Soe Hok Gie, One More Time...

These all started when I remembered how my friend, Nafis, is crazy about Soe Hok Gie. I had no idea at all who he is. Well,  from the way how she always mentions the name of Gie, seems like even she is fallling in love with this guy. Once I was walking trough some books in a bookstore at Points Lebak Bulus, I saw a book written on its cover 'Soe Hok Gie' then I decided to buy this book. I hoped I would get the gist who this guy is. However, I couldn't read this book right away since I still had another book 'Gus Dur' to be finished. For me, reading a new book before finishing the previously bought book feels like leaving someone whom we love early to the new one without any reason. It must be hurt, right?

It was such a pity to know that Gie died at a very young age, 27, on 16th of December 1969, a day before his birthday which is December 17th on the peak of Mount Semeru. The book starts Gie's story with the most touching moment when his life was end a few years back then. This sad story has successfully attracted my interest to keep on moving to the next pages finding who this guy is. What I got from some chapters of the beginning of this book is that Gie was a great writer speaking up his mind with a lot of critics towards the government of Indonesia. Gie was an inspiration for all of his friends to be proactive and responsive to how the leaders govern Indonesia.

The more I read, the more I got the ideas how different it is between the government in Gie's era and now. To get information was not as easy as now. Nowadays, the information is coming from anywhere, anyone and anytime. It is flowing so fast that possibly makes us busy by following the most updated news which its validity and credibility are still questionable. Me myself confused how to respond to the current issues which is spreading all around Indonesia, even the world. Personally, I am afraid that I might give the wrong respond to the wrong information. However at that time, Gie's time, what I see was that maybe  only certain people were able to access the information but the sources of information were trustworthy. I am amazed by how he and his friends at that time responded to the situations happened with full of spirit and belief that what they did was right and they fought for their thoughts. To be honest, I can't be as critical and brave as him at the moment.

And, it was wonderful to find out that he consistently wrote his thought on his notebook since a very young age, 15 years old. What he did to his writing was keeping them for himself, sending some of them to friends and sometimes sending them to the newspaper to be published. From some of his writings that I have read, he is such a romantic man with lots of beautiful word choices in his writing, especially in some poets that he made. Besides being romantic, it seems like he is a kind of reflective person in his writing. I find him mostly reflecting anything happened around him to his feeling, his experiences, and the people. His writings have captured well how Indonesia was at his time. No wonder, his writing amazingly have been passing through generations to generations as a source of lessons to be learned.

The freedom of press mattered at that time. I don't have enough knowledge about how the freedom of press is developing and changing in Indonesia. But, what I know so far is that it wasn't easy for Gie to share his words to public. The ideas which were considered to be not in line with the government's ideology could most likely threaten himself. Besides, a number of media was controlled by the government to broadcast only the news which support their needs, interests and purposes. I think some media nowadays are the same. We all have to be grateful for what we have right now when everyone is free to share their opinions and thoughts to any social media which can be accessed by any one. Yet, I am feeling sad to see people quarrel one to another here and there with full of swearing and bad words within.

Anyhow, in particular part of this book, it mentions about the case of G30SPKI (Gerakan 30 September Partai Komunis Indonesia). Gie's research on the people of PKI was considered to be dangerous for certain parties so that it was banned to be published and even destroyed. What he wrote in his paper was about hoe the people of PKI say about the action taken by the government towards them as followers. Inhumanity was happening all around Indonesia at that time and created the people of PKI as enemies to be defeated and destroyed. Honestly I don't know much about the story behind G30SPKI. The first time I heard about it was when I was in junior high school. I am lack of the knowledge of the history of Indonesia.

This moment made me curious about how G30SPKI happened at that time. Then, I remembered that I have a movie file in my laptop ''Pengkhianatan G30SPKI" that I have never watched before. Without thinking much, I spent my three hours for watching the movie myself in my room. Anyway, I have ever heard that a few years ago, this movie was  such a must to be watched by all of the people in Indonesia. Well, "yes", I asked one of my friends at office "But I don't want to watch this because I'm afraid that it might happen to my dad", she added. Her dad is a police. No wonder my friend didn't want to watch this because it is so frightening to see when some Generals were kidnapped and killed in 1965. You know what? The story of G30SPKI is confusing for me to define which one is right or wrong. God knows better for sure.

From a lot of stories told by Gie's friends, I am interested in the part when Gie and friends went hiking Mount Slamet where no public transportation for taking them there. So, they asked a ride from a truck passing by. It was not only them anyway, many other people needed a ride as well. The truck was full of people after all and dangerous for their safety, but who cares as long as those people can reach the place where they were heading. Even a soldier in charge as the security in that area just let them go this way since the people had no other choice. I like the way how Gie reflected this situation to what happened in Jakarta, the big city, where people go here and there with a fancy car with only one or two passengers. What a waste. Indeed, we can take lessons from anything around us.

I was laughing a lot once I was reading the parts of some letters by Ker, a girl who was close enough to Gie. From those letters I could see that Gie is such a romantic but mysterious lover. He was not a kind of man who easily say "I love you" to the girl he liked but he did little sweet things to the girl. He was also nice to all of his girl friends and treated them very well (according to one of his friends' stories). Even, before he died at Mount Semeru, he told his friends to give something taken from there (I forgot either flower or stone) for all girls at campus as a present. What a funny guy. In writing about love, he would put a lot of imageries into his words. It is funny for me to know that Gie, someone who is brave to speak up his mind criticizing the government out loud in public can be so quite loving a girl.

I am impressed with how Gie really loves his home and never stay at night at other place other than his home except when he went hiking. He had his room as his basecamp to let all of his ideas flow onto the paper, late at night. By the way, surprisingly he had a fight with his big brother. I'm not sure if the "fight" quite represents what happened to Gie and Pak Arief Boediman. They didn't talk for years with no big reason. Accidently, this really happened to me and my little sister as well. But thanks Lord it is over now and we are okay.

The last part of this book tells Gie's friend's opinion about his writing. He was not perfect with imperfect writing. There are some weak points in Gie's writing here and there. His friend mentioned that "Gie might be a good writer but not a good historian". This section also discusses how Gie's writing is not too good as a historian but it is excellent in terms of writing. Here I learn that there is nothing perfect, though. The most important thing is that is Gie's writings have given lots of meaning, spirit, and lessons after all. Nothing is perfect.

The last, Gie is a Chinese but how he cared about and loved Indonesia had broken the border of his race to this country.

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I couldn't put things in more details since I have brought the book to my hometown to look back.

Catatan 10/05/2017 (Proyeksi Peristiwa Dipenjarakannya Pak Ahok dalam Kacamataku)

Kemarin, aku mendengar kabar bahwa Bapak Ahok telah divonis hukuman penjara selama dua taahun terkait penistaan agama yang telah dilakukannya di pidato beberapa waktu yang lalu di Kepulauan Seribu. Selama ini aku selalu mengamati pendapat teman-temanku dan juga beberapa guru-guruku di beranda facebook. Lagi-lagi, ada dua kelompok yang mengungkapkan pendapatnya yang berbeda. Entah mana yang bisa aku golongkan kanan ataupun kiri, mana yang hitam ataupun yang putih. Mungkin aku terlalu cemen untuk tidak meletakkan diriku di salah satu keduanya. Aku lebih memilih untuk membaca, mengamati dan mempelajari bagaimana keduanya merangkai kerangka pikiran masing-masing sehingga pada akhirnya muncullah kesimpulan yang diungkapkan setiap saat di Facebook.

Jujur, aku sedih ketika para umat muslim mengkoar-koarkan kasus penistaan yang telah dilakukan oleh Pak Ahok yang menurut pendapatku pribadi, apa yang dikatakan beliau saat itu belum tentu merupakan sebuah penistaan. Yang menariknya, malah ungkapkan Pak Ahok membuat para umat muslim untuk mempelajari lagi hal yang telah disampaikan. Ngomong-ngomong, aku jadi tergelitik untuk mencari tahu di Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (KBBI) apa sih itu 'menistakan'? Apa sih itu 'penistaan'? Dan apa sih yang dimaksud dengan 'penista'? (karena keterbatasan koneksi saat ini, jadi aku belum nemu juga).

Padahal nyatanya, di beberapa kesempatan majelis ta'lim ataupun tabligh akbar yang pernah aku hadiri, aku tidak jarang mendengar si Da'i atau penceramah mengungkapkan hal-hal yang bias dikategorikan 'menistakan' keyakinan agama lain ataupun isi dari kitab suci agama lain secara terang-terangan. Tidak ada yang menuntut. Masih saja, buatku pribadi memang sulit untuk mengambil kesimpulan apakah pernyataan beliau itu memang berniat 'menistakan'  atau tidak. Tapi yang jelas, beliau sudah meminta maaf. Selebihnya, bukankah Allah yang paling tahu?

Saat ini, aku heran dengan saudara-saudariku seiman, bagaimana bisa mereka secara 100%, atau bahkan 1000% menutup pandangannya untuk melihat dan mengkaji kembali apa yang tejadi dengan rasa kemanusiawian. Bukankah muslim pun perlu memanusiakan manusia? Sayangnya, sepertinya mereka sudah mentok pada apa yang dipercayainya  yang tertulis di Al-Quran dan ditambah kan lagi  apa yang digembor-gemborkan oleh masing-masing pemimpin pengajian mereka.

Aku sedih, kenapa Islam yang aku pahami penuh dengan kasih sayang bisa sejahat ini kepada seseorang? Apalagi kepada seseorang yang kita semua bisa tahu telah melakukan banyak kontribusi terhadap negara. Karena beliau orang Cina? Karena beliau bukan muslim? Aku tidak bisa membayangkan bagaimana jika aku akan mendapatkan perlakuan yang sama oleh golongan yang anti Islam (karena aku orang muslim) atau anti Jawa (karena aku keturunan jawa) atau anti - Indonesia (karena aku orang Indonesia). Sederhananya, jika aku berada di posisi beliau, mungkin aku sudah kehilangan banyak energy, harapan, semangat dan akhirnya menyerah.

Tapi apalah arti semua tulisanku diatas ini, masih ada banyak ilmu yang aku belum tahu. Tapi setidaknya, kata hatiku mengatakan seharusnya semua ini bisa lebih baik. Allahu a'lam bis showab.
___________

Anyway, di detik terakhir aku membuat catatan di atas, aku menemukan sebuah ungkapan salah satu dosenku dan aku pun setuju bahwa yang menyayangkan dan yang menyedihkan saat ini bukanlah agama yang mana, tetapi para pemeluk agama itu yang memilih untuk bersikap sedemikian rupa terhadap pemeluk agama lain.

Catatan 01/01/2015

Ya Allah ya Tuhanku...

Sedungguhnya tak ada sesuatu apapun yang terjadi tanpa seizing-Mu. Aku berusaha menghindarinya, tapi dengan mudahnya Kau pertemukan kami. Apakah maksud-Mu dengan semua ini ya Allah...?

Ini adalah pertama kalinya Kau menempatkan aku pada keadaan yang istimewa sebagai seorang wanita. Segala puji bagi-Mu ya Allah yang telah memberiku kesempatan untuk menikmati perasaan yang campur aduk waktu itu.

Ya Allah...
Mungkin memang aku merasakan hal ini berharga, tapi mungkin juga bagi dia hal ini adalah hal yang biasa. Aku tidak boleh berbunga-bunga karena peristiwa ini.
Sesungguhnya aku takut jatuh cinta padanya.
Kenapa aku takut?
Engkau pasti lebih mengetahui dan memahamiku.

Hmmm..
Ketika aku jatuh cinta, maka aku akan mengharapkannya.
Ketika aku mengharapkannya, maka aku akan tersakiti jika tidak bersamanya.
Padahal, apapun yang terjadi hanyalah atas izin-Mu.

Untuk itu ya Allah Sang Penggenggam seluruh jiwa, aku mohon bantuan-Mu untuk senantiasa menyerahkan segalanya pada-Mu, sehingga jadilah aku penikmat seluruh ketentuan-Mu.
Apakah aku ragu dan takut kalau-kalau apa yang Kau berikan akan menyusahkanku?
Sama sekali tidak ya Allah.
Bukankah Kau sendiri yang berjanji akan memberikan yang terbaik bagi semua hamba-Mu, apalagi bagi mereka yang senantiasa terus berusaha melakukan ketaatan pada-Mu?
Dan bukankah Kau tak pernah ingkar janji ya Allah?

Oleh karena itu, aku mohon tuntunlah aku dan berikanlah aku petunjuk ya Tuhanku. Aammiin.

*Catatan ini dibuat beberapa waktu setelah melakukan perjalanan ke Kota Cirebon. Semua rangkaian latar belakang peristiwa yang tersirat pun terjadi di Cirebon. Biarlah Kota Cirebon jadi saksi.

Notes from CIIS Class (Contemporary Issues in Islamic Studies)

When someone achieves high level of knowledge, s/he might not need religion.

This happens when someone with high knowledge, they tend to see things or diagnose any problem or situation from a scientific point of view, do observation and finally put it into clear and logical explanation. In this state, ones tend to consider themselves to be able to overcome their problems by themselves without any reliance on what the religion says. It is because people commonly come to religion when they are not able to find an explanation of things. In other words,  it shows their weaknesses as human being.

Low level of knowledge view what happens as a mystery.

This shows the limited ability of ones to find an answer of what is happening in the surrounding. this is close to positivism which refers to the limited ability of human to explain stuffs. For example, when a kid is having fever, we might have ever heard people relate it to any interference of Jin or any spirits around. Here, the circumstance is perceived to be a mystery. Another example is Tsunami in Aceh in 2004. Not a few people saw this phenomenon to show that God is angry for what the people are doing there and urges the importance of taubah after this disaster. Besides, some people tried to make certain connections between what is happening with what Qur'an says in particular verses by matching the number of the surah and verse. Sorry to say, it is considered to be false logical thinking.

The knowledge in Pesantren is over.
If we try visiting some Pesantren and have a look at how Islam is taught by the Kyai as the main teacher, we will find that the knowledge of Islam there is delivered in one-way without much critical questions coming from the students. Yes, sometimes the students of the Pesantren might ask questions but still the explanation is referred to the books (so called Kitab Kuning, after the Holy Qor'an) being learned which have been used and repeated for long time from generation to generation. This kind of teaching is considered to be normative since it is related to an ideal standard or model, or being based on what is considered to be the normal or correct way of doing something (Al-Qur'an, Hadis, and Kitab Kuning). What has been told is that is to be followed with no more discussion on it.

Religious study doesn't meet the social expectation.
This case is closely related to the last point above. Islamic religious study is mostly normative and cannot really answer the recent social phenomena or problems happening in the surrounding which might have never found in the past. This kind of study may be enough for the agricultural people in rural area, but not for the people living in a competitive environment and global life like Jakarta. Too many contemporary things to be discussed and answered in accordance with Islamic jurisprudence.  Therefore, this situation requires to conduct an empirical study in the planning and design of Islamic education.

In the last semester, I studied Contemporary Issues in Islamic Studies (CIIS). This course was delivered by two excellent lecturers, Prof. Dr. Abudin Nata, M.A. and Dr. Abdul Mu'thi. I have learned lots of things from both of them through the classroom discussion and also lecturing. The note above is just a little compared to what both have already shared to my friends and I in the classroom for one semester. I am not more than a learner who is always looking forward to your comments and feedbacks.

Each of Us is Free to Choose

I wrote the following thoughts a few weeks ago when the issue of governor election of Jakarta became such a hot issue to talk about.

Many times my students ask my opinion about voting for non-Moslem leader. Well, it's what's happening now in Jakarta. Recently, Moslems and non-Moslems, they are all like in a war; even among Moslems too. A war with no sword nor murder, but different thoughts and beliefs in rough words. Honestly I don't know what to say to them, my students about it. I'm afraid that what I'm saying might be wrong. Lucky if my answer is correct, but what if not. I might be feeling burdened in all my life afterwards. I take my time and now trying to see this case from some different points of view. No one is qualified to make a judgment of which one is true or wrong to be followed after all. The different ideas of some groups are not wrong. What makes it wrong is just about they way people speak up which then cause the situation worse.

Some groups of Moslems insist to not for non-Moslem to be the governor of Jakarta. The reason is that the Holy Qur'an says so. Besides, they are worried about and scared by a lot of possibilities, especially any policy against Islamic principles, which might happen in the future if the governor is not a Moslem. Thus, to not vote for a non-Moslem is such an opportunity to avoid all of those possibilities happen. Well, simply I can say that these people have a good reason and intention in their voice.

Anyway, some other people (including Moslems and non-Moslems) say "to chose a governor is not only for Moslems, but also for all people in the society (with different religions)", which means the governor doesn't have to be a Moslem. It can be anyone from any religion. I learned long time ago from my teacher that we need to hand over a task or duty for those who are qualified and competent. And now, what is the Moslem candidates are not as qualified or competent as the non-Moslem  candidates. Don't you think we need to be smart in this case? objectively analyze the programs proposed by each candidate for the better future.

In fact, the idea above invites people (Moslems who says 'no' for non-Moslem leader) respond "But someone's thoughts and actions are the representations of his/her religion. Still we go for Moslem leaders". This point of view implies that for them, a Moslem governor is good and a non-Moslem governor is not good, or Islam is a good religion and others are not good religions.

This complicated debate has been going on till now. What I said to all my students is that each person (including my students) has his/her own reason for what she/he is doing with certain intention and expectation within. And I'm pretty sure that the intention is for the sake of goodness. Each of us is free to decide which one to vote for with our own reason and it's confidential.