Thursday, January 31, 2008

Pluralisme

Akhirnya buku Islam dan Pluralisme diharamkan oleh Kementerian Keselamatan Dalam Negeri (KKDN).

Buku yang disusun sahabat saya MR al-Mustaqeem menjadi kontroversi seawal perhimpunan Pemuda Umno pada 2006, tidak lama selepas diterbitkan.

al-Mustaqeem, yang memimpin organisasi penerbitan, penterjemahan dan penulisan yang mula bertapak Middle Eastern Graduate Centre (MEGC atau sebutannya MEG-Si), bermula sebagao seorang calon graduan syariah di Jordan dan berakhir sebagai seorang liberal di Jalan Telawi.

al-Mustaqeem, seorang sahabat, juga editor buku saya Patah Balek; Catatan terpenting reformasi.

Hari ini saya boleh berbangga, kerana buku seorang teman dekat saya akhirnya diharamkan oleh kerajaan setelah beberapa lama penerbitan yang saya pernah terlibat, atau menyumbang rencana, ditarik permitnya oleh KKDN.

Saya masih menunggu-nunggu bila pula buku-buku seperti Islam dan Dasar Pemerintahan (karya Ali Abdul Raziq, terjemahan al-Mustaqeem, terbitan Institut Kajian Dasar) atau Pengalaman Bertuhan (kumpulan esei pelbagai agama, suntingan al-Mustaqeem, terbitan terbaru MEGC) diharamkan!

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Loloq

Inna lillahi wa inna ilahi raajiuun!

Perginya penulis lirik terkenal Loloq, atau Rosli Khamis, ke pangkuan-Nya.

Menurut laporan Utusan Online, Loloq meninggal dunia di Hospital Pakar Damansara, di Petaling Jaya hari ini.

Penulis lirik yang berasal dari Singapura itu meninggal dunia pada pukul 1.37 petang akibat pendarahan otak.



(c) Foto ini diambil tanpa kebenaran dari blog Normal Girl Living a Crazy Life

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Hanya ada satu kata, ...

... lawan!

(Mengenang Wiji Thukul di hari perginya Soeharto)

Thursday, January 24, 2008

1998-2008

Sebagai mengulas coretan Najwan Halimi (23 Jan 2008)

Saya fikir persoalan Reformasi harus bermula daripada reformasi pemikiran, atau perubahan cara kita berfikir, atau penerokaan cara-cara baru/lain untuk melihat Malaysia.

Sebab itu, pada malam perbualan kita itu, saya tekankan persoalan meningkatkan mutu perdebatan isu-isu (khususnya nasional) agar kepadatan dan kedalaman perbahasan dapat disalurkan (exchange) dengan minima/ringkas.

Dalam contoh mudah, saya sebut persoalan bahasa, budaya dan pemikiran. Khususnya memadatkan sesuatu istilah sehingga ia berfungsi semacam "sponge" atau "hyperlink".

Sering saya perhatikan, kelemahan ini wujud di kalangan kita yang menuntut perubahan politik dan kritis pada kerajaan yang sedia ada. Tidak lupa juga pemimpin-pemimpin, tokoh-tokoh, orang-orang popular.

Kita/mereka menghabiskan banyak masa menyampaikan sesuatu (sesama sendiri) dan juga orang ramai kerana bahasa yang digunakan untuk menyalurkan idea bukan bahasa ilmu dan bahasa idea, tetapi bahasa politik, bahasa propaganda, bahasa "nak menang" (yakni: bahasa ingin menguasai pihak lain).

Bahasa kita bahasa yang menundukkan, bahasa yang mengikat, dan bahasa pembujukan yang menjadikan pendengar/sasaran komunikasi sebagai "alat" untuk dieksploitasi.

Contohnya, artikel saya sewaktu mengupas kempen menentang "Islam Liberal" yang diguna pakai oleh puak-puak Islam. >>> Lihat artikel saya: ‘Islam Liberal’ wacana terdesak (Ummahonline.com, 16 Mei 2005)

Bahasa seumpama ini bukan bahasa untuk menggalakkan dialog, bukan bahasa untuk mencungkil kelemahan sedia ada dan kemungkinan baru, bukan bahasa untuk rakan komunikasi yang setara/setaraf. Tetapi bahasa yang bertukar fungsi sebagai penyalur ideologi, kuasa dan penundukan psikologi.

Dalam perbahasan mutakhir tentang demokrasi dan masyarakat sivil, sarjana kini bercakap tentang "modal budaya" atau "modal sosial" sebagai prasyarat awal untuk membangunkan demokrasi dari bawah. Jadi, bagi saya, bahasa politik yang wujud pada hari ini belum membentuk modal budaya/modal sosial ke arah Reformasi.

Oleh itu, pada hemat saya saat ini, bidang inilah yang jangan sekali-kali kita abaikan. Dan .... ia menjadi suatu aspek perjuangan Reformasi yang maha mustahak.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Kajian Media (1)

Modern propaganda is distinguished from other forms of communication by its deliberate and conscious use of false or misleading information to sway public opinion. The invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century gradually made it possible to reach large numbers of people.

But it was not until the nineteenth century that state governments began to employ propaganda for political purposes to any wide degree deliberately aimed at influencing the masses. The invention of radio and television in the twentieth century made it possible to reach even more people. The development of modern media, global warfare, and the rise of extremist political parties provided growing importance to the use of propaganda.

>>> Propaganda

But propaganda can be as blatant as a swastika or as subtle as a joke. Its persuasive techniques are regularly applied by politicians, advertisers, journalists, radio personalities, and others who are interested in influencing human behavior. Propagandistic messages can be used to accomplish positive social ends, as in campaigns to reduce drunk driving, but they are also used to win elections and to sell malt liquor.

As Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson point out, "every day we are bombarded with one persuasive communication after another. These appeals persuade not through the give-and-take of argument and debate, but through the manipulation of symbols and of our most basic human emotions. For better or worse, ours is an age of propaganda." (Pratkanis and Aronson, 1991)

With the growth of communication tools like the Internet, the flow of persuasive messages has been dramatically accelerated. For the first time ever, citizens around the world are participating in uncensored conversations about their collective future. This is a wonderful development, but there is a cost.

>>> Propagandacritic.com

Political propaganda in principle is active and revolutionary. It is aimed at the broad masses. It speaks the language of the people because it wants to be understood by the people. Its task is the highest creative art of putting sometimes complicated events and facts in a way simple enough to be understood by the man on the street. Its foundation is that there is nothing the people cannot understand, but rather things must be put in a way that they can understand. It is a question of making it clear to him by using the proper approach, evidence and language.

Propaganda is a means to an end. Its purpose is to lead the people to an understanding that will allow them to willingly and without internal resistance devote themselves to the tasks and goals of a superior leadership. If propaganda is to succeed, it must know what it wants. It must keep a clear and firm goal in mind, and seek the appropriate means and methods to reach that goal. Propaganda as such is neither good nor evil. Its moral value is determined by the goals it seeks.

Propaganda must be creative. It is by no means a matter for the bureaucracy or official administration, but rather it is a matter of productive fantasy. The genuine propagandist must be a true artist. He must be a master of the popular soul, using it as an instrument to express the majesty of a genuine political will. Propaganda can be pro or con. In neither case does it have to be negative. The only thing that is important is whether or not its words are true and genuine expressions of the people. During its period of opposition, the National Socialist movement proved that criticism can be constructive, indeed that in a time which the government is in the hands of destructive powers it may be the only constructive element.

>>> "Goebbels on Propaganda" dalam Propaganda - General (theory, practice and history)

Friday, January 18, 2008

Khalid

Oleh: AYU UTAMI
(Seputar Indonesia.com, 6 Januari 2008)

Khalid Jaafar adalah seorang cendekia. Bagi saya, dia bukan Malaysia, bukan Indonesia. Tulisan-tulisannya membuat saya teringat bahwa intelektual tidak berbatas negara. Ia tinggal di KL, tapi suka berburu buku antik sampai ke Pasar Senen.

Sama seperti Ulil Abshar Abdalla, pada masa mudanya ia pernah terpukau oleh pemikiran Sayid Qutb sebentar saja, sebab ia membaca setumpuk buku dan kitab lain. Buah pikir dan bahasanya menghibur saya di tengah hubungan miring dua negeri serumpun bertetangga.

(Lihatlah, perang copyright tradisi, perebutan pulau-pulau, penganiayaan pembantu ”Indon” oleh majikan Malaysia, tapi juga korupsi yang sangat memalukan oleh kedutaan kita atas para tenaga kerja migran—bagaimana Malaysia tidak memandang rendah Indonesia jika kita sendiri memperlakukan pekerja kita sedemikian?)

Kita tak bisa melihat ada Indonesia dan ada Malaysia saling berseberangan. Sebab, di dalam masing-masing wilayah ada orang-orang dan kelompok-kelompok yang melintas batas maupun yang terpinggirkan. Apa itu Reformasi? Khalid Jaafar pernah menulis dalam memperingati lima tahun ”reformasi” di Malaysia (yang bagai mati selagi janin), yang dihitungnya mulai Anwar Ibrahim memakai kata itu sebagai slogan.

Tahun ini kita akan merayakan sepuluh tahun reformasi di Indonesia, yang dihitung sejak ”keberhasilannya”, yaitu mundurnya Soeharto dari Binagraha pada Mei 1998. Tapi, apa itu Reformasi? Di Malaysia, tulis Khalid, seorang senator dan seorang penyair berkata bahwa kata ini tak dimengerti betul oleh masyarakat. Ia terasa janggal dan elitis. Tapi, perkataan ”keadilan” juga telah tak memiliki kesegaran lagi.

Di Indonesia, tak seorang pun ragu atau bertanya tentang kata ”reformasi”. Sebab, dalam segera hasilnya jelas: presiden yang telah 32 tahun berkuasa itu mundur. Artinya, setidaknya ada perubahan. Perubahan seperti apa, itu persoalan kemudian. Yang tertinggal adalah reformasi di bidang pemikiran. Penulis muda Malaysiakini.com Fathi Aris Omar pernah bertanya, ke manakah para pemikir reformasi.

Berbeda dengan Khalid yang bergabung dalam kubu Anwar Ibrahim, Fathi cenderung berjarak dari politik.Ia menginginkan penerukaan di bidang pemikiran. Pertanyaannya, ke mana gerangan para pemikir reformasi, tak hanya berlaku di Malaysia, tetapi juga di Indonesia.

”Masyarakat intelektual reformasi belum wujud,” tulis Khalid dalam salah satu buah pikirnya di Tumit Achilles dan Lain-lain Esei.

”Ini mungkin terbalik dengan Revolusi Prancis, yang meledak dengan didahului pemikir-pemikir Pencerahan seperti Montesquieu,Voltaire, dan Rousseau. Tapi, reformasi di Malaysia (juga di Indonesia) meledak dahulu dan setelah hampir lima tahun (atau sepuluh tahun pada kita) di kalangan aktivis mereka baru sadar bahwa ada satu kekosongan yang perlu diisi.

Banyak pemberontakan terjadi di sejarah umat manusia, tetapi sebagian besar dilupakan karena tiada membawa gagasan baru. Namun, Revolusi Prancis kekal dalam ingatan.”

Di era Perang Dingin, Indonesia maupun Malaysia berpihak pada blok Amerika.

”Kekosongan pemikiran alternatif dari golongan kiri diambil sepenuhnya oleh gerakan Islam bermula dari pertengahan 1970-an,” tulis Khalid pula.

Di Malaysia, Jemaah Tabligh, Arqam, dan Abim menyebarkan ”Islam sebagai satu-satunya penyelesaian”. Beberapa, seperti juga Anwar Ibrahim, tetap membuka diri pada pengaruh Ivan Illich, Paolo Frerie, Herbert Marcuse, dan pemikir kiri baru. Di Indonesia kita mengenal pemikir Islam seperti Nurcholis Majid juga Gus Dur, cendekia yang menjadi presiden pertama yang ”digulingkan” di era reformasi.

Khalid, yang memang pernah menjadi juru bicara Anwar, menulis bahwa Anwar bagai tak mendapat khalayak dan retorika Islam lebih mudah menangkap imajinasi generasi muda. ”Pemikiran Islam mengambil arah yang lebih konservatif. Sifat konservatif ini merentasi polarisasi politik kepartaian.” Tak persis demikian di Indonesia. Sebab, pemikiran Islam sebetulnya begitu rancak.

Sayangnya,retorika Islam yang tidak toleran justru mendapat tempat. Paling tidak, jika ada konflik, aparat cenderung berkompromi pada mereka yang tak tahan pada keragaman. Ini terlihat, antara lain pada penyerangan Ahmadiyah yang mendasarkan diri pada fatwa MUI—sebuah ormas yang sesungguhnya ganjil karena dibiayai pajak yang juga datang dari warga Ahmadiyah.

”Apa itu Reformasi” sebetulnya digubah Khalid dari ”Apa itu Pencerahan” dari Immanuel Kant dan ia mengingatkan bahwa penyakit pemikiran hari ini adalah yang disebut Kant sebagai ”ketakutan untuk menggunakan akal”.(*)

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Big think

In June 2006, Peter Hopkins, a civic-minded and idealistic 2004 Harvard graduate, trekked up to his alma mater from New York for a meeting with Lawrence H. Summers, the economist and former Treasury secretary. Mr. Hopkins, who finagled the appointment through his friendship with Mr. Summers’s assistant, had a business idea: a Web site that could do for intellectuals what YouTube, the popular video-sharing site, did for bulldogs on skateboards.

The pitch — “a YouTube for ideas” — appealed to Mr. Summers. “Larry, to his credit, is open to new ideas,” Mr. Hopkins recalled recently. “He grilled me for two hours.” In the age of user-generated content, Mr. Summers did have one worry: “Let’s say someone puts up a porn video next to my macroeconomic speech?”

It took awhile, but a year after that meeting, Mr. Summers decided to invest (“a few tens of thousands of dollars,” he said, adding “not something I’m hoping to retire on”) in the site, called Big Think, which officially makes its debut today after being tested for several months.

Big Think (http://www.bigthink.com/) mixes interviews with public intellectuals from a variety of fields, from politics, to law to business, and allows users to engage in debates on issues like global warming and the two-party system. It plans to add new features as it goes along, including a Facebook-like application for social networking, and Mr. Hopkins said he would like the site to become a popular place for college students looking for original sources.

“I’ve had the general view that there is a hunger for people my age looking for more intellectual content,” said Mr. Summers, who resigned as Harvard president in 2006 after making controversial comments about the lack of women in science and engineering. “I saw it as president of Harvard when I saw C.E.O.’s come up to my wife and want to discuss Hawthorne.” (His wife, Elisa New, is a professor of English at Harvard).

A handful of other deep-pocketed investors also decided to chip in, including Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist and co-founder of PayPal, the online payments site; Tom Scott, who struck it rich by founding, and selling, the juice company Nantucket Nectars and now owns Plum TV, a collection of local television stations in wealthy playgrounds like Aspen, Martha’s Vineyard and the Hamptons; the television producer Gary David Goldberg, who was behind the hit shows “Spin City” and “Family Ties”; and David Frankel, a venture capitalist who was the lead investor in Big Think.

“I tend to follow my own curiosities, and I know millions of people are like me,” said Mr. Scott. “I’m into this kind of thing. I do think there is a market for this.”

Mr. Frankel, the lead investor, said, “The initial investors may put in more. I imagine we will go out and raise more money in the future.”

Mr. Hopkins and his partner, Victoria Brown, germinated the idea for Big Think while working together at PBS on the “Charlie Rose” show in 2006.

When they surveyed the landscape, Mr. Hopkins, 24, and Ms. Brown, 33, saw a vast array of celebrity and sophomoric video content (remember the clips of cats urinating in toilets that caused a sensation on YouTube?).

“Everyone says Americans are stupid — that’s what we generally heard from venture capitalists” when trying to raise money, Mr. Hopkins said. Obviously, Mr. Hopkins and Ms. Brown felt differently, and the success of the business basically hinges on proving that Americans have an appetite for other kinds of content.

Of course, Mr. Hopkins and Ms. Brown are not the first to see the Internet as an opportunity to further public discourse. It was invented largely by academics; numerous sites, like Arts & Letters Daily, an offshoot of the Chronicle of Higher Education, seek to serve intellectuals.
Big Think’s business model right now is rudimentary: attract enough viewers, then sell advertising. “We’re going to wait until it gets attention before going after advertisers,” Mr. Hopkins said.

>>> Full Text see : Ex-Harvard President Meets a Former Student, and Intellectual Sparks Fly by Tim Arango (The New York Times, 7 Jan 2008)

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Nabi Gibran

Finally, Haskell offered to be his mistress.

He wasn’t interested.

In a painful passage in her diary, Haskell records how, one night, he said that she was looking thin.

On the pretext of showing him that she was actually well fleshed, she took off her clothes and stood before him naked.

He kissed one of her breasts, and that was all.

She got dressed again.

She knew that he had had affairs with other women, but he claimed that he was not “sexually minded,” and furthermore that what she missed in their relationship was actually there.

When they were apart, he said, they were together.

They didn’t need to have “intercourse”; their whole friendship was “a continued intercourse.”

>>> Teks lengkap, baca 'Prophet Motive: The Kahlil Gibran phenomenon' by Joan Acocella (The New Yorker, 7 Jan 2008)

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Asmara

Asalnya saya bercadang memuatkan foto daripada sekeping DVD seks yang kontroversi. Tetapi tidak sanggup! Jadi saya gantikan dengan foto ini, kekasih presiden Perancis --- yang manja.

Sebab itu, sering saya nasihatkan kepada teman-teman, kalau mahu berselingkuh dengan "kekasih gelap", pastikan seindah imaginasi dengan Carla Bruni.

* * *

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt takes the subject so seriously that he says he is working on a book—his third—to be titled Politics, Porn & Power: An Intimate Look at Sexual Hypocrisy and Its Impact on American Politics.

>>> Jangan lupa, baca di sini.