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1. i wish somebody sane in the parliament will raise an urge to abolish the porn bill.
2. i wish somebody sane in the parliament will never agree to any bill which will rule out how the people should behave and dress.
3. i wish somebody sane in the parliament will agree that no racist, sexist, and chauvinist fellow should become RI 1 (The president of Republic of Indonesia). read my i need a president not a muslim president.
4. i wish that somebody sane in the parliament will seriously think how to press the government to improve any sorts of public service.
5. i wish somebody sane in the parliament will put forward an urgent assembly to discuss about annulling any variety of religious-based by-laws. that’s god’s prerogative not ours mortal.
6. i wish somebody sane in the parliament will press on how to include sex education in the school curriculum. i’m tired of reading ill-informed government sponsored ad that you get HIV because you commit pre-marital sex.
7. i wish somebody sane in the parliament will demand to scrap the rule that a wife must obtain her husband permit before she can process her passport. ayolah sir and madam, my mom is nagging me to get married soon day in and day out. yet, i am too afraid to be married out of a phobia to get a confining husband.
8. i wish somebody sane in the parliament will seriously think about improving our educational system. what about sekolah gratis (free basic education) up to senior high school? i think we can afford it.
9. i wish somebody sane in the parliament will pay more attention to our ailing ecological condition. god is not mad at us when when we are afflicted by massive flood or avalanche or mind-choking haze coming from forest fire. it’s us who are insanely inconsiderable when it comes to damaging the environment. i believe most of today’s disasters are man-triggered.
10. i wish somebody sane in the parliament will instigate a move to criminalize war. living in a peaceful country like mine, i could not bear myself to read or watch the plight of those living in war zones or conflict areas like gaza, afganistan, sri lanka or swat valley, pakistan. worst, i know as everyone does, those who suffer more in wars are women and children.
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m quite happy that secular and nationalist parties won at the last ge. you are free to say that m too allergic to religious or sectarian parties. yes, i am. you know what i think, so much blood has been shed just on the name of religion and narrow-minded sectarian movements. i don’t want it to happen to my beloved country. and i think god is with me since god’s listened to my pray.
Yup, aku baru saja nyontreng horeeeee
yeah, i just casted my vote. you can see that my left little finger is navy blue in color right now. this is my third General Election and i have chosen different party and MP hopefuls in every poll i am in. For my kid sister number 3 and 4 who is 17, this is their first GE. they looked excited yet did not fail to frown at a large paper which bear the name of the parties and mp hopefuls on it. there were 38 political parties to choose and more than 11.ooo mp hopefuls to choose all over indonesia. it was really a big party.
on my choice, i frankly said that i chose young female mp hopefuls. my instinct told me that they can represent me. yeah, it was so pathetic that i resorted to instinct. but it never fails me so far. i was still an undecided voter when i entered the poll booth. so, instinct will do.
however, despite being undecided i’ve pledged that i will not cast my vote for any party with religion as their ideology and any party which enacted porn bill last october.
SERVE YOU RIGHT SUH. YOU’VE LOST MY CONFIDENCE SUH
Happy menyontreng Indonesia………
well, this is my first serious take on indonesia’s general election. few days ago we just saw the beginning of the open campaign season. for the next 21 days we’ll be hearing all sorts of crabs and crappy promises from 11.ooo member of parliament hopefuls.
on my way from home to padang on last monday, i noticed scores of youths wearing jersey bearing a photo of an MP hopeful (we call them as Caleg here). they occupied an open truck or minivan weaving all sorts of buntings, posters and flags promoting the MP hopeful whose face and name were imprinted on the jersey they were wearing. I expected I would see some hilarious antics such as soaking your whole body with the signature color of a particular party; or shaving your head and leave only some segment of your hair that will form a symbol of a party. I did not see those antics though. Probably the party people thought it was not necessary yet at this early stage of the campaign.
During this election fever (shall i call it euphoria?) i develop a habit of studying all sorts of slogan written on posters of the MP hopefuls. let me introduce you to examples of them:
1. (Fill in the Blank) Bsc, Msc. Anak Petani. Memberi Untuk Nagari/ (Fill in the Blank) Bsc. A Son of a Peasant. Willing to give his all to his district.
2. Mohon Do’a Restunya. (Fill in the Blank), MM, MBA. Menuju Indonesia modern and religious/ I am seeking for your prayer and blessing. (Fill in the blank), MM, MBA. Toward Modern and Religious Indonesia.
3. (Fill in the blank)
19….elementary school no …. Bukittinggi.
19… junior high school no… Bukittingi
19… senior high school no….Bukittinggi
19… Stekpi, Jakarta
19…Southeast Washinton University, magister of economics ……
19…(Someting university in the USA,) liberal arts school, magisterial of International affair.
20.. a Ph.D candidate at UNP
Caleg DPD Bukittinggi.
4. (fill in the blank)…. pilih (……) ya! (fill in the blank)…….vote for me ok!
5. (fill in the blank), the granddaughter of Syeikh something something the founder of the great school something something.
I still have more ridiculous slogans but I’ll save them for future postings. But I surmise that none of these MP hopefuls’ slogan is appealing. None of the slogans can educate voters on why they should vote for them.
Lots of MP hopefuls are asking for our Do’a dan Restu (Prayer and Blessing) but they never tell us why we should mendoakan them (pray for them) and merestui them (give our blessing). Even those with the most sophisticated education have no clues on how to appeal to the voters. They might obtained their double magisters from universities in the US of A, but they cannot come out with a tagline which will make voters trust him to get their voice thru in the parliament. at least for my case, i am not impressed with this double master guy. however, if he tell me how he would help to eradicate poverty and stupidity in my neighborhood on his poster, probably i will spare my time to listen to his ceramah (campaign).
and this one “toward a religious and modern Indonesia” MP hopeful who looks intellectual enough has let me down. He does not give his topic sentence the controlling and ideas and supporting details it deserves. i m still in blue on what he means by a modern and religious indonesia. like i said before, i m allergic to religious people.
then, i just can’t stand MP hopefuls who use their father or mother or grandfather or grandmother or uncle’s name to attract voters. it clearly shows that they are nothing but a bunch of spoiled brats who do not know how to differentiate between a general election from a family debut.
i must say i feel like screaming, “Hello MP hopefuls…where is your program? where is your platform?”
so far, no body’s answering me. therefore, i surmise most of these MP hopefuls are unbelievably dimwits. I still don’t know who to vote for. I’m still skeptical since everybody is asking for my doa restu without telling me what i, the ordinary people, will get if give them that restu. i won’t vote for blockheads.
i do hope that my people can be smart enough not to vote for those dullards. at the last GE, we had already made some big mistakes. we voted for corruptors ( read the paper and you will know lots of MPs have been charged for taking bribes or gratifications), easily sexually aroused dunces who enacted the porn bill, or self-righteous MP from religious political party who can’t be faithful to his wife.
i never get impressed with anyone who tell the crowd that they are religious. i also have a serious problem of allergy to those who are ‘allegedly’ religious. as a result, i get numerous heart attacks whenever i see ballyhoos, placards, posters and pamphlets bearing this kind of slogan: “vote for (fill in the blank) for the national parliament….a young religious activist who insyaallah (god’s willing) will get your voice through”; “The university of (fill in the blank), an intellectual and religious campus”; and “we are indonesian youths: nationalist and religious”.
i’m scared to death if that young religious activist makes his way to the parliament since i envision another stupid law such as the porn law and other laws governing people civil right be enacted. in my city bukittinggi, we have such a ridiculous law which bans unmarried couples from holding hands in public. worse, here in padang, the religious twice-elected major obliged all of the female students to don jilbab (hijab, tudung, whatever you call it) regardless their faith to school. in my own department, a religious professor told the female student to wear the hijab if they take his class otherwise they won’t pass the subject.
i’m feverishly shivering under the scorching sun of the humid padang imagining university students are blinded by strict religious dogmas and never let some reasons prevail. on a not so big billboard, right in front of the secretariat of the student centre, there is written: “pakailah pakaian yang sopan dan islami” (students are expected to wear something polite and islamic). to my horror, what they deem as polite and islamic is different from my concept of politeness and islamic-ness. to me, muslim ladies are no less muslim despite they don’t cover their head. to me, they are no less islamic if they don’t appear like arabic girls with abayas or like afgan girls with burqas. to me, muslim boys are no less islamic if they shave their chin clean. to me, they still have chances to enter heaven even if they don’t have arabic names like nabila, abdul, najib, or salsabila.as a result, this difference sparks a problem: whose concept of politeness and islamic that will be used in our public domain?
most of the time, these people insist on believing that they are the rightest. it is not unknown that in my uni there are two divisions of students; those who spend most of their time in musholla–the abaya clad ladies and the bearded young men–; and those cafe(taria) lovers–the (some of them) smoking, jeans wearing youngsters– who listen to pop music and read ayu utami’s saman without squeaking so many “astagfirullahs” (oh god please forgive us) once they encounter the word kontol (penis) or melancap (masturbating). i belonged to the latter when i was a student, i bore no qualm to the former as long as they don’t preach on me about how i should don my hijab and do not look down at my jilbab which is minier that theirs. but most of the time i had skirmishes with them on what so profane about me wearing jeans is, or what so sacred about them wearing very loose skirts is.
i am in pain realizing that my country’s youths are going ‘religious’. it’s not that i’m religious-less nor m i god-less. i don’t even know why i religiously don this hijab since i was 12.
but, these days those who are ‘religious’ give more harm to people than good. more often than not, those religious people are at the same time self-righteous which is dangerous for the dissenting minds. look at what the front pembela islam (the guards of islam) and the like vigilant groups did in the past few years. they raid clubs which serve alcohol, mob the scantily clad hostesses, and humiliate the unmarried couples found rendezvouzing in the remote corner of the club. they have no authority to do so actually. or, last time i heard some religious muslims who believe that muhammad is the last prophet expelled the ahmadiyahs who believe that gulam mirza was the last prophet from their homes, business premises and mosques forcing them to live as refugees in a foreign place.
those kind of religious people act to purify the world from the sinners as if they were mandated by god to do so. they feel good about it and believe that they will enter heaven at the expense of god’s other not-so-religious-creatures. for the ahmadiyahs’ plight, they reason they do so to show their love to the prophet and guard the legacy of the prophet. but they forget that the great prophet never let people–even his detractors– to suffer before him let alone forcibly uprooting them from their home for what they believe in.
why does the word religious scare me that much? why does it affect me that much? the answer is: because i live in a plural, multi-cultural and multi-religion country.
i tell you i have no problem with people practicing the teachings of their religion. i’ve got no right to tell them not to do so. i admire those who are true to their faith; i admire those who respect other people’s belief even more. if religious people really practice what they preach, i believe, this world will be as safe as haven.
but today’s religious people are not as truly religiously as they say, especially those who busy themselves in politics. i see that to them religious is not a guidance to live a good god-fearing life but a mere political vehicle for power. for that reason, i believe those kind of of religious people should not sit in the parliament or in any government position if they only believe in the sanctity of their own religion. what they think not religious might be religious in other religions and vice versa. the dreaded porn law is the finest example which shows the grave blunder made by the so-called-religious people in my country’s parliament. to the predominantly muslims law makers in senayan, criminalizing nudity or partial nudity might not be a problem. however, they forget that for the papuans who only cover their penises that law is a real problem: the law criminalizes their way of life. to the self-important muslims (not me) this law might mean something good for they have saved their soul from sinning (or getting aroused?)by seeing less sexy girls strutting their stuffs on the streets. or, for muslim madams this law might help them checking on their easily sexually aroused husbands. but all of this religiosity is at the cost of other people’s way of life. so, what is so religious about that?
p.s. i don’t discount the same blunder will not happen in countries with another predominant religion. we see and watch on tv minority muslims or minority buddist or minority christians or minority bahais or minority liberals are unfairly treated by the more religious-driven and politically powerful majority. even once the colonizing western countries used christianity to justify their dreadful colonizing enterprise. got my point?
i talk mostly about islam since it is my own faith and i know one or two things about it. moreover, it is what happens around me.
saman is ayu utami’s, indonesian celebrated female writer, block buster which gained notoriety and much controversy for the use of words that are deemed as vulgars.
so, this is the story…
i went home (what i mean by home is my country, indonesia) for three days. i have to settle down something back home ( u know, being the eldest daughter of the family in a matriarchal society can catapult u into a very very important yet ‘miserable’ position).
to tell u the truth, since those moronic pseudo-moralist law makers in senayan forced to pass the porn bill on october 30th, 2008, i feel like i won’t go back to my country for good. what is the use of going back if your country has stupidly produced such an idiotic and hard to implement law which can easily turn its every citizen into a porn star?
but why porn star? of course. the bill says everything that can incite sexual desire is pornography including voice, conversation and body movement. what about if when i am speaking someone is incited sexually? or when someone is walking i am sexually incited. we are all porn stars then. just be ready for the 12 years jail sentence or $600 thousand fine (where am i going to find this huge amount of money if convicted as a porn star?)
but, on my way back to kl this afternoon i got an inspiration how to deal with the supporters of this dreaded bill. I mean, how to save my ass from this ass licking bill. the inspiration in question is derived from reading a reader letter to tempo magazine elaborating how unsubstantial this bill is (she is a lawyer u know. so, she is equipped with legal terms when explaining her argument). she made a point when she questioned how the authority will measure whether someone is sexually incited or not? how to prove that someone is sexually incited upon seeing, for example, a painting? is there any tool that can tell that someone is sexually aroused? i believe, we in indonesia do not have any ( i think this earth of humankind does not have any either). in other words, there will be no evidence. to say it in another way, there will be no case. therefore, what is the use of this chauvinist and sexist law? null and void….
well folk, now i can sleep well in my tiny room in my modest flat. as long as the moralist scientists have not invented any tool to measure or prove someone’s sexual incitement, there can never be any case. and i can tell those ‘god-fearing’ moralists to kiss a very good bye to the idea of converting me into one of them. they can go to heaven but let me go everywhere. see, i win.
THIS IS THE PLAY OF ONE POST (PLEASE DON’T MISTAKE IT AS THE STORY OF ONE HOUR BY KATE CHOPIN)
wahyuni: folks, today we will listen to a lecture by our hero of morality, the very person who heads the special committee for the infamous porn bill draft, bapak balkan kaplale.
so hush!!!!!! take your seat and sit down quietly.
lingga yoni
bapak balkan kaplale: pornography is a “man-made sexual materials either in the forms of drawings, sketches, illustrations, photographs, texts, voices, sound, moving pictures, animations, cartoons, poetry, conversations, gestures, or other forms of communicative messages through various kinds of media; and or performances in front of the public, which may incite sexual desire and or violate moral ethics in the community”.
delvi: so bapak balkan, something is deemed as pornography if it incites sexual desire?
bapak balkan kaplale: yes my dear. definitely by passing this law, we will guard the morality of the people and we will save indonesia from further decadence. LONG LIVE MORALITY. LONG LIVE INDONESIA
delvi: pak, look at this image of lingga and yoni. it is engraved on the entrance of candi sukuh, one of our main tourism attraction. this image symbolizes fornication you know, sexual intercourse. there is a penis penetrating a vagina apparently.
oh gosh seeing this image, uuuuu i feel hot…i feel like calling my boyfriend rite now. wait, when did the last time i have it? last month? errr two weeks ago?..mm.. that must be with another boyfriend. hi hi hi hi…(cheeky smile)…
delvi: so sir, i think we have to demolish this candi right away. this candi is full of porn. this candi is immoral. this candi arouses me sexually. errr… i mean this candi incites my sexual desire. we have to blow it into pieces. where is the C4? what? it has been copy-righted in malaysia for the purpose of murdering porn models? ah, TNT will do then. [delvi walks out of the stage to find her explosive]
bapak balkan kaplale: delvi dear wait!!!! don’t be fool. there is nothing wrong with the candi. it is just another cultural and historical heritage from our ancestors. please don’t blow it up. it does not incite me sexually though. don’t do it delvi. please……
BIG. BANG. BANG. DOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
wahyuni: but folks, bapak balkan kappale’s appeal to delvi is to no avail. she has run rampage with her explosive and wrecked havoc the candi.
poor candi. it’s innocent. its only sin is it is housing human most primitive desire. it is not even a sin. it is just nature. human nature. humane. humanity.
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reading the Jakarta Post’s today’s edition prompts me to write this post. it said, the law makers will force to pass this bill on October 30, 2008 (tomorrow) despite mounting uproars from many segments of Indonesian society. even one faction, the pdi-p faction, opts to walk out since their demand to revise the current definition of pornography in the bill’s draft (the one that i show in the play) fell on deaf ears.
i really don’t know how to react should these holier than thou law makers enact the bill tomorrow. i am not into pornography you know. but what worries me so much is the definition of porn used in the bill. it really stands on a shaky ground. therefore, it is legally dubious. null and void.
let me elaborate further how shaky the foundation of this bill is. look at how delvi in the play reacts upon seeing image of lingga (phallus) and yoni (vagina) engraving. it seems that it incites her sexual desire proven by her flash thought about her boyfriends and when the last time she has sex. therefore, according to the soon-to-be-passed law, this lingga and yoni can be deemed as a pornographic artifact. hence, it is a crime to promote this site for indonesia’s tourism. meaning, the minister of tourism and his boss the president should be put behind bars or fined (if this bill is enacted). but, look at how mister balkan in the play reacts toward the artifact. he said, “it does not incite me sexually tough”. see. two individuals responds differently towards the same artifact.
so how come these holier than thou law makers in senayan plan to force to pass the bill tomorrow? isn’t it stupid? isn’t it a downright hypocrisy? isn’t it…………anal? sigh.
