Either/Or

Anyway, of all the great brands out there, PRADA is definitely my favorite. For me, there’s no other brand that I crave so much like PRADA. I like everything in every collection. I can totally identify myself with the minimalistic design, which totally express my (desire for) modesty-cum-intellectual-sophistication.

Before writing this note I browsed through the collections on men.style.com, and there was almost none that I dislike. Everything was just perfect. Gosh…when can I get my hands on those shirts, suits, pants, bags, shoes, accessories and everything spawned from Miuccia Prada’s brilliance?!

I’ve always loved nice stuff, which most of the time happened to be expensive. And I don’t think that there’s anyway I would ever give up my dream of becoming a PRADA fanatic. I could totally see myself shopping only PRADA and be identified by my peer as PRADA worshipper. And if I had to choose between luxury car (like Mercedes-Benz CLS 350 that I totally dream of driving) and a closet (equal in size to Oprah’s) full of PRADA items, I would definitely choose the latter. I could settle for a modest car.

You know what, I’m gonna work on that. I’m not letting this one slip away. It’s not just about the utility, design, or even superficial luxury. It’s more than that. The symbolic utility of having accomplished so much is contained in it, and it far exceeds the practical and aesthetic utility of the items.

OK, if you ever think of giving me a present, you know what to give me. Please bear in mind that the counterfeits would be least appreciated. Even worse, I would consider it an insult, he..he..

:p

Kalau memang respon yang muncul murni respon terhadap isu kemanusiaan, SEHARUSNYA ADA SESUATU YANG DIKATAKAN OLEH PARA FIGUR PUBLIK INDONESIA, TERUTAMA DARI KALANGAN MUSLIM, TENTANG KORBAN-KORBAN DI ISRAEL, TENTANG ORANG-ORANG YAHUDI DI SURABAYA YANG RUMAH IBADAHNYA DISEGEL SECARA PAKSA OLEH DEMONSTRAN MUSLIM (PADAHAL ORANG-ORANG YAHUDI TERSEBUT TIDAK TERLIBAT KONFLIK GAZA), DAN JUGA TENTANG BOIKOT PAKSA YANG DILAKUKAN PARA MAHASISWA ULTRA BODOH KEBANGGAAN INDONESIA TERHADAP KFC DAN MCDONALD’S (YANG PENGUSAHA DAN PARA PEKERJANYA TIDAK TERLIBAT DALAM KONFLIK GAZA PULA)!!!

Saya muak dengan segala wacana Yahudi versus Islam. Saya, dan anda semua, tidak punya sangkutan apapun dengan sejarah Yahudi-Islam, jadi buat apa kita melibatkan diri dalam peperangan yang tidak menguntungkan siapapun itu? Buat apa anda terus-menerus mengutuk orang Yahudi dan mempromosikan sikap anti-Yahudi DI SAAT ANDA BERTEMU ORANG YAHUDI SAJA TIDAK PERNAH. Apakah seseorang menjadi pembunuh karena ia Yahudi? Bukan! Apakah Amrozi cs. menjadi pembunuh karena mereka muslim? Juga bukan! JADI BERHENTILAH MENGHAKIMI SESEORANG HANYA KARENA AFILIASI IDENTITAS YANG KEBETULAN IA MILIKI.

OBAMA ADALAH OBAMA. IA HARUS DINILAI DARI PERBUATANNYA, BUKAN DARI KUNJUNGANNYA KE ISRAEL, BUKAN DARI NAMANYA YANG BERASAL DARI “BARUCH”, BUKAN DARI AFILIASINYA DENGAN DEMOKRAT YANG KONON MEMILIKI REKOR KEMANUSIAAN LEBIH BURUK DARI REPUBLIK. PENILAIAN SEMACAM ITU ADALAH PENILAIAN KOLEKTIVIS DAN RASIS. PENILAIAN SEMACAM ITU ADALAH PENILAIAN YANG SAMA YANG MENYEBABKAN RIBUAN ORANG MATI SIA-SIA DI GAZA, TERPAKSA BERHENTI BEKERJA KARENA KFC DAN MCD DI BOIKOT, DAN TAK BISA BERIBADAH KARENA RUMAH IBADAHNYA DISEGEL SECARA PAKSA DAN ILLEGAL.

I SPIT ON THE WHOLE HISTORY OF JEWS VS MOSLEMS, SO SHOULD YOU!

-Adhi Putra Tawakal-

Sewaktu saya pergi ke rumah kakak dan kakak ipar saya di Ames, Iowa, USA, saya sedikit mengalami culture shock. Saya dikejutkan bukan oleh kultur Amerika secara general, namun oleh sikap kakak ipar saya yang orang kulit putih dan sikap kakak saya yang tertular budaya Amerika. In a nutshell, I was surprised by how straightforward they were. Sebagai contoh, saat saya sibuk “menyendiri” di kamar saya di ruang bawah tanah, instead of socializing with them and their friends, they asked me: “Why are you being antisocial?” I was like “wow, why am I being confronted like this at dinner?!”

Similar thing happened at my part-time work at Bali Satay House, an Indonesian restaurant in the city. To put it simply, people there didn’t hesitate to say what they wanted to say. Mungkin, secara cepat-cepat, kita bisa menganggap bahwa mereka acuh terhadap perasaan lawan bicara mereka. I was hurt at first, but I guess it takes time to understand why they acted like that.

Saya mencoba memahami straightforwardness semacam itu sebagai ekspresi dari kebiasaan mereka untuk mengubah keadaan menjadi lebih baik. Kontras dengan sebagian orang Indonesia yang doyan membiarkan problem berlarut-larut dengan berdiam diri, memendam perasaan, dan, eventually, menggerutu di belakang.

Kemudian saya mendamba straightforwardness semacam itu dalam relasi pertemanan saya. Saya berkali-kali bilang pada teman-teman saya: “kalau kalian punya masalah dengan saya, bicara saja langsung pada saya”. I looked forward to that, and I tried to model myself like that. Mengapa? Karena dengan kita bicara tegas kepada teman-teman kita tentang apa yang kita rasakan, kita bisa menyelesaikan permasalahan yang ada, menyingkirkan segala gundah yang mengganjal dengan segera.

Bila kita memang mencintai hubungan yang kita miliki dengan teman-teman kita, maka tidakkah straightforwardness itu sesuatu yang desireable? Tidakkah memendam rasa, menggerutu di belakang justru membunuh relasi kita secara perlahan?

Unfortunately, banyak orang belum terbiasa dengan relasi yang blak-blakan seperti itu. Kesulitan untuk menerima straightforwardness pada dasarnya adalah kesulitan untuk menerima kejujuran. Sulit untuk menerima kejujuran saya bahwa saya punya masalah dengan anda, bahwa ada kualitas pada diri anda yang tidak membuat hubungan kita mutual. Beruntung, saya tidak punya masalah untuk menerima kejujuran orang lain.

Anda pikir saya sok pintar? Tell it to my face! Anda tidak suka dengan cara bicara saya? Tell it to my face! I don’t mind and I’m not gonna feel bad.

Tak bisa saya pungkiri bahwa saya pun acap kali memendam rasa dan menggerutu di belakang orang yang terhadapnya saya seharusnya bicara. Ada setidaknya 2 alasan mengapa saya belum menanggalkan kebiasaan ini sepenuhnya: 1) Saya takut straightforwardness justru memperburuk keadaan karena orang tersebut tidak bisa menerima straightforwardness saya. 2) Saya tidak berminat memperbaiki keadaan dengan orang tersebut, tidak berminat menyelenggarakan klarifikasi atas problem yang saya atau kita alami. In other words, hubungan dengan orang tersebut tidak lagi valuable untuk saya.

It’s sad actually. Saya percaya bahwa relasi kita akan lebih mudah seandainya kita mudah berbicara apa adanya di depan, bukan di belakang. Jujur, dan coba anda refleksikan sendiri, tidakkah problem yang kita pendam membunuh relasi kita dan momen-momen yang kita cherish perlahan-lahan?

In an interview with TV One (aired on January 22, 2009), Bahtiar Effendi, an observer of Middle Eastern politics, stated that Israel’s retaliation to Hamas’s missile attack was disproportional. Mr. Effendi argued that Hamas’s initial attack only killed 1, 2, or 3 people on Israel’s part, while Israel’s bombardment on Gaza killed more than a thousand, injured thousands more, and left approximately 20,000 people homeless. Of course, the damages inflicted on Gaza’s infrastructures don’t require precise measurement. It’s obviously serious.

If Mr. Effendi’s statement was meant only to speak of the situation descriptively, then his statement is true. The numbers of casualties on both sides are disproportional. But there is something philosophically wrong in his statement, something that doesn’t put Mr. Effendi in a better position than Israel, Hamas, or any other murderer in mankind’s history. Can you identify what it is?

First of all, let me hasten to state that one of the roots of Gaza conflict, and the evil hidden far beneath Mr. Effendi’s unconscious realm that prompted him to make such statement, is collectivism. Collectivism is the doctrine that individuals don’t matter. It tells you that you, as identified by your proper name, is dispensable for the sake of the collective. It tells you that what matters is the collective identity—be it cultural, national, tribal, religious, or racial affiliation—in which you are a member. It tells you that what needs to be upheld as the “good” is the collective desire, its preservation at whatever expense, including your interest as an individual.

Only collectivism, which has no respect for individual rights and freedom, could tell us that 3 victims matter less that 1,300. Mr. Effendi told us precisely this. Israel’s bombardment was disproportionate to the relatively “small” damage inflicted on Israel by Hamas, and if Mr. Effendi tried to suggest that it was an injustice then what form of retaliation would Mr. Effendi propose that Israel should have had taken? Killing 3 Palestinians instead of 1,300?

Only with a perspective that appreciates individuals’ rights, freedom, and worth could we understand why it is ethically disproportional to make 1,300 pay for the deaths of 3 (especially when most or all of this 1,300 is “innocent”). But Mr. Effendi didn’t adopt such a perspective. He adopted the contrary, the collectivist one, and you can tell that he did by how he spoke about the casualties on Israel’s part.

Tell me, what is the fundamental difference between killing an innocent and 10? If you think there’s none, then how about between 10 and 1,000, or 10,000 and 1,000,000, or even 1 and 1,000,000? I don’t know how you would answer now, but I’m still on ‘none’. There is no fundamental difference between killing an innocent or 1,000,000 of them. Killing an innocent is killing an innocent, numbers do not matter. Killing an innocent is no less vicious than killing 1,000,000: it is not ethically disproportional. However, Mr. Effendi suggests the contrary when he spoke of how Israel had only 3 casualties before the retaliation was initiated.

Mr. Effendi’s suggestion that Israel’s strike should’ve been more proportionate to the damage inflicted on its part assumes that Hamas’s attack was aimed at those 3 victimc, as if those 3 were precisely the target of Hamas’s missile. This assumption is naïve and sadly mistaken.

Hamas wasn’t targeting those 3, it was targeting Israel in a collective sense regardless to where the missile lands and who it hits. And so was Israel when it, intentionally or unintentionally, bombarded Palestine in its attempt to destroy Hamas. Each was attacking a nation, and they were two collective bodies, one goes by the name ‘Israel’ and the other goes by the name ‘Hamas/Palestine’. Each was a body of collectivism attacking another body of collectivism. Hamas wasn’t launching its missile to kill 3 specific persons, each with proper name A, B, and C. It was trying to kill ‘Israel’, regardless to which member of that collective body its missile kills. The same account applies to Israel.

Now suppose that Mr. Effendi didn’t mean his statement to suggest an ethical disproportion between numbers of casualties, but merely to suggest a measurable disproportion of damages. That would be less controversial. However, Mr. Effendi wasn’t disinterestedly stating a state of affair. He stated a problem that (he) demands solution. If the solution is to bring proportion between the damages on both sides, then either Hamas should kill more people and destroy more buildings in Israel, equal to the number on its side, or Israel should’ve had killed less Palestinians, equal to the number on its side. That would solve Mr. Effendi’s problem of disproportion. But does that do justice to each and every victim (which I assume to be innocent)?

Let me go back to Mr. Effendi’s statement. Though it doesn’t suggest ethical disproportion, it does suggest disproportion in magnitudes. This disproportion resulted from the objective disproportion of damages, and then magnified by the disproportionate exposure by the media. The media is definitely biased in this matter, but not in a sense that (some of) it favors Palestine (although such bias is very possible) but in a sense that there are more information about Palestine than about Israel. We, the hearers, get a disproportionate picture of the matter through an imbalanced publication of sides of the story. This is undeniable, and it is quite natural.

It is natural that the deaths of 1,000 have more magnitude (inspire more discussions, draw more attentions, etc.) than the death of 1. It is natural that the death of a megastar like Marilyn Monroe has more magnitude than the deaths of 10 unknown poor (perhaps unless they were sadistically murdered in an unprecedented way). But disproportion in magnitudes isn’t disproportion in ethical urgency, and if we agree that it makes no difference whether you kill an innocent or 1,000,000 of them then the relatively small number of Israeli casualties is no less important than Palestine’s 1,300. To neglect the victims with less magnitude is to do injustice to them.

If humanity is really our concern then we shouldn’t discriminate between the innocent victims. But such discriminating is what some Indonesians, including Mr. Effendi with the implications of his statement, are doing. Recall the illegitimate boycotting and sealing of KFC and McDonald’s by some college students and the sealing of a synagogue(?) in Surabaya by some Moslem protesters. Like the victims in Israel and Palestine, the restaurant owners and workers and the Jews who used that synagogue also had their human rights violated. It wasn’t the right to life that was violated but property rights which make the right to life has a meaning. (How could you continue to live when you’re banned by force from utilizing you own legitimate property?)

Yes, the magnitude of those boycotts is less than the magnitude of 1,300 people losing limbs and bleeding to death. But to suggest that it is ethically less important is to do injustice to the victims of the boycotts. I’ll bet that you can’t name any intellectual or politician in Indonesia that paid attention to and condemn those boycotts as much as a Moslem fundamentalist would pay attention to and condemn the massacre at Gaza. It’s sad, especially when you realize that all are victims of the same evil: collectivism.

Recall that collectivists would blame an individual on account of her affiliation to some collective identities. KFC and McDonald’s were blamed and boycotted on account of their affiliation to the West, the United States which in turn is affiliated to Jews, exploitation, oppression to the Third World, etc., and to Israel. The Jews in Surabaya were banned from praying in their synagogue on account of their being Jews like the Israelis are. Whether KFC, McDonald’s, or Jews in Surabaya did take part in the massacre of Palestinians or not makes no difference to these anti-West and Moslem collectivists. For them, you deserve condemnation when you’re Jew or siding with the West. If you need proofs that this is the case with them then recall how there were minimal reactions from these collectivists to 9/11 and to Bali bombings. I think these anti-West collectivists were happy to see World Trade Center falls and hundreds of Caucasians blown into pieces in that event and Bali bombings. Now, are you still telling me that you believe these collectivists’ pretentious love for humanity?

The other root of Gaza conflict is what inspired collectivism in the first place: racism. What is racism?

“It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage … Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.
“Racism claims that the content of a man’s mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical factors beyond his control … Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes … appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men …
“Racism negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination …
“The theory that holds “good blood” or “bad blood” as a moral-intellectual criterion, can lead to nothing but torrents of blood in practice. Brute force is the only avenue of action open to men who regard themselves as mindless aggregates of chemicals.
“Modern racists attempt to prove the superiority or inferiority of a given race by the historical achievements of some of its members …
“Just as there is no such thing as a collective or racial mind, so there is no such thing as a collective or racial achievement.” (Ayn Rand, Racism.)

To make it more relevant to our case, and to what I wish to state, let me add that there is no such thing as a collective or racial crime. What happened in Gaza was particular persons, who happened to be Palestinians and Moslems, killed by particular others, who happened to be Israelis and Jews, and vice versa. What happened wasn’t Jews killing Moslems or vice versa. Even if it was, I would have to require anyone who says so to identify which Jew and which Moslem, and vice versa.

If you agree with me that the Jews in Surabaya and the workers at KFC and McDonald’s didn’t deserve to be treated the way they were treated by some protesters, on account of their non-involvement in Gaza conflict, then you would have to affirm that it is important to start stripping any collectivist and racial presuppositions from our judgments about an individual’s ideas and actions. It would be self-contradictory to refuse my proposal while holding the idea of “innocence”. You can’t label someone in a group “innocent” unless you have discriminated her personality from the collective identity upheld by other members of the group, unless you have stripped her actions from her collective affiliation.

Many judgments made on Gaza conflict, and everything and everyone related to it, are too clouded with prejudices. These prejudices are the reason why our concern for humanity haven’t reached completion. Some people in Indonesia condemned Israel for what it did to thousands of Palestinians. But these same people might have kept silent (and I believe they did) when they saw their fellow citizens in Bali scream in panic and horror as their motels and restaurants, their sources of living, crumble and turned to ashes by a catastrophe they had never thought would occur, initiated by a friend they had never thought would betray. Do you still believe such people when they preach about humanity? I certainly don’t.

Why did we blame Amrozi cs. and thought they should be punished? Because they killed innocent others and damaged innocent others’ properties. Period. We didn’t blame them because they were Moslems, nor did we think that the Australian victims of Bali bombings deserved to die because they were Caucasians. But didn’t some of us—especially those who sealed the synagogue in Surabaya and those college students who boycotted KFC and McDonald’s who, by the way, do not deserve to be praised as Indonesia’s future leaders—think that Israel must be condemned on account of their being Jews, on account of whatever had happened between Jews and Moslems in history, on account of all those things that have nothing to do with our (each one of us) individual history?

My primary concern is not with what locally happened in Gaza, but with what happened on the perimeter as affected by the core conflict. I believe you are aware that this conflict transcends geographical boundaries as made possible by the media. That’s relatively OK. What’s not OK is if this conflict transcends the boundaries of the present, if this conflict travels through time to that bright, promising future that we build with our hard work and then inspire another bloodbath. Gaza may be peaceful one day, but the spirits that chained and suffocated its people to death would live to haunt us. Those spirits are collectivism and racism, perpetrated by those who refuse to take a closer look on the forest and start examining each individual tree.

It is highly improbable to completely annihilate collectivism and racism from the face of this earth, but I see no reason to give up in advance. Evil can only win by default on the side of the good. Collectivism and racism will win at the end if we stop speaking against them. And who is to profit from collectivism and racism’s triumph over individual rights and freedom? Those who desire to use others as means to their ends, coercively. Collectivism is a myth, there is no such thing as a collective body. A nation, for instance, is nothing but a grouping of significant number of people. When someone talks about national interest, or any other collectivist interest, it is highly probable that he talks about the interest of a particular group, covered up as a national interest.

Someone once told me that Jews are destined to be brilliant, that Christians are destined to be prosperous, but it is Moslems that are destined to receive salvation from God and be taken to Heaven. I have to spit on that myth since it embodies the demons that I need to exorcise. You are not a good person or an evil one because you were Jew, or Christian, or a Moslem, so I refuse to believe that God discriminates His/Her creations on such superficial basis. If S/He did (supposing that S/He does exist), then S/He is the grand spirit that definitely has to die.

I would like to express my sympathy to the workers at those boycotted KFC and McDonald’s and to those Jews in Surabaya whose synagogue was coercively sealed. Their pain may mean nothing to them, to you, or to the victims at Gaza, but the injustice they underwent is no less serious. I would like to let them know that an attention was paid, however insignificant it is.

To be forgotten is worse than death. Those who died at Gaza, who got so much attention from the world for what they had to go through, is relatively lucky in that respect.

Cimanggis, January 22, 2009,

-Adhi Putra Tawakal-