Tweets and Curses

I had a rather weird experience the other day, which I suppose could only happen in Twitter world — a world of surreal, constant and direct interconnectivity even with total strangers — when a follower of my Twitter updates took umbrage at one of my pithy reflections on life and proceeded to verbally assault me with the most vicious vitriol anybody could string together in 140 characters.

Those of you who are not yet cognizant of the way this online microblogging social network site works might not know what I’m talking about. But suffice to say, when you join Twitter you can post “updates” anytime you like and other Twitter users who “follow” your updates can read them on their homepage.

If they like them they can re-tweet your updates so their own followers can also read them.

And so on and so forth in a sort of viral communication, thus making Twitter a great way to spread information (and also to start juicy gossip or spread malicious rumors.)

Anyway, to get back to my story, and for this I must rewind a little bit to a couple of previous updates that were posted on my page, which by the way, is called a timeline.

A person I happen to follow on Twitter re-tweeted, with some annoyance, a news item about some ulemas making comments that the earthquake in Sumatra was caused by the immorality of the people. This in itself might be a piece of misinformation, but in Twitter world anything goes as long as it’s couched in haiku-style brevity.

Similarly indignant over what I believed to be an idiocy (as a West Sumatran I naturally objected to the idea of directly contributing to the disaster), I re-tweeted this snippet of information back, with my own version of cynical comment appended, thus making the update available to the few thousand Twitter users who, for reasons best known to themselves, happened to be following me.

Now, some of these followers re-tweeted the said re-tweet, with or without additional comments, but generally in the line of “yeah, right” to the notion that the earthquakes were some sort of divine retribution on a population of sinners and hence well deserved.

Except for one follower, called Mohamed, who objected to my lack of respect for divine ways and insisted, or rather shouted (ie used capital letters), that the earthquake was God’s admonishment. How he could be certain was beyond me, unless he was privy to the Almighty’s secret attack plans, but I decided that his little opinion did not merit my attention let alone an answer.

Instead my next update was one of my daily aphorisms that I proffer in the form of short life tips given more in a spirit of levity than with any ambition to change the world. To be exact, it said “life tip No. 10: beware of stupidity masked as religiosity.”

A relevant enough tip I thought, given the rather worrisome prevalence of gloomy messages purporting that somehow the Man Upstairs was not happy with mankind’s sinful behavior. And I was pleased that quite a few of my followers thought the tip worthy of a re-tweet.

Except for our Mohamed (an English teacher, it said in the Twitter bio, with 20 followers) who, for some mysterious reason, thought my update was a direct attack upon his religious beliefs and to which he responded with curses of biblical wrath that left me flabbergasted, to say the least.

I didn’t think my so-called life tip was so objectionable that anyone would rain such dire curses upon my head, but there it was, 140 characters worth of vengeful desire to see me burn “on hell” and the labeling of my person as an abject infidel, plus a variety of other expletives unfit to print.

Since he was the one who willingly followed my update, I thought it was a rather odd way to make my acquaintance, but he certainly managed to attract my attention. I wondered about the etiquette involved in Twitter conversations so I re-tweeted his venting to other Twitterers for feedback (though, to be honest, with a certain amount of equally malicious intent along the lines of “nobody curses me to damnation and expects to get away with it”).

Sure enough the responses came down with equal vehemence. Calls to block him, that is to deny him access to my account, came from other users, together with a bunch of strong curses and vitriol, though this time directed at my new Twitter friend who most likely didn’t know what hit him.

I never got to find out what his response was to all this as I followed my Twitter community’s advice to “block” him and remove him as a follower; but I hope he learned some lessons on the danger of too much cursing.

Miyabi Oh, Miyabi!

I am ashamed to admit that until recently I had no idea who this Maria Ozawa, aka Miyabi, was and what all the fuss surrounding her coming to this country was all about. For someone calling herself a serious journalist, not keeping up with current issues is a big no-no. But then again, I’m not really into watching “adult” videos.

Unlike, it seems, many religious clerics around here who, seeing their hysterical reaction to the idea of her stepping foot onto the holy soil of Indonesia, are obviously familiar with this young woman’s artistry.

In a quick surf of the Web, I learned that this half-Caucasian, half-Japanese woman is a 23-year-old “Japanese adult video actress.” The Indonesian translation is a less polite “porn star.”

How members of the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) and others from various Muslim organizations knew about this pretty video star to begin with (while the majority of us had hardly heard of her) is anybody’s guess, but suffice to say, a lot of song and dance was made about her scheduled arrival in this country to star in a locally made film, including demonstrations and a bra burning by some pious students.

Despite the promise that in her appearance in the film “Menculik Miyabi” (“Kidnapping Miyabi”) she would be fully clothed (or maybe because of it?) the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) was so adamant in rejecting her very sinful presence (her face being undoubtedly too pornographic in its beauty) that the producer of the film succumbed to the clamoring of the self-righteous mob and canceled the visit.

The damage, however, was already done. All those protests propelled her name to stellar fame in this country with our Headline News every hour on the hour, following the saga of her almost-forthcoming visit in all its mundane minutiae, so much so that Miyabi is probably taking over wasabi as the most familiar Japanese word in Indonesia.

Not only that, but demand for her pirated DVDs went up so much that last Wednesday the police launched a crackdown on bootlegged pornographic recordings. Plus, all this attention by our morally upright friends is no doubt creating a titillating interest in this young lady, including by yours truly, who otherwise would never ever stoop to browsing porn on the Internet. Thanks, guys!

So, who is this evil temptress whose mere presence had all those protesters quaking in their sandals? Let’s see. According to miyabi-online, while at school Maria played hockey every day, often went to karaoke after class, and her hobbies include cooking, “which she is good at.”

Wikipedia, however, was a bit more detailed about her interests and accomplishments, which included having her first sexual experience at 13 and having “learned ‘the 48 sexual positions’ through a book that she bought herself.”

It then went on to describe how she got introduced to the AV business (that’s Adult Video for us ignoramuses), which was through watching her brother’s friend’s tapes, and then went on to star in many videos with evocative titles such as “Beautiful Eurasian News Anchor Maria Ozawa Desiring Nakadashi Rape.”

It’s videos like this that our angry protesters had been consuming all this time? And here I am, a veritable prude who could not even bring myself to click on Miyabi’s YouTube video clips. The question is, how on earth did those good Muslim students get their hands on these materials to begin with? Talk about scandalous! I shiver to think what other stuff they have in their backpacks.

Moreover, I’m curious which of the titles from the Maria Ozawa film catalog our venerable members of the MUI actually watched that made them so vehemently against Miyabi’s showing her face in this country.

My, oh my, what is this world coming to? The police should not just stop at cracking down on the sale of those types of videos, but they should also raid every dormitory in the country to make sure that no impressionable young males are exposed to these disgusting materials, including tearing down her posters from their walls.

While on the subject, equally scandalous news hitting the headlines this week is that of the 43 year-old Syeh Puji who was recently acquitted by the Ungaran District Court of a sexual abuse charge for having married a 12-year-old.

Looking at Miyabi’s face, the pretty young Japanese woman trying to make a living in a world thirsty for titillation, and that of our home-grown pedophile whose physiognomy leaves a lot to be desired and who is now roaming around free to “marry” any nubile preteens he desires, I know which one is a lot more disgusting.

(Desi Anwar: first published in The Jakarta Globe)

Listen to your Body

With the tragic earthquakes in Sumatra — and the fact that until this moment some of my relatives in Padang are still unreachable — I’m somewhat overwhelmed by the prospect of setting down on paper my thoughts regarding this week’s events. So I will write about other memorable things that I did on that fateful Wednesday and muse over what lessons could possibly lie behind them.

One of the things I did was watch a surgical procedure — yes, inside the operating room of a hospital wearing the green outfit, surgical mask and cap, sitting at elbow’s length from the surgeon as he went about his business of cutting, probing, extracting and sewing, while the nurses were busy swabbing, passing instruments, holding the flesh open and so on. It was something out of “Grey’s Anatomy” or “ER,” except this was on a real person (who happened to be a close relative).

Now, you must be wondering why on earth I would want to watch a surgical procedure take place, especially quite a major one (my relative had to have a bunch of stuff removed from her) and involving a person I am close to?

There were plenty of reasons, and satisfying my journalist’s sense of curiosity was one of them. The other reasons were that I wanted to make sure the surgeon did a good job (and cheer him on) and that it was better to know exactly what went on personally than bite my nails in the waiting room. Plus, I’m always up for a new and exciting experience as long as it doesn’t involve me doing free falls from high places.

So there I was for over an hour watching the human body being dissected and treated like a slab of meat while the patient remained unaware. The surgeon asked for music to be played to reduce the stress. I asked him rather anxiously if he was stressed, because I wasn’t and the patient certainly didn’t look that way! I was quite grateful to hear him hum along to some Indonesian love songs and joke with his assistants. At least it masked the sound of machines whirring, not to mention flesh being poked and slashed.

He regularly showed me his findings, with a running commentary to go along with it. I asked for everything to be photographed, to keep a complete record of the surgery. (This would make for some very gory dinner table conversation and a good way to put people off meat!) He was very agreeable about having me hover behind him asking questions such as “How come her blood pressure has gone down a lot?” and “What’s in the drip?” I suspect this motivated him, much like a performer in front of an attentive audience. To be sure, he did a very good job.

At one point, the hospital was hit by a blackout. The operating room was in total darkness, except for light coming out of one machine. For a few seconds, there was silence. The doctor then said, somewhat reassuringly, the operation was almost done anyway. Yeah right, I thought. My cousin was on the operating table with her belly open and insides exposed. The electricity better come back on soon!

After a few seconds, the machines coughed and whirred back to life and he continued where he left off. After a few more things were removed from my cousin, the operation was over. I felt relieved and exhilarated at the same time.

The real reason to watch the operation was to reconfirm my understanding not just of the human body but also the way humans work. Often we separate what’s inside our mind from our body, the vehicle in which the mind resides, and fail to see the links that bind us into one whole being. When the body breaks down, we wonder what is happening, having no idea what is going on. When it comes to intelligence, our body is far more intelligent than our conscious being.

When the surgeon took out a huge lump of fibroids, he showed the massive pulsating, blood-filled, alien-looking object to me, saying, “This is stress.” I believed him. Our bodies don’t suffer or get sick without reason. Most of the time, we ourselves are the major contributors. There’s a saying, “You are what you eat.” You are also what you think, feel, keep inside of you, and what you do or don’t do.

That same evening, I visited a friend who was at the hospital. She said seven doctors had looked at her but they couldn’t say exactly what was wrong with her.

I asked her if she had any idea. She gave a rather sheepish grin and nodded. She hadn’t exercised for almost nine years. She’s been sleeping for an average of three hours a night and living on a diet of coffee, cigarettes and junk food. It was her body that finally forced her to stop whatever it was she was doing because her body was a lot smarter than she was.

(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)

In Search of Nice

I often wonder about the ingredients necessary to make a place nice for people to live in. I don’t just mean the physical environment, but also a place where the people one encounters are genuinely nice. In my lifetime I’ve been to many places around the world that are interesting, exciting and fun to visit, but rarely do I find that combination where not only are the sights stunning but the people are also effortlessly pleasant.

Depending on the purpose of the trip, in a foreign land one generally falls under the category of a tourist — in which case the people you encounter will probably be trying to sell you something — or a stranger, foreigner and outsider, in which case one would rarely feel at home or be treated with the same sincerity reserved for the locals or those in the know. The people might be genuinely friendly, accommodating and interested, but at the end of the day, you’re just another stranger in a foreign land.

But one doesn’t have to travel far to feel unwelcome or like a stranger. As a matter of fact, in Jakarta, even for someone who calls it home or has lived or worked here for a great part of their life and in relative comfort, “nice” is hardly a word we associate with either the city or the people. Exciting, dynamic, fascinating or even frustrating, depending on one’s mood, but it’s hardly a place that overflows with the milk of human kindness.

I suppose it is the scourge of most large modern cities where much of the human interaction is reduced to a cynical level of supply and demand — in which you either want something from other people or they want something from you. Whether at work, in the shops, at restaurants or any place where people interact, the chances are that you are someone else’s object or somebody else is your object. And the bigger the social and economic gap, such as in Jakarta, the more likely people are to treat one another as objects for a specific end — sometimes masked in polite civility, though most of the time dispensing with social niceties altogether.

I’m probably grossly generalizing here, but it seems that more and more human interaction is primarily motivated by personal wants and rarely by the other person’s needs. Even the so-called service industry has become exactly that — a commoditized service that comes with a price. The more one pays, the better the service. What is missing in all this is the warmth of genuine and normal human interaction. We stop being nice people.

Instead, our daily human exchanges often consist of nothing more than a series of complaints (whether soundly based or imagined) about how we are treated and, in other people’s eyes, how we treat them.

Whether it’s the rude waiter, the discriminating flight attendant, the unfriendly local, the unhelpful shop assistant, the dishonest taxi driver, the condescending this, the patronizing that, the subservient this and the conniving that, instances of pure and simple niceness are becoming such rare happenings that when they do occur, chances are that you treasure them like rare findings and share them with others whose eyes equally widen with wonderment. (“Guess what, people? Somebody actually held the elevator doors open so that I could get in instead of pressing the ‘close’ button!”)

Which is why I love visiting the town of Queenstown on New Zealand’s South Island for my holidays, and from where I’m writing this article. Not only because of the breathtaking scenery, snow-capped mountains and excellent ski resorts, but because the place is full of genuinely nice people.

And it’s not just the local people. As a matter of fact, this town is teeming with foreigners of all nationalities (I’ve counted French, American, British, Australian, Chinese, whether working at the shops, at the restaurants, at the ski resorts or at the hotels) who might not otherwise be known for being super friendly in their hometowns, but here, both young and old, seem to be transformed into the embodiment of niceness itself.

When confronted with so many spontaneous and genuine gestures of human kindness (the kind words, the ready smile, the willingness to go the extra mile for no other reason except that they actually care and take an interest), it’s difficult not to reciprocate and mirror the same kindness ourselves in a sort of virtuous cycle.

Perhaps it’s the pristine air and the crystal-clear waters, but whatever the cause for this high-quality niceness, it certainly is great to have a dose of it every once in a while, even if I have to travel seven hours to find it.


(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)

Catastrophes

The earthquake struck again. This time in an area that I know quite well and the place my family calls hometown. Padang, West Sumatra. I guess we know that it was only a matter of time that a large scale quake would rock this part of the island, but then we could never be ready enough for these things. When the temblor comes, we will always react with surprise and we will never be prepared.

As the bodies are being counted, the survivors rescued, the damage assessed, perhaps it’s still too early to ask questions and to gather the lesson. But one thing is clear. We live on very shaky grounds and it’s for us to adapt to this fact and not leave things in the hands of fate or invoke the deities to come to our aid.

Our lives, our buildings, our education, our infrastructure and our mode of travel should take this fact into account. Why is it that some buildings barely shake while others crumble to the ground in the earthquake? Surely it’s time that basic regulations about building constructions were enforced so that when the earth moves these edifices do not become death traps.

Cities built in quake-prone areas should have evacuation procedures built into the system and as part of the curriculum in schools. Buildings with multi-floors should be regularly inspected while all high-rises should be quakeproof for even the most severe temblors.

Perhaps we feel that major disasters are rare occurrence and will not be repeated in a short space of time. This is wrong. It’s time we enlighten ourselves with what is happening around the world and see the pattern. Disasters are happening more and more and within short spaces of time all over the world. I personally believe that global warming is not the cause but an effect of a much bigger planetary phenomenon as opposed to merely the results of our human activities and industrialised world.

Most of the time we are so busy and self-absorbed with our activities and chasing our version of success and achievement that we forget where we actually are and who we really are. We are merely inhabitants on this planet, much like the vermin infesting the back of an animal. We are not the subject, but the object that are at the mercy of a living planet following its own course and subservient to planetary rules of the galaxy.

A shift in its position, a change in its atmosphere, a tilt on its axis and a slight rise in its temperature can have effects on human lives that we would describe as phenomenal whereas on a planetary scale, barely discernible.

If the waxing and waning of the moon could affect the ebb and flow of ocean tides and the hormonal changes in a woman’s body, imagine what an increase in the sun’s rays could do or a slight shift in our planetary position.

Our planetary system, moving around the sun, is also constantly moving around our galaxy The Milky Way. Sometimes we are at the edge, sometimes further in, other times closer to the centre. To be sure we’re talking in terms of thousands of years. But it is a relentless cycle nevertheless. Like our earth going round the sun and the moon circling the earth. It is as inevitable as day follows night and nothing we can do could stop this movement.

So we should not be surprised therefore, if things happen on earth caused by this movement. Deluges have happened before and will happen again. It’s just that our memory is short. The last deluge we experienced was the big flood that always featured in our mythology and holy books that devastated the human family, and even that was well beyond any of history’s living memory. It rested in our collective consciousness like an underlying nightmare and upon which all our religious beliefs are based.

But how many deluges had there been on this planet of ours? Countless no doubt. And no doubt wiping out many civilizations in the process. We only need to refer to the works of archeologists to see the different types of catastrophes that our earth had been subjected to and on a planetary scale. We will only see that what we call disasters are actually normal occurrence in the life of a planet.

After all, that was how religion was born among humans. Us trying to come to terms with all the frightening, mysterious and magical phenomena around us for which we could find no explanation.
Now we know why and we have the explanation. The question is, what should we do with this knowledge?

Prayer is hardly the answer, for our God has granted us the intelligence to come up with our own answers. It is up to us to fix adjust our lives to the whims of nature and not the other way round.

For when it comes to a confrontation between us and nature, we will always lose, while God will never be on our side.

Time is Relative

They say that time is relative. That is true, depending on the value you put into it. Five minutes can make the world of difference to someone who's just missed the plane. Being stuck in a traffic can seem forever if you're late for a meeting with an important client. While a week is a mere wink of the eye when you're enjoying a holiday of a lifetime.

As a matter of fact time (that is to say, reality) according to Einstein's theory, is relative, in that it requires a subject that enables the probable to become the particular, through conscious attention. Light is both a wave and a particle, depending on the circumstance. A universe of countless rubber balls has no meaning unless there is an observer that focuses on a one particular ball. That ball becomes real.

Moreover, according to Einstein, time is just another dimension; a fourth one after the three dimensions of breadth, height and length. It doesn't even move in a straight line. It bends: which means if you curve it enough you can actually even go back in time or turn it inside out. You can even enter a parallel universe as you shift from one parallel reality to another.

Actually this is not as convoluted as it sounds. We can all have different experiences of time in this same three dimensional world of hours that have nothing to do with the mathematical divisions of time of sixty minutes making one hour, twenty four hours making a day, seven days making a week etc.

As we have shown, the meaning of time depends on it's value to the individual in question. Time is suddenly a lot more precious when the doctor tells you you only have six months to live. While it may not mean very much to the normal healthy person, even though they might get knocked down and die the next day.

May be because of this people say that time is money. The less of it you have the more precious it becomes to you and the more desperate you are to own it. You feel either you're forever chasing it or time is always chasing you in one mad circle.

Here in Jakarta the days for me go by as if there are only a few hours in the day as opposed to 24 hours. Come Wednesday it might as well be Friday and before you know it it's the middle of the year already, which might as well be Christmas. Time probably bends a lot more here, making the beginning of thw day closer to the end.

In Copenhagen where I spent over a week in their early part of Summer I felt something which I hadn't experienced since childhood. The days seemed long and there are so much that could be done, all in a timely pace without time always snapping at your heels.

For a start the sun in the early month of June sets around ten o'clock in the evening, stretching itself until the peak of Summer when the division between darkness and light is very narrow indeed.

Coupled with an apparent lack of pressure to be active (normal offices, museums and shops close religiously at five during the week and don't open at all on Sundays) there is not much for the visitor to do other than walk the cobbled streets of the Danish capital or while one's time at a restaurant over a cup of tea and literally wait for the sun to go down. Then it is a short hop on a bus that navigates through smooth traffic or a pleasant and leisurely stroll on wide pavement to one's hotel.

In a life where I normally have to create time in order to make room to accommodate all my time consuming activities, to be able to feel time moving at an almost lackadaisical pace to a point where it seems to cease moving altogether, I must say, is a luxury.

Compare it with my typical day in Jakarta. My need for time to pack in all my activities has gotten to a point that I don't fret over the 'macet' anymore. Between reading and answering emails on my blackberry, instant message colleagues, mobile chatting with friends, trying to read the newspaper, putting on my lipgloss and get my face fixed for the office while trying to keep up with current issues on the radio, I almost even feel sorry when, close to an hour later, I get to the office.

Then the routine begins. If there's a show I have to host, then half the day is practically gone already. If there are meetings, then they gobble up every available minute even as I multitask, conducting parallel meetings via SMS or chat.

Precious moments to myself such as the lunch break or bathroom breaks are rare commodities that still leave me connected whether to the virtual world or parallel universe of planning and mental acrobatics of what ifs and what should have been...

But I'm not complaining. A brief respite from chasing time is well and good - for a short time - but what makes it valuable is the feeling that time is precious and our time on earth is a privilege. (Desi Anwar)

The Meaning of Apologies

Iedul Fitri, or the end of the fasting month of Ramadhan for Moslems, is marked by asking each other for forgiveness, normally by saying ‘mohon ma’af lahir bathin’ (forgive me body and soul.) This is supposed to be the time when past wrongs are exonerated, sins forgiven and everybody starts the new year with a clean slate, innocent like new born babes.

Which begs the question, if everybody every year says sorry, but then continues with their bad ways, what is the point of apologizing or asking for forgiveness? Unless of course, they’re not really sorry or don’t understand the meaning of remorse. Or worse, since they know they will be forgiven at the end of day, might as well use the rest of the year to pack in as many sins as possible.

Hence, it is no surprise that although Indonesia has the largest Moslem population, it also ranks high on the list of most corrupt countries and probably the most tolerant of preventable human failings such as lacking in discipline and irrational and irresponsible behaviours.

Since every year we are always asking each other’s forgiveness, what is that we’re actually remorseful about? Certainly not for anything specific, I’m sure, such as ‘sorry for stealing the company’s money,’ or ‘sorry for being too lazy to get my work done,’ or even, ‘sorry for being a nasty boss, a nagging wife, a cheating husband or a good-for-nothing son.’ (Or if you’re in Aceh caught canoodling in public with your paramour, ‘sorry for showing affection, please don’t stone me to death.’)

No, for these would be an admission of actual wrong doings and personal failures.

While we are good at asking for forgiveness in the general and rhetorical sense, such as during the Iedul Fitri or at the end of pompous speeches where we apologize profusely for words wrongly spoken and feelings unintentionally injured, or on invitation cards, for names and titles misspelled, wild horses will not be able to drag out an apology when it comes to real wrong doings for which sincere apologies are required.

As a matter of fact, I cannot recall any public official calling a press conference to apologize over personal failings, corruption and misdeeds that come under his responsibility, let alone entertain the thought of resignation. Apologizing is seen as an act of weakness rather than strength. There’s more honour in defiant indignation and vehement denial than in the humble admission of guilt.

The standard responses for real misdeeds are feign ignorance, deny responsibility or point the finger at somebody else. If really pushed to a corner, when an apology is warranted, we could always blame the Almighty for making us imperfect creatures. It’s not our fault that we’re a bunch of lying, cheating and weak-willed lot, but our Maker’s.

When pushed to a situation where we have to say sorry, our ego’s impulse is to reject the notion that we might even be the slightest bit in the wrong. When it comes to our own failings, remorse seems to come below indignation and self-denial.

This is a pity, because a well-honed and properly constructed apology can actually go a long way in furthering one’s interests and transform a personal weakness into public magnanimity.

Celebrities and public figures for instance are normally quite good at airing their apologies. After all, for people living in constant pursuit of paparazzi and who feed off the media for their fame, there is no such thing as bad publicity and a beautifully crafted display of regret can generate a lot of mileage in the media.

For example, for all the amount of bile and antipathy directed at singer Kanye West on his rude behaviour against Video Music Award winner Taylor Swift, the singer’s public outburst during the show earned him the enviable top spot in Twitter’s trending topic for a few days.

As a matter of fact, public apologies by public figures are often a good way to put a closure to scandalous behaviours (especially where exposed marital affairs are the issue) and for putting the onus on the public to let the matter go one way or the other. Our public officials would do well to learn from them. A contrite face, a public mea culpa, some verbal self-flagellation can be an effective character boost to a flagging popularity for our politicians and public officials. Especially if nobody else is doing it.

At least this type of apologies actually have a more beneficial purpose than the general, rhetorical ones we hand out on an annual basis.

(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)

My Mobile Library

Recently, I bought myself an iPhone. Having already possessed a motley collection of 21st-century digital gadgets, others would be forgiven for thinking me self-indulgent or, like most Jakartans, plain consumerist. But I do have some excuse that should absolve me from charges of profligacy.

When I was very small, my father’s study was my favorite place to play, and when he was not around I would go through his floor-to-ceiling bookshelves to look for books with pictures in them so I could surreptitiously cut them out and paste them in my scrapbook. (My father’s copies of The Reader’s Digest were my regular victims of violation as they were full of interesting looking cartoons that appealed to my childish eyes.)

Fortunately, as I grew older my passion for books took on a less destructive form, especially since my mother, who was a librarian, would bring home children’s books with pictures in them, though mostly in a language that I couldn’t understand. I learned that books were to be read and appreciated, not defaced by scribbles from my uncouth hand.

On the special occasions that she took me to work, I would wander around in awe, not only at the huge number of books in the room, but because on top of that I had to be quiet as a mouse. The library became a hallowed place for me — a place where people sat quietly perusing books or moved about with great deference.

My first prized possession was in the form of a library card from the local library in North London, where my family was living. With this little card bearing my name, I was allowed to take out a handful of books of my choice for a couple of weeks and return them in the same condition.

The Saturday trip to the local library became the highlight of my weekend, and I would spend hours agonizing over which books to borrow. I devoured practically everything that came in my path. From Br’er Rabbit to Enid Blyton, CS Lewis, E. Nesbitt and Laura Ingalls Wilder, then onto the mysteries of Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle and a bunch of silly romantic novels with forgettable titles as I grew older.

At the university, the library was no longer just a source of entertainment. It became my source of knowledge and the center of my life as a student whose weekly reading list ran into a few A4-sized pages. You’d have to be quick to grab your mandatory textbooks from the library, as they would fly off the shelf quicker than you could say “Dostoyevsky.”

Being back in Indonesia, the library and all its pleasures ceased to exist for me. In Jakarta, I hardly know of any convenient local library, the nearest reading spot being the bookstores where books cost you an arm and a leg. I cannot remember the last time I was able to gaze up and down rows of bookshelves looking for the works of my favorite authors or check out an armful of hardbacks that would be prohibitively expensive were I to pay for them. Until, that is, I got hold of that sleek, elegant, mouth-wateringly coveted thing of beauty with the apple logo on it, the iPhone.

Now, as you probably know, this gadget has a lot of really cool applications you can download from the Internet. One of them is an electronic reader that allows you to download digital books that you can read directly from the phone. (You can even “turn” the pages with your finger, just like a real book).

Not only that, you can create your own library by downloading for free or for next to nothing practically any book you can think of (or, as in my case, have always wanted to read but haven’t had the space to keep them).

Connecting to my favorite site, Project Gutenberg, for instance, allows me access to more than 25,000 books for absolutely nothing. Imagine the size of the library if they were in printed form.

Already on my bookshelf are some of the most popular books in the world, including “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey,” the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe, Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species,” Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” everything by Charles Dickens, the sayings of Confucius and all those titles that brought me back to my student days. The difference is that I can fit this library into the palm of my hand.

The other difference is that I no longer have the time to read them.

(Desi Anwar: first published in The Jakarta Globe)

Culturally Challenged

'I kno you don’t hav a good culture as Indonesia, malay! but please, can you just stop stealing what Indonesia hav for once?” goes a Twitter message referring to the case of Malaysia’s ad on the Discovery Channel featuring the Balinese pendet dance.

“Pendet is Made in Bali, Indonesia okay?? Please Malaysia, Don’t STEAL again Indonesia Culture!!” goes another equally irate Twitter message.

The above examples are some of the more polite verbal thrusts in a deluge of attacks on Malaysia (also referred to as “Malingsia,” with “maling” meaning “thief”).

So much for peace and self-restraint during the fasting month. If any of those Twitterers were fasting in this holy month of Ramadan, the amount of unholy bad-mouthing and animosity would undoubtedly invalidate their fast!

Granted that most of these online messages are verbal nonsense coming from a bunch of unruly and most likely young mobile texters trying to outdo each other in online spitefulness. However, when a respected national university in Semarang, Central Java, decided to join the chorus of jingoism by no longer accepting Malaysian students in the name of the country’s pride, then there really is a thin line between nationalism and plain knee-jerk stupidity.

There are plenty of long-running issues and lots of deep-seated rancor between Indonesia and Malaysia, whether it’s about migrant workers, border issues, Manohara, stolen culture or some other sibling rivalry grievance, but some common human decencies should still be upheld. Name-calling and mudslinging might satisfy the ego but hardly elevate one’s standing or make us the better person.

On the contrary, it merely highlights our insecurity, ignorance and small-mindedness.

It is unfortunate that advances in technology have facilitated not only the rapid spread of information and the democratization of the media, but also the dissemination of pettiness, prejudices and stupidities with the speed of a viral infection. Suddenly everybody has an opinion on everything and every tiny slight is a national insult.

It’s great when this rallying cry can be put to positive use, such as in the incident in Canada where a boy was harassed by bullies for wearing pink on the first day at school. A couple of his male school friends who felt the need to do something about it went online to spread the word and very soon hundreds of schoolchildren went to school wearing pink.

Not only did it effectively put an end to the bullying but it showed the power that online activism can have and also, in this case, highlighted the fine sensibilities those young Canadians have.

They could have easily verbally abused the bullies or, most likely for people of their age, joined in the online harassment of the pink-wearing boy. Instead, they all embraced the cause and sported pink T-shirts to school. Their action inspired the whole country.

In the case of the pendet dance (to which everybody has suddenly become attached, pinning their identity on it as if their life and honor were at stake), instead of berating Malaysia for stealing our culture, we should thank our neighbor for reminding us to appreciate our cultural riches.

Rather than keeping Malaysian students out, we should be inviting them in droves to show them how batik clothes are made. Teach them how wayang puppets are played, and we should even teach them the pendet dance.

But we don’t. Because we ourselves don’t teach our children about our culture or show appreciation for it. I don’t know of any national school curriculum that teaches children about the myriad of different musical instruments this archipelago has, the different cultural dances, the folklore, the mythology, the variety of indigenous tribes, their local wisdom and the origins of our own language.

I have never seen schoolchildren take gamelan lessons, learn how to carve a leather puppet or be encouraged to appreciate the richness of their traditions and culture. I have read of a religion teacher who held a hot match against her pupil’s cheek to teach her how hot hell is, but I rarely hear of a teacher who inspires in her student a love for the gracefulness of the jaipong dance or the sound of angklung. Instead, we treat our culture and traditions as perfunctory symbols invoked on Independence Day or commodities to be dusted off, laid out and sold as souvenirs to entice tourists.

I’m sure most Indonesians still know very little about the pendet dance, let alone learning the moves. It is only when other people actually show an interest that we start making a song and dance out of it. (Desi Anwar: first published in the Jakarta Globe)

Where's the Party?

Can somebody tell me what happened to the election? If I remembered correctly, after we patiently put up with months of campaign overload, a surfeit of election debates and turgid promises, we all went to the polling stations cheerfully like good responsible democratic citizens to cast our votes and choose our leader.

Then we waited for the results with bated breath.

Good thing we had the Quick Count. Not one, but several versions. As it happened every one of them pointed to SBY as the clear winner with a majority of over sixty percent of the total votes. Not surprisingly since previous surveys done by bona fide survey institutions had all indicated more or less the same outcome.

Surely we had a winner by a landslide?

Not so fast, we were told. Hold the congratulations. Don’t even begin the celebrations. Only the Election Commission or the KPU could announce the proper result and declare a candidate the winner. The Quick Count results were not the official counts. Never mind that they were never wrong in the past. Could it be that the surveys and Quick Counts were just figment of the media’s imagination fuelled by some evil pollsters conspiring to manipulate the results for a certain end?

Even the president fell prey to the conspiracy paranoia. Could the hotel bombings be related to the election results and that very strong possibility of him winning? He postulated. Were there people out there willing to resort to desperate measures in order not to see him lead the country again? SBY could be forgiven for reacting rather tearfully. After all, the election went surprisingly smoothly and peacefully. The result was so obviously in his favour. So where’s the love? Where are the smiles?

Instead a bunch of killjoy terrorists spoiled the party. Not to mention his long-faced political opponents eager for every opportunity to rub the incumbent’s snooty nose in the mud. No chance of felicitations coming from their direction. Especially when they still harboured the slim hope that come the official count, they might just garner enough votes to bring the election to a second round.

As it turned out, to nobody’s surprise, the official results counted manually, laboriously and painstakingly by the KPU, merely confirmed the results of the Quick Counts to practically a hundred percent accuracy. SBY won the presidential election by a huge margin of over sixty per cent of the votes.

A clear winner by any standard. World popular US President Barack Obama didn’t even get that percentage when he was elected, boasted SBY’s campaign team.

So, could we pop the champagne now? After all, we’ve just elected a legitimate president to lead us hopefully to greater peace and prosperity for the next five years. Some congratulations are definitely in order here and perhaps even some flag waving and shouts of ‘lanjutkan’. This is definitely no small achievement.

Yes, there had been plenty of irregularities in the election process, and they should be addressed and accounted for. But it is doubtful they would impact the final results of the election. The winner has been officially declared and the losers should concede gracefully. That’s what competition is all about. Better luck next time.

Obviously not for our politicians. Far from accepting their defeats gracefully, the losing presidential candidates not only refused to be present at the official announcement of the election results, but out-rightly rejected them, believing them to be fraught with fraud and hence should be contested for the sake of the country’s democracy.

I suppose it is too much to ask them to pen some graceful conceding speeches in the manner of US presidential candidate Mc Cain upon his defeat to Obama. After all Indonesia’s presidential election was a direct one and the people had clearly spoken. And what’s that about the voice of the people being the voice of God?

This crude display of bad sportsmanship and statesmanship at the highest level is truly disheartening for the entire country to behold. Just how much longer do we have to endure those pouts, sulks and tiresome protests from those sore losers? It’s not as if it would make any difference to the election results or make them champions of democracy.

What’s rather sad about this whole election saga is, not only are the people bereft of their much-deserved pride for a job well done but we also cease to have any appetite for rejoicing, wishing instead for this whole charade to end once and for all so we could all move on with our lives.

So, let’s put away the champagne bottles…

(Desi Anwar: first published in The Jakarta Globe)

Security? What Security

It’s mind-boggling really how Jakarta’s top international hotels with Fort Knox style security not only could have let in terrorists but actually gave them freedom to move around with bombs strapped to their bodies and blowing people up with ease.

Not only that, the amount of security for these hotels that see many foreign guests and become venues for business functions, is a daily and routine inconvenience that we have to endure every time we go there, all in the name of safety and peace of mind given this country’s vulnerability to regular terrorist attacks.

Particularly at the J.W. Marriott, the scene of 2003 terrorist bombing that transformed the hotel into an impenetrable island of safety and comfort from evil people. Or so we think.

So how are these security people trained? Do they really know what they are looking for when checking cars at the gates, opening car boots, checking under the car, inside the engine and poking their heads inside to see who’s driving? Do they really understand what to watch out for and identify when bags go through metal detectors? Are they taught to recognize suspicious looking behaviour and suspect-looking individuals that might not fit in with the general profile of regular guests, business people or tourists?

And what about the bomb-sniffing dogs? Are they actually trained to sniff bomb-making materials or are they just there for show to give the impression of security? Most of the time they don’t even look alert. I’d be surprised if they’re properly fed at all.
So it looks like what we have is a situation where terrorists were actually able to smuggle in bombs or bomb-making materials undetected and checked in the hotel as if they’re regular guests. How scary is that!

Also, it shouldn’t be that difficult to identify whom these people are if they were really properly checked in. After all, every time a guest checks into a hotel they have to produce their identity card or passport and proof of payment, like a credit card. They also have to fill in a guest form detailing their names and nationalities. I’d be interested to know if these procedures were properly carried out at our international standard hotels.

Perhaps the many years of relatively peaceful and bomb-free life that this country has enjoyed has left our Intelligence and law enforcers complacent. While it looks like the tight security measures imposed on hotels, malls and other public venues have over the years degenerated into superficial gestures and daily routine carried out without much attention and clear purpose.

No doubt we will recover quickly from the recent shocks. We always do. As a matter of fact no amount of terrorist actions would keep Jakarta people away from their malls and their hotels. Check out Twitter and you can see that young Indonesia condemn and are not afraid of terrorism.

But we can ultimately prevent these evil acts by weeding them out and limiting their movement. For this the country really needs to pull our act together and take security measures more seriously. I’m sure all the necessary equipment and technology is there. The question is, is it being used effectively? Are those paid to keep us safe and secure doing their job properly?

The bombers had not only succeeded in sending a message about their presence but are also thumbing their noses at the quality and level of security that these hotels employ. For a hotel to be bombed once is a misfortune. To be bombed twice looks like carelessness. (Desi Anwar)

Bless Our Election

The country’s presidential election is just days away and I’m finding myself less than enthusiastic about the whole thing. Which is not good seeing that this is only the second time Indonesia has conducted a direct election and a healthy voter turnout is necessary to ensure we choose the right person for the job.

However, the surfeit of political campaigns, the overdose of promises, the endless expounding of vision and mission, and the plethora of debates, analyses and smear campaigns, rather than facilitating my choice or helping me make an informed judgment, only succeed in putting me off practically all of the candidates. Yes, if I have to be honest, the more those presidential hopefuls open their mouths, the less inspired I become and the less I am enamored of them.

Granted most of the campaign stuff being offered is mere jargon with very little substance, rhetoric of substandard quality and exhortations with hardly any conviction, the least these presidential hopefuls should provide is some attempt to inspire and uplift the voters and not put us off with tedious political jousts.

Instead, the more media coverage is given to them, the less convinced I am that we are fielding the best sons and daughter to compete to take the helm of the world’s third largest democracy and a developing country with growing clout and influence in the global arena.

I suppose being in the media myself I should be the last to complain. After all, the campaign period is a boon for the television industry and provides a fat source of much needed revenue in this time of economic crisis.

So, enough of this cynicism and let’s count the blessings that a healthy democracy and the freedom of expression have given us. If nothing else, be thankful at least for the entertainment value this campaign season has brought to our screens.

Hats off to vice presidential candidate Prabowo for trying to spice things up by channelling the republic’s first president, Sukarno. Though his speeches on throwing off the yoke of miserable oppression and defeating the shadow of neo-liberalism and foreign domination, and his promises to lift the country from the rubble of poverty and indignity do sound oddly anachronistic in this age of compulsive consumerism and Facebook accounts. Nevertheless, he should be lauded for his efforts and for spending a huge amount of (foreign-earned?) money on campaign advertising — helping to somewhat grease the wheels of the country’s economy.

Some points should also be given to the singing general, vice presidential candidate and Frank Sinatra wannabe Wiranto, who has the audacity to hope that a suave demeanor and the ability to croon into the microphone at regular intervals can gloss over some very serious human rights allegations that are yet to be accounted for. I’m sure if he were elected he would similarly delight the international fora with his singing voice. That is, if he doesn’t get arrested for his alleged past crimes.

Brownie points should also go to Megawati Sukarnoputri for reminding us again about her past performance as president, for being the only female candidate and for staying true to her charmless character. For whatever its worth, it is quite refreshing to see her take the air out of the other presidential hopefuls by constantly reminding them that they were all once her minions and thus beneath her in every way. We can only wish her well in her journey into the annals of history as she enters the twilight of her career.

We should also appreciate Jusuf Kalla for his sense of humor, including making a joke out of his present position as vice president.

It’s not often we get to see the incumbent president and vice president at the opposite sides of the ring slinging mud at each other while running the country at the same time.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono should also be applauded for trying to achieve in five years what former president Suharto did in three decades in terms of channeling the former strongman’s “aura” of invincibility, aloofness and apparent appetite for forming dynastic successors. We should thank him for giving the pollsters a run for their money with their yo-yo surveys that provide the media with fodder for endless speculation, and for possibly botching his own chances of winning the election in one round.

As a matter of fact, most of us in the media are keeping our fingers crossed for a two-round election so we can continue to capitalize on the democratic process for at least another couple of months.

(Desi Anwar: First published in The Jakarta Globe)

People in Our Lives

Watching the recent presidential debates, where we the viewers are supposed to make our judgment based on the verbal performance of our presidential and vice presidential candidates, at the end of the day I think whom we’ll vote for will be determined more by how we feel about the candidates themselves and their impact to our lives.

Personally the sight of two ex-generals expounding their commitment to the country and the people, however lucidly and convincingly, have so far failed to impress me or erased the memory of what they once stood for and how their actions had impacted this country. Which was the violation of human rights.

But this article is not about my choice of the Indonesia’s presidential candidate. Rather, it is about how our memories play a great deal in determining how we view people that we consider to play a big role in our lives, even if we don’t know them personally.

In our world full of conflicts, strives and divisions such as ours, it is a rare thing for a person to excite and unite people on a global scale. The sudden death of Michael Jackson, King of Pop, last week, did just that: uniting the world in a global expression of shock, grief, disbelief and fascination. His death meant something to practically everybody, however small. Most people on this earth have a memory they could relate to the figure of Michael Jackson.

The outpouring of messages that clogged up the traffic on Facebook, Twitter and other online social networking sites in an unprecedented scale is testimony of how much one person could make an impact on the entire planet. Despite his eccentricities, strange lifestyle and odd behaviour, the world agrees on one thing: Michael Jackson was a huge and important influence on the one language that we all share and that touches us in the same way: the universal language of music and all its social and cultural implications.

Michael Jackson’s death was not only a matter of tragedy for his fans across the five continents. For many of us ordinary people, the talent and musical gifts of this larger than life icon, has been an accompanying background sound to our own personal histories and life stories.

We can chart the significant moments of our lives on which Michael Jackson’s songs were the hit at that time, what clothes he wore, what dance movements he performed, what his ever-changing face looked like. For a lot of people, Moonwalk had nothing to do with man’s first landing on the moon, but for Michael Jackson’s dance style that was emulated by young people across the globe.

Even when he ceased to perform, his public trials, bizarre lifestyle and weird antics continued to play in the backdrop of our daily lives like a permanent soundtrack or a wallpaper that we take for granted and would always be there.

Until of course, it was taken away. Then suddenly there was a void where that permanency had always been and people suddenly realised how much their lives had been formed around that backdrop. And it is only when that background dies do we realize that something within us too, dies with it – whether the death of an era, the death of our youth and the relegation of a living life into the hallows of memories and then, further still, into the pages of history.

So what is it that makes us moved by people or things that are seemingly utterly unconnected with our day-to-day lives? That makes us react to the death perhaps with even more grief and shock than we show to a near relative? Maybe it is because much of our memory, that very personal aspect of us and by which we measure our lives, are shaped precisely by events that impressed us most at the time – from the music that we listened to when we first fell in love, the hairstyle we sported at school, the type of clothes we wore at college and what we were doing when our idol died.

Personally, I remembered when Elvis Presley died. My sister cried. My mother couldn’t stop talking about him. I remembered feeling a little upset, but not as much as when John Lennon was shot. I was taking a school exam and I couldn’t concentrate. I felt an overwhelming and immense sadness as if somebody I knew well was taken away from me. I spent a great part of my day scrawling his name on a piece of paper. I’m sure many people of my generation too still remember what they were doing the day John Lennon died. Or when Princess Diana was killed in a car accident. To this day I still remembered where I was and what I was doing.

Farrah Fawcett’s recent death (although a little more expected, since she was battling cancer) also signified something, however insignificant, to a lot of people, especially those like me, who grew up in that era. Her golden mane singlehandedly influenced girl’s and women’s hairstyles from West to East in ways that no other fashion icon could; effortlessly, universally. While her big toothy smile, sexy body and tanned skin made her the object of fantasy of countless young men across the world that had a television set showing the series ‘Charlie’s Angels.’

Which makes me believe that the memory of a person and how the person made us feel at the time, will at the end of the day, determine how we truly feel about that person, who that person is and the effect the person has on our lives.

(Desi Anwar. First published in Tempo English)

Twitter Twit

When I was in high school I used to hate it when my French teacher called me a twit. Every time I did something stupid, she’d say, “You’re such a twit, aren’t you?” with a look that made me feel like an imbecile.

Fortunately this “twit” appellation ceased to haunt me as I hurtled through the decades mastering whatever new technology came my way, from the 1970s text editing program WordStar, to Mac computers, to cellphones, to the Internet, to e-mail and so on and so forth. Now that I have my very own BlackBerry, I find myself face to face with that word “twit” again. But this time, I’m not quite a twit. I am a Twitterer.

I signed up with Twitter more than a year ago and let my account vegetate because I basically thought that Twitter was for twits. Facebook was a lot more fun, and terrific for my ego. (I have almost reached my friends quota and I have almost 20,000 pending. Imagine if I could monetize that!)

But when Twitterers started “following” me, I felt a duty to tweet to show I appreciated the fact that some friends (and strangers) were gracious enough to want to know what I was up to; I felt rude leaving them with an outdated status.

For those of you who are not yet savvy to this phenomenon, Twitter allows you to publish what you’re doing in 140 characters or less. Whatever you type up is called a tweet, and other Twitterers can comment on it. It’s just like updating your Facebook status.

What really got me tweeting was the Twitter application on my BlackBerry. Here, on top of the 20 different features that I already use (such as BB Message, e-mail, SMS, Google Talk, Internet browsing, chat, blogging, camera and the occasional actual phone call), I can get instant feeds of what my friends and colleagues are up to.

Moreover, it really does help get through the boredom of getting stuck in Jakarta traffic on a rainy day. Sitting in the back of the car I am connected with just about everyone I know. Technology, they say, will make solipsists of us all as we increasingly interact more with our gadgets than real people.

But with instant messaging, chatting and now tweeting, we are actually communicating more than ever before. Without necessarily uttering a sound, whether in the bathroom, in the car, walking alone, watching television or having a meal, we can engage in endless conversations about practically everything and anything, have arguments, muse and philosophize, invent haikus, air opinions and frustrations, shamelessly pour our hearts out — all without verbally uttering a single word.

I read my Twitter updates. Aha. Such and such is having lunch at this or that place. Nasi uduk of all things. “Nice but not healthy,” I tweet back. Someone else is on the way to the gym or is stuck in traffic. Someone rants and raves about what’s on the news. Others grumble, mostly about banal things, yet these tweets are mesmerizing in a bizarre way.

It’s liberating. It’s practically cathartic.

I can map what my fellow anchors are doing, what they’re eating, how they’re feeling and who they’re with for the entire day. I can gain insight into their lives that I wouldn’t have been able to even after years of bumping into them in makeup rooms or having the odd lunch together.

Having followed my tweeting younger relatives for some time now, I find I can empathize with them a lot more — one is struggling to finish her thesis, the other is agonizing over her exam results, while yet another is frustrated about his research paper — and perhaps even understand them on a deeper level than their parents.

So what do I tweet? I must admit even 140 characters can get pretty long if you haven’t got anything to say other than “I don’t have anything to tweet.”

Sometimes I attempt to wax philosophical or dole out words of wisdom as offerings to what I hope is an appreciative audience.

But most of the time, however, the twit in me outweighs my intellectual pretensions and my status update mostly consist of mundane tidbits, like what I’m eating, how I feel about the weather, what my cats are up to and how I am stuck in traffic and hate it (although this is a lie: I love getting stuck in the traffic. More time to catch up on trending topics.)

By the way, I’m following Obama’s and Oprah’s tweets. After all, it’s also nice to connect with people who rule the world as well. That way, I don’t feel like such a twit.

(Desi Anwar. First published in The Jakarta Globe)