The World of Mine

The great book that inspired me to be a hermit

What came to my mind when hearing the word “hermit” was an old man with long white moustache, beard and hair, who wore dirty white garment all day. And his life, I reckoned, must have been so boring.

After reading Tonke Dragt’s book, which is entitled The Letter for the King, or De brief voor de koning in Dutch, I still imagine the same old man when hearing the word, but now… I don’t think it is that boring anymore.
I even fancy it will be perhaps fascinating.

The old hermit in the book, whose name I forgot, lived on a top of a mountain. He lived in a wooden cabin near a spring and amidst fresh, cool air of a mountaintop, which was sometimes misty.

I always love nature; so even though in a whole Mr. Dragt made a wonderful, very well written adventurous story, my most favorite part remains the life of the hermit, who helped Tiuri the main character, a knight candidate, to climb and ascend to the other side of the mountain, where a neighboring kingdom Tiuri was heading to was in existence (Tiuri did his adventure to give the confidential letter to the king).

Mr. Dragt made very well description of the mountain top that I could sense the fresh, cool air and misty surrounding, that I could see bushes on the infertile brown ground of the mountaintop, although in fact I was reading the book in my stuffy room in the hot and humid two-season Jakarta suburb of Tangerang.

The old hermit was actually the brother of the neighboring king, but he avoided conflicts and resided on the mountain top, which is peaceful and quiet, with a 14-year-old orphan boy, that he had raised, helping him rearing goats, etc.

Why have I been enchanted with such life? Well, if you’re stuck in the traffic, exposed to overheating sunshine and smell dirty, polluted air every day in your life, you’ll no wonder why I wish I could settle on a fresh-aired top of a mountain.

But, not just that, if you frequently face conflicts, and you’re tortured by the fact that the conflicts, whatever they are, will continue happening, while you always have to get stuck in the middle of them…well, you’ll perhaps understand why I wish to runaway to a place where there is nobody that can make the conflicts; to a peaceful, quiet place as the old hermit lived at.

The risk of having such solitary life is that of course you lose contacts with the people you love. But, if that’s worth it, why not?

Anyway, things have yet to get so bad that I have to flee to a mountain top; that’s why I’m still here, breathing Jakarta’s dirty air and being exposed to the overheating sunshine, and facing and being stuck in the middle of the never ending conflicts.
And I think, too, about how irresponsible I am to runaway from problems when perhaps I can do something for other people who need my help (hey, how big-hearted I am!).

But, by reading the book, at least now I know where to go when I can’t handle those conflicts, when the situation become so torturing that I can’t stand it anymore.

The only thing I have to prepare for such life is learning how to climb a mountain, and learning to depend on myself only, to be independent, especially in supplying my own everyday need like foods, etc.

By the way, this is not at all a review of the book, which recently won an award for best Dust children’s book, so I’m sorry to disappoint you who think this is a review. It’s just my commentary, originated from the strongest impression I feel for the book: The Letter for the King. You indeed made a good job, Mr. Dragt, congratulation!

I won’t say that I’m representing 220 million Indonesians when I’m writing this. But, if you wish to get some snapshots of how we deal with Soeharto’s death, perhaps this writing can help you a little, as I’m neither close person nor direct enemy of the former president; I’m just one of the majority who had undergone years of life under his presidency without personal problems with him.

During the first 15 years of my life, since I was born in 1982 until Soeharto gave his presidential post to vice president BJ Habibie in May 1998, I had seen the old man almost every day on TV.

As long as I remember, he was always white-haired and stout, very grandfather-like, and he smiled a lot. I guess I had seen him even more often than I had seen my late granddad. That was why I couldn’t help being fond of him; that was why it was hard for me to believe that he had done so many mistakes during his 32-year of presidency.

I was fifteen (in my last year at junior high school) when suddenly everybody hated him; when massive number of people, mostly college students staged a rally, demanded him to leave his presidential post; when everybody said he was corrupt and got angry at him.

When my elder sister (she was doing her last year in senior high school that time; ready to enter university) expressed the same sharp critics, I defended Pak Harto and sincerely, naively said something like, “Whatever people say about him, Sis, I’ll support him forever.”

Of course, after I grew older and heard a lot more about his alleged past sins, and I didn’t see him on TV as often as I had earlier (which could spark sympathy), I turned to be his opponent, thou’, as I’ve never been directly affected by his wrongdoings, the opposition has not been wholehearted.

Now the discourse that has emerged since Pak Harto was taken to hospital earlier this month is whether to forgive him and forget his past mistakes, or to continue the legal process against him.

Those on his side of course prefer the former, but his opponents definitely prefer the latter. There are also those putting themselves in the middle, saying they forgive him but want the legal process continue…(this group’s stance is rather confusing, actually; what the hell do they actually mean?).

I admit that I am among those whose sympathy have been triggered with the footages of his so weak, ailing of countenance during his illness time and, today, of the beautified footages of his biographies on TV (complete with sad, touchy music and moments).

I must say, too, that I’m not one of those who eagerly want the legal process against him to continue (as I said; because I don’t directly feel inflicted by his wrongdoings), but…I’m definitely one of those who think it must continue, especially in order to take back billions of U.S. dollars he and his big family had taken from us, the entire Indonesians. The money can be used to help tens of millions of poor people across the country (if not being stolen by incumbent government officials, of course!).

Now many people here have shown so deep of sympathy to the level where they wish the government and certain groups of vocal people forget Soeharto’s alleged past sins.
I don’t know their percentage, but I reckon that they’re quite many.

Now I offer my deepest condolence to Pak Harto’s family, and wish that God would forgive his mistakes. But, this doesn’t mean that his alleged past mistakes could be hence forgotten. As a Muslim, I believe, too, that Allah (SWT) wants justice to be uphold in the world.

Media observer Effendi Ghazali told me recently, “Forgiving this one person will hurt million others.”

And what Mr. Ghazali meant by ‘forgiving’ here is forgetting the things Soeharto had done, which had brought sufferings to many people.

I agree with Mr. Ghazali; a hundred percent.

Anyway, Pak Harto, goodbye...you’re indeed like a grandfather to me (although you perhaps never acknowledged me as a granddaughter), so it is so unfortunate if you did conduct the things that had hurt millions of people here).

Former president Soeharto finally died today, on 01:10 pm, after being hospitalized for 23 days (he was submitted to the Pertamina hospital in Jakarta on Jan. 4).

The doctors treating him said he died of multi-organ failures.

Indeed in the past few days dozens of journalists have no longer overcrowded the hospital’s main entrance the second half of last week because we thought he was getting better, that he had passed his critical period. Many of us (I reckon) have prepared to make headlines such as “Soeharto returns home”, with something like “he’s now fully conscious, can chat and make jokes with family and friends, although is still too weak to rise and walk” on the second or third paragraph.

Well, he did return home to his residence on Jl. Cendana, Central Jakarta, but … in a fully unconscious condition, as he is dead.

So, we now prefer to write “SOEHARTO DEAD” as the headline instead of “SOEHARTO BACK HOME”, so as not to make things ambiguous for our readers.

Regarding the articles for the Monday, Jan. 28’s edition, well… actually we’ve prepared some of them since earlier this month, when we thought he would have soon died because the doctors have said, a lot of times, that he was critically ill and showed no progress.

So, after he indeed passed on, we’ve got not so many difficulties to make special reports on him. We only sort of missing the very moment of his passing away, because, as I’ve said earlier, we thought he was recovering and ready to go back home in healthy condition (that was indeed what the doctors said last Thursday: “he’ll be able to go home in 2-3 days”), and so we didn’t have one of our journalists stand by at the Pertamina Hospital on his death time, as we had done intensively until the third week of this month when he was still there.

Anyway, I’m glad it wasn’t me assigned to cover stories on Pak Harto’s illness; that is one of the most boring, time-consuming and tiring coverage. Imagine! Those journalists covering Soeharto story had to stand by 8-12 hours everyday during the past 3 weeks for perhaps only 10 minutes of press conference on the progress of his health by the team of doctors.

And I’m glad, too, I wasn’t assigned to cover the story on his death today. Tens of thousands of people have been overcrowding the road in front of his house since they heard the news on his death on TV; only some prominent figures are allowed to enter the house; how would I ever get a story under such circumstance?

Oh, I know, I could write about the crowd, and about the feelings of those paying condolence calls; although I believe I sort of knowing how they feel, coz I feel that, too..

Hello, Google Ads...are you there? Can you PLEASE do something with the porn ads on the top of my page?

Honestly I don't know where to address this complain, too. I want to say that I don't like the ads you're putting on my page.

Basically, I don't mind with ads, but I heavily object to the porn ads. What do you think I am? A sex maniac? Or a middleman offering the dirty stuff?

I DON'T WANT PEOPLE READING MY BLOG THINK I'M RELATED TO SUCH THINGS.

What do I have to do to make you draw these ads? Don't tell me I have to get the Pro account.

Once again I'm telling you I don't mind with ads, but I reject heavily the porn ads.

Is that clear? If you (Google?) don't like my saying here and wish to cancel my membership to the blog.co.uk, that's fine, just do it. I will find another blog provider if you do.

Thank you, and Good day.