Archive for the ‘Teropong’ Category

Dicari: Iron-Chef Muslim

Posted 27 Jul 2009 — by Ahmad Muttaqin
Category Teropong

Chef

Sertifikasi halal ini, yang didesain sebagai bentuk kontrol dan pemberian jaminan keotentikan sebuah produk, sebenarnya berakar pada hilangnya kepercayaan atautrust konsumen terhadap produsen. Karena itu, selalin melalui nalar kuasa sertifikisai, kenapa tidak juga ditempuh jalan kultural dengan mencetak produsen2 jujur sebanyak-banyaknya? Sayangnya, sulit –atau memang belum ada– perguruan tinggi Islam yang punya program studi terkait permakanan seperti tata boga, hospitality, perhotelan, dll dan bereputasi cemerlang.

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Islamic Cleric among Indonesian “Modernist” Muslims

Posted 25 Jul 2009 — by Ahmad Muttaqin
Category English, Teropong

…it would be a problematic to generalize the norm of Islamic Clerics among Indonesian Modernist Muslims. The ‘faces’ of modernist Muslims are changing just as other institutions where polarization is one of the characteristics. The clerical authority among reformist Muslim in Indonesia is now, especially after reformation era, more multi-polar and more plural than ever before.

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Cukup Satu Kali

Posted 16 Jul 2009 — by Ahmad Muttaqin
Category Teropong

number-oneMenutut Foucault, pemenang dalam partarungan politik bukan siapa yang memperoleh suara terbanyak tapi siapa yang menentukan aturan main pertandingan itu. Masalahnya, apa yang akan terjadi bila diantara petarung teryata merangkap sebagai pembuat aturan? Itulah mengapa incumbent selalu memiliki lebih banyak kapital menang dibanding peserta lain.

Meski berbagai aturan telah sedemikian rupa mengeliminir campur tangan incumbent pada lembaga idependent pelaksana pertadingan, namun relasi kuasa antar lembaga yang berpusat pada the incumbent menjadikan lembaga tersebut sulit bisa netral 100%. Pun demikian juga pada lembaga pengawas dan perangkat penegak hukum lain yang dibentuk untuk mengontrol kerja pelaksana. Yang sering terjadi, laporan dari incumbent biasanya direspon dengan cepat, sementara laporan atas kecurangan incumbent cenderung diabaikan. Read More

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Konsumerisme Pilpres

Posted 09 Jul 2009 — by Ahmad Muttaqin
Category Teropong

media-changeTampaknya budaya konsumer kembali menuai keberhasilan. Untuk sekian kalinya image, pesona dan kepopuleran seseorang menjadi preferensi pilihan, mengalahkan program, rekam jejak dan visi yang ditawarkan. Sebagaimana kontes bintang/idol, yang terpilih adalah mereka yang dicitrakan sesuai dengan selera pemirsa. Budaya konsumtif yang dibesarkan oleh media massa sukses menggesar paradigma “yang benar” menjadi “yang popular”. Kebenaran itu sendiri menjadi sangat relatif tergantung dari sisi mana subyek melihat obyek. Untuk mengiring perspesi subyek terhadap obyek, diperlukan rekayasa media yang sistematik terencana, terprogram, dan terntu saja berbiaya mahal.  

Pilpress 2009 kemarin menggambarkan fenomena itu. Semua pasangan all out menghadirkan citra terbaiknya melalui media. Belanja iklan dan building image menempati porsi paling dominan. Sayangnya, rakyat digiring hanya bisa menerima informasi sepihak, seolah-olah pribadi orang tersebut sempurna. Kalaupun ada informasi miring yang biasanya dilontarkan kubu lawan, buru-buru ditangkis sebagai bentuk black-campaign. Hilanglah hak audiens untuk tahu informasi utuh tentang si calon. Maka pertarungan yang sesunggunya adalah penguasaan media agar ia selalu menjual “kebenaran hibrida” sesuai kehendak pabrik pesona.

Kenapa isyarat, bahasa tubuh, juga pernyataan terang-terangan dari beberapa kyai, ulama serta tokoh dan pimpinan ormas tidak berbuah? Jawabnya mungkin, para kyai, ulama dan tokoh ormas tersebut berada pada putaran “permainan” yang tidak imbang melawan raksasa konsumersime-popularisme. Dengan argumen “kulli al-haq walau kaana murran” (ungkaplah kebenaran itu meski akibatnya pahit) kelompok pertama menyuarakan ontology kebenaran itu sendiri, sementara yang kedua bermain pada dataran epistemology. Dari kaca mata budaya konsumer seruan kyai dan ulama dari mimbar-mimbar agama tidak lagi memiliki “tuah”, hanya dilihat sebagai wacana sebagaimana berita di TV, radio dan Koran. Dengan sokongan kapitalisme, isyarat dan seruan agamawan diperlakukan media tak ubahnya seperti infotainment, hanya sebagai hiburan, bukan anjuran. Apalagi di tengah menjamurnya — meminjam istilah Kuntowijoyo “Muslim tanpa Masjid” — kelas menengah indepent yang tidak lagi mau terikat dengan paham keagamaan juga politik aliran. Semakin sukses konsumerisme memprodusir “kebenaran”.

Bila ditelusuri lebih jauh, kekalahan perang wacana antara pemimpin informal dengan raksasa media ini berpangkal pada belum adanya media massa kuat dan representatif atau pelaku media independent yang tidak terjebak pada hukum dagang dan kapitalisme. Sebenarnya, kesadaran membangun media komunikasi bebasis komunitas yang independent sudah lama muncul. Namun kenapa realisasinya begitu seret atau malah mandeg? Entah sampai kapan kita mampu belajar dari peristiwa yang selalu berulang. 

Sumber foto: http://www.america.gov/publications/ejournalusa/1207.html

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Recreational-therapeutic Spirituality vs. Religious Moral

Posted 06 Jul 2009 — by Ahmad Muttaqin
Category English, Teropong

sholat-di-jalan

Some people are worry about the burgeoning of spiritual centers in urban areas. They question why do people living in a modern city drifted by rationalism, individualism and secular point of view participate in spiritual groups considered as irrational and backwards? Does not it reflect the ambiguity or even paradox of modern people? While, may be it is true that modern people are full of paradoxes, or they are even have lost their modern orientations, but the trend is indeed a sign of natural cultural process.

Human beings, wherever and whenever, cannot be reduced into just technical parts of society. Man and woman posses mind, body, and spirit (soul). To some extent modern cultures have successfully provide minds and body’s needs but unable to feed spiritual thirstiness. A huge number of modern people are now living in anxious and continuously searching for medium to balance their life. Spiritual centers appearing in neo-Sufism, yoga, meditation, holism, reiki, Human Potential Movement, and many others, are sort of urban institution to furnish modern people.

It seems, however, that current urban spiritual centres are not merely for balancing modern life. Due to high demand of spiritual markets and the ability of urban people to purchase whatever spiritual cost, the centres develop programs that are suitable for the modern: instant, systematically programmed, easily to be performed, and commodified. The result is spiritual hybrid form greater emphasis on practical efficacy rather than piety and morals for social control. Participating in spiritual centres is narrowed just for recreational and therapeutic purposes. Spirituality is seen as a panacea of exhausted modern culture.

rumi mediation-club yoga

For many people, involving in spiritual centre will be more interesting and enjoyable than performing religion. For them, religion only teaches restrictions and rules; forbids people doing this and that in order to follow certain tenet. Will religious values as social control lost out and be replaced by pragmatic spiritual efficacies? Will spirituality successfully take over religion (Carrette and King, 2005)? As long as religious elites neglect this socio-religious and cultural shifts and are failed to provide appropriate spiritual canals for urban people, the fate of religions are really in “danger.”

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Academicals Slave

Posted 29 Jun 2009 — by Ahmad Muttaqin
Category English, Teropong

 

“Hi there…,  another academicals slave.”  These cynical words are shouted by a PhD student, a friend of mine, when we meet each other. He is a very senior Australian, more than 60 years old. I and my Chinese friend always laugh hearing that “sarcastic” joke. Although it is just a joke, I think it reflects actual protest behind the words.

tangga-buku2

In Australian context, PhD students are doubting about government ability to provide job that suitable for Ph.D graduates. The amounts of scholarships are also questioned because they got scholarship, according to them, in relatively low. In fact, monthly stipend from Australian government for Australian students is twice times more than that is provided for non Australian. Let’s say Ausaid scholarship gives about $20 thousand AUD per non Australian students per year; its mean Australian students can receive about $40 thousand AUD a year. Nevertheless, they are still protesting because, as a comparison, a low level air conditioning technician can earn more than $50 thousand AUD a year! They are questioning why the government do not appreciate PhD students’ brain because they actually also work, developing new theories and inventories.

Let’s do another comparison and take a glance looking at scholarship from other institutions. A Brunei student told me that they got about $6 thousand AUD a month. Saudis students got scholarship including family allowance that I guess no less than $10 thousand AUD a month. A friend of mine who is studying in Uni of Wollongong reporten to me that Indonesian army who studying there receive $3,000.00 AUD a month. Comparing to other scholarships, then, who are the real ‘academicals slave’? Are I and many friends of mine who got only $1.5 thousands AUD a month, which is frequently coming late, are the real and low level of ‘academicals slave’?

For me, academicals slavery is not based on how much stipend we get every month, but it is based on how free we are to develop theory and knowledge in our project. We are not academics slave as along as we can access information we want freely. We are not academicals slave as long as we can determine our own intellectual trajectories. Otherwise, no matter how much one earns monthly stipend but his/her intellectual vision are banned and restricted by certain body, he or she is the real ‘academicals slave’.

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