As I waited for the elevator to take me to the fifth floor of my office building this morning, I scrolled on my Twitter timeline and found a tweet by @gm_gm (Goenawan Mohamad) saying “Semoga Indonesia tak akan seterusnya menemukan khotbah moral di halaman pertama…” — Yes, sir, I completely agree. With too many annoying stories in our heads, the last thing we need right now is some corrupt politicians taking advantage of this situation, preaching that this country is in a high level of morality issues.
I always thought that morality is something that needs to be built individually. No one is responsible for your own moral-behavior but yourself.
Photo by: Ed Wray of Time (http://lightbox.time.com)
See the above monkey? According to Ed Wray, the photographer who took that picture for this site, “The disturbing image of the monkeys wearing the masks is a visual distillation of the kinds of horrible things that happen when people are driven to desperation by poverty.”
That’s right, Ed. In my country Indonesia, nobody gives a damn about a chained monkey wearing a mask. Poverty has ‘killed’ our sensitivity for animals. But it’s not the only thing that poverty killed. With the help of confusing religious beliefs, ignorant government, and a poor education system, poverty is —slowly-but-surely— crafting our young generations to become a bunch of lazy cowards, highly prone to being brain-washed, with future jobs such as corrupt politicians, sinetron or sexy horror movie stars, and suicide bombers.
They have no accumulated knowledge to criticize what they are told. They live in the bubble of the present, where their understanding of good and bad has been defined by their low-educated parents, influenced by the government, the media, and by their sacred religious leaders.
If you want to help this nation to escape from this so-called “high level of moral issues” the best thing you can do is liberate yourself from poverty.
I know that nobody wants to be stuck in poverty, and some people choose to see it as their destiny. Well, from the way I see it, poverty is not an excuse for you to quit working hard to change your life. J.K. Rowling was a raised in a poor family, now look at her and all the money she makes from Harry Potter. Franklyn Addo is also coming from a poor family in UK, but he manages to got great grades and got invited by five universities.
I realize there are many reasons why someone is unemployed, especially in this economy. But I always told my friends and family that being jobless is definitely a sin! I even suggest the MUI to start making a “fatwa” for it, so that they can stop focusing on, well, prohibiting us from doing what we like, such as smoking and watch certain movies, for example.
I think it’s okay for anyone to be angry towards the people of Gadel, but for me, I’d rather use it as a motivation to work harder (and save more money) so that my son can have a better education in a better institution. It broke my heart to heard about Ruyati, but on the other hand it’s also one of the reason why men should work hard for their family, so that their wives/sisters/mothers no longer have to go abroad as migrant workers.
Every single day people are struggling for their life, and so must we. Bob Marley said it clearly on his “Redemption Song” … emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our mind… — It is clear that the responsibility to make real changes in our life lies in our own hands. And for that to happen, you need to have a whole new set of beliefs that it is always possible for everyone to escape from the burden of poverty. As long as they have the courage to make it happen. Whatever the obstacles are.
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{Wandering Ideas} 