Guebukanmonyet!

Yes we hate America. We hate their stupid culture and we condemn their arrogance. George W. Bush is the worst American president and it’s so exciting that even most Americans think that way too. We curse at them when we see news on TV about Afghanistan and Iraq.

We feel offended when they call our Muslim brothers and sisters terrorists. Thus, some of us even praise Osama bin Laden for his notorious success in making America look like a fool.

We support every demonstration in front of the U.S. Embassy and burning their flag is fine because it’s a representation of our solidarity to those who are oppressed and poor.

And we wish someday we could have a president like Sukarno again who bravely said to America, “Go to hell with your aid!”

But shamefully, the reality is we actually love America so badly. We have to admit this fact.

Of course we do, that’s why there’s McDonald’s on every corner in Jakarta. Of course we do, that’s why Starbucks is the coolest place to hang out for young Indonesians in Jakarta. And of course we do, that’s why more and more young Indonesians in small cities dress themselves like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Who doesn’t love American movies? At least I do. I love Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. I love Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. In my opinion, Hollywood movies are the greatest heritage of American pop culture.

Let’s face it, we can’t avoid America. Especially the young ones. Everywhere we go and everytime we breath we see America with all its products and values.

Some of us can’t live without a computer and internet connection. We worship Bill Gates for inventing softwares that enable us to live so much easier.

Some of us can’t live without an iPod, the small gadget created by Steve Jobs has become part of our daily lives. And we use it to listen to our favorite American singers like Mariah Carey and Usher.

It’s inevitably to avoid America, you may say you hate it but deep down inside you know you love it too. At least you know you love their inventions on technology.

Believe it or not, even Indonesians who love to perform demonstrations on the streets and sometimes protest against American policies actually watch CNN to grasp some of America’s freedom of speech.

Don’t feel guilty if you’re one of them, I suggest you to smile and laugh. Forget all those radical comments. This is 21st century and it’s not the World War II. Don’t be afraid of all the threats that the radicals make because even radicals love to eat KFC’s chickens.

It’s fine to have a little bit of America in you. It’s fine to have a little bit of France or Japan in you. You shouldn’t be ashamed of yourself as long as the Indonesian factor in your blood dominates your way of thinking.

Having a little bit of something else from other countries gives you a better perspective in looking at this world. It also gives you the ability to make great changes to your community.

I encourage every young Indonesian who currently lives in a foreign land to learn new things as many as possible. If you live in an advanced country then you have a better chance to teach our people on how other culture can progress.

Let those Americans laugh thinking that we want to be like them, but let’s keep it inside that someday we will laugh together with them.

The picture above was taken from here.

Dangdut singer Dewi Persik is now officially banned in Bandung, Tangerang, and Depok. It is most likely that other cities will follow as the latest news shows that even her ex husband Saiful Jamil would also ban her if he was elected vice mayor of Serang.

Although she bravely claims that she’s not afraid and will keep doing the thing that she’s been doing for years I’m sure deep down inside she feels sad knowing the fact that some people put the label “haram” on her.

Some women may support Dewi Persik and claim that she is just a proof of how unjust this world is, especialy Indonesia. Men can easily get aroused without getting sued or banned while a woman who wears sexy clothes or shows erotic gestures will quickly be called najis.

Some women think that Dewi Persik shouldn’t be banned at all. They think people should be granted freedom and let God decide whether or not one is immoral.

Other women may approve the ban saying that such action must be done in order to save the country from immoral behavior.

What about the men? It’s a tricky question, but I think most Indonesian men are trying to avoid this discussion as some of them are just big fans of singers like Dewi Persik.

I feel trapped in the middle. I have a mother who thinks that the erotic dances of some Indonesian dangdut singers have crossed the line, she thinks they’re just disgusting. But at the same time I have a lot friends who think that people should be free and we just can’t judge others so arrogantly.

What do you think?

Educated Indonesians may mock Dewi Persik. We think she’s just a big joke, dressing like a clown and thinking that she looks hot and sexy. Well, she looks pretty hot sometimes, men have to admit that. But, for all those tukang becak, tukang ojek, and mas-mas out there, Dewi Persik without a doubt is their wildest fantasy.

I know you’re laughing now picturing how even mas-mas have a wild fantasy. They’re still human after all.

The debate of who’s right and wrong on this issue seems to have no ending. Just like any other thing in life, we’ll always have people who support and don’t support. There’ll be people who agree and disagree. The winner will be decided on how many supporters one side has.

At this point it seems that there are more people who support the ban than the ones who disapprove. It might be a sign that Indonesia is indeed a religious country where most of its people condemn immoral behavior.

Or is it because all those mas-mas just don’t have a voice in this country? Do they really care about moral and immoral behavior when all they want to have is a good and cheap entertainment? You have to keep in mind that while educated and rich people in big cities have so many choices for entertainment, from watching movies to going to nightclubs, those mas-mas literally don’t have many choices after a long and tiring walk pushing their gerobak.

Now that Dewi Persik has been banned in several cities, who does suffer the most? Is it Dewi Persik as the victim of “unjust” society who can still sing and goyang in other cities or those mas-mas in Bandung, Tangerang, and Depok who can’t enjoy their favorite entertainment anymore?

You decide.

Picture: Backstage crews fixing Dewi Persik’s top, taken from here.

If you are a big fan of Unilever’s brand Dove, think again. Unilever positions Dove as a brand that helps women bring out their real inner beauty. Dove tells women not to be shy of how fat they may look or how old they may seem, just be confident and be yourself.

But as an Indonesian woman, you should now find out the process that Dove has to go through in order to be able to bring out your real inner beauty.

I admit that I’m not an environmentalist but I believe that you don’t have to be an environmentalist to be able to save the earth. I think every small step counts.

I think it should be our concern, especially Indonesian women, that Dove is accussed for driving forest destruction in Indonesia. I think we should pay a big attention to the accusation since it doesn’t come from our own government who is famous in giving political-driven statements. It’s Greenpeace who is blaming Dove to be the reason why we Indonesians have to lose our trees every single day.

What Greenpeace says on Dove:

Unilever, the company behind products like Dove soap, is driving forest destruction and speeding up climate change by buying palm oil from companies which are destroying Indonesia’s rainforests to make way for palm oil plantations. By their own admission, Unilever is the biggest single user of palm oil in the world.

Unilever pretends to be an environmentally responsible company, but what it is actually responsible for is destroying areas of rainforest, driving species extinction and speeding up global warming. Being one of the biggest users of palm oil on the planet, Unilever must stop buying palm oil from these companies and call for a halt on the destruction of Indonesian forests to grow palm oil.

I myself have signed the open letter provided by Greenpeace to tell Unilever CEO Patrick Cescau to stop buying palm oil from companies in Indonesia so that more trees and animals can be saved.

I hope you do too and let the world know that young Indonesians won’t let those big companies destroy our forests!

As an elementary student in Indonesia Pelajaran Moral Pancasila (PMP) was my favorite. I loved it so much because the questions were so predictable. I didn’t have to study hard for every test, I just had to memorize all the things in the text book and add a lot of sweetening and unimportant things to make my answers look long and sophisticated.

One of my all-time-favorite questions was that kind of question where I had to explain the nature of Indonesians. It was so easy because all my PMP teachers asked this kind of question all the time. My answer would be somewhat like, “Indonesians are very nice people. We are tolerant, friendly, and helpful to others. That was the reason why the Netherlands was so much accepted when they first came to Indonesia, something that Indonesia would later regret for the next three centuries.”

But it’s sad to say that is not the kind of Indonesians I experienced in my six years of living in Jakarta. I didn’t see the nice and friendly Indonesians on the streets and at other various places. Everywhere I went I met people who were just too arrogant.

I’m not happy to tell you that after living less than two years in Washington, D.C. I’ve met more people smiling at me here than when I was in Jakarta. I know it’s not fair to compare Jakarta with Washington, D.C. since Jakarta is not just a capital city but also the center of business and economy.

I seriously think that Indonesians and people of Jakarta should smile more and be nice to others, even to people they meet randomly on the streets. I know it’s not easy since life is just so hard for most people in Indonesia. But smiling to others won’t make us poorer, will it? I don’t think so.

I still honestly think that most Indonesians are nice and friendly people. I remember when I visited Malang with my mother in 2003, people there were so warm, humble, and friendly. Maybe people in Jakarta can learn from people in small cities on how to smile more.

Jakarta with more smiles, will that be possible? It’s really up to us.

In my opinion, smiling is not a difficult thing to do. I don’t know if it is for some people. I know it’s not easy to do that when we’re sad, I’m not a smiling expert by the way. But, I know how Indonesians love to laugh so loud with their friends. I myself had the greatest time hanging out with friends in Jakarta and I know for sure how laughing so hard was just part of our culture.

If we can be so much friendly to our friends, why not to other people too? You don’t have to laugh, a smile will be more than enough.

Having a dream to have a smiling society may sound funny but I do believe that Indonesians including people of Jakarta are the kind of people who love to be nice and friendly. It’s just the condition in Jakarta that’s just too hectic for most people: The traffic, the floods, the pollution, or the public transportation. All those things just make us forget how beautiful it is to smile to others.

Visit www.BERBURU.com to see details of JBRB’s newest program.

Thanks to Al Gore and other environmentalists the concern of global warming is rapidly growing throughout the world, mostly in the West. In America, for example, people talk this issue every day. At bookstores people are reading books and magazines giving them instructions how to be green and be part of a global movement to save the earth.

As a response to public awareness, industries are helping their customers to become greener and greener. Supermarkets are stocking their shelves with organic and eco-friendly products. Whole Foods Market, the world’s leading retailer of natural and organic food, is growing fast by giving its customers a promise that the food they buy will help saving the earth.

Despite the fact that U.S. government is still unwilling to sign the Kyoto Protocol, every day new organic products are filling supermarkets’ stock lists in America. Now they have organic apple, organic bread, organic burgers, organic lipstick, and a bunch of other organic products.

Someone once told me that organic chicken tastes better than the regular chicken. I got confused and complained, “How could that be?” She explained that an organic chicken is fed only with organic grains, never given any antibiotics and hormones, and raised in a stress-free environment. Now I know that a happy chicken tastes better. I later added, “We have that kind of chicken in our country too, it’s called ayam kampung.” Keep Reading and Let’s Save the Earth!

Fitna is a controversial short movie produced by a controverisal Dutch politician Geert Wilders. It was released on the internet on March 27, 2008.

As expected, the movie has been creating a histerical protest in the Muslim world. In Indonesia, Islamic organizations have made strong statements on the movie and its creator Geert Wilders. They ban the movie and point their fingers at Geert Wilders to be the guilty one.

The Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhono has supported public opinion by banning the movie in Indonesia.

I have seen the movie on YouTube and I have to say that the movie is cheap. I have to say Geert Wilders is not as smart as I thought he was. The movie is simply stupid and disgusting.

There two things that Fitna mainly shows: Disturbing verses from the Quran mainly on jihad and statements of Islamic radicals.

What Wilders is trying to do is proving to the world that Islam is indeed a religion of terror which in my opinion is irresponsible and so selfish. Read The Full Article!

This time, the so-called victim is New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer. On March 10 The New York Times reported that Spitzer had been involved in a prostitution ring. This news finally turned Spitzer into a joke in the American politics.

The Governor had nothing much to say. He tried to look strong and confident but his eyes could not hide his sorrowful emotion and with his wife Silda on his right side he said, “I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me. To every New Yorker and to all those who believed in what I tried to stand for, I sincerely apologize.”

Spitzer, who was once known as Mr. Clean for his efforts to fight against corruption in Wall Street while serving as the New York Attorney General, ended his bright political career. The person who had been projected to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2012 ended his political career with shame.

Interestingly, David Paterson who took over Spitzer’s position last Monday has admitted that he had extramarital affairs with several different women from 1999 until 2001. His wife has also admitted that she had an affair in the past.

As you know it, Eliot Spitzer is not the first public humiliation in American politics. The most famous political sex scandal in American politics is no doubt the former president Bill Clinton’s affair with his intern Monica Lewinsky. The scandal almost threw Bill Clinton out of the White House.

Several days after the news about his sexual relations broke Bill Clinton gave a famous press conference denying his sexual relations with Lewinsky. He said, “Now, I have to go back to work on my State of the Union speech. And I worked on it until pretty late last night. But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time, never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people. Thank you.”

But, later we found out Bill Clinton actually had done it.

Another famous American political sex scandal is Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey who proudly said, “I’m a gay American.” McGreevey resigned three months later after committing that he had sexual relations with his aide and driver, Teddy Pederson.

What were those guys thinking? Read the Full Article!

Seorang pemuda bernama Abdi bingung karena kedua orang tuanya terus memaksanya untuk cepat menikah. Ibunya selalu bertanya,” Kapan kamu menikah? Ibu sudah merindukan seorang cucu.”

Abdi bingung bukan karena ia tidak memiliki calon. Abdi bingung juga bukan karena ia belum siap untuk menikah. Abdi bingung justru karena ia sudah memiliki calon, tepatnya dua calon. Abdi bingung menentukan siapa yang cocok untuk menjadi istrinya. Ada Astrid dan Rani. Keduanya adalah perempuan yang baik hati. Keduanya rajin solat lima waktu. Keduanya baik hati dan suka menolong. Singkatnya, kedua perempuan itu memiliki hati yang sangat istimewa. Paling penting, keduanya mencintai Abdi dengan tulus.

Perbedaan mencolok dari keduanya: Astrid adalah seorang perempuan yang cantik sementara Rani adalah seorang perempuan yang kaya raya.

Astrid memiliki wajah yang begitu cantik dan tubuh yang aduhai. Sejak dulu Astrid selalu menjadi kembang desa dan karena kecantikannya Astrid sering kali dibandingkan dengan para artis sinetron ibukota. Sementara itu Rani adalah anak tunggal dari seorang pengusaha ekspor impor yang sangat sukses. Ayahnya sudah tua dan sebentar lagi akan mewariskan seluruh kekayaannya kepada Rani.

Abdi bingung memilih Astrid atau Rani. Abdi pun memutuskan untuk bertanya kepada Orang Bijak.

Abdi harus menempuh perjalanan yang melelahkan untuk bisa menemui Orang Bijak. Sungai dan gunung harus dilewati dengan berjalan kaki. Selama perjalanan udara sangat tidak bersahabat. Kalau siang udara terasa begitu panas sementara di malam hari udara menjadi begitu dingin. Abdi menghabiskan waktu tiga hari dan dua malam hingga akhirnya sampai di tempat pertapaan Orang Bijak.

Abdi pun segera menceritakan masalah yang sedang ia hadapi. Orang Bijak mendengar cerita Abdi dengan seksama. Akhirnya Orang Bijak berkata, “Mudah saja.” Baca Terus Donk!

I have been a supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton since the beginning of the 2008 American presidential campaign. Although most young Americans think that Obama is the right person to bring change to the old kind of American politics I choose to stand behind Hillary’s shoulder. I seriously think Hillary Clinton should be the next American President.

When I see Hillary Clinton I remember my mother’s countless sacrifices that she made when I was a fragile child suffering from asthma. I remember my mother’s story how she took me to the hospital every week and always hoped that I would gain more weight. She fought hard against people’s sarcasm and always told people proudly that someday I would be a smart man.

When I look at Hillary Clinton’s eyes I look at other women’s eyes in the world who work so hard without complaints for the sake of their husbands and children.

It was Hillary Clinton who stood by Bill Clinton during the most embarrassing sex scandal in the history of American politics. Hillary Clinton refused to let him go because she knew it was her duty as a wife to give her husband another chance.

In her 2003 memoir she said, “No one understands me better and no one can make me laugh the way Bill does. Even after all these years, he is still the most interesting, energizing and fully alive person I have ever met.”

Do you think Bill Clinton would have done the same thing if Hillary Clinton had committed sexual relations with other man? I don’t think so. He obviously would have left her. Read the Full Article