This image criticizes the legislative candidates who nowadays are busy campaigning generally just only for their narrow and pragmatic interests. The image is so good since it has done the critique wisely, subtly, but still very sharp. It represents Indonesian Islam, picturing wise pesantren Islam, but critical one. Indonesian Islam is contextual Islam where noble values of Islam contextualized to the real history. In the photo, such wisdom looks strongly. For example, kopiah, genuine Indonesian cap lies peacefully with the mobile originated from the West.
The photo is from M. Faizi email in which he allowed it to be published
It is very common for some little groups of Muslims to accuse simply people who cooperate with Westerners especially the American though for promoting humanitarianism, peace, intellectualism, and such, as a zionist or the US agent. On the contrary, they often assume someone laden with symbols of Islam as a pious and good Muslim; despite amount of his/her deeds are amoral.
Note The 1-st picture is personal collection and the other is downloaded from indonesian daily Jawa Pos , on April 1, 2009
Here another letter from a Jewish Student. I think the letter very important for us to know the Israelis holistically
Dear Abd A'la,
I am Sahar Vardi. I am 18 years old, a senior in high school in Israel. As you probably know, all Israelis must serve in the Israeli Defense Forces, starting right after our last year of high school. I and dozens of other students, on examining our values, International Law, and what we believe is best for Israel, refused to serve in the Occupied Territories and be a part of a mechanism that suppresses millions of Palestinians.
Campaign for the 2009 Indonesian legislative general election has been in progress. The big question behind it, would this election bring changes for improvement of the people's fate? The historical record has been showing the most of representatives with their very big salary always sleep very well during their meeting. They manipulate democracy for their pragmatic interests. This phenomenon diametrically opposite the democracy and religion values.
(The picture was downloaded from Zamiel al-Muttaqin's emailon March 20, 2009)
Dear All, Due to many works I have to deal with at Graduate Studies of IAIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya, I must apologize to all of you. I cannot update my blog for the time being. Thanks a lot for your attention
(You can also download posters of these images.)
Dear Abd A'la,
A long-standing conflict divided people according to their religion and nationality, causing enormous pain and claiming many civilian lives. The US sent an envoy with a strong conviction…
"a conviction that there is no such thing as a conflict that can't be ended. Conflicts are created, conducted and sustained by human beings. They can be ended by human beings."
Sen. George Mitchell needed patience and determination to help broker an agreement in Northern Ireland. And he did.
THE DEMORALIZING CONTEMPORARY LIFE
While some people waste money to give their passion free rein, the poor people are still very difficult just to survive. These pictures represent mostly the condition. The question, then, what have the believers done to solve the problem?. Ironically, some of them, even, have been engaged in worsening the condition.
The pictures were downloaded from Indonesian daily,Jawa Pos, published on February 14, 2009
TERRORISM, GLOBALIZATION, AND MORAL VALUES Abd A‘la
Terrorism and other similar actions have been bringing our world and life into chaos and disorder. The number of innocent victims has been innumerable. Even though, this inhuman action is still very possible to happen again in the future. The perpetrators of this barbaric action seem to continue their deadly actions.
To overcome this savage violence of terrorism, so far we have been trapped in reactive actions. Like someone distraught, we have appeared to act foolhardy against it. We were not able to offer a systematic wise critical solution other than mere declaring war against those terrorizing actions. At the same time, we tended to ignore the root of the problem. As long as our action spins around that, the terrorism, barbarism and the like will never disappear from our life.
Globalization
Though it can be debatable, one of the roots of spreading of terrorism and barbaric action in our contemporary world interacts to the contemporary unjust world order. At the global level, a few rich countries in the North not only have dominated source of natural wealth of the poorest countries in the South, but also the lives of their communities. Not enough with that, they to a certain degree also have lived in hypocrisy as well.
This domination has become stronger in this globalization era, from when the some developed countries in the Western World –as Sindhunata expressed (Basis 01-02, 2003) –, expanded their view of life that undermines those who are weak.
Such globalization has made many communities in the Third World more marginalized and powerless. As a result, they were frustrated to face the future. They felt defeated and inferior not only to the West, but also to the life itself.
In such conditions, they tried to find refuge, which in their view could provide a strong spirit to fight against the threat. On this side, they found religious symbols, which they freed from its moral values and universal meaning. They exploited the symbols to justify merely their frustration and to develop an ideology against the West from which they were of opinion that life is not more than a fight of power. Ironically, the power they owned is only to do violence and terrorism, or to spread outrage.
The impact then is the world becomes the massacre, both allegorically which the some western country have done, and literally developed by the terrorists.
Strengthening Moral Values
On the concept level, no any religion that teaches violence, especially in the form of terrorizing murder. Accurate research on the background of terrorism and alike spreading at this time finds that the violence action is no basic theological preferences. The religion was made only as justification to support their brutal actions.
They performed their actions was more triggered by conditions not conducive for the life such as poverty, inequality and the like that from time to time have become widen. This issues –not the religion issue –we need to discuss seriously. Therefore, we have to develop humane dialogue and a policy paying fully attention on the fate of majority of the oppressed people and the general public interests.
It does not mean that inter-religious dialogue is not important. We must deal with this dialogue, but it must be directed to anchor values of universal morality in public areas. In line with that, we need to develop the dialogue of civilization emphasizing on landing the values of civility and working out of a new world order being able to achieve social equality and solidarity amongst world communities.
