Aku, teman-teman dan dunia

dari sini

Pernah nggak merasa gini: sedang menghadapi kehilangan yang besar atau menghadapi masalah yang pelik banget dan semua terasa kacau balau.

Tapi waktu kita keluar rumah, kita merasa asing karena ternyata dunia tetap berjalan seperti biasa. Dan tidak ada yang berubah karena masalah yang kita hadapi.

Sadarlah kita kalau ternyata ada jarak antara dunia kita dengan dunia luar, kalau ternyata orang-orang memang hidup dalam dunianya sendiri-sendiri.
Dan kadang tidak peduli (atau mungkin tidak tahu ) dengan apa yang kita alami

Critanya,

Semalam waktu aku sedang membuat draft revisi proposalku (yang lagi-lagi dikembalikan dengan koreksi di sana-sini), ada sms masuk dari satu temanku. Minta didoain (n kalau sempat nengok) karena putra pertamanya masuk rumah sakit terkena DBD dan tifus.

Tau-tau rasanya seperti ada sebagian dari energiku yang terserap oleh sms itu.
Karena aku merasa betapa jauh duniaku dan dunianya (padahal beberapa tahun lalu kita teman sekamar).
Bukan cuma karena dia yang sudah punya 2 anak dan aku yang belum ada tanda-tanda ke arah itu, tapi bahkan untuk malam itu saja kondisi yang kita alami begitu berbeda. Dia di kamar rawat rumah sakit, cemas, capek tapi nggak bisa tidur dibanding aku di kamar, nyaman dan nyaris tanpa beban.
Tak peduli walaupun aku dan dia selama ini masih rajin berkomunikasi buat meng-update kondisi masing-masing, tetap saja dunia kita terasa tidak terhubung. Apalagi untuk teman-temanku yang lain yang jarang kutau kabarnya.

Agak iseng. Kemudian aku meng-sms 5 orang temanku yang dulunya cukup dekat, tapi lama tak kutau kabarnya. Cuma bilang:

"Apa kabar? Lama nggak masuk acara infotainment. Baik-baik aja kan?"
Tanpa nama.

Hasilnya: ada 3 sms balasan, 1 tidak masuk dan 1 tidak dibalas.

Dari 3 sms yang masuk:

Orang pertama:
"Alhamdulillaah, ya begini, lagi menata hati yang rusak. Metri pakabar?"
(kenapa? aku cuma berani berkomentar tanpa berani bertanya kenapa. Kalo mau cerita, ia bakal cerita)

Orang kedua:
"Iya ni, kangen lab. Di sini capek, aku lagi di Surabaya sekarang. Metri pakabar? Ada gosip nggak di lab?"
(hehehe... tetep, yang ditanyain gosip. Bekerja sebagai auditor di kantor audit ternama, memang sudah berarti penyitaan waktu dan energi dalam proporsi yang besar)

Orang ketiga:
"Ini siapa, ya?"
(Haaa.... ??!! Bahkan setelah aku balas dengan menyebutkan namakupun, dia tetap salah orang)

"Maaf, aku baru migrasi ke halo jadi banyak nomor yang ilang. Ini metri teman sma, kan?"
(waaaaaa..... dua kemungkinan: nomorku nggak ikut termasuk nomor yang di-save ke hp sebelum ganti sim card atau dia maen ngasih simcard lama gitu aja? Teman SMA??!)

Orang keempat (yang nggak balas sms), siangnya menelpon ke hpku.
"Ini nomor siapa ya?"
(waaaaaa... lagi-lagi ! Sewaktu aku protes)

"Aku simpan nomormu kok, cuma beda nih, sama nomor kamu sekarang. Yang sekarang depannya pake +62 ...."
(rotflol)

Maaf, ya teman-teman kalo tidak berkenan kata-katanya aku jadiin tulisan begini.
Karena aku cuma sedang menyadarkan diri-sendiri, kalo kita, manusia memang hidup sendiri cuma kadang jalan kita saling bersinggungan atau berpotongan di titik-titik tertentu. Dan aku lagi pingin memperbanyak titik-titik potong itu, mungkin komunikasi bisa sedikit menolong.

Yang jelas aku juga mesti, mengevaluasi ulang caraku berteman, biar orang-orang nggak sakit hati sama aku sampai menghapus nomorku dari memory mereka.

Indonesia kenapa, ya?

dari sini

Sedih deh, baca tulisan ini.
Apalagi pas dibanding-bandingin ama negara lain.
(perbandingan yang apple to apple gak sih sebenarnya?)
Walau kenyataannya kondisi negara kita emang lagi parah................






==================================
January 11, 2007


INDONESIA: NATURAL DISASTERS OR MASS MURDER?

By Andre Vltchek

Another day, another unnecessary loss of lives: 16 people killed and 16
still missing in floods and landslides on a small island Tahuna off
Indonesia's Sulawesi.

At an alarming rate, Indonesia is replacing Bangladesh and India as the
most disaster-prone nation on earth. Whenever the word Indonesia appears
on the list of headlines on Yahoo news, chances are that another
enormous and unnecessary tragedy occurred on one of the islands of this
sprawling archipelago.

Airplanes are disappearing or sliding off the runways, ferries are
sinking or simply decomposing on the high seas, trains crash or get
derailed at average rate of one per week, illegal passengers falling
through the rusty roofs. Illegal garbage dumps bury under its stinking
content desperate communities of scavengers. Landslides are taking
carton-like houses to the ravines; earthquakes and tidal waves are
destroying coastal cities and villages. Forest fires from Sumatra are
choking huge area of Southeast Asia.

The scope of disasters is unprecedented and it is absurd to discount
them simply as nation's bad luck or as the wrath of gods or the nature.
Corruption, incompetence and simple indifference of ruling elites and
government officials are mostly to blame. It is poverty, lack of public
projects and kleptomania that kills hundreds of thousands of desperate
Indonesian men, women and children.

Since 1965 US-sponsored military coup that deposed Sukarno, installing
a military regime of staunch anti-communist and corrupt pro-market
dictator Suharto, Indonesia escapes serious scrutiny by the western
media and governments. After Suharto stepped down in 1998, it is being
hailed by mass media as emerging and increasingly tolerant democracy.

Some of these disasters are man-made; almost all of them are
preventable. At closer scrutiny it becomes obvious that people die due
to almost non-existent prevention, lack of education (Indonesia has the
third lowest spending on education as percentage of its GDP, after
Equatorial Guinea and Ecuador) and savage pro-market economic system
which allows enrichment of very few at the expense of the majority which lives under 2 dollars a
day.

Conclusions can be terrifying casting light on the way the present-day
Indonesian society functions. However, to avoid this exposure would
doubtlessly lead to further loss of precious lives of hundreds of
thousands of people.

Indonesia is profit-driven to the extreme. It is also one of the most
corrupt nations on the face of the earth. And there seems to be no
immediate profit to be made from implementing preventive measures. Dams
and anti-tsunami walls are almost everywhere considered to be public
works and exactly this word - public - had almost disappeared from the
lexicon of those who make decisions in Indonesia. Short-term profit for
particular group of individuals is given much higher priority than
long-term gains for the entire nation. Moral collapse of the nation is
reflected in the scale of values: corrupt but rich individuals command
incomparably higher respect than those who are honest but poor.

Ferries are sinking not "because of high winds and waves"; they sink
because they are overcrowded and badly maintained, or more precisely
because they are allowed to be overcrowded and badly maintained.
Everything is for sale, even the safety of thousands of passengers.
Companies care only about their profits, while government inspectors are
mainly interested in bribes.
Recent well publicized sinking of Senopati Nusantara killed hundreds of
people, but it was just one of hundreds of maritime disasters that occur
in Indonesia each year. While there are no exact statistics available
(for predictable reasons, Indonesian government makes sure to avoid
publishing comprehensive comparative statistics), some maritime routes
lose 3 or more vessels a year.

Indonesian airline industry has one of the worst safety records in the
world. Since 1997, at least 666 people died in 8 major separate airplane
crashes in Indonesia. Some of the pilots are so badly trained that
planes often skip off the runway, miss runway altogether or land in the
middle of it. Maintenance is another issue: flaps often don't function
properly, wheels cannot get in after take-off, seldom changed tires have
tendency to blow up upon touch down. It is a mystery how do some
airplanes - particularly old Boeings 737s flown by almost all Indonesian airlines -
make it through the inspections.

After consulting with local civil aviation officials (who obviously do
not want to be identified), your correspondent learned that the
navigation systems at several major Indonesian airports are in
disastrous state, particularly those at Makassar in Sulawesi and Medan
in Sumatra.

On average, there is one deadly train accident every six days in
Indonesia, many caused by the lack of gates at its 8.000 level
crossings. In comparison Malaysia had no fatal accident for 13 years up
to 2005 (last year for which statistics are available).

Despite the fact that Indonesia has relatively small number of cars per
capita, its roads are the "most used" of any networks in the world
(second only to Hong Kong which is not a country): 5.7 million
vehicle-km per year of road network (2003, The Economist World in
Figures, 2007 Edition).
Despite this epic congestion and generally slow pace of traffic, 80
plus people die on average every day on Indonesian road, mostly due to
the terrible state of the infrastructure and poor law-enforcement,
according to The Financial Times.

Earthquakes alone do not kill people. Poor construction of houses and
buildings are the culprits, together with the lack of preventive
measures and preventive education. It is well known fact that Indonesia
is prone to natural disasters; that it is located on so called ring of
fire. But the poor can count on no massive public housing projects (like
those in neighboring Malaysia), which could withstand earthquakes.
Almost each family is on its own: it has to design and build its own
dwelling.
Major earthquakes kill hundreds, sometimes thousands of people, leaving
hundreds of thousand homeless. At least 5.800 people died and 36.000
were injured on May 27, 2006 during 6.3-magnitute earthquake which hit
central Java near historic city of Yogyakarta. Primitive infrastructure,
inadequate medical facilities and corruption in distribution of aid are
to blame for unacceptably high number of casualties after each major
tremor.

Illegal logging and deforestation are the main reasons for the
landslides. It is well known who is responsible for the forest fires in
Sumatra and elsewhere, but officials are reluctant to make arrests, as
those responsible for de-forestation are often rich and well connected
in the country where even justice is for sale. There are countless
solutions to this problem, including law-enforcement, inspections and
attempt to provide alternative means for livelihood to those communities
that are so desperate that they are literally forced to participate in
digging their own graves by destroying environment that is in return
annihilating entire communities. But almost nothing is done, as illegal
logging is huge and lucrative business that can grease hundreds of
willing palms.

Last month, dozens of people were killed in landslides and flush floods
in north of Sumatra Island, which forced some 400.000 people to flee
their homes. In June 2006, floods and landslides triggered by heavy
rains killed more than 200 people in south Sulawesi province.

Tidal wave, known as tsunami, killed more than 126.000 people in Aceh
province in December 2004. Not only was response of Indonesian
government and military forces inexcusably slow and inadequate, large
part of massive foreign aid disappeared in corruption. Instead of
helping victims, many members of Indonesian military were extorting
bribes from relief agencies and destroying precious supplies or drinking
water and food in case that bribes were not paid. In a scandalous
land-grab sponsored by the government, many victims were prevented from
returning to their own land while children were forcefully separated
from their parents (who lost birth certificates during the tragedy) and
"adopted" by religious organizations; some falling victims to human
trafficking. More than two years after this devastating tragedy,
hundreds of thousands are living in temporary housing.

Many victims of yet another tsunami, which hit the coast of southern
Java in July 17, 2006, are still waiting for any substantial help. At
official count, 600 people died, but the real number was almost
certainly much higher. Indonesian officials received early warning from
Japan but refused to act, later claiming that there was not much they
could do, as the
Area was not equipped with the sirens or loudspeakers.

Indonesia often suffers from some man-made disasters beyond any
comprehension and comparison. Recent "mud flood" inundated entire
villages right outside Surabaya. It occurred due to inadequate safety
procedures of a gas exploration company (co-owned by one of the cabinet
ministers). This "accident" displaced more than 10.000 people, covering
over 1.000 acres of land with hot mud, destroying the only motorway of
Surabaya as well as the major railway line. Garbage buried entire
communities of poor scavengers at illegal dumping site outside Bandung. There are many more
cases of similar nature, but complete list would require too much space
- probably entire book dedicated to the subject.

The question is when will Indonesian people say that enough is enough
and when will they demand accountability and justice, exact statistics
and concrete blueprint for solutions? In almost any other country, two
recent disasters - grizzly sinking of Senopati Nusantara and
"disappearance" of Adam Air Boeing 737 with 102 people on board - would
be more than enough to force cabinet ministers to resign. In Indonesia,
these tragedies are seen (or presented) as yet another misfortune
without holding anyone responsible or accountable.

Indonesian press and mass media are reporting each and every disaster
in details. But they are failing to establish that what is happening
there is extraordinary and intolerable, that there is probably no other
major country in the world that is experiencing such unnecessary and
devastating loss of human lives due to disasters that are either
man-made or easily preventable.

To link enormous number of lost human lives in countless disasters with
corruption and socio-economic system is determinately discouraged.
Jakarta Post, leading daily newspaper in Indonesia, recently suppressed
this commentary, refusing to publish it on its pages.

Since December 2004, Indonesia has lost around 200 thousand people in
various disasters, not counting car accidents and military conflicts
ranging all over its archipelago. That's more than Iraq lost in the same
period of time, more than Sri Lanka or Peru lost during their long civil
wars. Indeed, many Indonesians are experiencing life, which is as
dangerous and hazardous as that in the war-torn parts of the world. Most
of them don't realize it, as comparative statistics are not available or
are suppressed.

Indonesia is poor, but it is still in the position to protect some of
its most vulnerable citizens. The main problem is that there is no
political will. There is plenty of concrete and bricks to build dams and
walls against tsunamis, to reinforce the hills around the towns, which
are in danger of being buried by the landslides. One just has to look
around Jakarta where dozens of unnecessary new shopping malls are
growing in several locations, where kitschy palaces of corrupt officials
cover acres of land.

Unwillingness to deal with the problems has roots mostly in corruption.
Local companies and officials developed unique ability to make profits
from everything, even from disasters and from the suffering of millions
of fellow citizens. In simplified terms, corruption is stealing from the
public. But when the toll has to be calculated in hundreds of thousands
of lost human lives, it becomes mass murder.

Andre Vltchek: novelist, journalist and filmmaker, co-founder of
Mainstay Press (www.mainstaypress. org), senior Fellow at Oakland
Institute (www.oaklandinstitut e.org). He presently resides and works in
Southeast Asia and South Pacific and can be reached at:
andre-wcn@usa. net