The suicide of a student activist and the wedding of a stupidity promoter's child

It has been quite a long talk these days in Indonesia. The suicidal action of Sondang Hutagalung, a student activist from UBK University in Jakarta has sparked debates whether or not it was a correct action to convey a protest message to this stupid, ignorant government with suicidal action (which is not a 'good' way to die according to most religious groups, alias prohibited: one would not go to heaven due to suicide). The other group looks more on the rationale why he burnt himself: a desperation about the country's human rights and poverty situation; and show their solidarity for him. Regardless of whether he will go to heaven or not, it is definitely none of our business (we, the livings). The Bible says that we need to care more on our life than about those who died, God will take care of them and their destiny, it's none of our business, He said.  

To describe the situation in the country recently is like to untangle tangled cloths. Is like to walk into a labyrinth. All confusing, all connected, like the Enemy of the State, they probably are everywhere, the human rights violators, the corrupt officials, the conglomerates, the mafioso..and whatever or whoever they are, uniting to develop their own network of power, to prevent others to access their power and wealth...far far away from reality of common people's life. From grass root poverty. From the life of you and me, who have to fight everyday to make ends meet. These oligarchs have different definition of 'life'. Life, in essence, for them, is to store wealth, golds, money, obligations, investments, exactly like Jesus illustrated the rich greed man in a parable in the Bible two thousand years ago: 

Luke 12:15-21 - New International Version (NIV)

¹⁵ Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
 ¹⁶ And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. ¹⁷ He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
   ¹⁸ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. ¹⁹ And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
   ²⁰ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
   ²¹ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

This exactly was the parable I recalled in my mind when I heard the story of a national conglomerate of I****** descendant, the owner of some biggest production houses in this country who celebrated the wedding of his child in Hawaii. He chartered jet(s) to fly the guests to Hawaii, whose accommodation were also paid by him. The television cinemas that he produced, all has no educational content, all are bullshits. In short, he sells junks and poisons to the lower class society in this country. He makes money of their ignorance. He even promotes stupidity and expect that people will stay stupid to want to voluntarily watch his stupid cinemas. And he produces money and wealth which reproduces and reproduces in bonds and properties and what other investments, only God knows. He might have spent millions of dollars for that party, to treat the rich people in glamorous ceremony. This guy, does one have a reason why he should alive? Has anyone ever told him that one day he might die and his wealth will not be of any use down in the graveyard? Has anyone told him the parable of the rich man in the Bible above? He could have donated 1/10 or even just 1 percent of his wealth to help those affected by flood and volcano eruption or building schools and hospitals in remote areas and help poor people there? How many lives he could have saved with his money, with his wealth? Or how about the corrupt officials who have more than five or ten luxurious cars  and houses everywhere, their families live in luxurious lifestyle, with money they stole from public budget that supposed to go to build health centres for poor people? To build schools for poor children? How they made deals with the public officials, the attorneys, the police so that the latter would not inquire their corruptions?

After typing all this, I think I get a little clue why Sondang Hutagalung wanted to die. Because he felt hopeless and desperate that those kind of people will get caught and will get trialed, ever in this world, in this country. He might believe that if he dies, that might prompt more awareness of others to pressure the wealthy and the power controller. I hope he rest in peace, and I hope his cause will get more attention of the powerful people up there, and will get more sympathy from public to give pressure to this ignorant government and ignorant wealthy.     

http://oase.kompas.com/read/2011/12/12/07404972/Sondang.Sang.Revolusioner.Telah.Pergi

December, the fifth, two thousand and eleven

Two thousand and eleven years Anno Domini. Today is our last working day in TL, to undertake the capacity assessment as part of the consultancy job. It all went well, I can simply say. In the morning we encountered the guy from the Bank once more, after a long conversation yesterday, spanned from the topic of nuclear physics to theism and atheism, from NASA’s artificial intelligent project to reincarnation and religion; the difference between monotheistic and non-monotheistic.

It was an interesting talk, everyone left with their heads full of thought I suppose, -including me. This morning we exchanged some small talks about weather and cities in Indonesia and supporting capacity of the environment, over the monotonous hotel breakfast. Five days in a row, -number of days we stayed there, we have only three choices of breakfast: tropical fruits with yoghurt, toast with number of spreads like butter, jams, marmalades and errr…. Vegemite, and some cereals (all sweet, I regret) and some fruit juices. Well, cannot complain more, but imagine the service one can get with US $80/night in Indonesia, yes, that will include swimming pool!

Shortly after that, our host organization in TL came and picked us up to shop for wine and coffee, two most important commodities in there. The presentation went well, everyone seemed to be all right with the findings. After question and answer and feedback session, we bade everyone goodbye, signaling that we will come again next year.

I recalled that tonight I’ve gotta go to pharmacy to purchase Dio’s medicines. I forgot whether I really prayed (or not) that morning, but what made this day special was the way too many, too many indeed, coincidences and fortunate moments that I encountered. I listed down some as follow:

1.      The immigration asked me to put the bottle of wine that I carried to cabin on my luggage. Could have been frustrating to find mine because they have strolled the trolley on the lane to the plane, but strange enough, mine was on top of piles of luggage, just like waiting for me to come. So it was easy to unzip my luggage and put the bottle inside.

2.      The flight was on time, unlike the previous week when it was said to delay for 5 hours!

3.      The transit in Bali did not take much time; unlike when we just came.

4.       After taking out our luggage, I saw that the queue for cabs was way too long. That wasn’t good, I thought, so decided to run to the bus line and whoop! There the Pasar Minggu bus came first, first, like never before..so I jumped in.

5.      Fortunately, it was around 4 pm, and whoa, no traffic jam on the way! So I arrived at home when day was still bright.

6.      I took an ojek from the last stop to my place, and when the ojek stopped, he said ‘alhamdulilah’ for the very short trip, and said thank you and again ‘alhamdulilah’ because I said he can take the change. I could not stop myself from mumbling, following him to say ‘alhamdulilah’, or thanks God (whichever language my mind can speak to God who understands all languages I suppose). If he was able to say thank you for the IDR 10,000 that I paid him, what more should I do other than give thousand thanks for the abundant blessings God has given to me?

7.      I put all the luggage in my room and soon got to get the public transport to the pharmacy, and guess what, no traffic in the street! The street is well-known as ‘jalur neraka’ or ‘hell’s lane’ due to its unstoppable congestion, day and night, weekend or weekday.  So again, I considered myself lucky.

8.      I took the medicines and returned to my place.

Against all odds, I believe that there’s an invisible hand guided me, brought me there and made everything just all right in time. Knowing that, I’m glad that I’m not alone. That the Divine Being is always be there for me, for the good cause that He intended me to do. Ever since the world began.