RuhNya hadir di dalam keindahan ciptaanNya.
Ijinkan aku Ya Robb....
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Dec. 31.
Adalah akhir hari di setiap tahun
Adalah akhir segala langkah di sepanjang tahun,
Adalah akhir segala pengharapan kosong tak terwujud
Adalah akhir segala hampa, resah, duka nestapa.
Adalah akhir segala akhir.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Belajar Ikhlas
Tuhan,
betapa beratnya belajar ikhlas
seberat gunung bertumpuk tujuh
Ketika aku membuat sesuatu,
aku selalu berusaha untuk "ikhlas" hanya untuk kebaikan yang Engkau tuntunkan
karena aku mengharap ridhoMu.
Namun,
pada saat hasil kerjaku itu seolah bukan hasil kerjaku
(karena ada yang menginginkan terlihat sebagai hasil kerjanya)
aku mengeluh.
betapa beratnya belajar ikhlas
seberat gunung bertumpuk tujuh
Ketika aku membuat sesuatu,
aku selalu berusaha untuk "ikhlas" hanya untuk kebaikan yang Engkau tuntunkan
karena aku mengharap ridhoMu.
Namun,
pada saat hasil kerjaku itu seolah bukan hasil kerjaku
(karena ada yang menginginkan terlihat sebagai hasil kerjanya)
aku mengeluh.
Apakah keluhanku itu adalah ekspresi ketidakikhlasanku kepadaMu?
Apakah kemudian Engkau menghapuskan ridhoMu untuk kerjaku itu?
Ketika aku melakukan sesuatu untuk orang lain
aku selalu berusaha untuk "ikhlas" hanya untuk kebaikan yang Engkau tuntunkan
karena aku mengharap ridhoMu.
Namun,
ketika usahaku dihalangi, dihentikan,
oleh mereka yang tidak suka aku melakukan itu
aku mengumpat.
Apakah umpatanku itu adalah ekspresi ketidakikhlasanku kepadaMu?
Apakah kemudian Engkau menghapuskan ridhoMu untuk usahaku itu?
Adakalanya, Tuhan
aku mengumbar kata
membanggakan hasil kerjaku
membanggakan usahaku
agar orang tahu
aku (yang) melakukan semua itu
Apakah kata-kataku itu adalah ekspresi ketidakikhlasanku kepadaMu?
Apakah kemudian Engkau menghapuskan ridhoMu untukku?
Kalau begitu,
sia-sialah karyaku
sia-sia pula usahaku
karena tanpa ridhoMu.
Tuhan,
sia-sialah karyaku
sia-sia pula usahaku
karena tanpa ridhoMu.
Tuhan,
sungguh berat belajar ikhlas
seberat gunung bertumpuk tujuh
Maka,
tuntun aku
untuk tidak mengeluh,
untuk tidak mengumpat,
untuk tidak mengeluh,
untuk tidak mengumpat,
atau mengumbar kata.
Agar aku bisa memperoleh ridhoMu
yang memberi nilai karyaku & usahaku.
Tuhan.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Laa Hawla wa laa Quwwatailla BiLLah
Ketika kita berusaha untuk selalu berjalan di jalanNYA dengan cara yang telah ditunjukkanNYA,
maka akan selalu ada yang datang menggoda,
berusaha membelokkan langkah kita.
Apabila kita mampu bertahan dan terus berjalan, berusaha tetap lurus di jalanNYA,
maka akan datang mereka yang berusaha menghalangi langkah kita dengan berbagai cara.
Dan apabila kita masih terus bisa bertahan dan berusaha selalu berjalan dijalanNYA mengikuti petunjukNYA,
(despite what people say)
maka mereka akan berusaha menghentikan kita dengan segala fitnah.
Namun Tuhan ada untuk kita yang ingin selalu bersamaNYA.
Tuhan ada di dalam setiap langkah,
di setiap hembusan nafas,
di setiap denyut nadi,
di setiap kita yang selalu membawaNYA
di dalam kalbu yang senantiasa rindu mendamba pertemuan denganNYA.
Laa Hawla wa laa Quwwatailla BiLLah.
maka akan selalu ada yang datang menggoda,
berusaha membelokkan langkah kita.
Apabila kita mampu bertahan dan terus berjalan, berusaha tetap lurus di jalanNYA,
maka akan datang mereka yang berusaha menghalangi langkah kita dengan berbagai cara.
Dan apabila kita masih terus bisa bertahan dan berusaha selalu berjalan dijalanNYA mengikuti petunjukNYA,
(despite what people say)
maka mereka akan berusaha menghentikan kita dengan segala fitnah.
Namun Tuhan ada untuk kita yang ingin selalu bersamaNYA.
Tuhan ada di dalam setiap langkah,
di setiap hembusan nafas,
di setiap denyut nadi,
di setiap kita yang selalu membawaNYA
di dalam kalbu yang senantiasa rindu mendamba pertemuan denganNYA.
Laa Hawla wa laa Quwwatailla BiLLah.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
"Our sons plundered for their organs"
“Our sons plundered for their organs”
AUTHOR: Donald BOSTRÖM
You could call me a “matchmaker,” said Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, from Brooklyn, USA, in a secret recording with an FBI-agent whom he believed to be a client. Ten days later, at the end of July this year, Rosenbaum was arrested and a vast, Sopranos-like, imbroglio of money-laundering and illegal organ-trade was revealed. Rosenbaum’s matchmaking had nothing to do with romance. It was all about buying and selling kidneys from Israel on the black market. Rosenbaum says that he buys the kidneys for $10,000, from poor people. He then proceeds to sell the organs to desperate patients in the States for $160,000. The accusations have shaken the American transplantation business. If they are true it means that organ trafficking is documented for the first time in the US, experts tell the New Jersey Real-Time News.
Young Palestinian men throwing stones and bottles at Israeli soldiers in Northern West Bank. It was in the area that Bilal Achmed Ghanan was shot dead and cut open at a hospital. Photo: Donald Boström Bilal Achmed Ghanan, 19, was shot and abducted by Israeli soldiers. THe body was returned with stitches running from the abdomen to the chin.
Levy Izhak Rosenbaum being taken away by FBI agents. Rosenbaum is suspected of acting as a human organ broker.
On the question of how many organs he has sold Rosenbaum replies: “Quite a lot. And I have never failed,” he boasts. The business has been running for quite some time. Francis Delmonici, professor of transplant surgery at Harvard and member of the National Kidney Foundation’s Board of Directors, tells the same newspaper that organ-trafficking, similar to the one reported from Israel, is carried out in other places of the world as well. 5–6,000 operations a year, about ten per cent of the world’s kidney transplants are carried out illegally, according to Delmonici.
Countries suspected of these activities are Pakistan, the Philippines and China, where the organs are allegedly taken from executed prisoners. But Palestinians also harbor strong suspicions against Israel for seizing young men and having them serve as the country’s organ reserve – a very serious accusation, with enough question marks to motivate the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to start an investigation about possible war crimes.
Israel has repeatedly been under fire for its unethical ways of dealing with organs and transplants. France was among the countries that ceased organ collaboration with Israel in the nineties. Jerusalem Post wrote that “the rest of the European countries are expected to follow France’s example shortly.”
Half of the kidneys transplanted to Israelis since the beginning of the 2000s have been bought illegally from Turkey, Eastern Europe or Latin America. Israeli health authorities have full knowledge of this business but do nothing to stop it. At a conference in 2003 it was shown that Israel is the only western country with a medical profession that doesn’t condemn the illegal organ trade. The country takes no legal measures against doctors participating in the illegal business – on the contrary, chief medical officers of Israel’s big hospitals are involved in most of the illegal transplants, according to Dagens Nyheter (December 5, 2003).
In the summer of 1992, Ehud Olmert, then minister of health, tried to address the issue of organ shortage by launching a big campaign aimed at having the Israeli public register for post mortem organ donation. Half a million pamphlets were spread in local newspapers. Ehud Olmert himself was the first person to sign up. A couple of weeks later the Jerusalem Post reported that the campaign was a success. No fewer than 35,000 people had signed up. Prior to the campaign it would have been 500 in a normal month. In the same article, however, Judy Siegel, the reporter, wrote that the gap between supply and demand was still large. 500 people were in line for a kidney transplant, but only 124 transplants could be performed. Of 45 people in need of a new liver, only three could be operated on in Israel.
While the campaign was running, young Palestinian men started to disappear from villages in the West Bank and Gaza. After five days Israeli soldiers would bring them back dead, with their bodies ripped open.
Talk of the bodies terrified the population of the occupied territories. There were rumors of a dramatic increase of young men disappearing, with ensuing nightly funerals of autopsied bodies.
I was in the area at the time, working on a book. On several occasions I was approached by UN staff concerned about the developments. The persons contacting me said that organ theft definitely occurred but that they were prevented from doing anything about it. On an assignment from a broadcasting network I then travelled around interviewing a great number of Palestinian families in the West Bank and Gaza – meeting parents who told of how their sons had been deprived of organs before being killed. One example that I encountered on this eerie trip was the young stone-thrower Bilal Achmed Ghanan.
It was close to midnight when the motor roar from an Israeli military column sounded from the outskirts of Imatin, a small village in the northern parts of the West Bank. The two thousand inhabitants were awake. They were still, waiting, like silent shadows in the dark, some lying upon roofs, others hiding behind curtains, walls, or trees that provided protection during the curfew but still offered a full view toward what would become the grave for the first martyr of the village. The military had interrupted the electricity and the area was now a closed-off military zone – not even a cat could move outdoors without risking its life. The overpowering silence of the dark night was only interrupted by quiet sobbing. I don’t remember if our shivering was due to the cold or to the tension. Five days earlier, on May 13, 1992, an Israeli special force had used the village’s carpentry workshop for an ambush. The person they were assigned to put out of action was Bilal Achmed Ghanan, one of the stone-throwing Palestinian youngsters who made life difficult for the Israeli soldiers.
As one of the leading stone-throwers Bilal Ghanan had been wanted by the military for a couple of years. Together with other stone-throwing boys he hid in the Nablus mountains, with no roof over his head. Getting caught meant torture and death for these boys – they had to stay in the mountains at all costs.
On May 13 Bilal made an exception, when for some reason, he walked unprotected past the carpentry workshop. Not even Talal, his older brother, knows why he took this risk. Maybe the boys were out of food and needed to restock.
Everything went according to plan for the Israeli special force. The soldiers stubbed their cigarettes, put away their cans of Coca-Cola, and calmly aimed through the broken window. When Bilal was close enough they needed only to pull the triggers. The first shot hit him in the chest. According to villagers who witnessed the incident he was subsequently shot with one bullet in each leg. Two soldiers then ran down from the carpentry workshop and shot Bilal once in the stomach. Finally, they grabbed him by his feet and dragged him up the twenty stone steps of the workshop stair. Villagers say that people from both the UN and the Red Crescent were close by, heard the discharge and came to look for wounded people in need of care. Some arguing took place as to who should take care of the victim. Discussions ended with Israeli soldiers loading the badly wounded Bilal in a jeep and driving him to the outskirts of the village, where a military helicopter waited. The boy was flown to a destination unknown to his family. Five days later he came back, dead and wrapped in green hospital fabric.
A villager recognized Captain Yahya, the leader of the military column who had transported Bilal from the postmortem center Abu Kabir, outside of Tel Aviv, to the place for his final rest. “Captain Yahya is the worst of them all,” the villager whispered in my ear. After Yahya had unloaded the body and changed the green fabric for a light cotton one, some male relatives of the victim were chosen by the soldiers to do the job of digging and mixing cement.
Together with the sharp noises from the shovels we could hear laughter from the soldiers who, as they waited to go home, exchanged some jokes. As Bilal was put in the grave his chest was uncovered. Suddenly it became clear to the few people present just what kind of abuse the boy had been exposed to. Bilal was not by far the first young Palestinian to be buried with a slit from his abdomen up to his chin.
The families in the West Bank and in Gaza felt that they knew exactly what had happened: “Our sons are used as involuntary organ donors,” relatives of Khaled from Nablus told me, as did the mother of Raed from Jenin and the uncles of Machmod and Nafes from Gaza, who had all disappeared for a number of days only to return at night, dead and autopsied.
“Why are they keeping the bodies for up to five days before they let us bury them? What happened to the bodies during that time? Why are they performing autopsy, against our will, when the cause of death is obvious? Why are the bodies returned at night? Why is it done with a military escort? Why is the area closed off during the funeral? Why is the electricity interrupted?” Nafe’s uncle was upset and he had a lot of questions.
The relatives of the dead Palestinians no longer harbored any doubts as to the reasons for the killings, but the spokesperson for the Israeli army claimed that the allegations of organ theft were lies. All the Palestinian victims go through autopsy on a routine basis, he said. Bilal Achmed Ghanem was one of 133 Palestinians killed in various ways that year. According to the Palestinian statistics the causes of death were: shot in the street, explosion, tear gas, deliberately run over, hanged in prison, shot in school, killed at home etcetera. The 133 people killed were between four months to 88 years old. Only half of them, 69 victims, went through postmortem examination. The routine autopsy of killed Palestinians – of which the army spokesperson was talking – has no bearing on the reality in the occupied territories. The questions remain.
We know that Israel has a great need for organs, that there is a vast and illegal trade of organs which has been running for many years now, that the authorities are aware of it and that doctors in managing positions at the big hospitals participate, as well as civil servants at various levels. We also know that young Palestinian men disappeared, that they were brought back after five days, at night, under tremendous secrecy, stitched back together after having been cut from abdomen to chin.
It’s time to bring clarity to this macabre business, to shed light on what is going on and what has taken place in the territories occupied by Israel since the Intifada began.
Source: ”Våra söner plundras på sina organ” (Aftonbladet Kultur)Original article published on August 17, 2009.
AUTHOR: Donald BOSTRÖM
You could call me a “matchmaker,” said Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, from Brooklyn, USA, in a secret recording with an FBI-agent whom he believed to be a client. Ten days later, at the end of July this year, Rosenbaum was arrested and a vast, Sopranos-like, imbroglio of money-laundering and illegal organ-trade was revealed. Rosenbaum’s matchmaking had nothing to do with romance. It was all about buying and selling kidneys from Israel on the black market. Rosenbaum says that he buys the kidneys for $10,000, from poor people. He then proceeds to sell the organs to desperate patients in the States for $160,000. The accusations have shaken the American transplantation business. If they are true it means that organ trafficking is documented for the first time in the US, experts tell the New Jersey Real-Time News.
Young Palestinian men throwing stones and bottles at Israeli soldiers in Northern West Bank. It was in the area that Bilal Achmed Ghanan was shot dead and cut open at a hospital. Photo: Donald Boström Bilal Achmed Ghanan, 19, was shot and abducted by Israeli soldiers. THe body was returned with stitches running from the abdomen to the chin.
Levy Izhak Rosenbaum being taken away by FBI agents. Rosenbaum is suspected of acting as a human organ broker.
On the question of how many organs he has sold Rosenbaum replies: “Quite a lot. And I have never failed,” he boasts. The business has been running for quite some time. Francis Delmonici, professor of transplant surgery at Harvard and member of the National Kidney Foundation’s Board of Directors, tells the same newspaper that organ-trafficking, similar to the one reported from Israel, is carried out in other places of the world as well. 5–6,000 operations a year, about ten per cent of the world’s kidney transplants are carried out illegally, according to Delmonici.
Countries suspected of these activities are Pakistan, the Philippines and China, where the organs are allegedly taken from executed prisoners. But Palestinians also harbor strong suspicions against Israel for seizing young men and having them serve as the country’s organ reserve – a very serious accusation, with enough question marks to motivate the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to start an investigation about possible war crimes.
Israel has repeatedly been under fire for its unethical ways of dealing with organs and transplants. France was among the countries that ceased organ collaboration with Israel in the nineties. Jerusalem Post wrote that “the rest of the European countries are expected to follow France’s example shortly.”
Half of the kidneys transplanted to Israelis since the beginning of the 2000s have been bought illegally from Turkey, Eastern Europe or Latin America. Israeli health authorities have full knowledge of this business but do nothing to stop it. At a conference in 2003 it was shown that Israel is the only western country with a medical profession that doesn’t condemn the illegal organ trade. The country takes no legal measures against doctors participating in the illegal business – on the contrary, chief medical officers of Israel’s big hospitals are involved in most of the illegal transplants, according to Dagens Nyheter (December 5, 2003).
In the summer of 1992, Ehud Olmert, then minister of health, tried to address the issue of organ shortage by launching a big campaign aimed at having the Israeli public register for post mortem organ donation. Half a million pamphlets were spread in local newspapers. Ehud Olmert himself was the first person to sign up. A couple of weeks later the Jerusalem Post reported that the campaign was a success. No fewer than 35,000 people had signed up. Prior to the campaign it would have been 500 in a normal month. In the same article, however, Judy Siegel, the reporter, wrote that the gap between supply and demand was still large. 500 people were in line for a kidney transplant, but only 124 transplants could be performed. Of 45 people in need of a new liver, only three could be operated on in Israel.
While the campaign was running, young Palestinian men started to disappear from villages in the West Bank and Gaza. After five days Israeli soldiers would bring them back dead, with their bodies ripped open.
Talk of the bodies terrified the population of the occupied territories. There were rumors of a dramatic increase of young men disappearing, with ensuing nightly funerals of autopsied bodies.
I was in the area at the time, working on a book. On several occasions I was approached by UN staff concerned about the developments. The persons contacting me said that organ theft definitely occurred but that they were prevented from doing anything about it. On an assignment from a broadcasting network I then travelled around interviewing a great number of Palestinian families in the West Bank and Gaza – meeting parents who told of how their sons had been deprived of organs before being killed. One example that I encountered on this eerie trip was the young stone-thrower Bilal Achmed Ghanan.
It was close to midnight when the motor roar from an Israeli military column sounded from the outskirts of Imatin, a small village in the northern parts of the West Bank. The two thousand inhabitants were awake. They were still, waiting, like silent shadows in the dark, some lying upon roofs, others hiding behind curtains, walls, or trees that provided protection during the curfew but still offered a full view toward what would become the grave for the first martyr of the village. The military had interrupted the electricity and the area was now a closed-off military zone – not even a cat could move outdoors without risking its life. The overpowering silence of the dark night was only interrupted by quiet sobbing. I don’t remember if our shivering was due to the cold or to the tension. Five days earlier, on May 13, 1992, an Israeli special force had used the village’s carpentry workshop for an ambush. The person they were assigned to put out of action was Bilal Achmed Ghanan, one of the stone-throwing Palestinian youngsters who made life difficult for the Israeli soldiers.
As one of the leading stone-throwers Bilal Ghanan had been wanted by the military for a couple of years. Together with other stone-throwing boys he hid in the Nablus mountains, with no roof over his head. Getting caught meant torture and death for these boys – they had to stay in the mountains at all costs.
On May 13 Bilal made an exception, when for some reason, he walked unprotected past the carpentry workshop. Not even Talal, his older brother, knows why he took this risk. Maybe the boys were out of food and needed to restock.
Everything went according to plan for the Israeli special force. The soldiers stubbed their cigarettes, put away their cans of Coca-Cola, and calmly aimed through the broken window. When Bilal was close enough they needed only to pull the triggers. The first shot hit him in the chest. According to villagers who witnessed the incident he was subsequently shot with one bullet in each leg. Two soldiers then ran down from the carpentry workshop and shot Bilal once in the stomach. Finally, they grabbed him by his feet and dragged him up the twenty stone steps of the workshop stair. Villagers say that people from both the UN and the Red Crescent were close by, heard the discharge and came to look for wounded people in need of care. Some arguing took place as to who should take care of the victim. Discussions ended with Israeli soldiers loading the badly wounded Bilal in a jeep and driving him to the outskirts of the village, where a military helicopter waited. The boy was flown to a destination unknown to his family. Five days later he came back, dead and wrapped in green hospital fabric.
A villager recognized Captain Yahya, the leader of the military column who had transported Bilal from the postmortem center Abu Kabir, outside of Tel Aviv, to the place for his final rest. “Captain Yahya is the worst of them all,” the villager whispered in my ear. After Yahya had unloaded the body and changed the green fabric for a light cotton one, some male relatives of the victim were chosen by the soldiers to do the job of digging and mixing cement.
Together with the sharp noises from the shovels we could hear laughter from the soldiers who, as they waited to go home, exchanged some jokes. As Bilal was put in the grave his chest was uncovered. Suddenly it became clear to the few people present just what kind of abuse the boy had been exposed to. Bilal was not by far the first young Palestinian to be buried with a slit from his abdomen up to his chin.
The families in the West Bank and in Gaza felt that they knew exactly what had happened: “Our sons are used as involuntary organ donors,” relatives of Khaled from Nablus told me, as did the mother of Raed from Jenin and the uncles of Machmod and Nafes from Gaza, who had all disappeared for a number of days only to return at night, dead and autopsied.
“Why are they keeping the bodies for up to five days before they let us bury them? What happened to the bodies during that time? Why are they performing autopsy, against our will, when the cause of death is obvious? Why are the bodies returned at night? Why is it done with a military escort? Why is the area closed off during the funeral? Why is the electricity interrupted?” Nafe’s uncle was upset and he had a lot of questions.
The relatives of the dead Palestinians no longer harbored any doubts as to the reasons for the killings, but the spokesperson for the Israeli army claimed that the allegations of organ theft were lies. All the Palestinian victims go through autopsy on a routine basis, he said. Bilal Achmed Ghanem was one of 133 Palestinians killed in various ways that year. According to the Palestinian statistics the causes of death were: shot in the street, explosion, tear gas, deliberately run over, hanged in prison, shot in school, killed at home etcetera. The 133 people killed were between four months to 88 years old. Only half of them, 69 victims, went through postmortem examination. The routine autopsy of killed Palestinians – of which the army spokesperson was talking – has no bearing on the reality in the occupied territories. The questions remain.
We know that Israel has a great need for organs, that there is a vast and illegal trade of organs which has been running for many years now, that the authorities are aware of it and that doctors in managing positions at the big hospitals participate, as well as civil servants at various levels. We also know that young Palestinian men disappeared, that they were brought back after five days, at night, under tremendous secrecy, stitched back together after having been cut from abdomen to chin.
It’s time to bring clarity to this macabre business, to shed light on what is going on and what has taken place in the territories occupied by Israel since the Intifada began.
Source: ”Våra söner plundras på sina organ” (Aftonbladet Kultur)Original article published on August 17, 2009.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Sakura dari Hebron
Sakura,
begitu aku mengenal bunga ini.
Pertama kali aku melihat keindahannya ketika aku sedang berada di Jepang.
Soft pink blossom cover all part of the tree, in a warm bright sunny spring.
begitu aku mengenal bunga ini.
Pertama kali aku melihat keindahannya ketika aku sedang berada di Jepang.
Soft pink blossom cover all part of the tree, in a warm bright sunny spring.
Setiap musim semi tiba aku selalu mengambil kesempatan untuk menikmati keindahan sakura yang hanya sesaat.
Sakura telah menjadi bunga pujaan bagi bangsa Jepang. Sebegitunya, sehingga, terutama menjelang dan selama musim semi, kita bisa menemukan segala pernik berhiaskan bunga ini dari sumpit & tatakan, kertas surat & amplopnya, kartu pos, pot bunga, cawan, hingga kimono, set bed-cover & saring bantal, gorden, dll. Bahkan ada pesta khusus menyambut sakura berbunga, orang membuat masakan yang serba sakura dan dengan nuansa warna pink. Ada sup bunga sakura, kue kukus manis dibungkus daun sakura, nasi putih dicampur dengan mahkota bunga sakura, dan masih banyak lagi.
Aku selalu terpesona oleh keceriaan yang timbul dari bunga ini.
Daun dan batang pohon sakura sangat mirip dengan pohon apel, sedangkan bunganya persis dengan bunga apel.
Pohon ini berbunga ketika suhu udara mulai hangat, sekitar 8-10 derajat C. But it will last only for a week.
Tapi...................
Foto bunga sakura yang saya pasang ini tidak saya ambil dari jepang.
Foto ini diambil di halaman rumah suami, di Hebron, Palestina, pada musim semi 2007.
Berbeda dengan saudaranya di Jepang, bunga ini tidak sempat menjadi pujaan oleh bangsa Palestina, since they are still living in a very harsh occupation.
Bunga yang sama dengan nasib yang berbeda.
Ooo bunga sakura, Ooo Palestina.....
Daun dan batang pohon sakura sangat mirip dengan pohon apel, sedangkan bunganya persis dengan bunga apel.
Pohon ini berbunga ketika suhu udara mulai hangat, sekitar 8-10 derajat C. But it will last only for a week.
Tapi...................
Foto bunga sakura yang saya pasang ini tidak saya ambil dari jepang.
Foto ini diambil di halaman rumah suami, di Hebron, Palestina, pada musim semi 2007.
Berbeda dengan saudaranya di Jepang, bunga ini tidak sempat menjadi pujaan oleh bangsa Palestina, since they are still living in a very harsh occupation.
Bunga yang sama dengan nasib yang berbeda.
Ooo bunga sakura, Ooo Palestina.....
Monday, August 10, 2009
If
If
(by Bread)
If a picture paints a thousand words, then why can't I paint you
The words will never show, the you I've come to know
If a face could launch a thousand ships, then where am I to go
There's no one home but you, You're all that left me too
And when my love for life is running dry,
You'll come and pour your self on me
If a man (woman) could be two places at one time, I'd be with you
Tomorow and today, beside you all the way
If the world should stop revolving spinning slowly down to die
I'd spend the end with you, and when the world was true
And one by one, the stars would all go out
Then you and I would simply fly away.....
(by Bread)
If a picture paints a thousand words, then why can't I paint you
The words will never show, the you I've come to know
If a face could launch a thousand ships, then where am I to go
There's no one home but you, You're all that left me too
And when my love for life is running dry,
You'll come and pour your self on me
If a man (woman) could be two places at one time, I'd be with you
Tomorow and today, beside you all the way
If the world should stop revolving spinning slowly down to die
I'd spend the end with you, and when the world was true
And one by one, the stars would all go out
Then you and I would simply fly away.....
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Pong ..........
Pong is a name of a friend from Cambodia.
We met in Japan while I took my Ph.D and he had his vocational training in Engineering for 8 months there. He is short as a man, almost the same height with me. He has simple face as simple as his daily performance.
All I know in the beginning was that he was an object of jokes by his group including some Indonesian there.
One day, in a dinner time in training center, he asked a permission to join my table. I let him to have it. He introduced him self. From that moment I knew the reason why that people laugh on him. He has very limited ability in English. The dinner over, and he said thanks for my acceptance for him, in very simple words.
Day by day we were not so much engage in any join activity. He had his own while I was very busy on my experiments.
In the same time I was not also much engage with those Indonesian since I had more interest in making friend with foreigners for I could learn their unique cultures, on the other hand, I could promote Indonesian cultures to them.
There were some conflicts with Indonesian of course caused by my stand. Yet, I keep my nationality spirit inside me, indeed, instead of showing off by gather only with them.
It was almost eight months after my first encounter with Pong.
It was the time to say good bye for his course had already been completed.
It was in the same dinning room, he approached my table and asked the same permission.
He had the same expression in his face as of eight months ago as his simple performance as well.
But there was a big different in one thing: he spoke English quite well, far better than that day I let him had his dinner with me.
He told me that he bought a pocket digital translator once he got his allowance.
And he spent most of his free time with that device. He went and enjoyed some beautiful places around Japan with his translator.
He thanked me again for my acceptance for talking with him that day. He told me that I encouraged him to learn English. I could not say any world that moment. I had never thought that it was meant so much to him.
But still one thing stay the same in him: his simplicity.
For my respectable friend: Pong.
We met in Japan while I took my Ph.D and he had his vocational training in Engineering for 8 months there. He is short as a man, almost the same height with me. He has simple face as simple as his daily performance.
All I know in the beginning was that he was an object of jokes by his group including some Indonesian there.
One day, in a dinner time in training center, he asked a permission to join my table. I let him to have it. He introduced him self. From that moment I knew the reason why that people laugh on him. He has very limited ability in English. The dinner over, and he said thanks for my acceptance for him, in very simple words.
Day by day we were not so much engage in any join activity. He had his own while I was very busy on my experiments.
In the same time I was not also much engage with those Indonesian since I had more interest in making friend with foreigners for I could learn their unique cultures, on the other hand, I could promote Indonesian cultures to them.
There were some conflicts with Indonesian of course caused by my stand. Yet, I keep my nationality spirit inside me, indeed, instead of showing off by gather only with them.
It was almost eight months after my first encounter with Pong.
It was the time to say good bye for his course had already been completed.
It was in the same dinning room, he approached my table and asked the same permission.
He had the same expression in his face as of eight months ago as his simple performance as well.
But there was a big different in one thing: he spoke English quite well, far better than that day I let him had his dinner with me.
He told me that he bought a pocket digital translator once he got his allowance.
And he spent most of his free time with that device. He went and enjoyed some beautiful places around Japan with his translator.
He thanked me again for my acceptance for talking with him that day. He told me that I encouraged him to learn English. I could not say any world that moment. I had never thought that it was meant so much to him.
But still one thing stay the same in him: his simplicity.
For my respectable friend: Pong.
Indonesia belajar
Aku ingin Indonesia belajar.
Menjadi Indonesia yang bermartabat.
Indonesia yang dihargai dunia, tidak lagi diremehkan dan dilecehkan.
Aku ingin Indonesia belajar.
Membangun rasa malu,
disiplin,
kejujuran,
kegigihan bekerja
dan berjuang.
Membuang kesombongan,
kepicikan,
kedengkian,
keserakahan,
dan kelicikan,
hingga bisa dengan bangga berkata: "I am an Indonesian, I would like to extend my appreciation of your respect."
Semoga Indonesia mau belajar.
Menjadi Indonesia yang bermartabat.
Indonesia yang dihargai dunia, tidak lagi diremehkan dan dilecehkan.
Aku ingin Indonesia belajar.
Membangun rasa malu,
disiplin,
kejujuran,
kegigihan bekerja
dan berjuang.
Membuang kesombongan,
kepicikan,
kedengkian,
keserakahan,
dan kelicikan,
hingga bisa dengan bangga berkata: "I am an Indonesian, I would like to extend my appreciation of your respect."
Semoga Indonesia mau belajar.
"Wong alit menutupi kekerdilannya dengan kesombongan, wong gede menutupi kebesarannya dengan kerendahan hatinya".
"Wong alit menutupi kekerdilannya dengan kesombongan, wong gede menutupi kebesarannya dengan kerendahan hatinya".
Saya bertemu sangat banyak orang dari berbagai belahan dunia, dari mereka yang berwarna gelap pekat hingga yang bening bermata biru. Mereka adalah orang-orang pilihan dari negeri masing-masing untuk belajar hal-hal baru di negeri asing. Mereka memiliki kedudukan yang berragam dari seorang yang baru diwisuda sarjana hingga seorang anggota polisi internasional.
Tetapi berkumpul dengan mereka tidak terasa bahwa diri ini sangat kecil.
Mereka yang saya kenal dan kemudian menjadi teman melihat diri kecil ini tidak berbeda dengan mereka, bahkan setelah tahu bahwa saya sedang menempuh pendidikan tertinggi, sebagian besar mereka memberikan honor-addressing ketika mereka memanggil saya. Ada yang memanggil saya Madam ..., Doctor......, Miss.... yang seharusnya itu tidak perlu terjadi diantara teman.
"Honorable friend" begitu mereka menyebut saya.
Saya yang kecil ini menjadi malu dan berusaha untuk melihat diri ini siapa.
Namun saya tetap melihat bahwa diri ini tetap kecil.
Sangat kecil dibandingkan dengan kebesaranNya.
Kebesaran yang tidak terbatas.
Saya bertemu sangat banyak orang dari berbagai belahan dunia, dari mereka yang berwarna gelap pekat hingga yang bening bermata biru. Mereka adalah orang-orang pilihan dari negeri masing-masing untuk belajar hal-hal baru di negeri asing. Mereka memiliki kedudukan yang berragam dari seorang yang baru diwisuda sarjana hingga seorang anggota polisi internasional.
Tetapi berkumpul dengan mereka tidak terasa bahwa diri ini sangat kecil.
Mereka yang saya kenal dan kemudian menjadi teman melihat diri kecil ini tidak berbeda dengan mereka, bahkan setelah tahu bahwa saya sedang menempuh pendidikan tertinggi, sebagian besar mereka memberikan honor-addressing ketika mereka memanggil saya. Ada yang memanggil saya Madam ..., Doctor......, Miss.... yang seharusnya itu tidak perlu terjadi diantara teman.
"Honorable friend" begitu mereka menyebut saya.
Saya yang kecil ini menjadi malu dan berusaha untuk melihat diri ini siapa.
Namun saya tetap melihat bahwa diri ini tetap kecil.
Sangat kecil dibandingkan dengan kebesaranNya.
Kebesaran yang tidak terbatas.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Aku rindu Indonesiaku
Aku rindu Indonesiaku yang sejuk dan teduh
Di bawah pemimpin yang bukan penguasa
Pemimpin yang mengayomi
yang mengabdi
Di bawah pemimpin yang bukan penguasa
Pemimpin yang mengayomi
yang mengabdi
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