Why Be A Follower?

Much of the muslims in South East Asia, or perhaps even the world, were surprised by a recent move by the Malaysian Fatwa Council to ban muslim Malaysians to practice yoga as it "can destroy the faith of muslims" due to its Hindu roots and influences. This news spread through the region; the quote above made it into Time magazine's Verbatim section this week. Naturally, a fatwa is not legally binding despite its influence among fatwa-obedient muslims. Nevertheless, as Islam is Malaysia's official religion, it is expected that it will soon make its mark in the national law. Of course this drew outrage from yoga practitioners, activists, and the mainstream muslim community for being too narrow-minded. Many Malaysian government officials, even some of its sultans, said that they will not rush adopting the fatwa to get a clearer picture of the issue.

At this point, you should be asking why I am taking this whole shebang seriously. It is happening in Malaysia, a country I've frequently ridiculed on this blog, while I myself am a proud Indonesian. Even though we're in the same regions and more often than not we've had some kind of a lover's quarrel, we shouldn't be meddling into each other's internal affairs, right?

Yeah right. Unless it is beginning to affect my beloved country Indonesia. Apparently, some of our ulamas (that's like the religious bigwigs), at least those who are not too busy campaigning for the next election, caught wind of this news and started their own brouhaha. The news said that they're taking this issue into consideration, although not instantly creating similar fatwa. First comments OK-ed yoga as long as muslims don't delve into the Hindu mysticism. However, it is also said that the Ulama Council will observe yoga practices in the country to finally arrive on a final decision. Errr, imagine you're minding your own yoga moves when an ulama barges in...wacko+ulama=wackolama.

I am very terribly sorry for the Malaysian community that they have to go through this unfunny joke. Yet, I setting my eyes on my country.

This is an alarming sign about the growing conservatism in Indonesia. After local governments throughout the country have been influenced into making deviant Sharia-inspired laws, and most recently the House passed the draconian Pornography Law, we cannot afford this kind of stupidity anymore. When I heard that the Council was going to ape its Malaysian counterpart, it was all blurgh, blurgh, and blurgh. How messed up must they be to prioritize this matter over a pedophile cleric and the worrying glorification of the Bali bombers? Those wackolamas should have known better to meddle into Indonesians' private lives.

Seriously, when was the last time their fatwa made as much as a ripple in our real life? I firmly believe that we, the majority of Indonesian muslims, are more than just a herd of animals that blindly obey what our ulamas spit out. This is where critical thinking plays a crucial part in keeping our faith stay true and avoiding the blind obedience that has wrapped women in restrictive hijabs and sent suicide bombers to wreak havoc on Earth. Keep in mind that Islam doesn't rely on any kind of hierarchy, which means that we don't need the approval of anyone to be a muslim and reach spiritual peace.

Our faith, our religion, and how we live our lives accordingly are strictly a private matter. No ulama can have the power forcing us to follow his/her fatwa. This is time that we stop such ridiculous trend in the country. I'm not saying that the ulama should just stay in their pesantrens or Qur'an recital groups, but they must place themselves in the community appropriately. If unfortunately this yoga fatwa actually comes out in Indonesia, don't blame us if people see Islam as a backward, isolated religion.

Wacky Facebook Groups

The massively popular Facebook, with millions and millions of users, now boasts a wide array of groups, formed by members for members. As nature goes, along with the same old normal groups of hobbies and collections, there's bound to be some wacky -thus funny- groups that actually make you realize something more about everyday life. Well, this trend shouldn't come as a surprise in a place where you can zombie-bite your friend and throw Oprah at him/her. In fact, I've joined quite a few that are surprisingly suitable to my thoughts or habits. Here are some of those groups I've found while browsing for a very short time; there's got to be a lot more:

1. "No, I Don't Care If I Die At 12 AM, I Refuse to Pass On Your Chain Letter" If you're constanly bugged by chain letters telling you to find an organ donor for a random guy who's dying from a disease you've never heard before, or telling you to pass on some cursed message to 10 or 20 friends if you don't want to lose your job; then this is the group to join! FYI, apparently one of those donor message was true and it saved someone's life, according to Yahoo! News. I tried to look for the link, but can't find it.

2. "I Secretly Want to Punch Slow Walking People In the Back Of the Head" Whoa! God must know what I'm feeling (duh!) when I'm walking between TransJakarta corridors. Ugh, this kind of people keeps getting in your way and they don't realize it, not even after you struggled to pass them.

3. "I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar" This group may sound too judgmental, but really it is judgmental. In this group you can find mistakes people do when using English. Keep in mind that not only foreigners whose first tongue isn't English that make grammar mistakes, but also native users of the language.

4. "Mint Slice Addicts Anonymous" and other F&B products "appreciation" groups. Not actually wacky, but I was somewhat surprised to find people who have the same problem. Me want Mint Slice!!

5. "You Might Be in <<somewhere>> If..." or "You Might Be a Hardcore <<something>> If..." These groups are good in catching the perceived reality of what we do. Common victims include law school, med school (Ha!), and various sport players and fans. Oh yeah, you can never forget "You Might Be Indonesian If.../You Might Be Living in Indonesia Too Long If..."

6. "When I Was Your Age, ..." These ones will surely make you feel old in a few years. A quick search on Facebook yields these: Pluto was a planet, the first African American was elected president, there were only 151 Pokemon (I once memorized all of them, including their numbers. Nerd alert!), we solved Blue's Clues with Steve, not Joe, and Dumbledore was straight. When I have small kids, I'm gonna tell them that when I was their age, there was no such thing called Facebook, or internet for that matter.

7. "Keep Your Fucking Hand Down in Lecture and Shut Up. No One Cares." This is a bit bad, but acceptable in many cases. You know you want to say it when your friend starts a question with "according to my experience..."

Still interested? Go to your Facebook account -you have one, right?- and just browse around. I'm done with this post: You know you're in med school when you find it difficult to find time to blog.

Hello, Again

It's been too long since I last posted something on this blog. Perhaps, you've been asking "why is this blog so quiet?". Well, at least I have. Life has been somewhat unkind to this new university student and time is a privilege I can no longer have. Assignments, facebook, papers, facebook, presentations, facebook-what's a guy to do? I rarely have spare time, and the little I had was spent on the internet's newest guilty pleasure. I mentioned it, three times: Facebook! It's extremely and stealthily time-consuming. Hours simply pass by when you comment on your friends' "scandalous" high school photos or play its many fun, yet pointless games. That and I have like a million tasks to do. Please, I haven't even started the real med school stuff. Seriously!

Anyway...here I am! With nothing to write about. Actually, there has been lots of stuff going on and some ideas did spark on my head to be typed here. However, those ideas weren't lucky enough to make it into cyberspace. So, now I'm just letting you know that this blog is still alive. Expect a new post soon, after my end-of-semester exams.

Oh yeah, I'm participating in the next Bloggers Unite event on World AIDS Day. Are you?

And I'll get some real med school shebang next week, yay! (Or no yay?)

Movie Chitchat: High School Musical 3

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players"

That can be very true, especially if you live in a High School Musical world. The whole world, i.e. East High School, is a huge world where you can say anything, dream anything, or simply be an annoying narcissist, all in a song or two. Hey, where else can you find a basketball game with more choreography than the average dangdut singer? "And all the men and women are merely players". Well, they're mere players who rocketed into worldwide fame in a snap and has certainly earned big bucks, really really big bucks, for all three HSM movies plus their tie-ins.

Yesterday, my inner-child's curiosity got the best of me, and also to cherish my now-rare free time, I went to see the latest installment of High School Musical. For those of you who somehow haven't heard about it, I pray that God have mercy on you it's a world-famous Disney phenomenon about a group of your typical TV-beautiful high schoolers, living a high-school (love) life, that sings and dances throughout the movie. That's why it's called musical, duh! Perhaps, it's the current generation's answer to their parents', or grandparents', Mamma Mia!. The world went crazy over High School Musical, buzzed for High School Musical 2, and now it has to face High School Musical 3: Senior Year on the theatre screen.

Before we begin, I realize that I don't have an adequate level of Artistic Quotient -if it exists- which constantly makes me wonder why do I keep on reviewing stuffs and posting them on my blog. But men, assisted with a dose of boldness, can do unpredictable works. So, here goes nothing.

Basically, HSM3 is, well, very very HSM-ish in a good way. The Wildcats (that's the stars) are so close to the end of high school and must face the reality that they'll go separate ways in the future. Before that happens, however, they decided to stage another musical about none other but their own high school experience. I don't want to spoil the movie for you; thus, let's go straight to what I think about this record-breaking musical. Compared to the previous HSMs, this one is bigger, better, more cheerful, and more colorful; like Speed Racer but without the cars, the hallucinations, and the tacky outfits. Honestly, after seeing the step from HSM to HSM2, I lowered my expectations to this movie. Oh boy, I was totally wrong. Everything was wonderful and very fitting for a theatrical release. The storyline is a lot more acceptable than HSM2, which was more like a dreamland. The songs and choreography brilliantly follow the path of the previous movies. Maybe Disney has found the exact formula to lure every potential audience and to commercial success.

Now about the spoiled star of East High, Sharpay Evans played by Ashley Tisdale. I seriously have questions about her mental health. She was evil at the beginning of the first movie, and turned good at the end after losing the lead role in the school's musical. In the second, she started out as evil again, with a suitable blond hairdo, ditzy outfits and wicked ambition, only to turn good -again- after failing to get the boy of her dreams. *who else?* Well, (un)surprisingly, she became evil again in this third movie, although with a much better wardrobe and brain...and as (un)surprisingly, she decided to be nice and respectable at the end. I guess that's what you get for being the sole antagonist in the series.

Another thing, the drama teacher Ms. Darbus grew more likeable in this movie. In a dramatic turn from the first movie, she became some kind of a guardian angel, especially to the basketball/drama star Troy. HSM3 certainly showed the better side of her, similar to those wise old people who has gone through so much that they seem to know everything, like Yoda perhaps. (OMGosh, did I just do a Star Wars analogy? Curse you, Dark Side!!)

Well, I don't think it will do any good to recommend this movie to any of you because either you're a big fan of HSM and have seen it or you're the kind of person who lets your pride dictate your actions ;p Anyway, do take my word for it: it's a good option when you're looking for something to kill time and to simply have sheer good fun -that won't throw you in jail under the ridiculous Porn Law.

Strange Things #1

 

I used to think that my formal Bahasa Indonesia is near-abysmal, especially compared to my fluency in its everchanging spoken informal form, which is actually the form that's used most frequently in normal life -and by normal, I exclude Cinta Laura. It's not that I'm bad at it, it's just that I find myself unable to conform to what others (i.e. my teacher and national exam maker) want. Honestly, I was somewhat frustrated with exam-style Bahasa Indonesia. At that time, I really wanted to face the Bahasa bigwigs and give them a piece of my mind. Our current Bahasa Indonesia education is simply not working.

Look at that banner in the picture above and read what it says. "Kejahatan jalanan, penggembos ban, menunjuk-nunjuk ban, asap-asap...Mereka adalah pencuri, waspadalah" Before we proceed, let my take a shot at translating it: "Street crimes, tire deflators, pointing at tires, smokes...they're robbers, beware". Now that's abysmal. Seriously, I'm no language purist but this wicked sentences really set my alarms off.

That public service banner by the local police makes my 3-years old cousin's story of his fun holiday sound like Shakespeare. First, it starts out with "street crimes"; then, it jumps to those criminal "tire deflators". All of a sudden, the list continues with "pointing at tires". To top the wackiness, it's then closed with "smokes". Moreover, the last sentence means that street crimes are robbers, tire deflators are robbers, pointing at tires are robbers, and smokes are robbers. What the *beep*!? Grammatically speaking, only the "tire deflators" part is forgivable, the rest is sentenced to third-degree stupidity and would have to suffer in Grammar Hell. Ya burnt!

Yes HE Can!

The world must have had a long, sleepless night; but finally, it has come to this wonderful end. American voters made history by electing their new president, Barack Obama of the Democratic Party. The junior senator from Illinois beat Republican war veteran John McCain after months of rigorous campaigning - and a Saturday Night Live appearance by Palin. Affectionately dubbed by Indonesians as the Menteng Kid (due to spending his younger years in the Menteng area in Jakarta), Obama becomes the first African American to be elected chief of the powerful nation. Moreover, the Democratic Party also succeeded in expanding its majority in both houses of the Congress, which will be of great benefit when he starts his job.

Yes HE really can! That's the first thing to strike me after getting the news of his victory. I knew that November 4 (November 5 in Jakarta) is election day, but I don't expect the results to pop out this fast. Despite everything, I have to admit that I still had doubts whether Obama will actually come out as a winner in this election. Something kept whispering to me that things could go wrong and the really old guy would continue Bush's legacy/mess. However, at the end of the day, Obama's win is a loud and firm answer to those doubts as well as to the questions of millions of Americans.

This historic moment is for the whole world to celebrate: papers, internet sites, personal blogs, radio stations, and all kinds of media are going wild with the news; foreign leaders congratulated him with hopes of a better future together; and it's not too much to say that people all over the world is united in extreme joy. Apart from the US itself, the citizens of Kenya -where his father was born- and Indonesia -where he spent four of his elementary school years- are swept in a wave of elation. Jakarta's attention was centered on SDN Menteng 01 where lil' Barry studied; the current students of the school instantly celebrated Obama's victory when the news got there. At last, we got a break from those streaks of bad news.

Well, I originally planned only a very short post, so I'm gonna wrap this up. Here's hoping that the new era brought about by American voters will get the United States back on track, to be the great nation it can be and also usher in a new era of mutual cooperation for every nation in the world. The road that lie ahead will certainly be rough, but this victory is a sign that Obama can lead his nation through that road. Ultimately, I'd like to quote Oz PM Kevin Rudd, "Forty-five years ago Martin Luther King had a dream of an America where men and women would be judged not on the colour of their skin but on the content of their character...Today what America has done is turn that dream into a reality."

Good luck!

Lust, Caution (Part 1)

Dear honorable members of the House, what were you thinking!? If you were thinking, that is.

Despite strong opposition, with official protests from several provinces, the Porn Bill was finally passed by the DPR in a session marked by massive walk-outs. On October 30, eight out of ten factions agreed to make the contentious bill into law. This pro-side surprisingly includes what's supposed to be 'nationalist' parties like Golkar and Partai Demokrat, plus parties that has only recently took a more nationalist stance like Partai Amanat Nasional. Anyway, by this time I think it's unnecessary to inform you that PKS lawmakers blindly gave their 'yes' to the bill. Shame on them all. It was reported that during the session, bill supporters shouted 'Allahu Akbar' each time a legislator voiced their support for the bill, as if God wanted them to bring to life such abominable law. Or, sarcastically speaking, was that a cry for extreme forgiveness for letting this monster get passed by the House?

On the contrary, I openly applaud the brains and bravery of PDI-P and PDS lawmakers for walking out of the ridiculous session as a sign that they are against the law until the very end of the day, from the very beginning of all this hubbub. Apparently, two Golkar legislators from Bali voting district also walked out on the session, a move that should've been followed by their party-mates. Another legislator, a prominent activist Nursjahbani Katjasungkana from Islamic-based PKB joined in the protest against the bill, although she didn't leave the session. Note to self: with only two choices left, now you really know which party to vote for.

Let's take a look at the bill-turned-law, shall we?

Article 1 defines pornography as "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 obscenity, sexual exploitation and/or violate moral ethics in the community." Well, that's the nice translation from Bahasa Indonesia. The translation that best suits the Indonesian meaning would actually say "..., which may arouse lust/sexual desire...". Believe me or not.

This is a reckless definition that's been one of the hottest topic in the debate. In there, porn includes every and any thing that gets you 'up and wanting', even if it is a wrinkly old woman minding her own business or a bra-less cow. Perhaps if we see it in a different way, Indonesians are terribly lucky since all of us get to be a 'porn' star in such an easy way. You may draw, sketch, illustrate, take a picture, write, say, sing, dance, move, mendesah, and anything else; as long as you can 'excite' someone, voila, you're an instant porn star. Lucky you, a religious nation of porn stars!

Article 3 states the goals of the law, two of which are to improve the people's morality (that's something we love to debate on, isn't it?) and to prevent the spread of pornography in the society. Take a deep breath, count to 3, and laugh histerically at those points. To those lawmakers, good luck on preventing the spread of porn. Seriously, you'll need like a gazillion tons of luck to do it -although it only took a pinch of political-gain dreams to start this whole kerfuffle.

Articles 4 to 15 contain the actual prohibitions and exceptions. No one is allowed to produce, make, copy, air, export, import, rent out or provide materials that have these things: intercourse, including 'deviant' intercourses (e.g. homosexuality, bisexuality), sexual violence, masturbation, nudity, an impression of nudity, or sexual organs. Furthermore, no one can lend out, borrow, or download the defined porn materials. Yada, yada, yada. According to Article 42, after one month, you have to burn down your secret porn drawer/cupboard/harddisk; otherwise, you will be prosecuted. Well, unless you can prove that those manga girls in flowery bikinis don't turn you on.

Where should I start? It is blatantly a restriction against our freedom of expression. Just because those lawmakers don't like to watch porn -really?- doesn't mean that they should ban people from making or enjoying it. Such freedom, along with many others at risk from this law, is protected under the Constitution. So, these articles are simply unconstitutional. Additionally, it is also a breach to our private lives, which are our private domain (duh!) not to be groped obscenely by the government. Why would anyone feel that she/he has the power over the personal choices that other people make? The download part of the law reeks of internet censorship. In fact, another article actually give regional govts the power to block internet sites, bringing back ugly memories of the Fitna spat. Despite the imminent ignorance about this law (we're talking about Indonesia, dear), we cannot let this unfunny joke by the DPR to continue.

Article 14 makes the exception to the bans which only includes anything that has to do with a) arts and culture, b) tradition, and c) traditional rites. What strikes me first is that obviously this is an attempt to appease the opposition from many cultural groups and then to push on with this law. This is never a sincere gesture to keep the nation's culture, pluralism, and most of all, identity. Who can classify whether something is art or porn or maybe they overlap? Surely more open-minded people say that porn can be another form of art; after all, it is made for the sake of enjoyment. Or will we be forced to chip out the groin of Michelangelo's David? If someone makes a porn movie with skimpy batik bikinis, will they be exempt?

Oh my, this post is getting extra long...hence the (Part 1) in the title. Frankly, I'm not quite sure if Part 2 will actually come into being later, but at least let it serve as a sign that there's more to question and debate on this law. A last say, "I can't define porn, but I know it when I see it."

Rude Awakening

This enlightening misadventure started with a simple text message from my friend that asked me to take part in an English debate competition held by my university today. That's really nice to be chosen, isn't it? Well, to tell you the truth, we had to be substitutes for the original team; we were informed -and informed is clearly an overstatement, it was more like a yes/no question without the question- yesterday afternoon. Setting bad thoughts aside, I innocently thought this would be, let's say, a way to relive my exhausting and stressful debating past and also to respark my curiosity on all things debatable. I wanted to pick up from where I left off in high school, which wasn't that far. No drum roll, please. So, I absentmindedly happily said "Yeah, let's go."

Everything went fine: we assembled a team of three, gained clues on the motion (Welcome back to THW and THBT! Such memorable abbreviations.), went to Depok, and got to the debating room. And that's precisely where fine flies away, replaced by miserable. The motion for my debate was "THBT poverty in Indonesia is caused by foreign countries" with my team being the government side. Basically, it means we had to blame any random country besides our own for all the hardships most Indonesians have to face. The opposition? Uber debaters from the uni's debating society. Sarcastically, woohoo! So much for resparking my curiosity.

From the very first moment, the motion had me terribly dumbstruck. It was utterly surprising, like finding a clean public restroom outside the malls in Jakarta. In a previous post, I've already told you that I don't do so well in economics, let alone debate about it. I can bitch about abortion rights, freedom of expression, free condoms, and almost anything else except economics. The last time I argued acceptably was on free trade because the sacred well of knowledge, popularly known as Wikipedia, had a long page containing comprehensive arguments for and against it. Unfortunately, my team mates were also in the dark, although they had a better idea on the issue. In the fifteen minutes for case building, we scrambled to make a case blaming the spectres of unfair trade, protectionist policies, and the hidden agendas of evil developed countries for total world domination. *insert sinister laugh here*. To frankly summarize, it was a spectacular babblefest with a dash of subsidy here, a pinch of economic dependency there, and a whole mix of wicked jargons sprinkled everywhere to give the debate an exotic clueless taste. (The cooking analogy ends there, thank you).

As the third speaker, I had to make a grand rebuttal, hacking off at the opponent's arguments. What I did instead was a shameful act of treason against the meaning of grand. I virtually had no rebuttal against their case and I made up things about the "power and influence of the developed countries we depend on to make us go into bad trade/aid agreements". It originally lasted about two-and-a-half minutes, and I couldn't think of any other way to refute their claims. To make sure I survive the day, I didn't allow any of their POIs out of fear of being even worse. At such time of crisis, a little advice from my senior in high school kicked in: "whenever you are at a loss of words and you're stuck, just repeat everything you've said until you can safely close the speech". Repeat everything I certainly did. Blurgh.

After the debate, the adjudicator's comments didn't even need to be translated as a win for the opponent. He blatantly praised them for bringing strong points into the debate and elaborating those points well. On the other hand, I couldn't bring myself to writing what he said about our case; I just can't humiliate myself that badly. I'll tell you what he said about my speech, though. He told me that it lacked substance and I tend to repeat everything again and again. You know, saying the same stuffs over and over, blurting out things I've already said. Basically, using the same stuff for so many times. Just like this. For your information, dear adjudicator, I know that: I'm clueless, not stupid.

In the end, I realize that this is some kind of a rude awakening, if not an outright slap in the face, that I still have tons to learn and many sides to discover. I'm trying to be creepily positive and see this as a reminder, and perhaps a boost, to my future in debating. A bad experience is an experience nonetheless, and people say that experience is the best teacher -apart from the teachers who always give easy tasks and extra recess time. One more thing, kudos to my teammates for being the best impromptu debate team ever.