In 1970s, some young activists were regularly holding discussion on various topics, including on nationhood and Islam. Everytime they finish a discussion, one of them wrote his own impression on the debated stuff in his diary. When he died in a hit-and-run accident in 1971, his friends in the forum circle published his diary into a book called Pergolakan Pemikiran Islam. His name’s Ahmad Wahib considered by many as one of early Indonesian Muslim reformer.
CONTENTS
Blogger Indonesia of the Week (70): Kafe Depok
The other two are Nucholis Madjid and Dawam Rahardjo. The former is the icon of Indonesian Muslim intellectual, while the latter is a prominent intellectual who contributes a lot to the journey of Indonesia as well as Islamic discourse with his influential journal, Ulumul Quran which is now unfortunately no longer published. Ulumul Quran has helped in a great deal in shaping up the mind and skill of many potential young intellectuals.
What I’d like to say here is that some activities in our young ages that we might consider as peripheral sometimes turns out to be playing more important role than things we used to think as more significant.Now, that culture of discussion circle still going on among spirited academician from some respected universities. With the internet help, in the form of blog, that “local activities” becomes globalised.
It starts from the same curiosity that Kafe Depok’s blog came into existence a year ago. According to one of its contributor, Berly
“Kafe Depok is short for kantin FEUI (faculty of economy universitas Indonesia–ed.) Depok where we all shared cherish time of heated discussion on Indonesian economy and social justice as idealistic undergrad.”
Berly also explains the reason behind the blog creation
“Now that we are separated in geography but (hopefully) more mature and more knowledgeable, we seek to transfer the discussion on line and share it with wider audience. Furthermore, we are eager to unearth from the European way, the kinder, gentler capitalism that care more for social justice and environment, for a better Indonesia.”
I am glad and congratulate them, the Kafe Depok crews, that the “discussion culture” is still rolling despite the geographical barrier among them. Since, this blessing-in-disguise thing will not only unite them, more importantly it’d benefit others: for Indonesians who are interested with economic matters and to know the voice of young-intellectual conscience; and for non-Indonesians who want to know about Indonesia from its younger-generation perspective. A generation that will shape the Indonesian future.
For me as a blogger, I feel even happier to see that Kafe Depok understands very well the “art” of blogging. The art of interactivity and show of humility. Academicians used to be dubbed as the “ivory tower” who used to expect accolade and standing ovation from the bottom without any need to reach out to them. In the blogging world, there’s no such “one side love.” One have to love another literally in order to be loved. The top-bottom and bottom-top interactivity are the kind of a new culture the blogosphere has contributed in a big way that makes me become one of its most rigorous supporter.
Blogger Indonesia of the Week (71): Oman Fathurahman
Oman Fathurahman UINOman Fathurahman has many dimensions as far as I am concerned. On blogging, he’s my “student”, on humility he’s obviously my teacher and as a person with pesantren background, he should be an inspiration for all santris (those who study and or graduated from pesantren) for his academic quest.
Make no mistake, we’ve never met nor have we ever exchanged emails. A couple of times he just left messages in the guestbook of this blog asking some technical matters regarding blogging nitty-gritty. There are times when a strong personality (good or bad) does not need to make any strong statement to make his or her true character visible. Oman is among those persons whose humble and simple personality is so clear to me to the extent that I want to meet in person someday just to say, “Hi!”
Of course, his qualification as “Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Department of Oriental Studies (Malaiologi), University of Cologne, Germany” who are proud to be brought up in a pesantren has added up the already long list of santri-turn-researcher longer. And the fact that he’s now blogging in English make his blog content highly eligible and credible to be heard beyond Indonesia.Speaking of pesantren graduates, I remember that in 1970s and 1980s the santris became a joke among Muslim intellectuals. At that time, the santris who held a PhD degree is a rarity. That’s why when Aswab Mahasin, a prominent intellectual got his PhD in 1970s he became the first and only PhD holder. Now, person like Oman Fathurahman become a common phenomenon some of them even teach in Harvard University.
Pesantren and santri represent the rural society–the majority of our population. It, therefore, symbolizes the backwardness or forwardness of our people. The higher their education the better not only for themselves, the majority, but also for the nation as a whole. And for that, one who comes from the same background with him should take inspiration from him not only for his unquenched thirst to pursue further study but also to maintain the humble attitude when you are at the top of the tower, a quality which becomes a long tradition among santri.
Blogger Indonesia of the Week (72): Supriyadi Slamet Widodo
supriyadi swSo far as blogging software platform goes, particularly for self-hosted blog/website, wordpress undoubtedly stands out among the rest. Matt Mullenweg, the young humble whizzkid wordpress founder (he created the software at the age of 19, four years ago.), must be very happy with this. He deserves to be.
One and most important reason for wordpress outstanding popularity is its opennes to plugins from anyone. Thus, coders aournd the world compete to create their most creative and innovative plugins and hence a bunch of very useful plugins flooded the wordpress world for everyone to use.
Among those outstanding wordpress plugins developers are an Indonesian named Supriyadi Slamet Widodo. “I was born in Klaten City and now I live in Jakarta, Indonesia. I work at Nokia Siemens Network since April 1, 2007 as OAM IN Engineer for Telkomsel Project,” says he in his self-introductory remarks.He tells us further about what kind of plugins he has already created:
I have contributed to community with my several projects, eg. Gaim NuoveXT Icon Theme, AdSense Beautifier, Krakal WordPress Theme, AdSense Click Tracker Plugin for WordPress, Hot Dates Plugin for WordPress, Statcounter Plugin for WordPress Admin, Statcounter Module for Drupal, Gaim Guifications OSX Theme, and many more.
One of his wordpress plugins, AdSense Beautifier, seems to be the most popular. Pchere of Quick Online Tips, places his Adsense Beautifier plugins at the top ten Adsense plugins.
Despite some controversies regarding the newly-updated AdSense new regulation in which images are no longer allowed to appear side by side with AdSense ads, the fact remains that his wordpress plugins has attracted so much attention worldwide. The lesson learnt for other Indonesian coders: (1) Try to contribute to ever-growing wordpress plugins; and (2) no less important, blog it in English.
I, indeed we, should be proud of him. Internet world has made everyone a chance to contribute to the world and make one known in his/her own way. Of course on one condition: if you write what you want the world to know in English. Supriyadi does just that.
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