MALAYSIA, INDONESIA AND ACEH ARE ACHING ALL OVER. – PART II.
…CREATING THE MELAYU CINEMA AND NEW ISLAMIC CINEMA CAN BRING THEM TOGETHER SO THERE’S NO NEED FOR SLOGANEERING.
By Mansor Puteh
ACEH IS STILL ACHING; IT IS ACHING BAD. NOT MANY CAN FEEL HOW MUCH IT HURTS THEM.
THE MELAYU IN MALAYSIA AND INDONESIA, TOO, HAVE BEEN ACHING FOR SO LONG.
AND THERE’S NOT GOING TO BE ANY RESPITE FROM THIS DISCOMFORT DESPITE THE EPG HAVING BEEN FORMED AND THE ELECTED POLITICAL LEADERS OF BOTH THE COUNTRIES HAVING SPOUTED MANY SLOGANS WHICH HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED BY THE MEDIA AND BROADCAST ON TELEVISION AND REPEATED BY THE LOWER-RANKING OFFICERS.
It’s all for nothing.
The members of the ‘Eminent Persons’ Group’ or EPG can never come to proposing the creation of the Melayu cinema and the New Islamic Cinema.
They are old. They are a group of people who have been looking elsewhere for too long. It’s too late for them to be enlisted by the governments of Malaysia and Indonesia to do anything good for the ordinary folks in the two countries. They simply cannot be counted upon.
And since this group was formed when Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was prime minister, this group has not done much while Aceh, Malaysia and Indonesia are still aching…
They have been aching and scratching for so long that there are now blisters all over them.
So if the governments of the two countries really want to see something happening, they should get rid of this group and engage another group that represents another generation of Malaysian and Indonesian intellectuals and other like-minded persons who are also involved in the arts who can propose better ideas that can be implemented so very easily and almost immediately without resorting to more sloganeering and flag-waving or promoting the positive image of the leaders of the two countries.
We have vast resources, but the people especially the Melayu are still aching.
The problem is that the Melayu World of Nusantara Melayu of Southeast Asia is only blessed with natural resources, but it not blessed with having intelligent leaders.
So most of the Melayu leaders are not so good; they are only good at making promises and getting short-term results. They are not good to create long-term effects that bring benefits to the Melayu so the race can be taken seriously, and become an interesting part of the world community. This is despite the fact that it is 300 million-strong.
I returned to Aceh for a second trip in November, 2009 after taking a return trip to England in 17 years.
It was not a long time to see how Aceh had changed after visiting it for the first time barely 13 months earlier, despite them having their first local elections and turning their own kind into office.
But it was long enough to see the new Tsunami Memorial building completed. But alas, it was just the building that was completed and that there is nothing in it for the public to see, other than to see the building itself, which was built at high costs, that should have been used for other meaningful purposes for nation building.
This time I deliberately chose not to take the land route from Dumai by bus to Medan and then get there as I had done it earlier. It was not because I was tired of taking the land route and getting cheated for most of the time.
I chose to fly on AirAsia from the LCCT in Sepang and arrived at Bandara Sultan Iskandar Shah in less than two hours. It was not a long flight so I opted not to have anything to eat on the flight. I could do it when I am in Aceh.
I landed at their new airport. I was told the old airport which sat near the new one is being used for domestic flights. The whole area was not affected by the Tsunami five years ago or it would have been more disastrous for them if flights from foreign countries could not land to deliver food and help.
It took about half an hour to get to Episentrum cultural center in Ulee Kareeng by road. And from there Fozan and his friend took me to Hotel Medan where I would stay for four days.
I thought it was a very convenient place for me to stay because it was right in the center of the city and just across the street from the food court where Fozan had taken me when I first got to this city on the first time.
The food court is no more like it was and the authorities had developed it. But this drew away the crowd who did not like the setup because it is congested.
I have returned to Aceh a few months after their first local elections. From what I can see not much has happened despite the new legislative setup and there are no new attempts to create better relationship between Malaysia and Indonesia and prospects of any new economic initiative does not look like it is happening. No new industries have emerged to expand those they already have.
And this is also not happening at the national levels, while the elected political leaders are looking elsewhere trying to create new slogans and the new opportunities to hug each other for the media while the people continue to suffer in silence feeling with the ache all over the body.
Most, if not all of them are old-hats, those who were in government and public service as well as in academia. They had had their day and are now retired from active service.
And the first local elections that were held in Aceh in April, last year, which saw many local leaders appointed to the state assembly have also not given their all and there are still bickerings.
Mostly, the Aceh wonder when will their country become independent from the Indonesian republic, so no wonder, they like to say they are from Nagoro Aceh Darussalam and not from Indonesia although they still have to carry Indonesian international passports.
Did any one of them ever tried to travel by land in the two countries when they were younger, to know the grounds? I doubt it.
I made the right decision by deciding to travel to Banda Aceh by land instead of by flying from Malaysia to there and took less than two hours as I found out on my return trip to Banda Aceh last November which somehow made the trip there to be uneventful and not dramatic.
I was surprised to find the bus driving up a hill which seemed steep and I was wondering how could Aceh be flooded in the Tsunami of 26 December, 2004, if that was the case?
The bus continued to drive a long way before it reached the top of the hill before it started to go down again and this was when I began to realize how low Aceh was, so it could be flooded by the great tide that came with the Tsunami.
I would soon find this out in the days when I toured the countryside at the places where the flooding was at its worse, and that they were all in a valley being surrounded by islands with tall hills that acted like a huge pond that trapped water so when the Tsunami happened the sea rose to almost the tips of the hills.
But landing at their spanking new international airport, the Bandara Sultan Iskandar Shah (International Airport) is interesting. And being greeted by a local dance group comprising only of young boys who seemed to be like they are in a trance.
Yes, the Indonesians have created a new word for ‘airport’ and call it ‘bandara’ the acronym for the words ‘bandar udara’. This is as opposed to ‘lapangan terbang’ which they used in the past which is quite long and it is still being used by Melayu in Malaysia and elsewhere.
Bandara is fine with me. And Malaysians have also accepted the word ‘parkir’ for ‘parking’ in exchange for the ‘tempat letak kereta’ which literally means ‘a place to park cars’.
They could very well be as the dance has a strong Islamic religious significance, as I found out. It is also how they ‘garland’ the foreign tourists who visit their country.
Yes, the people of Aceh consider themselves to be living in their own country, the Nogoro Aceh Darussalam, or Aceh the Abode of Peace, instead of it being in the Republic of Indonesia.
So no wonder, they always say they are from Aceh and not from Indonesia.
I went to Melaka from Kuala Lumpur and took the ferry to go to Dumai and from there I took the express buses and some local ones and got to Medan where I took another bus to get to Banda Aceh.
It was 14 hours by bus from Dumai to Medan and another 17 hours on the express bus to Banda Aceh.
The trip to Medan from Dumai could have been faster if those at the booth of the bus station had not cheated me. The woman gave me a ticket for a local bus which is small and crampy; it broke down and they had to replace a tire in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, there was what looks like a makeshift workshop operating past midnight which could fix the tire which had a hole.
And the mechanics, one of them a local Chinese had to do everything manually by pulling out the tire from the rim using a mechanical device that requires a lot of strength. I had not seen it in Malaysia such a long time.
I tried to enjoy it and managed to shoot some video footage along the way, despite the fact that I was cheated of basic creature comfort of being able to travel in a more comfortable express bus from Dumai to Medan, with air-conditioning.
But the television or video they were playing was very loud. If they had got enough watching video, they played music which was equally loud. How could people from a place like Aceh who are supposed to be more pious Melayu and Muslims want to fill up their spaces with noise this loud?
The bus drivers think they are doing everybody a service by playing video, switching on the television or playing music loudly. They think everybody enjoys doing that.
It is okay for only a while, but not for the whole stretch of the journey and especially if the speakers are hanging on your head and all round you and not on the head of the drivers, so they had to switch on the speakers loudly so they can hear the noise at a comfortable level to their ears, despite it being too loud for the passengers.
By Mansor Puteh
ACEH IS STILL ACHING; IT IS ACHING BAD. NOT MANY CAN FEEL HOW MUCH IT HURTS THEM.
THE MELAYU IN MALAYSIA AND INDONESIA, TOO, HAVE BEEN ACHING FOR SO LONG.
AND THERE’S NOT GOING TO BE ANY RESPITE FROM THIS DISCOMFORT DESPITE THE EPG HAVING BEEN FORMED AND THE ELECTED POLITICAL LEADERS OF BOTH THE COUNTRIES HAVING SPOUTED MANY SLOGANS WHICH HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED BY THE MEDIA AND BROADCAST ON TELEVISION AND REPEATED BY THE LOWER-RANKING OFFICERS.
It’s all for nothing.
The members of the ‘Eminent Persons’ Group’ or EPG can never come to proposing the creation of the Melayu cinema and the New Islamic Cinema.
They are old. They are a group of people who have been looking elsewhere for too long. It’s too late for them to be enlisted by the governments of Malaysia and Indonesia to do anything good for the ordinary folks in the two countries. They simply cannot be counted upon.
And since this group was formed when Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was prime minister, this group has not done much while Aceh, Malaysia and Indonesia are still aching…
They have been aching and scratching for so long that there are now blisters all over them.
So if the governments of the two countries really want to see something happening, they should get rid of this group and engage another group that represents another generation of Malaysian and Indonesian intellectuals and other like-minded persons who are also involved in the arts who can propose better ideas that can be implemented so very easily and almost immediately without resorting to more sloganeering and flag-waving or promoting the positive image of the leaders of the two countries.
We have vast resources, but the people especially the Melayu are still aching.
The problem is that the Melayu World of Nusantara Melayu of Southeast Asia is only blessed with natural resources, but it not blessed with having intelligent leaders.
So most of the Melayu leaders are not so good; they are only good at making promises and getting short-term results. They are not good to create long-term effects that bring benefits to the Melayu so the race can be taken seriously, and become an interesting part of the world community. This is despite the fact that it is 300 million-strong.
I returned to Aceh for a second trip in November, 2009 after taking a return trip to England in 17 years.
It was not a long time to see how Aceh had changed after visiting it for the first time barely 13 months earlier, despite them having their first local elections and turning their own kind into office.
But it was long enough to see the new Tsunami Memorial building completed. But alas, it was just the building that was completed and that there is nothing in it for the public to see, other than to see the building itself, which was built at high costs, that should have been used for other meaningful purposes for nation building.
This time I deliberately chose not to take the land route from Dumai by bus to Medan and then get there as I had done it earlier. It was not because I was tired of taking the land route and getting cheated for most of the time.
I chose to fly on AirAsia from the LCCT in Sepang and arrived at Bandara Sultan Iskandar Shah in less than two hours. It was not a long flight so I opted not to have anything to eat on the flight. I could do it when I am in Aceh.
I landed at their new airport. I was told the old airport which sat near the new one is being used for domestic flights. The whole area was not affected by the Tsunami five years ago or it would have been more disastrous for them if flights from foreign countries could not land to deliver food and help.
It took about half an hour to get to Episentrum cultural center in Ulee Kareeng by road. And from there Fozan and his friend took me to Hotel Medan where I would stay for four days.
I thought it was a very convenient place for me to stay because it was right in the center of the city and just across the street from the food court where Fozan had taken me when I first got to this city on the first time.
The food court is no more like it was and the authorities had developed it. But this drew away the crowd who did not like the setup because it is congested.
I have returned to Aceh a few months after their first local elections. From what I can see not much has happened despite the new legislative setup and there are no new attempts to create better relationship between Malaysia and Indonesia and prospects of any new economic initiative does not look like it is happening. No new industries have emerged to expand those they already have.
And this is also not happening at the national levels, while the elected political leaders are looking elsewhere trying to create new slogans and the new opportunities to hug each other for the media while the people continue to suffer in silence feeling with the ache all over the body.
Most, if not all of them are old-hats, those who were in government and public service as well as in academia. They had had their day and are now retired from active service.
And the first local elections that were held in Aceh in April, last year, which saw many local leaders appointed to the state assembly have also not given their all and there are still bickerings.
Mostly, the Aceh wonder when will their country become independent from the Indonesian republic, so no wonder, they like to say they are from Nagoro Aceh Darussalam and not from Indonesia although they still have to carry Indonesian international passports.
Did any one of them ever tried to travel by land in the two countries when they were younger, to know the grounds? I doubt it.
I made the right decision by deciding to travel to Banda Aceh by land instead of by flying from Malaysia to there and took less than two hours as I found out on my return trip to Banda Aceh last November which somehow made the trip there to be uneventful and not dramatic.
I was surprised to find the bus driving up a hill which seemed steep and I was wondering how could Aceh be flooded in the Tsunami of 26 December, 2004, if that was the case?
The bus continued to drive a long way before it reached the top of the hill before it started to go down again and this was when I began to realize how low Aceh was, so it could be flooded by the great tide that came with the Tsunami.
I would soon find this out in the days when I toured the countryside at the places where the flooding was at its worse, and that they were all in a valley being surrounded by islands with tall hills that acted like a huge pond that trapped water so when the Tsunami happened the sea rose to almost the tips of the hills.
But landing at their spanking new international airport, the Bandara Sultan Iskandar Shah (International Airport) is interesting. And being greeted by a local dance group comprising only of young boys who seemed to be like they are in a trance.
Yes, the Indonesians have created a new word for ‘airport’ and call it ‘bandara’ the acronym for the words ‘bandar udara’. This is as opposed to ‘lapangan terbang’ which they used in the past which is quite long and it is still being used by Melayu in Malaysia and elsewhere.
Bandara is fine with me. And Malaysians have also accepted the word ‘parkir’ for ‘parking’ in exchange for the ‘tempat letak kereta’ which literally means ‘a place to park cars’.
They could very well be as the dance has a strong Islamic religious significance, as I found out. It is also how they ‘garland’ the foreign tourists who visit their country.
Yes, the people of Aceh consider themselves to be living in their own country, the Nogoro Aceh Darussalam, or Aceh the Abode of Peace, instead of it being in the Republic of Indonesia.
So no wonder, they always say they are from Aceh and not from Indonesia.
I went to Melaka from Kuala Lumpur and took the ferry to go to Dumai and from there I took the express buses and some local ones and got to Medan where I took another bus to get to Banda Aceh.
It was 14 hours by bus from Dumai to Medan and another 17 hours on the express bus to Banda Aceh.
The trip to Medan from Dumai could have been faster if those at the booth of the bus station had not cheated me. The woman gave me a ticket for a local bus which is small and crampy; it broke down and they had to replace a tire in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, there was what looks like a makeshift workshop operating past midnight which could fix the tire which had a hole.
And the mechanics, one of them a local Chinese had to do everything manually by pulling out the tire from the rim using a mechanical device that requires a lot of strength. I had not seen it in Malaysia such a long time.
I tried to enjoy it and managed to shoot some video footage along the way, despite the fact that I was cheated of basic creature comfort of being able to travel in a more comfortable express bus from Dumai to Medan, with air-conditioning.
But the television or video they were playing was very loud. If they had got enough watching video, they played music which was equally loud. How could people from a place like Aceh who are supposed to be more pious Melayu and Muslims want to fill up their spaces with noise this loud?
The bus drivers think they are doing everybody a service by playing video, switching on the television or playing music loudly. They think everybody enjoys doing that.
It is okay for only a while, but not for the whole stretch of the journey and especially if the speakers are hanging on your head and all round you and not on the head of the drivers, so they had to switch on the speakers loudly so they can hear the noise at a comfortable level to their ears, despite it being too loud for the passengers.
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