Najwa Sungkar: A Move and An Action to Get One Step Closer

“Do first, think later”, these golden words seem to be the precise summary depicting the overall figure of a twenty-first young lady, Najwa Abdullah Sungkar, as she enthusiastically quoted in the middle of our conversation last Tuesday, March, 01 2011. That statement might sound controversial for most people, but Sungkar has her best way to decode it into a well-printed sheet of concepts.

Dreaming to be an excellent news anchor in the future, Sungkar has demonstrated an incredible passion in journalism. For her, it is a dynamic, challenging, and skillful work which conform her character. In accordance with, this profession will also develop her personality since she is required to be objective, brave, confident, and mature. News anchors stand up as a passion which completes her seeking for satisfaction while it reversely enhances self qualification of her as an individual.

Holding position as a reporter in her campus organization, Sungkar shows a strong commitment to her profession. She carries on responsibilities and integration. The responsibilities include self improvement in many aspects. “Journalists or news anchors are those who consume a lot of knowledge and information and have high skepticism towards the validation of them. Thus, a news anchor could maintain her/his critical thinking and objectivity,” she said. Integration takes into account a strong dedication and determination to uphold the truth upon everything. She believes that both aspects are the fundamental assets for a high-qualified journalist. Without responsibility and integration, a news-digging profession would only contain a meaningless notion.

Troubles always come to follow during her experience being a reporter. However, Sungkar always shifts her focus on trouble to be a challenge of life. She maintains a professional figure. For example, she was assigned to do news coverage on Sandy Sandoro’s album launching once heavy rain and stuck train came to hit. Despite of those threats, she was determined to finish her duty without being paid for a single penny.

“It has become my prominent compass that people should do first and think later. If you keep your fear, you procrastinate to discover something. It means that you just pile things up without knowing what might wait you ahead. Troubles and difficulties are the best exercises to produce a well-trained people,” she said.

Sungkar has been registered as a English Studies student in University of Indonesia and been currently sitting in her third year class. She has become a reporter for a campus radio in this university called RTC UI for the last two years during which she has achieved quite excellent track record in her news coverage. Besides internal events in University of Indonesia, she has interviewed some popular public figures such as Cinta Laura, The Changcuters, The Groove, and so forth.

To accomplish her life time career as a news anchor, she actively joins several journalistic training and seminars. She is also the active members of ISAFIS, Indonesian Student Association for International Studies, in which she holds on position of news letter editor. It helps her to develop reporting skill, to extend networking, and to enlarge insight view and knowledge.

As she idolizes Najwa Shihab, a Metro TV news anchor, her ideal picture of future is to work with that TV station. After graduating from university, she intends to apply for news production team there. She hopes that it could be such a stepping stone to achieve her eternal wish to be a news anchor.

“Hardship and pain would never cease to exist. I believe that failure, defeat, and frustration are parts of human’s life so that there is no use to avoid them. Do first, think later. You would get one step closer to what you have dreamt and earn much more than what you expected,” she said in the closing of our conversation.

Patriarki dan Orientasi Falosentris oleh Perempuan dalam Cerpen “The Lottery”

Cerpen “The Lottery” mengangkat sebuah cerita tentang ritual tahunan pelemparan batu kepada sebuah anggota keluarga yang terpilih secara acak di sebuah desa kecil dimana tradisi pada zaman itu merupakan hal yang sangat penting. Hal yang menarik dari ritual tersebut adalah pengundian diwakilkan oleh salah satu anggota keluarga berjenis kelamin pria yang biasanya dilakukan oleh seorang suami sebagai kepala keluarga. Akan tetapi tanpa alasan yang jelas pelaksanaan ritual yang kejam diwakilkan oleh seorang anggota keluarga berjenis kelamin wanita yang biasanya dilakukan oleh seorang istri. Pelemparan batu terhadap wanita sebagai praktik ritual yang tidak berperikemanusiaan tidak hanya dilakukan oleh kaum pria melainkan juga oleh sesama wanita dalam masyarakat tersebut. Tidak ada perlawanan yang datang sebagai bentuk pembelaan selain dari diri sang korban itu sendiri.

Fenomena yang tergambar dalam cerpen “The Lottery” merupakan representasi dari adanya praktik-praktik patriarki dan orientasi falosentris dalam suatu komunitas sosial dimana prioritas dan kekuasaan terhadap laki-laki untuk mengatur semua hal dalam bidang kehidupan dilakukan secara langsung dan tidak langsung, kasat mata maupun tersamar. Praktik patriarki cenderung mengutamakan peran lelaki diatas segalanya dimana perspektif mereka digunakan untuk mengutamakan kepentingan kaum Adam. Sementara itu suara wanita seringkali tidak dipertimbangkan, apalagi didengar. Mr. Summers dan Mr. Graves yang memakai keotoriterian dan subjektivitas pria dalam memimpin acara The Lottery merupakan simbol dari praktik patriarki dalam masyarakat tersebut dimana dalam sistem tersebut memandang bahwa pemimpin harus berasal dari seorang manusia yang berpenis. Keputusan haruslah dibuat oleh pemimpin tersebut yang sudah pasti akan lebih memihak pada sesama kaumnya yang berpenis. Selain itu, istri yang harus berdiri di dekat suaminya selama acara berlangsung, perwakilan anggota keluarga dari jenis kelamin pria untuk mengambil kertas dalam kotak hitam, serta sikap anak-anak yang menganggap remeh panggilan ibunya tetapi bersikap patuh ketika sang ayah yang memanggilnya merupakan fenomena tenggelamnya peran wanita di dalam kehidupan. Nilai-nilai matriarkal selalu terbelenggu, bahkan tergeser, oleh sistem patriarkal. Dunia serta kehidupan didalamnya menjadi milik kaum Adam, sementara kaum Hawa lebih berperan sebagai “budak” yang bahkan tidak memiliki hak atas kehidupan dia sendiri. Wanita berdiri sebagai objek yang harus tunduk pada sistem-sistem yang mengutamakn kaum pria. Dominasi kaum pria dan subordinasi terhadap kaum wanita ini merupakan permasalahan klise yang ada sejak zaman dahulu, bahkan pada zaman modern seperti sekarang ini masih sering kita jumpai.

Namun dibalik semua itu, adanya fenomena penindasan seorang wanita, Tessie Hutchinson, yang dilakukan oleh seluruh anggota masyarakat desa dalam cerpen ini secara jelas mengisyaratkan bahwa patriarki dan orientasi falosentris tidak hanya bisa dilakukan oleh kaum pria melainkan juga mendapatkan dukungan oleh sesama wanita. Contoh klise dalam kehidupan sehari-hari tentang dukungan terhadap falosentrisme oleh kaum Hawa adalah adanya pandangan dalam masyarakat kita bahwa posisi seorang istri ada di bawah suami. Seorang istri harus tunduk pada perintah dan peraturan yang dibuat oleh sang suami atau jika tidak mereka akan dianggap durhaka kepada suaminya. Selain itu, fenomena lain adalah seorang istri yang harus berpenampilan menarik demi menyenangkan suaminya atau wanita yang terobsesi pada bentuk tubuh yang ideal demi mendapatkan seorang pria yang dia sukai. Tetapi di lain pihak, tidak ada pandangan atau wacana yang menitikberatkan seorang suami harus memperlakukan istrinya dengan rasa hormat dan kasih sayang yang tinggi atau seorang pria yang harus memperhatikan detail penampilannya demi mendapatkan seorang wanita yang dia sukai. Jackson menggarisbawahi hal ini dalam penggambaran tokoh Mrs. Delacorix dan Mrs. Graves yang tidak memihak pada ketidakadilan yang dialami Tessie Hutchinson, bahkan mereka cenderung menyatakan persetujuan bahwa Tessie Hutchinson patut mendapatkannya. Dukungan terhadap patriarki dan falosentrisme oleh kaum Hawa dapat dilatarbelakangi oleh beberapa hal. Pada masyarakat desa dalam cerpen “The Lottery”, dukungan tersebut disebabkan rasa patuh yang berlebihan terhadap tradisi kuno yang brutal dan tidak masuk akal. Tradisi dianggap sebagai hal yang sangat penting (‘tradition is paramount’) pada masyarakat zaman dahulu. Selain itu falosentrisme seringkali mendapat dukungan dari wacana normatif (keagamaan, moral etika), yaitu menganggap sakral hal-hal yang tidak manusiawi demi pembenaran.

Adanya dukungan terhadap patriarki dan falosentrisme sangat berkaitan dengan ideologi gender yang berbeda antar individu dalam konstruksi sosial. Suatu individu atau komunitas bisa saja tidak mempraktekkan patriarki dan falosentrisme dalam kehidupan. Hal ini dikarena ideologi gender bukanlah suatu konsep yang bisa didapatkan secara instan dan alamiah. Ideologi gender suatu individu dapat berbeda dengan individu yang lainnya karena pengalaman hidup dari setiap orang berbeda-beda. Ideologi dapat mengalami pergeseran makna dalam perkembangannya dan tidak terkait oleh standar yang baku dan tetap. Seperti halnya ideologi gender yang dianut oleh masyarakat desa dalam cerpen “The Lottery”, karena ideologi gender mereka yang mungkin sepaham dengan pandangan gender secara normatif, menjadikan Tessie Hutchinson dalam cerita ini sebagai korban atas penindasan yang tidak hanya dilakukan oleh kaum pria tetapi juga oleh kaum wanita. Oleh karena itu, sastra sangat berperan penting dalam membentuk konstruksi sosial dalam kaitannya dengan ideologi gender agar tidak ada lagi pembenaran atas hal-hal yang tidak berperikemanusiaan tetapi dianggap sakral.

Bagi yang belum pernah membaca cerpen tersebut silahkan kunjungi halaman ini.

The Exploitation of Indian’s Imaged Lives Through Inappropiate Spotlights In Slumdog Millionaire

Title         : Slumdog Millionaire

Year        : 2008

Writer     : Simon Beaufoy

Director : Danny Boyle

While praises from the entire world had been gained by the wining of Golden Globe Awards, Slumdog Millionaire, some critics come to highlight it from different point of view. Slumdog Millionaire tells the story life of Jamal Malik, an orphan Indian boy from the slum area of Mumbai, who has been going through a very hard life as an extreme poor person. In his childhood, he has experienced any kind of brutality and child exploitation in his own country. The pieces of scenes have successfully captivated the audiences. In contrast, at the same time it triggers disturbance to Indian self-esteem for drawing the outsiders to the cringe insight in viewing life among the poor in sattlement.

Potraying the extreme poverty and inhumanity of Indian slum life that is directed by a British director, Danny Boyle, this film has aroused the nagging question of authenticity whether it is possible for a non-native Indian to stand objectively making an authentic film about India. However, this argument has been challenged by the fact that Boyle worked with an Indian co-director, Loveleen Tandan. Indeed, some Indian reviewers praised the film for its realistic foregrounding. Inspite of this, it deeply emerges a speculation about exploitation which is spotlighting narrative but inappropiate authenticity aspects  for the sake of commercial value. Also, the exploitation is aligned with the too much westerner’s point of view in this film. It gives us, furthermore, the compelling enligtenment that this film offers an access for westerners having pleasure and enjoyment.

 

1. Disturbance to Indian Self-esteem

This film captures so many dark sides of Mumbai. For example, abusive action to children by either civilians or state security forces, exploited children that should be under protection, the ignorance of official government instrument, brutal conflict among different religion participants, disgusting environment, and social segregation showed by the contradictive view of slum area and an elite sphere in the same field. Infact, there are different sides of Mumbai which were contrasted to what the film presented. These  represent the good sides that were not openly exposed.

Saumitra Jha , an assistant professor of political economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, found that how the slums are run depends on a variety of factors, such as their ethnic makeup, political connections, and how long they have been established. “Indian slums are incredibly productive. People are becoming much more aware that slums are where a lot of the economic activity is taking place.” His latest research has been to look at ethnic relationships in India, particularly the clashes that can occur between Hindus and Muslims. He cited in 2002, despite being one of India’s richest areas, there were 24 days of intense religious conflict in Ahmadabad taking the lives of at least 324 people. 140 miles south of there, the city of Surat, has seen virtually no religious violence even though, like Ahmadabad, it is about 13 percent Muslim. Another example is in Varanasi where Muslims are often in charge of weaving, and Hindus handle distribution.
“This fact doesn’t mean that Varanasi and Surat don’t have poor areas and the ingredients for conflict, just that they have found ways to cope successfully. You might think it’s poverty that’s driving it,” Jha said about the violence elsewhere, “but that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

Although we can not deny the fact about poverty and bad situation existed in India, it could not be true to darken the dark side of a country and leads prejudice from others about living elsewhere. Potraying the extreme poverty and inhumanity of Indian slum life, this film has caused disgust and pain among nationalists.

2. Exploitation of Inappropiate Indian’s Imaged Lives

In a sequence of Jamal pretending to be a professional tour guide,some thieves steal the foreigner’s stuff while they were outside the car. After their coming back, they realized that they even had lost the tires. The car driver, an Indian man, blame Jamal for this incident. He was very angry and fericiously beating up Jamal. The American tried to stop it. Jamal said “You wanted to see Real India, here it is” . The Americans say, “Here is a bit of real America son” and generously give him some money. This scene clearly demonstrates the comparison of Indian and American in which American is described as kind-hearted image while Indian is in contrast to it. This view, however, comes from the westerner prespectives as well as they inderectly try to make comparison which one is good and which one is bad. When we enter the position in westerner’s point of view, we would find what we called a pleasure of being an opposite to the antagonist.

In Western, Judeo-Christian world, chaos is synonymous with evil, while crisp, regimented order is considered next to divine. Since poverty is hell-is and disgusting, people need to cope with that condition whatever the way. Like the protagonist Jamal who had been able to reach 10 billion rupee in quiz of Who wants to be a millionaire, he was then forced to admit that he was cheating. It is related to his background as a poor man coming from slum area in which slum people are identified with stupidity. The answer is easy-you do not have to be genius to win the quiz. Jamal could answer the questions from his bad experiences living in the road. Indeed, he joined to quiz not for the money, but to be able to see his love agaian, Latika. The experience of a poor man blessed with luck for his successfulness to cope with the poverty and to reunite with his true love is just another modern version of Cinderella story that often appears as the usual topic of Western cinema.

The visualization in Slumdog Millionaire has also emerged another pleasure to western audiences. Since they might never find the exposed view of extreme poverty in their country, it becomes the new enjoyment to see that visual description throughout this film. The enjoyment of viewing pathetic description proposes different dimension of voyeurism in which it is not categorized in term of sexuality, but the voyeurism is the pleasure in viewing poverty as an object. Meanwhile, it hurts the nationalitity of Indian patriotists and degrades their self-esteem as human being.

In this regard, this movie has too much westerner’s point of view indicating its ambigious cores, whether it is to depict the reality or to exploit the “shining” spotlight of poverty. How the problem of the third world is seen and sold in world market. How the embarrassment of one’s nationality becomes the enjoyment for people in another countries.

The Cardinal Virtues

I have been currently reading a bunch of books concerning journalism and investigative journalism. I found so many interesting fractions that had successfully captured my attention. This one, which I would like to post as a sharing, is a theory applicable for any diciplines, not only journalism. This is a Plato’s theory that was previously discussed in ‘The Republic’ and has become the ideal base for ethics of journalism.

The virtuous journalist is one who has respect for, and tries to live by, the cardinal virtues that take into account:

1. Wisdom, which gives direction to the moral life and is the rational, intellectual base for any systems of ethics. Wisdom is part natural and part acquired, combining knowledge and native abilities; it largely comes from maturing of life and experience, from contemplation, reading, conversing and study.

2. Courage, which keeps one constantly pursuing his goal which wisdom has helped him set for himself. Courage is needed to help the journalist resist the many temptations which would stray him away from the path which wisdom shows.

3. Temperance, the virtue that demands reasonable moderation or a blending of the domination of reason with other tendencies of human nature. It is this virtue, giving harmony and proportion to moral life, which helps us avoid fanaticism in pursuit of any goal.

4. Justice, as distinguished from the other cardinal virtues in that it refers more specifically to man’s social relations. Justice involves a man’s “deservingness”; each man must be considered but this does not mean that each man has to be treated like every other-for example, justice would not require that every person elected to a city, state, or national office receive equal attention on television or the same amount of space in a newspaper. Equal treatment simply does not satisfy deservingness-does not imply just “coverage”.

5. Truth, the pursuit of truth by a journalist surely partakes wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. Thus at the base of journalistic ethics is an allegiance to truth. It is the authenticity of the information contained in the story that is the journalist’s chief ethical concern. It is hard to verify truth if the source’s name is hidden from the public. This allegiance to truth, not to some person (source) who reveals information, is what is important. Too often those who reveal information and elicit the journalis’s promise not to identify them have motives other than a desire to let the truth come out. Virtue in journalism, believes John Whale, has to do with getting as much as truth as possible into the story-and, of course, the source of the information is a part of the “truth” of the story.

(Source: The Theory and Practice of Journalism, B. N. Ahuja)

Conspiracy: Unspeakable Horror for The Seer of Humanity

Title                       : Conspiracy

Year                       : 2001

Television            : HBO & BBC

Writer                    : Loring Mandel

Director                : Frank Pierson

If you ever witnessed a war in a tranquil atmosphere, Conspiracy is the best representation of that. It is an unspeakable horror as it does not display scary scenes but is undeniably and absolutely horrifying for its extraordinary barbarism. It has successfully captivated us with the vivid image of devil in human being. Dramatizing Wannasee conference in 1942, Conspiracy is a docudrama capturing an important historical event about how holocaust begun.

This movie was set in a motion of winter, January 1942, at Wannasee on the outskirt of Berlin during Nazi sovereignty. A meeting was held in an attractive villa owned by the SS-Nordhav Foundation and was excellently organized by SS major, Adolf Eichmann (Stanley Tucci), under the direction of a ruthless, dictatorial, and efficient Chief of Security, Reinhard Heydrich (Kenneth Branagh). This man was in charge of Adolf Hitler to come up with “The Final Solution of Jewish Question”. 15 top nazi officials was invented and attended this conference considered secret and confidential. No body has ever expected that it will become the beginning of nightmare for six million lives of Jews’s fate.

A rapid radical enthusiasm was induced among Nazi officials during the opening week of the invasion of the Uni Soviet. Based on Aryan supremacy doctrine, the massive population of Jew around Germany-occupied territories had irritated high-ranking Hitler’s officials in which they started to seek for the solution of Jew existence around Europe. On 16 July 1941, Hitler held a meeting of ministers addressing his willing to neutralize Soviet territory from Jew and anyone indicating sideways at Nazi. This comment was understood as an authority to proceed “The Final Solution of Jewish Question” (Die Endlösung der Judenfrage). 15 days later, Hitler’s chief lieutenants, Göring and the SS chief Heinrich Himmler passed the instruction on Reinhard Heydrich, Chief of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) in order to coordinate the participation of other branches of government to sterilize Germany-occupied territories from Jew population. From the record of history, this authorization had become a gateway to eliminate Jew from the face of planet, a legitimacy of heartless massacre.

There are 15 Nazi bureaucrats assembled in Wannasee conference:

Name	Title	Organization
SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich	Chief of the RSHA Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia Presiding.	Schutzstaffel
Dr Josef Bühler	State Secretary	General Government
Dr Roland Freisler	State Secretary	Reich Ministry of Justice
SS-Gruppenführer Otto Hofmann	Head of the SS Race- and Settlement Main Office (RuSHA)	Schutzstaffel
SS-Oberführer Dr Gerhard Klopfer	Permanent Secretary	Nazi Party Chancellery
Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger	Permanent Secretary	Reich Chancellery
SS-Sturmbannführer Dr Rudolf Lange	Commander of the SiPo and the SD for the General-District Latvia Deputy of the Commander of the SiPo and the SD for the Reichskommissariat Ostland.	SiPo and SD, RSHA, Schutzstaffel
Dr Georg Leibbrandt	Reichsamtleiter	Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories
Martin Luther	Under Secretary	Reich Foreign Ministry
Dr Alfred Meyer	Gauleiter State Secretary and Deputy Reich Minister	Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories
SS-Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller	Chief of Amt IV (Gestapo)	Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), Schutzstaffel
Erich Neumann	State Secretary	Office of the Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan
SS-Oberführer Dr Karl Eberhard Schöngarth	Commander of the SiPo and the SD in the General Government	SiPo and SD, RSHA, Schutzstaffel
Dr Wilhelm Stuckart	State Secretary	Reich Interior Ministry
SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann	Head of Referat IV B4 of the Gestapo Recording secretary	Gestapo, RSHA, Schutzstaffel

From those 15 men, these 2 men remain remarkable for me:

Chief of the RSHA & Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia Presiding (The Brainchild): Reinhard Heydrich

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Astonishingly played by Kenneth Branagh, this figure is simply dry of inner man and full of evil spirit. His cruelty is the result of an extreme understanding of regime doctrine. The scriptwriter, Loring Mandel, tried to analyze a psychological profile of Heydrich, looking for elements that may illuminate motives of his soulless character such as whether it would be a hatred of parents, a childhood trauma, and some physical or mental disability. Surprisingly, nothing seemed to be the root of that. It makes him purely devil in absolute way. Heydrich was such an obedient figure of Nazi practitioner. He would always have understood that any instruction coming from Göring, who was identified as the second most powerful figure in Nazi regime because he was a successor of Hitler, carried the authority of him. Thus, when Göring put him in charge of final solution for Jew question, he simply did not take any consideration of humanity.

State Secretary of Reich Interior Ministry: Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A contradicting character is displayed by Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart. Along with Freidrich Kritzinger, Permanent Secretary of Recih Cancellery, these two men appeal to be the only sympathizers of Jew. Collin Firth who played as Dr. Stuckart had been nominated as the best supporting actor for his superb work. In this conference, he strongly pointed out different point of view with the other attendances about Jew. However, as it turned out, his anger was derived from the breach of protocol instead of morality.

This an hour and a half movie reflects closely to the actual condition in real life. It is horribly amazing that the fate of million people is decided only in a very short time. It brings about a prominent issue related to the ferocious Nazi regime in which the vacuum of morality is incredibly visible. Accordingly, this issue will always go with my understanding that absolutism never be such a good thing for human being. Anything that is absolutely believed as a single precision will blind and kill our conscience. We often meet the resembling mirror in current events in which absolutism towards certain dogma lead people to lose their sense of humanity. Just because something is previously set up into dichotomy, anything in the opposition should be demolished while everything is feasible to actualize it including the holocaust.