Dari sekian banyak puisi yang diciptakan oleh penyair-penyair Indonesia, saya sangat menyukai karya Chairil Anwar yang satu ini. Tanpa alasan, selain rasa terpana yang saya rasakan setelah membaca puisi ini:
Nisan
Bukan kematian benar menusuk kalbu
Keridlaanmu menerima segala tiba
Tak kutahu setinggi itu atas debu
Dan duka maha tuan bertahta
Indah sekali.
Irshad Manji
Irshad Manji. Her presence is such a controversy in Indonesia today. Grew up in Canada, she called herself as a reformist, getting Islam into a better perception within the society. Her mission, according to what was written on her website (irshadmanji.com) is to guide people about Muslim reform and moral courage. She wrote some books regarding her opinions about Islam, Allah, and her interpretations. I have not read her book, but from what I read in her website and book (Allah, Liberty, and Love) reviews, I could catch a big picture of what is actually her opinion about Islam. Irshad Manji herself pointed out that she is a “Muslim Refusenik”, stating she refuses to join an army of robots in the name of God. My friend told me that Irshad Manji seems to be a good person. I believe she is. Her tweets are also nice and seem friendly. However, doing good things does not mean she is a good person to be agreed. This post is only an opinion regarding her point of view, and my own point of view about Islam and Muslims.
First of all, I would like to confirm that I am a Moslem, I wear hijab, I do and still try to do what Rasulullah saw. told Moslems to. However, as a Moslem, I also condemn violence against anybody, including what had happened to Irshad Manji when she came to Indonesia, my country. I disagree with the attack and it is not because I follow her ideology. It is that I believe there is always a better way other than doing some violence to a particular community. That bad habit makes our society, Moslems in Indonesia, look like a reactive society who cannot rebut Irshad opinions through peaceful ways such as argumentative letters. Too bad I heard that Irshad Manji did not have a dialogue with some Indonesian Muslim Ulamas (Scholars) while coming to Indonesia.
The term used by Irshad Manji to defend her ideology is “Ijtihad”. Ijtihad itself is the effort of making a decision regarding Islamic Law by using personal knowledge, when a specific source like Al Quran and Shahih Hadiths did not specifically solve the problem in a society. She believes only Allah swt, the God, who can interpret the true meaning of Al Quran, and thus she can also interpret in her own way of every verse of Al Quran. Based on that belief, she prays in her own way of praising Allah (using English, and she did not do Shalat), does not agree with hijab, and is openly a lesbian.
What she does not realize is the qualifications needed in order to do ijtihad itself. As a Muslim, ijtihad can be done under some qualifications. First, a mujtahid needs to have excellent knowledge regarding laws in Al Quran (the interpretations by other Muslim recognized scholars, laws, the asbabun nuzul—how and why the verse of the Al Quran occurred, etc.). Second, is to have full knowledge of the laws which was already agreed by the majority of Ulamas (Muslim Scholars). Next is to know the properties (illat) of a law and the reasons behind the sharia. And last, is to have fluent Arabic. The last qualification is important since Al Quran uses Arabic and we cannot believe the translations made by other people will be fully interpret the meaning of each verse of Al Quran. Those qualifications, sorry to say, are something I do not see within Irshad Manji. She uses the ijtihad as her defense, but did not elaborate further about the terms and conditions exist in order to make an ijtihad. Furthermore, she tends to refuse almost all of the ijtihad made by many recognized Ulamas without looking from the perspective of other Muslims. That is why I do not believe what she claims to be her own ijtihad. It is not ijtihad what she actually did. It is a justification of her own passions, her business, and her perspective without looking from other sides.
The next thing I point out from Irshad Manji is her statement regarding a God she believes in, Allah. Irshad Manji claimed to believe in Allah. That she loves Allah, just like Allah loves her. My biggest question upon her is how much effort has she taken to love Allah? She tried so hard to do ijtihad on her own way, but why didn’t she had an ijtihad to look for the reasons behind every command in Islam? Why on earth didn’t she have the curiosity upon the reason behind praying just like Rasulullah saw did? Why didn’t she try to see the meaning behind women wearing hijab? Why didn’t she try to see the scientific reasons behind every Allah swt and then Rasulullah saw commands? Why didn’t she see that no religion, not only Islam, which could accept gay couples?
In my opinion, Irshad Manji does not love Allah swt. If she did, she would see that love is actually inside every Allah swt orders. She would see all miracles inside Islam. For instance, the healthy benefit behind “sujud” in Islam researched by professor Fidelma O’Leary (googling her for more info J). Or the fact that having such a strict rule for a man not touching a woman before they get married legally is an obvious proof of how Allah protects women, and Allah makes women to be respected, for they will not become sluts because of Allah protections within the order.
Irshad Manji will be better become an agnostic person if she keeps questioning the sharia. She can get back into Islam, reciting syahadah once again, and do what Allah swt and Rasulullah saw told Muslims to. However, since she was raised in a liberal environment, I see how she becomes very critical and thus have that kind of opinion regarding Islam. As a girl who does not agree with the Arab culture applied in my country, and as a human who is raised in Indonesia, a country with a big tolerance between religions, I see Islam today as a modern religion. I pray the way Rasulullah saw pray (inshaAllah), and I wear hijab, although it is not the way Middle East people do. But my questions about Islam orders make me want to know the reasons behind every command, and lead me to love my religion more and more. I hope one day Irshad Manji would feel the same way as I feel about Islam. Because Islam in my heart is not a dogma, it is a miracle which helps me live every day.
wallahua’lam bishawab
Tuhan, aku ingin menggalau. Satu kali saja. Berkali-kali sejujurnya.
Aku ingin menuliskan suatu tweet penuh kegalauan
Atau status facebook penuh kebimbangan
Atau tulisan di blog apa adanya.
Tetapi tentu mengganggu, Tuhan.
Tentu merepotkan.
TIdak penting pula.
Bahkan aku ingin tertawa di atas kegalauan
Aku ingin berekspresi dalam kesenduan
Dan di hadapan-Mu, air mata pun jatuh berderai
…..Masih boleh galau, Tuhan? Nggak penting tapi. Nggak apa-apa?
With love,
Remaja galau, sendu nan bimbang
There are many moments in our life that we would like to remember in our life, because they are so “special”. We call that special because we know that those moments might happen once in a life time, and somehow people like to celebrate something which is called “once in a life time” itself. Graduation, for example, has become one of the most precious moments which people like to celebrate. In my campus, Bandung Institute of Technology, the celebration is done by juniors from the same major. This time, I would like to share about the excitement of graduation day in ITB.
There is a unique tradition in ITB for celebrating the graduation of undergraduate students. The tradition is called “arak-arakan”, or juniors going around the campus area with the graduated students from the same major, and singing many songs together.
This April 2012, I got an opportunity (a curse actually) to become one of the color guards for my major. Me and eight others practiced only two days (I only practiced one day since I had a meeting on the first day), but it was exciting!
I love how juniors tried to give their best to their seniors regarding the celebration in ITB. It is a once in a lifetime moment, and as for me, the celebration gave me an entertaining moment for watching this event. Below are some pictures of the “arak-arakan” last April 14th 2012. 
with two of my seniors from different majors
The balloons are hung by the hat 
The atmosphere of arak-arakan
I used the blue flag for color guard
A guy once said to me,
“as we grow up, we will be forced to solve all our problems alone”
When I first heard it, I paid less attention on that quote, since I believed that people can always share their problems with others, just like what I usually did.
But now I see that life is definitely not that simple.
I am now faced by final exams, assignments, tasks, schedules, and they all kill me. They bore me. If I can scale my boredom, it will be 9 out of 10. I feel stuck with the wake up-study-meeting-sleep routine. At first I thought I could just share this kind of feeling to my friends, but then I realized that they felt depressed, too. They were busy, and they did have their own businesses. I feel inappropriate, somehow, if I just came to them and said, “Hey, I feel worst today!!” A part of me said, “Nasha, they already felt depressed. Should you add their burden with your unimportant stories?”
And that was the moment I realized that the quote works.
I gotta mind my own business. I gotta solve my own problems. People around me have already got their own problems, so I have to solve all challenges (instead of using the word “problem”, it will be better if I use the word “challenge”) by myself.
Because I grow up, just like anybody else.
Indonesia is now facing a hot issue of increasing fuel price here. The government decided to increase Rp1500/lt of Premium fuel, so that the price will be Rp6000/lt. Some people agreed, but many of the society were against the issue. Here, I got a short essay from my senior who is now somewhere outside the world, Mirza Muhammad Hanif. IMO this essay is worth to read, and since he was also too lazy to post it by himself, I would like to share it here
Possible Fuel Price Increase in Indonesia
Viewing the current issue of possible increase in fuel price in the oil-rich country of Indonesia, I immediately recall two of the greatest names in the field of economics, John Nash with his own version of Game Theory and Daniel Kahneman with his Judgement Biases.
Game Theory helps people to make choices rationally while Judgement Biases shows that no matter how we try, errors may still persist due to our own nature as human. These theories combine to guide one’s behaviour in seeking through and solving problems.
In this short writing, I’d like to explore deeply to one of the extensions of Game Theory, namely Decision Maker-Advisor Model (DMA Model). This model explains on how and what reaction and action the Decision Maker should choose under the recommendation of the Advisor. The model also assumes that Decision Maker does not know the stochastic term or the unknown implication that only advisor understands. Example is important for this term to be well grasped. Supposed, a president is wondering for which of the two underdeveloped locations should a connecting bridge to the city be built first. Since he does not have the full picture of which area the bridge would bring benefit more. Hence, he asks for recommendation of his advisor that having examined the problem at stake.
One of the shocks I experienced by learning the model is that one must only trust the more neutral party or lower interested advisor in correctly forecasting the unpredictable. This implication may have plenty reactions of “yes, of course I know that already”. However, in this case, it extends to some thinkings we find ourselves fall into everyday. For example, in the newspaper we read in the morning, GreenPeace once again claimed some empirical evidences on how bad environment has been affected by how mankind behave and that the governments should impose policies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. After reading this article, perhaps some of us may think that the process of destroying the nature must be stopped and the government should do something.
However, we must be also very cautious to look on how actually GreenPeace making name of themselves in the world. GreenPeace always has a clear interest of persuading people to change and protect the nature, hence it would most of the times show the evidences that coincide with their objectives. Once, I experienced myself being in a workshop filled by a leading expert in the oil industry. He said that human behaviour and global warming have no correlation whatsoever and this view has been approved by few scientists (and this statement is indeed justifiable), which possibly opposes what Al Gore said. In this case, it is not that we shouldn’t trust GreenPeace anymore, but we shouldn’t overly weight GreenPeace recommendation than for instance, ExxonMobil CEO due to their own interests on hand.
In the issue of possible fuel price increase, we must carefully examine what interests both government and disagreeing parties hide behind their back. Government is indeed well known to own mixed interests in establishing regulations due to the many confronting political parties inside though they also have the better researchers to back up their stand. However, changing stand for political parties is simple for the sake of earning some more votes to their pockets. Hence, we find that some political parties, stating that they are side to side with the public, widely reject the possible fuel price increase without arguably research-backed arguments as always. While some universities, also regarding themselves as public heroes and hopes, also object the possible decision with more rationalities and also suggestions. Thus, in this context, we must be very aware of known and hidden interests that these parties may have.
Regarding ourselves as economic agents, we’re supposed to maintain as rational as possible. Hence, we come up to the second phases that is human mind. Daniel Kahneman conducted some very thorough researches regarding how our minds work. He found that we sometimes disobey the fact that though most of the times we are being rational, we also are exposed to irrational thinking. In previous example, quickly believing in GreenPeace is not considered as critical rationalism or in another word, knowing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from GreenPeace may not be a justifiable decision. One must be critical of how the measurement was conducted and look for more evidences.
The case of possible fuel price increase is also showing how easily we believe in what others say. For example, I found that a certain respectable organization recommends that the government should abandon the possibility of fuel price increase for the sake of public welfare and also they should use progressive tax to collect more tax revenue. Some questions should be raised first before agreeing to them. Have those suggestions already been proven? What economic model did they use? How is the utility function and behaviours of the society in that model? What kind of progressivity do they suggest to be implemented? All these important questions are some of the factors that shape the conclusion they are offering.
Moreover, another interesting implication of Daniel Kahneman’s findings is how unreliable our statistical intuition is. In this case, we think of how bad the price increase would affect by seeing ourselves not able to afford paying more for fuel. However, this is a very weak argument as it’s like taking a sample of one or some individuals and believing that this model can be replicated for the whole country.
Thus, some people extend their deep thinkings to accommodate other factors. Some may come up with the idea that the economy would definitely be worse off since many corporations need fuel for their production while some may also come up with the idea of how the fuel would possibly not be undersupplied. We may easily imply that the government should and can definitely solve the under supplying problem though the price stays the same, so raising the price up is not necessary.
These are indeed good chain of thoughts. However, this chain is very much dependent of the statistical intuition underlying the probability or chance that the under supplying problem will be actually solved, which we were not born to be good at. Kahneman suggested that when we arrive at this conclusion, it is time to go back to the basic statistic facts and rethink orderly. What is actually the probability of the under supplying problem and other problems to be solved? How, considering this probability, the economy, in terms of some important indicators such as per capita income and inequality, would be affected? The probability is the main agent that differentiates which considerations that must be taken into account.
In summary, one must trust the more neutral side in processing information and updating his beliefs and expectations. Thus, one must be very careful of the interests the conflicting parties may have and be critical of the arguments, solutions, and data that the parties will bring up to the surface to support their views. Also, while most of the times our minds are rational, we must not overestimate our ability to always think rationally and predict statistics and probabilities. In more conclusive words, reasons and arguments can be easily found, but one needs empirical evidences to support them.
Negeri 5 Menara | picture taken from www.google.co.id
Last Sunday there was a gathering of my High School alumni in Bandung. We planned to watch Negeri 5 Menara “The Land of Five Towers”. Why on earth would we watch the film together? The background of the film, which was set in a Pesantren (the Islamic boarding school built to create Muslim scholars) attracted us. Since we all had experienced studying in an Islamic boarding school (but the one where we studied is not a Pesantren), we expected some nostalgic moments occurred while watching the film.
The story began with two Minangkabau (a tribe in West Sumatra) boys named Alif and Randai talking about their goal to study in Bandung Institute of Technology. They had just graduated from junior high, and in order to enter their dream campus, they believed that they had to enter famous public high schools. A problem occurred when Alif’s mother expected him to enter Pondok Madani, a Pesantren located in East Java. Contradictory, Alif then chose to obey his mother’s wish and went to Pondok Madani.
Going to the school which we never wanted was one of the worst dreams of teenagers’ life. So did Alif. As he reached Pondok Madani, he found out that he had to study for four years there–one preparation year and three years of studying in Arabic and English, mostly Arabic–which means he would be one year behind his best friend Randai. Disappointed, stressed, and sad, he kept trying to study there, as his father said, “While living your live, try it first.”
The story continues to the daily activity in Pondok Madani. From this point, the story was not strong enough, to be honest–to affect the emotions of audience. Just like the novel, the story seemed flat, and the only thing which kept me awake was the jokes and uniqueness of the atmosphere. Somehow I felt there were some small miss in the film details, such as many cars looked new, and the dictionaries–the English-Indonesian one–looked as if they were published in 2000s, while the setting should be before 2000 (CMIIW). One more thing I regret is the main actor who is, in my opinion, played not really well in this film. I could not even tell when he felt happy, sad, or anything there. Thus, I could not feel the emotions from Alif during the whole film.
On the other hand, I would like to give a standing ovation for the film director, Affandi Abdul Rachman, and the script writer, Salman Aristo, who had succeeded in building the pesantren atmosphere during the whole film. The film reflects the real portrait of Indonesian citizens who are in the middle-low income. I laughed when I saw many of Alif’s friends, including him, have strong ideology and struggled for their dreams. That’s very typical of pesantren students, and somehow reminded me of some friends I know (and that’s why I laughed). The way they eat together, make projects together, etc. All seemed so real.
Based on a novel written by Ahmad Fuadi, The Land of Five Towers film encouraged us to dream higher, to believe in three simple Arabic words which has big power if we implement that: “Man Jadda Wajada”. Who does something seriously, he/she will succeed. For those who are interested in knowing the atmosphere of pesantren, or even to search for some motivations, you should watch this movie.
