Delphi: Nothing in Excess

It was 10 a.m six years ago [in Virginia, US], I was in my dream when my friend, Iwin, call me and said ” please watch the TV now!”. I was shocked, I think it was from a movie, not in the reality (do you remember the independence day?). Then my other friend call me not to go outside eventhough go to campus, caused the situation could be worse for the foreigner. I stayed and my friends also come to our apartment, one of them was Travis, an US marine officer. At that time I was still using Sarong (an Indonesia pijama?) and Travis gave attention to my sarong with his smile. He said to us that please becalm and not do anything that could make worse, staying in the apartment will be better for a moment.

Since that day, everything getting worse until I went back to Indonesia. I still remember two things that gave me a bad memory: first, when I tried having driving license, suddently the officer said that I have to give some requirement that very complicated (and I decided not to try to apply again for the license); second, at the time I went back to Indonesia, I had to pass through 12 times air port security checks that make me should open everything that I bring and use. However, I don’t have to blame anyone because it is their job to make sure about our security. Probably the one that I should blame is the “NY attacker planner” that still being a ghost and being a debatable ghost until now: who are they?

October could be my best month in this year, because my boy, Ody, has his second years old on October first, and my wife, Endah [Deanis], achieve her birthday on October fifth. In addition, this year, Ied Mubaraq also in October, on 24^th.  I want to share what I did in waiting the day before Ied Mubaraq: lonely adventures.

Probably my first story started from watching “Denias”, an Indonesian movie based on the Papua people and culture. My reason in choosing the movie was the Denias, is very close to Deanis [www.deanisaja.blog.com], my favorite blog. The room of the “Cineplex” was almost empty, probably only less than 25% of the seat were occupied. The message of the film, according to my opinion, was “you should struggle for something you think worth to fight for”. I don’t want to judge this movie whether it is excellent or just an ordinary movie; however, I appreciate the effort of Nia and Ale that give us another view of the life in Papua, especially the great view of Papua’s nature. Just let your self watch this movie and make your own judgment.

After watching the movie, I drove around
Jakarta, watching the people doing so-called “Takbiran”. The streets were crowded by cars and motorcycle, especially the road that close to Monas. I did not see any correlation between “victory over fasting month” and “flooding the streets by motorcycles or cars”. According to the Trijaya FM, at least one dead and six people were injured during the Takbiran.

Then I moved to Thamrin, having hot black coffee, at the “24 hours Coffee Shop” in that street. Then I begun to write this story, as the first publish on my blog in October. The reason I did not update my blog since September was: too busy, no mood, nothing worth to tell, etc. The reasons were only apology or answers from a procrastinator. Hopefully I won’t have any apology or I will lose my capability in writing. 

Happy Ied Mubaraq 1427 H, October 24^th, 2006!

My Mother, Andi Mambolong, is [not was] the greatest mother that I could ever known in my life. She passed away on 03.30 [wita],
June 25^th, 2006 in Sengkang, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. She left four children [I am as the youngest] and 12 grand children [Odi, my son, is the youngest]. She is meeting her husband now, Andi Panennungi, who left her around 32 years in the ‘dunia setelah kematian’.

I was called by my family [my big brother] to come home on June 22^nd when I was in Bandung for my project. I was told that my mother was sick, but they did not tell me that She was in a serious condition. When I arrived on June 23^rd, I saw my mother in a comma situation. I saw the monitor; her health indicator was getting worse: heart rate was too high around 250, oxygen absorption was low around 80 and below, her blood pressure was low around 100/20 and below, but her temperature still 35-37 Celsius degree. My first reaction was I could not accept the situation that my beloved mother will leave me. However, my family reminded me to surrender to God. Fortunately, I have two doctors in my big family who could convince me wisely about the condition of my mother that probably it is “her way” because her lever is already in a very bad condition. Then I tried to accept the God decision on my mother. On June 25^th, around 3 a.m, her blood pressure dropped into 64/15, oxygen absorption into 0-50, temperature 33 Celsius degree, but heart rate still 250 constantly. Since that condition, I did not see the monitor anymore. We just try to let her go, surrender to God, by reciting “Yasin”. On 03.30 a.m, She left us in peace forever with a big smile in her face.

One of the best way that I could remember my mother was She never pessimist. She told her children that you should never think what ever your condition today, but you should think how to move forward on what ever you could think could be better. About properties or wealth, She said that you should have a constant behave about wealth/properties:  you should have the same behavior whether you have or you don’t because it is just a temporary condition. Never treat people differently because of their properties/wealth, threat them as best as you could do. She reminded us by example, She said look “X Family”, they started their business from zero and now they become the business empire and look “Y Family”, they had big business, but now they collapsed. So, properties/wealth is just a temporary condition.

The next way that I could remember my mother is She always proud of her ancestors. She gave me a name, Maddaremmeng, after the name of my great-grand father, “ Petta Fillae La Maddaremmeng”, the Great King Warrior in one of  Wajo’s federation member in the past, who won many battles. She showed me the big cemetery of La Maddaremmeng [high around 3 meters with the Buginess Scripts, stated La Maddaremmeng], in Tempe, closed to Danau Tempe, Wajo. That place was one of the business centres in the Wajo Kingdom around 18-19 centuries which served the trade from Danau Tempe-Makassar-Batavia-Singapore-Thailand [please read Christian Pelras, The Bugis, Blackwell Publisher, 1996 for further information]. She also memorized the I La Galigo epoch. She told me the stories when I was a kid. I like the stories especially when Sawerigading facing seven battles in the sea and seven battles in the land. One thing that I could not understand until now is why I was given a name based on my ancient name [Maddaremmeng], while my brother and sisters were given names based on national name [Syamsualam, Sudiati, and Mone]. The only explanation that I got was, my name was given to memorize the greatness of the past of our ancestor [La Maddaremmeng] which become the connectors between my mother and my father’s  family based on the ‘buginess script silsilah or sitambu or lontara’.

My mother was a good believer in Islam. She reminded us to have sholat five times a day. Even though She still believes that She was the descendant of the “arung or the line of blood from the blessed king/gods” and still put “Andi” in her name which differentiate from the “common people”, She believe that “men are equal before God and they are just the same but different faces”[Sometimes I criticized her for this contradiction but She just gave me a smile without any explanation] . She said that the time has changed and even though her children have a right to have “Andi” in their name, She will not use it [it is useless and should be stopped]. She preferred to push her children to have education, because our family does not have enough properties to have a business [probably the statistician will put us in the “near poor” family].

The other way that I could remember my mother that She tried to perceive people from the good side. She said each one has a good and bad side. You should give them a chance to show the good side of them. She told us the time when our place was torn by the war between “Gurella/DI TII” and “Tentara/TNI”. Our family also was torn by the war because my mother family was joined the “Gurella/DI TII” and my father family was joined “Tentara/TNI”. My mother and my father just did the best to serve both of them when they came. The good side of that was our family and neighborhoods were protected from the violence of both from the Gurella and Tentara.

My mother treated her children, families, and others equally. She also never talked about the others unpleasant. If some people talked about someone evil, She preferred shut her mouth up. My mother has four children, one lives in Jakarta [me], one lives in Makassar [Syamsualam], and two lives in Sengkang [Sudiati and Mone]. However, she preferred stayed longer in Sengkang, probably because She has two daughters (my sisters) lives there. Probably talking and doing many things to her daughter’s children was convenience for her.

There are many ways to remember my mother, but I just want to add one important thing: her faith about destiny. She said that you should do your best until your destiny is revealed  and that is the only way you could do, nothing else. There is no certainty in this life and that what makes our life become the greatest mystery that we could ever have.

Sumbawa, NTB, Hotel Dewi, July 1^st, 2006.

It was 8 years ago, I joined the student’s demonstration againts Suharto’s regime. May 20th was the time of  Suharto’s step down and the rise of Habibie. Since that day, the reformists do not have any reason to fight together facing a common enemy. The real political battle has begun among the reformists until today and the real enemy is “his/her desire of power”.

One of the reason why Suharto was forced to be steeped down was the economy; but today’s economy still have a bad performance, for some extent, the economy getting worse. The only advantage of , so-called reformation, is freedom (but not the economic freedom i think). 

I found three great sites to be seen: great books, history, and literature. I link them on my sidebar.

The idea of this story came from the train conversation between me and mas j from Depok to Salemba. It was a nice talking about  poverty. He said that I should learn poverty from the structuralists view. I replied that, “It is a good idea”. Actually, I did it when I was a student in FEUI around 10-15 years ago, from the Latin America’ leftist view. I was in the left perspectives in undestanding poverty. However, I told him that if I countinue to learn it more, probably I will end up with becoming an activist and I should move to the NGO who fight for anti-globalization as the pathway or fighting for political position or becoming a frustating person.In contrast, If I learn the poverty from what I learnt from the text book and the world bank way, probably I could move out of poverty and keep preaching in the university about poverty. Then we agreed that we have to learn it both. At the end on the conversation,  I tried to imagine that If I learn it both, probably I will end up with this condition: My heart has a structuralist perspective way, but my brain is in the text book way. Probably another inconsistent man is being born. Being a split personality?    

One of my hobby is collecting literature and history books from all over the world and the history and literature of my ancestor also becoming my collection object. Some of the great writer about my ancestor’s literature and history are Christian Pelras and Nirwan Arsuka. The other are Rahman Arge, Anhar Gonggong, and Mattulada. 

The perfect thing is the book titled “The Bugis” from Pelras was translated into Indonesia with the title “Manusia Bugis”. And the best thing, Nirwan become the writer for the introductory in Indonesian language.I searched this book in QB Indonesia, some bookstores in Amsterdam and Paris, but I did not find it. Thanks God that I could find it in my language, Indonesia.

I put here, the writing of Nirwan. I met him twice in Teater Utan Kayu. He is one of the great writer in Indonesia.

I have some beautiful moments that are well documented on my wife’s blog: Moment of I Lagaligo , Moment of Amsterdam’s Exhibition, Moment of Versailles Palace, and Moment of Berlin’s Wall. Hopefully another joyfull day will come.