new programs? Because where you find people working on programs, you don’t find new minds, you find old ones. Programs and old minds go together like bread and jam. We don't need programs, we need vision. This is of course a difficult concept to be swallowed, it required you to flip your whole worldview, you need to be brainwashed to understand it fully. And don't ever perceived it in old minds way, don't ever asked, 'how do we solve these problems', but instead, asked 'how do we make happen what we want to happen?'. Work on the solution, don't dwell in the problems. And by 'solution' I don't mean the opposite of problems. Poverty would still exists and are never going to be fixed with 'richness', they are of course the opposite, but that doesn't mean it can be an effective solution. If we ever treat the homeless, the hungry with more money, more food and more shelter that means we’re going to be doing this way forever. Fixing them forever. Because our minds can never think the other way, we're so bounded, caged and fenced on thinking always about 'stopping the negative'.

And now it's time for me to end this writing. What? Ending? There's no ending in this writing! why? Because it's all--one hundred percent--a beginning. The end is unwritten here, it's for us all to make one. Beyond these words, beyond my writings, the ending is out there in the real world. The ending is for you all to write.

A Flash of The Future (1 of 2)

I believe in change. That's not the words I stole from Harvey Dent or Obama campaign: I believe it myself. And in my perspective, the world hasn't change much today. Despite every stem cell implantation that worked, every cloning attempts that succeed, every new equation in mathematics and physics world, every new location named in brain by neuroscientists, every new words added to dictionary, actually we haven't moved much from the past era.
Something stopped us. Something made us stagnate here. And that 'something' was the old thinking.

The old thinking. Yes, those Olde-Worlde filth that stay within us to this very day. Old thinking believed in saving the world, saving the earth--and they took it literally. For the old minds, saving the world meant to save it biologically. Save the globe, save the forest, stop global warming, stop animal hunting, stop eating meat and so on. You're all welcome to attack me right now, but I believe: global warming isn't that devastating. Mass media blown it up, made it to something so frightening and unavoidable. Take a look at our past: even at our worst and most destructive, we would never be able to render this planet lifeless. Not even with our superior nuclear program, not even with our unhealthy lifestyle we can ever stop the life on earth. It goes on, you know. Don't ever stop it. It's the old thinking way, to stop something from happening, awww, that was so hundred years ago!

Saving the world can’t mean preserving the world as it is right now. Saving the world can't mean to stop eating meat, stop pollution, oh fuck that, saving the world can't mean staying in status quo. That may sound like a nice idea, but it’s also out of reach. Even if the entire human race vanished tomorrow, the world wouldn’t stay the way it is today. We will never, under any circumstances, be able to stop the change that happened on this planet. So how is it to save the world? Well, that's a wrong question. Let me correct it: who is it that's going to save the world? It can't be us, not the people of today. Why? Because our minds are the old minds, and the old minds--like I said before--believe in 'stopping'. Here’s how old minds think of stopping us. They think of stopping us the way they stopped poverty, the way they stopped drug abuse, the way they stopped crime. With programs. Programs that have been implanted in our minds for too long, for centuries or maybe millenniums. When the rainforest numbers are declining, governments made a programs to stop it, when poverty exposed in some area of the world, we made programs to feed the poor, when child abuse happened, we launch a program to prevent it. Programs, programs and more programs. Programs never stop the things they’re launched to stop. No program has ever stopped poverty, drug abuse, or crime, and no program ever will stop them. And no program will ever stop us from devastating the world.

Programs make it possible to look busy and purposeful while failing. If programs actually did the things people expect them to do, then human society would be heaven: our governments would work, our schools would work, our law enforcement systems would work, our justice systems would work, our penal systems would work, and so on. When programs fail (as they invariably do), this is blamed on things like poor design, lack of funds and staff, bad management, and inadequate training. When programs fail, look for them to be replaced by new ones with improved design, increased funding and staff, superior management, and better training. When these new programs fail (as they invariably do), this is blamed on poor design, lack of funds and staff, bad management, and inadequate training. This is why we spend more and more on our failures every year. Most people accept this willingly enough, because they know they’re getting more every year: bigger budgets, more laws, more police, more prisons—more of everything that didn’t work last year or the year before that or the year before that. Old minds think that if we're failing this year, we gotta do MORE on the next year. If we're failing a class this year, we gotta learn MORE the same subject next year. If the stop AIDS campaign is failing this year, put MORE budgets and MORE publications next year. Bullshit. Why didn't try this: if it didn’t work last year, let’s do something ELSE this year.

Then, the next question you may raised is this: If not programs, then what?

(The answer is on the next post)

2009 Blockbusters Quick Review!!

Okay, we've been through the first semester of 2009, actually, I've seen many movies during this period, but I choose six of recently released blockbusters to be reviewed, here they go!

(THE GOOD)

Watchmen: Zack Snyder lived up the dystopian future of Alan Moore's story. The movie adaptation of Watchmen is well-balanced and well-measured, it was fresh enough for casual moviegoers, yet deep and insightful enough for anyone who had literacy in the original graphic novel. Nothing seems out of the bound, even the significant change in the ending is a great addition to the rich and brooding world of Watchmen.

Star Trek: I might be fed up with Lost and slightly disappointed with Mission Impossible 3, but J.J Abrams and his mystery box philosophy keep me guessing. In this reboot of Star Trek, J.J is boldly going where no man has gone before, and outdid himself. From perfect casting for Spock and Kirk (I'm no boy-lover, but I think Chris Pine and ZQ are fit for the role), to the shocking story involved quantum physics and time-travel thing, the new Star Trek could be listed as new classic sci-fi masterpiece.

Drag Me To Hell: Many of my friends complaining about this movie. They said it was horrible and tasteless, but hey, this is Sam Raimi back to the origin! Raimi--a connoisseur in cheap horror--actually revived the genre with his Evil Dead franchise, started back in 1981. With over the top gore, disgusting properties, and shocking scenes, Drag Me To Hell could be counted as something like Raimi taking back his throne over the genre. (Heck, even his trademark and style could even be seen in Spider-man trilogy!!) And now, Raimi back on his track once again, following his bliss and produce a slapstick, humorous, highly-entertained horror movie. Well, I can't blame any of my friend who hated the movie, they might not know about Sam Raimi's historical stuff at all, that's why the didn't 'get' the movie, but for those who do understand a thing about Sam Raimi, the movie was total fun.

 

(THE BAD)

Transformers Revenge of The Fallen: Michael Bay's fucking epic sequel of 2007's Transformers is--sadly--are just the same old story. I'm not going into contradiction here, I knew about director's trademark: Raimi's cheesy horror, Tarantino's ultraviolence, Guy Ritchie's quick-cut-editing, and Michael Bay's big explosions. And here's the flaw, director's trademark should be adaptable and not fucking immoveable. Raimi went from Evil Dead to Spider-man, Tarantino switched from Reservoir Dogs to Kill Bill, William Friedkin tried everything from The Exorcist to The French Connection, Kubrick went sci-fi in 2001, then horror in The Shining, every named directors are known for their capability of switching genres and high adaptability over the script's and story demand. And that's what missing from Michael Bay: visual effect abuse, bullet-shooting and big explosions are all that he can do. Nothing more.

Terminator Salvation: The war depicted in previous installments of Terminator franchise finally told. And is it good? No! Terminator--in its own terms meant 'a machine sent back through time to prevent something happening.' The three predecessors of Salvation got those time travelled machines (or cyborgs), while Salvation really got nothing to be told except war, war and war all the time. The story was just a micro detail in Salvation, and it got no interesting development. Pathetic.

X-Men Origins - Wolverine: One golden rule in franchise movie-making: don't left out the audience who were having literacy and deep knowledge about the story. Don't treat anyone the same, as if they do not know anything at all. That's why Batman Begins succeed, it gave a refreshment of Batman mythology without stripping the original idea. It redefine, not deconstruct. It embraced new audiences as well as the old fans. But Wolverine? It mocked our intelligence. It's dumb as hell

 

(AND I’M STILL WAITING FOR PIXAR’S UP!!)