Running for Office with the Stars?

Indonesia's regional elections will give the Californian "Governator" Arnold Schwarznegger a run for his money. Recently, residents of West Java elected Indonesia's very own Dede Yusuf as "vice-governator" of the province -his running mate was the virtually-unknown Ahmad Heryawan from nowheresville. Before that, senior actor Rano Karno "Si Doel" was elected vice regent of Tangerang (not sure about the term "regent" and "regency" though, any correction is welcome).

The 2004 elections also saw many celebs enter the House, including Marissa Haque, Adjie Massaid, Komar, and Angelina Sondakh, to name a very few. Other celebs also ran the contest although with less luck; blame the ridiculous numbering system. Rieke "Oneng" Diah Pitaloka and Nurul Arifin belong to this category.

As more regional elections are coming up, more stars are being talked into running for office. At this point, you should've known that someone will get trashtalked soon, but first things first. Many sources (i.e.: infotainments) had indicated that Oneng from PDIP will contest the seat of Bandung's vice mayor. Comedian Ulfa Dwiyanti and musician Ikang Fawzi's names are also thrown around as a candidate for somewhere's election.

This is the trashtalk section. Reports (again, infotainment) say that PPP will nominate well-known (who said that?) dangdut singer and Dewi Persik's husband Saiful Jamil for vice-something of Serang. And no, it's not about whether he's gay or not: I don't mind whatever his sexual orientation is. It's just that his track record isn't been the brightest of all. He doesn't have any political experience, yet he has a rather "colorful" history in the gossip world. His answers during interviews are simply dangdut-ish, with no real substance. If that doesn't say "vote-getter", I don't know what does, "Yeah, everyone just shake your body to the polls". The people of Serang will really just go "blurgh" over him, won't they?

Anyway, celebrities aren't barred from running for office. They are also citizens of Indonesia with their full rights to express their opinion, to be active in politics, and to run for office. No one can take those rights from them; therefore, it's up to the people now. Can they see through the glitter of the stars and make the best choice? For example, Oneng and Rano Karno have credible background, and they have had quite a lot political experience before. But Saiful Jamil? We're not that desperate.

To improve our condition, everyone must stop voting for the bling. Voting a candidate based only on his/her fame (or infamy) rather than capability will only destroy the goal of the election itself. It will only make the voters suffer more.

Indonesia has really taken the concept of Dancing with the Stars to a whole new level, it's "Running with the Stars" now. Madame Ivan Gunawan for President, anyone?

Whose Voice to Listen To

In this blog, I've touched the topic of misconceptions about Islam and also misrepresentation of muslims in the world. Many "westerners" get the wrong idea about Islam because the true voice of Islam, i.e. the silent modern majority, doesn't make a sound. Most of the people speaking for Islam in this huge world had been terrorists, lunatics, ultraconservatives, and narrow-minded people living in medieval times. When Osama speaks, it is as if the whole muslim world agreed with him. When Ba'asyir talks, as if all muslim Indonesians wants Pancasila changed. This phenomenon also happens to the western world. When Dubya speaks, all Americans are cursed to hell. If someone's a Jew, it seemed that he/she doesn't deserve to live.

Then, innocent civilians will be the victims of these misunderstandings. Citizens of the world, from the US of America to Afghanistan, from Indonesia to Israel to Palestine, had sufferred greatly. Many lost their lives because others lost their sanity. The global unrest breeds terrorism, bombings, attacks, threats, and other inhumane actions which will never be justified, let alone under the name of God.

In the midst of this mess, there are fortunately still many people and groups of people with common sense. They seek world peace, not world domination. They want to achieve mutual understanding between human beings that transcends all barriers, an understanding unhindered by race, ethnicity, belief, or religion. These are the real "religious" people, regardless of whether they adhere to a religion and who/what they believe in. Their voice is the voice which should be heard louder, as they speak for humanity.

Queen Rania of Jordan (her website) is an excellent example of a good, modern spokesperson for Islam. She is famous for being a vocal advocate of women's rights in the muslim world. She has also made huge efforts to fight misconceptions against Islam. She reached out to the whole world, appearing in mass media to portray what Islam really is. She has shown that Arab countries are also moving into modernity, although some are still lagging behind (IMO, Saudi Arabia). She was on Oprah, she got the "10 Questions" from Time magazine, she posted a question on Yahoo! Answers, and recently, she posted official Queen Rania videos from her YouTube channel.

There are millions of other spokespersons, or would-be spokespersons, whose voices are worth hearing. With the advance of technology, every individual can exercise his/her freedom of expression more easily in more ways than ever. If we can embrace this, the whole world will progress toward a better future. As an example, this is a video by Avaaz.org that campaigns for peace in Middle East. It won the YouTube Video Awards 2007.

The Govt is Playing God

Just recently, a government group called Bakor Pakem -whose full name eludes me- issued a recommendation to President SBY concerning the allegedly deviant Jamaah Ahmadiyah. The group pushed the govt to issue a decree banning the sect because it didn't conform to the requirement issued by muslim groups. It wants everything related to the sect to be torn down, and the follower will be forced to repent.

This is another evidence that the government of Indonesia is trying to play the role of God in the lives of its citizens. At the same time, it is also favoring a religion over another. The govt had allowed Aceh to be deviant, making laws based on conservative Arabic version of Sharia instead of Pancasila. It had also allowed many laws with religious contents to be enacted in many regions, disguised under labels such as "morality", "decency", and others. Women in many parts of the country are now obliged to wear headscarves in public space or to somehow conform to a decency code.

The government is on the edge of committing a blatant breach of the Constitution which stipulates the freedom of religion. It explicitly said that the state upholds the right of individuals to choose what they believe in should they choose to believe in something, and how they will live their religious lives. Since when does it become acceptable for the government to meddle with its citizens' beliefs?

To start with, what did Ahmadiyah followers actually do? They never carried out violent sweepings and raids unlike some narrow-minded "Islamic" groups like FPI and its partners in crime. They don't seek to overthrow the government and install a dictatorial caliphate in its place. Believing in a something is not and must never be a crime. It doesn't matter if that belief is somehow eccentric (let's say, worshipping Simon Cowell or Oprah), it is still protected by the constitution as long as it doesn't violate the law by promoting violence, attacks, and such.

Although the increasingly conservative muslims call for the ban, it is not a reason for the govt to ban Ahmadiyah. Recommendations or fatwas from MUI and other muslim groups don't serve as the bases of such actions. The govt is clearly based on Pancasila and the Constitution. Even though the state respects the beliefs of its citizens, Indonesia is not based on any religion. The state doesn't have the right to label a belief as "blasphemous". In any case, the constitution takes precedence over other laws; therefore, the state is not required to bow down to any fatwas.

If the govt hopes to woo muslim voters before the 2009 elections, it's not getting my very first vote ever (I turned 17 on the right time, didn't I?) and it shouldn't get yours either. We must demand that the government respect our rights to personal beliefs. Religious persecutions must be stopped immediately, and our freedom must be upheld.

A Well-Laid Plan

In preparation of the speech tests, I've prepared the necessary texts. I fortunately got some inspirations out of nowhere, so it's done quite wonderfully.

For Bahasa Indonesia, I made a speech about why do we need to care about the impending doom caused by anthropogenic global warming. Actually, I somewhat recycled the materials from my XI grade Friday sermon, so I got half of the job done already. Then, decorate the speech here and there, concoct some great phrases/quotations, and voila, I'm ready. What I have to remember is to tie up my tongue and not let it slip. I have to make sure that I say "pemanasan global" instead of the more popular "global warming".

For English, I'm going to tell my unique/embarassing/strange/ridiculous experience in XI grade concerning the skeleton of a bird. It was a long story, but I ended up alone finding a ride home from school at 4 PM, with books in my backpack and a bird's skeleton on my hands, inappropriately wrapped in only a sheet of paper. If that's not unique, I don't know what is.

Some Random Trivias

Here are some random facts I compiled just for the sake of posting something without any apparent reason.

> Do you still think that being "one in a million" is special? With a population reaching around 1.3 billion, China has 1300 "one in a million"s

> Pi has been calculated to over 2,260,321,363 digits...now that's accuracy

> In movies, the Eiffel Tower can be seen from almost any window in Paris

> Also in movies, the martial arts hero doesn't have to worry about being outnumbered by his enemies. They will just circle him and dance around as one by one fights with the hero

> Only in Bollywood movies, every problem has a solution...you just have to dance for it. And by the time someone starts dancing, a gang of unknown dancers suddenly appear out of nowhere to dance along

> Do you know Barbara Millicent Roberts? You might also know her as Barbie the doll

> Bhutan govt's policy is based on Gross National Happiness

> When more than half of the world's population tunes in to Friends, go to McDonald's, and have a drink at Starbucks; who really gets culture shock?

> This one's for your vocabulary: an "aglet" is the plastic/metal sheath at the tip of shoelaces and this symbol "&" is called an "ampersand"

> The wingspan of Boeing 747 is longer than the Wright brothers' first flight

> Charlie Chaplin once won third place in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest

There are still tons of such trivias out there on the internet, but the time now is like midnight-ish. So, I'll hit the bed as soon as I turn my laptop off. Well, you might also enjoy Mariah Carey's newest single "Touch My Body". Apparently, Carey has less body to touch after she lost some weight (according to the E! Channel) And last trivia, the lyric of the song has the word YouTube in it:

...If there's a camera up in here then I'd best not catch this flick on YouTube...

Between Now and June 14

While enjoying a well-deserved holiday after Ujian Nasional, I couldn't help but think about what I'll be facing these days before the results are out on June 14 (or preferably earlier). There are still stuffs to come, so it's true that there's test, not rest, for the weary. Let me elaborate.

I have to prepare speeches for Bahasa Indonesia and English speaking tests. For Bahasa Indonesia, the theme of the speech is upon the student, for better or for worse; for English, we have to prepare either a personal recount or a hopefully funny spoof. There will also be writing tests for each of the subjects. Furthermore, IA students will have chemistry, biology, and physics experiments to do. Now, where did I put my lab coat?

Arts, PE, and religious ed will have tests too. It means that for the religious ed test I'll have to memorize and recite long verses of zikir and prayers in Arabic, a language that I don't really understand, with strictly no improvisations. I need to remind myself not to forget it. I guess the education system can't handle personal messages to God. And why do we even need to test someone whether he/she can pray or not? To start with, who can really set a standard on this stuff anyway? For God's sake, Indonesia's not Saudi Arabia. No one should impose a belief and religious practices to others.This kind of education will breed narrow-mindedness and misunderstanding of religion, which in turn, will destroy the religion itself and the freedom of belief.

Anyway, after all those wonderful acts, comes the school exam or Ujian Sekolah for subjects not included in Ujian Nasional. Let's see, there'll be citizenship ed, history, and written religious ed tests...including Qur'an-Arabic language for me. Blurgh. And after all the tests, we still have to wait until June 14. What a wonderful world! Hahaha...blurgh, again.

So, I guess I'll splurge on DVDs and books until the promised day. Grey's Anatomy S3 just finished on StarWorld and I'm going to buy the S2 DVD, along with others to murder time. I might also finish reading some books. Oh, speaking about books, remember Three Cups of Tea? Thanks to GoogleEarth, I visited the vilages talked about in the book. Skardu's there, so is the Braldu River but Korphe's satellite image is not so clear yet, I only got it by the placemark. Thanks a lot, Google!

PS. I'm posting Leona Lewis' excellent performance of "Bleeding Love" on American Idol. Enjoy!

It's Only the First Part

Twelfth-graders across the country, or in this case "we", can breath a little bit relaxed now. The Ujian Nasional is finally over, but it wasn't without complaints and criticism. The test is criticized by teachers and students as being too difficult and unstandardized. This billion-rupiahs project has apparently brought so much problem and burden to the students. Someone (read:Education Minister) needs to wake up, turn on what's left of his brain, and think hard. This annoying exam must be reevaluated with caution, seeing that it had only brought more negative impacts than positive ones.

In the end, we still have to wait for another month for the results. Why does it take so much time? Does it mean that the correctors will really do their job carefully? The latest news I hear is that the results will be out on June 14, I do hope that it will be earlier though. Less stress on us. In the mean time, we will again face a series of tests: speech, writing, PE, religious ed, etc and also the school exam for subjects not included in Ujian Nasional. I guess UN is only the first part...now, get to work!

Let's talk about something else. Obviously, yesterday was Thursday and Thursday is the sacred "let's-kick-someone-off-AmIdol day". The week's theme was songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber; consequently, I'm completely lost. I don't know any of the songs except for Jesus Christ Superstar by Carly Smithson. Sadly, it is also the week Carly got eliminated despite unanimous praise from the judges, including the Simon. After the fateful week of Kristy Lee Cook's elimination, Carly's elimination seemed so far away but it did happen, too bad. As a tribute to her performance, I'm posting it here.

I'm Really Living the Day

Whew, the first day of Ujian Nasional is over. Shot my way through Bahasa Indonesia, which gave me a serious panic attack; but fortunately, I fared much better in math. Tomorrow, it's English and chemistry's turn: I question myself for posting instead of studying. Gotta brush up my memory on the elements and biochemistry. I need all the blessing I can get, please God.

I was just thinking like "So this is the day we've been talking about for the last months or, maybe, year. This is the seemingly sacred day for every high-schoolers' destiny. Hey, I am living THE DAY." I'm going through the day with my own eyes and hands. I was filling in my very own name on the red answer sheet, received a set of questions titled "Ujian Nasional 2008", worked it out (correctly, amin), and I'm writing my very own history. This is a once in a life time experience.

Btw, April 22 is also EARTH DAY. Global warming is not hot, so take care of our one and only home.

170408 American Idol Postmortem

Simon couldn't say it any better. Kristy Lee Cook, your time is up. The bottom-three dweller finally got eliminated from the show today, leaving the Top 6 to compete next week. After last week's shocking elimination of Michael Johns, this one is welcomed and well-deserved. I don't want to say that she's a bad singer, she had her time too; but she didn't stand out among her peers, something that she had to do to stay in Idol.

Actually, I should've started the post with a review of the performances first; however, I have my priorities, thank you. Archangels may relax, the Chosen One is still safe after his wonderful rendition of When You Believe. David Cook is also on my "good" list for his own "Always Be My Baby". As for the girls, I still root mostly for Brooke White ("Hero"), whose performance last night was compared by Simon to a pattyless hamburger. Overall, I still say that all of the girls are excellent. By the way, Carly sang an English version of "Ken Lee" (If you have no idea of what I'm talking about, click on Ken Lee). The choice gets harder these days with wonderful contestants in the Top 6.

Remember Doolittle who did big? You might also remember one elimination night when she was asked to choose, between two groups of contestants, the one group that she thought was safe. Despite Ryan's push, she stayed neutral and instead, she sat down right there on the stage refusing to pass judgement. Well, Arch did that too. Ryan took the already-safe Archuleta, and divided the remaining into two groups of three. He was asked to choose, like Melinda, and he also chose to sit down on the stage rather than judging his fellow contestants.

That's all (that I can write right now) folks! We can only wait until next week and just watch the performances on YouTube until then.

Three Cups of Tea to Warm Your Days

With only a few days before the Ujian Nasional, I feel very grateful that a book saved me from the impending monotony and exhaustion. This lifesaver, which I got as a birthday gift, is titled Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David O Relin.

As you might guess from the three girls in the cover, it deals with something in somewhere in the muslim world. To be more exact, it tells the true-life story of mountain climber-cum-activist Greg Mortenson who, after his failure to summit K2, stumbled upon a small village in the Karakoram Ranges, Pakistan. The isolated village of Balti people welcomed the unlucky American with open arms, helping him recover despite their own poverty. In return, Mortenson promised the village chief that he will come back and build them a school for the children.

The first half of the book tells of Mortenson's struggle to fulfill his promise and to survive his own hardships in America. He slept in his old car, worked hours and hours, and wrote half a thousand letters to everyone he thought might help the purpose including celebrities (have I mentioned Oprah?) When his goodwill finally stood on stable funding, he finished the promised school.

Here, we drink three cups of tea to do business: the
first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third, you
join our family, and for our family we are prepared to do anything - even
die. Haji Ali, Korphe Village Chief

Realizing that there are even more people to help in the mountains of needs, Mortenson and his benefactors founded Central Asia Institute to provide similar education assistance to the area. He had to face thousands of obstacles, including a fatwa by a narrow-minded mullah against educating girls.

The story of an American who literally scales the mountains to help impoverished, uneducated Pakistani children is an inspiring story. An "infidel" risked his life educating the isolated people of the Karakoram, who had been deprived of the most basic facilities by their own government. The touching story is the strong point of the book. This humanitarianism shows that philanthropy transcends nationality, race, and even religion. The book is also an eye opener that somewhere, Islam is still being hijacked for totally un-Islamic purposes, shown by the mullah. Islam had been exploited to oppress the people. This is what Mortenson have fought to prevent.

The book itself is charmingly written. The story flowed from the glaciers of the Karakoram, to the many unmarked villages dotting them, and to the US of A, back and forth. At some points in the book, you will feel astonished that the earth-and-sky contrasting parts of the book had been the parts of the life of one man, and that you were taken on the journey half a world away. The book cherished Mortenson's relentless efforts of providing education to the population, showing every detail of his hard work.

I strongly recommend this book, and I hope that anyone will enjoy reading it as much as I did. This story of unrelenting goodwill and good work will do every heart a lot of good.

PS: I'll be writing an American Idol postmortem perhaps tomorrow. This week is Mariah Carey's week, and the performances are incredible.

Batu City's Ridiculous Lock Up

Recently, the local government of Batu city in East Java issued an instruction for massage parlors in the area to lock up their masseuses' pants in order to keep the area "squeaky clean" and supposedly to protect the masseuses. Reports say that business owners and their masseuses willingly complied to the instruction. They say that the policy doesn't bother them and they don't mind the lock up, because the feel "safe".

Regardless of their opinion, this "lock up" instruction is a discrimination against woman and a gross violation of human rights. The policy blatantly insults woman as a source of problem, and it implies that we need to put women under our control so that the society won't suffer from immorality. This is a result of old, or maybe even ancient, way of thinking, which sometimes is also supported by incorrect religious interpretations.

Locking up pants is extremely disrespectful to women, whatever the reason is. The local govt feels that they can easily lock up someone's clothing and get away with it. The constitution guarantees that any Indonesian citizen can do any job that doesn't violate the law, and that he/she must be given proper respect for doing so. And don't even try to pull religion into this. No religion will ever approve of gender discrimination and human rights violation. The policymakers must be so stuck in paternalistic point of view that they produce this disgusting crap of a policy.

Approving this action will give way to many other violations. In the future, the govt may even try to wiretap our communications to somehow prevent crimes or peek at our internet activities to prevent immoral behaviour. Maybe the "Russian Idol"s favourite song sums it all: "Every move you make, I'll be watching you"

If the spirit of the policy is really for "safety", they could also put those massage customers' hands in handcuffs so that they can't harass the masseuses, in addition to locking up pants; or maybe less extremely, instruct parlors to install surveillance system in their business. These policies won't insult anyone and doesn't discriminate one sex as a trouble maker. Besides, it will not only prevent crimes such as rape and sexual harassment, but also prevent prostitution practices.

The Woman Empowerment Minister Meutia Hatta commented on the policy and stressed that it should be evaluated. If our leaders and figures are in their right mind, they should be protesting this stupidity too.

Post-Idol Gives Back

Idol Gives Back 2008 was fantabulous. The fundraising concert featured a great array of performers, a strong message, and amazing entertainment. My favourite part is the beginning, when the Top 8 performed Rihanna's "Don't Stop the Music", while dancers from So You Think You Can Dance showed off their moves. Ellen DeGeneres was there too: "Hello, it's me Oprah. If you're like me, and you like to help people..." She was hilarious, too bad she didn't co-host like last year. Robin Williams -as a fake Russian Idol- also showed his talent, and his affection for Simon's "manbreast". To summarize, the night was full of bright shining stars...although I think one star shone waay too much, Miley Cyrus. Why in the name of Simon's manboobs did she have to perform twice?

Here's the performance I was talking about, thanks to YouTube.

Anyway, Aussie guy Michael Johns just got eliminated from the contest, instead of bottom-three regular Kristy Lee Cook, blurgh. That's too bad, I really enjoyed his performance of Queen's "We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions". Afterward that rock star performance, I thought that I might enjoy his next performances. Although his last act wasn't that great, I didn't expect him to be eliminated so soon.

Right now, I'm rooting for Brooke White, Syesha, and Carly. You may ask, "Where the heck is David Archuleta in your list?" OK, in my opinion he's so good, he should've won American Idol the moment he entered; but I just don't root for him, that's it. Just don't think that I'm an anti-Archuleta. By the way, I'm so eager to see next week's performance of Mariah Carey's number-one hits. Her latest single Touch My Body just reached #1 in Billboard Hot 100 and because of that, it's very possible for her to break some records soon. I read about it, but I forgot what record it was; if I'm not mistaken, one of them was as the artist with the most #1 hit.

As all I talked about in this post is music, I'd like to share some of what I'm listening to these days along with regular favorites. Actually, they're not necessarily my favourite songs, but I just love listening to them. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Sara Bareilles - Love Song

2. Matchbox Twenty - How Far We've Come

3. Cobra Starship - The City is at War

4. Panic (without the '!') at the Disco - Nine in the Afternoon

5. Mariah Carey - Touch My Body

6. Aly & A.J. - Like Whoa

7. Rihanna - Don't Stop the Music

8. Vanessa Carlton - Hands on Me

100408

Such a happy day...Indonesia, welcome back to the world (i.e. YouTube, MySpace, etc) Menkominfo had -finally- repented from his stupidity and decided that the blocking policy is not a smart one. Let's not have anything like this again in the future, it will only tarnish Indonesia and Islam's image worldwide. Now, if only Lembaga Sensor Film would repent too...

And...something really good made me all smiles today! First and foremost, Thank You, God, for this wonderful birthday gift. I cannot express my gratitude for You adequately; even a googol (that's the number '1' with 100 zeros after it) thank You's is a major understatement. And God, please guide me, and my friends, through the final exams. Thank You.

Happy Belated Birthday, Adit!

Guess what? I just reached the milestone-ish age of 17 last Sunday, April 6. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! Yeah, I didn't post my birthday card for myself on time, but blogger was down that day. I couldn't connect to my blog at all.

Anyway, I wanted to wish like a million wishes for my b'day, but for the sake of brevity, I just prayed that God give me the best. I do make specific wishes, though: I hope that I, along with my friends, can pass the National Exam with flying colors, another year of 100% graduation for Pak Budi the Principal. I hope that all of us can study at our preferred universities, and have tons of fun there. To be more exact, I'm currently praying and waiting for the result of PPKB UI (you might know it as PMDK). I applied for the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Indonesia. And I also hope my friends who are taking various uni entrance tests (ITB, UGM, etc) can get accepted.

To lengthen the post, I'll be writing some trivial stuffs about the particular date. First, I share my birthday with Raphael, Italian Renaissance painter and architect; Dutchman Anthony Fokker, whose contribution flew high in the sky; Paul Rudd, Phoebe's hubby in Friends; and Zach Braff, JD from Scrubs. I also share the day with a Holy Roman Empire Empress, a Canadian serial killer, and a Jordanian Princess. According to the know-it-all Wikipedia, there are 4 Nobel Prize winners who were born on April 6: 3 won the prize in Medicine or Physiology, 1 in Physics. I'm happy to say that one of the winner is James D. Watson, one of the DNA discoverer. Not that it'll give me anything, but I can brag about it, right?

And, you might also want to know about what happenned on the day centuries ago. Don't bother saying "no", I'll write about it anyway. Let me check Wikipedia... The Scots reaffirmed their independence by a letter to Pope John XXII called the Declaration of Arbroath. A Dutch sailor established a resupply camp at Cape of Good Hope, which later became the city known as Cape Town (btw, I'd love to go there someday). Napoleon was exiled to Elba. Celluloid was patented on this day. In 1896, the first modern Olympic Games were opened in Athens. Gandhi started the Salt Satyagraha against the British. And the Pioneer 11 spacecraft was also launched in April 6.

To end the post, HAPPY BELATED BIRTH DAY TO ME!!

Menkominfo YouSuck!

Another proof that we need a change in 2009: The government, through the Communications and Information Minister (Menkominfo) ordered ISPs to block websites containing the controversial Fitna by Geert Wilders. As I said in the previous post, the act of blocking the movie itself will do more harm than good. Instead of maintaining public order or safety, it will just say to the whole world "Hey, we're muslims and we're easily provocated. We can't take the slightest criticism from anyone. Live (or die) with it!"

Further than that, the blocking caused major uproar in the online community. The ministerial instruction forced ISPs to ban the whole websites altogether. The affected websites include YouTube, Multiply, Rapidshare, and LiveLeak. As you may notice, they have become a somewhat integral part of our lives. We got all sorts of information and entertainment from these websites. We've laughed our a**es off on "Ken Lee", we trash talked Cinta Laura for her "bechek" clip, and we gasped over Fitna. We saw Kevin Rudd ate his earwax, we enjoyed amateurish lipsyncing of random people, and we never stop coming to YouTube. Many small entrepreneurs also depend on the net to spread their product.

In this case, there's a striking similarity between Menkominfo and Geert Wilders. Wilders took a small bunch of freaky "muslim" clerics who preach hate and destruction, then he conluded from inadequate data that all muslims are as freaky. Then, he made a movie to spread the lie. Similarly, Menkominfo saw one or two "unagreeable" videos on the net, thus he conluded that the internet is such a wild and dangerous place. To prevent any "unrest", he decided to block sites containing the material. Both persons deny the society's right to transparent information.

By making the instruction, Menkominfo have violated the constitution that grants freedom of expression and freedom for self development. Such actions cannot be tolerated by anyone. He's depriving us of access to information, knowledge, and entertainment. As an Indonesian citizen, we have the right to choose what we want to watch, what we want to listen. The blocking effectively deprives us of choices. Can he compensate this huge loss of Indonesia's development toward the future? Is he willing to take responsibilities if the policy caused other people inconvenience and loss of information?

We are not and should never be China. Indonesia is built as a democratic country, we must not let it fall into such undemocratic level of censorship. Such blocks are obstacles to the development of the society. These controversial events should teach us to be more mature and civilized. Instead of doing so, Menkominfo trapped us in the "safety" of the blockings. If the govt has the craziness to block YouTube, it really has the craziness to block anything else. Who knows what will be the next victim; will it be Yahoo!? Google? MTV?

Menkominfo, please, use what's left of your brain. You are trying to kill a mosquito with nukes. What good will blocking websites do anyway? Do you think people will respect us more for such stupidity?

Give the Freedom Back to the People!!

So, Whaddya Think?

Despite all the brouhaha on Fitna, I watched it on YouTube twice. I'm not one to comment on something before actually seeing it myself or knowing it from a reliable source. My friends have also watched it, and there hasn't been any kind of unrest. What I want to know is whether all those people who condemn the short film have indeed watched it.

And my friend asked me, "whaddya think of it?" My brain worked up quite an answer, "Well, it shows that both sides need to introspect" Now now, let's not exaggerate things here. Those hateful clerics do exist in the real world, they do incite hatred and war. Just see, even in Indonesia we have those kinds of freaks. There are groups who feel proud to bring hell to Earth in the name of "Islam". If a documentary on these groups or persons were to be made, my bet is that it wouldn't be so different from Fitna.

To me, the real problem of the movie is that it took bread crumbs to portray the whole bread: chunks of verses to portray the Qur'an, chunks of muslims to portray all muslims. As a book, the Qur'an shouldn't be fragmented and presented in the way Wilders had done. He took fragments of the Holy Book, took the most literal translations, and match it with those terrorist acts. It would be like taking fragments of the Bill of Rights to justify the war in Iraq.

In addition, the main thing that makes me feel disrespected is that Wilders took some crazy bearded, robe-clad guys calling themselves "muslims" who preach hate to their audience as the typical muslim. Hey, I'm nothing like that and neither are most normal muslims! Those freaks are a whole world away from moderates, the majority of muslims. In fact, they are trying to infect us with their hateful ideologies.

IF the film specifically said that "there's a minority in the muslim world that hijacks Islam for violence, ...so on and so forth..., and therefore it is everyone's responsibility to get them to the right track again"; IF the film didn't use Qur'an verses out of context and interpretation; it would be a good reminder to muslims to introspect. It would serve as a wake-up call to make us see that there are groups bearing the name of "Islam" that are trying to destroy the religion itself. These groups are exploiting Islam to justify dictatorship and totalitarianism. They are using their brand of Islam to stop muslims from progressing to the future. We need someone to shout really loudly and make us take a look at these phenomena.

That's what I (currently) think of the movie. There're still aspects that I may discuss in the future through this blog. This problem has many sides to it, and those sides are being stretched to all directions.

April Fools' Day!

Last year, Wikipedia featured the article of George Washington, an inventor of instant coffee. This year, if you go to the Main Page, you can say "Ima Hogg". Yes, it's that time of the year. April 1. April Fools' Day. We had spaghetti trees, we had a decreased gravity due to the conjunction of Pluto and Jupiter, and we also saw Square and Enix's merger into Square Enix (well, this one's true).

It's such a great day to see how creative human beings can be. Big Ben replaced with a giant digital clock?? That's original. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy spearheading a campaign to improve Britons' style?? That's just fresh. And don't forget about the little pranks we do, they deserve the same praise.

It's the day of light-hearted fun, and also forgiveness. On this day, we can trick our friends and just yell out "April Fools'!!!" at them. Oh my, lots of fun! Well, last but not least, good luck getting through the day and also good luck if you plan to prank someone.

Maybe Indonesians will someday grasp the concept and make their own April Fools' hoax. Possible hoaxes to make in the future:

1. The government of Indonesia really works.

2. The Coordinating Minister for Minister's Welfare is changed into CM for People's Welfare.

3. As an agrarian country, Indonesia fulfills its own food needs and becomes an exporter.

4. Indonesian Council of Ulama minds its own business.

Oh, Hillary just dropped out of the race. Click here for the news.

PS: my birthday's coming in a few days! Yay me!