Some walks to remember

Occupying the home of knowledges,

Slicing the man's stone,

Slicing the life of green,

Lets stop talking and start throwing your vision around..the water is dancing, the flowers are blooming, and the birds are singing.

Crossing the black river without swimming,

Some walks are just walks,

Some walks are easy to forget,

Some walks are sited in your heart eternally,

A different main road, but together in the same lanes surrounded by a genuine selflessness feeling.

A journey of wisdom is not easy, you may have the best map and the best knowledge but you can always get lost.

Sunday Evening @humble room

Mother's Prayer (A Poet of Jalaluddin Rakhmat)

Ya Ghaffar, ya Rahim

Kau letakkan di rahim kami anak-anak ini

Kau amanatkan diri-diri mereka pada lindungan kasih-sayang kami

kau percayakan jiwa-jiwa mereka pada bimbingan ruhani kami

Kau hangatkan tubuh-tubuh mereka dengan dekapan cinta kami

Kau besarkan badan-badan mereka dengan aliran air susu kami

Tuhan kami, kami telah sia-siakan kepercayaan-Mu

kesibukan telah menyebabkan kami melupakan amanat-Mu

hawa nafsu telah menyeret kami untuk menelantarkan buah hati kami

tidak sempat kami gerakkan bibir-bibir mereka untuk berzikir kepada-Mu

tidak sempat kami tuntun mereka untuk membesarkan asma-Mu

tidak sempat kami tanamkan dalam hati mereka kecintaan kepada Nabi-Mu

Kami berlomba mengejar status dan kebanggaan

meninggalkan anak-anak kami dalam kekosongan dan kesepian

Kami memoles wajah-wajah kami dengan kepalsuan

membiarkan anak-anak kami meronta dalam kebisuan

Kami terlena memburu kesenangan

sehingga tak kami dengar lagi mereka menangis manja

sambil memandang kami dengan pandangan cinta

seperti dulu, ketika mereka mengeringkan air mata mereka

dalam kehangatan dada-dada kami

Dosa-dosa kami telah membuat anak-anak kami

menjadi pemberang, pembangkang, dan penentang-Mu

Dosa-dosa kami telah membuat hati mereka

keras, kasar, kejam, dan tidak tahu berterima kasih

Sebelum Engkau ampuni mereka, Ya Allah ampunilah lebih dahulu dosa-dosa kami

Ya Allah, berilah kami peluang untuk mendekap tubuh mereka

dengan dekapan kasih sayang kami

berilah kami waktu untuk melantunkan pada telinga mereka

ayat-ayat Alquran dan Sunnah Nabi-Mu

Berilah kami kesempatan untuk sering menghadap-Mu

dan memohon kepada-Mu seusai salat kami

untuk keselamatan, kesejahteraan, dan kebahagiaan anak-anak kami

Bangunkan kami di tengah malam untuk merintih kepada-Mu

mengadukan derita dan petaka yang menimpa anak-anak negeri ini.

Izinkan kami membasahi tempat sujud kami

dengan air mata penyesalan akan kelalaian kami

Ya Allah, ya Jabbar, ya Ghaffar

Anugerahkan kepada kami para pemimpin kami kearifan

untuk mendidik anak-anak negeri ini dalam

kesalehan Berikan kepada mereka petunjuk-Mu

sehingga mereka menjadi suri teladan bagi kami dan anak-anak kami

Limpahkan kepada mereka perlindungan-Mu

supaya mereka melindungi kami dengan keadilan-Mu

Jauhkan mereka dari kezaliman

sehingga kami dapat mengabdi-Mu dengan tentram dan aman

Ya Rahman, ya Rahim

Indahkan kehidupan kami dengan kesalehan anak-anak kami

Peliharalah anak-anak kami yang kecil

Kuatkanlah anak-anak kami yang lemah

Sucikan kalbu mereka

Bersihkan kehormatan mereka

Sehatkan badan mereka

Cerdaskan akal mereka

Indahkan akhlak mereka

Gabungkanlah mereka bersama orang-orang yang bertakwa kepada-Mu

yang mencintai Nabi-Mu, keluarganya yang suci, dan sahabatnya yang mulia

yang berbakti kepada orangtuanya yang bermanfaat kepada bangsanya

yang berkhidmat kepada sesama manusia

Wahai Zat yang nama-Nya menjadi pengobat

yang sebutan-Nya penyembuhan

yang ketaatan-Nya kecukupan

sayangi kami yang modalnya hanya harapan

dan senjatanya hanya tangisan 

My Notes:

Terimakasih Ibu untuk semuanya.

Terimakasih Istriku telah menjadi Ibu yang baik bagi anak-anak kita.

Terimakasih untuk para Ibu didunia yang telah memproduksi banyak kebajikan lewat cinta kasihnya.

Critical Review of Dambisa Moyo - Dead Aid

Dead Aid – Why Aid is Not Working and How There is Another Way for Africa by Dambisa Moyo

Moyo, Dambisa (2009). Dead Aid- Why Aid is Not Working and How There is Another Way for Africa.

Review by Anung Andang Wiratama, University of Sydney

For a long time, an enormous amount of aid from developed countries and international agencies has flowed to developing and undeveloped countries. During this period, aid has become the blood of recipient countries to finance their expenditures. However, poverty remains the major problem of recipient countries, particularly African countries. In her book, Death Aid, Moyo simply concludes that aid has failed to achieve their objectives. She also states, clearly written in the subtitle, that there is another way for Africa beside aid. Even though stopping aids is not a new idea, Moyo suggests new ideas that explain why aid is not working.

This review will only be based on chapter 2, A Brief History of Aid, and chapter 3, Aid is Not Working, of the book. This review will focus on the general view in chapter 2 and elaborate more about Moyo’s ideas in chapter 3. Chapter 3 consists of the main points of Moyo’s idea to stop aid that will be the main focus of this review. The main focuses are the relation between aids and democracy, the contribution of aids compared to other factors for worsening development in Africa, aid in practice and the role played by donor countries, and a consideration of the other side of altruism.

In chapter 2, Moyo briefly describe the history of aid and how the focus changed from the first era of aid in 1944 to the beginning of 2000. This chapter is not only provides data of aids but also chronologically analyzes the background why aid was given. Overall, this chapter gives details and a comprehensive overview on the history of aid as well as a fairly good introduction for the reader before entering the main arguments in the next chapter.

In chapter 3, she claims that democracy is not a prerequisite for economic growth, for example she describes the history of some Asian countries that enjoyed economic growth with autocratic regimes such as China, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand (p. 42). She also suggests that in the early stages of development, people are living in hunger therefore they do not care whether they have the right to vote or not. This notion is currently relevant to the case of some emerging countries such as China and India which have enjoyed magnificent economic growth without having democratic regimes. Thereby, this argument really touches the grounds of aid which according to the proponents of aid democracy should precede economic growth.

Moyo provocatively claims that aid not only fails to achieve its objectives but also contributes to the decreased growth rate in Africa continent. In contrast, she also admits that there are several factors that contribute to the failure of African countries to generate sustainable economic prosperity such as geographical, historical, cultural, tribal, and institutional problems (p.35). However, she undermines how those factors contribute to the worsening economies of African countries by arguing that the one thing African countries have in common is that they all depend on aid (p.35). It is true that there should be a way for African countries to generate economic prosperity despite those factors. Yet, a weakness in her argument is stopping the aids just because they all rely on aid will create more problems instead of solving the problem. Hence, further research is necessary to find how aid really contributes to the problem in African countries compared to the other factors mentioned above.

Theoretically, aid is given along with so many conditionalities which bind the recipient countries to use aid according to the rules and regulations. However, she mentions that a study conducted by the World Bank shows that 85% of aid flows were improperly used. Therefore, Moyo suggests that in practice those violations did not stop donor countries from providing the aids and it is supported by research conducted by Svensson (p.39). These facts shed light on the fact that it is not only the recipient countries who are supposed to be responsible for the failure of aid but also the donor countries which did not commit to stopping aid when it went wrong.

Moyo abundantly exposes how aid has failed to help recipient countries, except aid that was given to European countries through the Marshall Plan, along with strong evidences and facts to support her view. Additionally, she criticizes some celebrities such as Bono who promoted more aid for Africa. However, her cynical critics must consider the fact that there are still many people living in hunger and aid has enabled many people to stay alive despite severe humanitarian disasters such as drought in Ethiopia and refugees from conflict in some African countries. In this way, we will get a balanced view of altruism promoted by those celebrities.

Although stopping aid is not a new idea, Moyo’s book is clearly provocative and fundamentally creates a new perspective that represents the voice of African countries. In general, it touches broader aspects of aid and undoubtedly shows that during the long history of aid African countries have failed to create economic prosperity. It also should inspire African leaders to find more creative and innovative solutions rather than depend on aid. Whereas aid is perhaps only a short term solution, long term economic growth can only be build by empowering domestic economic sources through competitive free market mechanisms.