Bincang prediksi COVID mutakhir dengan dua teknokrat top AS

2020-07-11 hamdanilcoronavirus, covid-19, kesehatan, wawancaraLeave a comment

Karena banyaknya berita yang berasal dari Gedung Putih, banyak yang lupa bahwa Amerika Serikat adalah salah satu kiblat ilmiah dunia.

Lembaga-lembaga pemerintah non kementerian, seperti National Institutes of Health (NIH, Institut Kesehatan Nasional) dan National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID, Institut Nasional Untuk Alergi dan Penyakit Menular) bukan hanya bertindak sebagai birokrasi, tetapi juga termasuk institut ilmiah terkemuka dunia di bidangnya. Pimpinannya bukan dipegang politisi, tetapi teknokrat-teknokrat kelas dunia, misalnya Dr. Anthoni Fauci, ilmuwan dan dokter terkemuka dunia di bidang penyakit menular yang menjabat sebagai Direktur NIAID, dan Dr. Francis Collins, Direktur NIH.

6 Juli ini, dr. Collins mewawancara dr. Fauci dalam sebuah video call yang ditayangkan secara livestream. Kedua jenius di bidangnya ini nongkrong dengan obrolan yang yang padat berisi informasi tentang situasi COVID-19 yang saat ini melanda Amerika Serikat dan dunia internasional, tetapi disajikan agar dapat diikuti penonton awam. Video lengkapnya bisa dilihat di sini: Dr. Anthony Fauci discusses the coronavirus with top U.S. health official, dan dibawah ini adalah beberapa poin yang saya sarikan dalam bahasa Indonesia

Bagaimana kondisi COVID-19 di AS sekarang?

Bisa dibilang buruk. Angka kasus dan kematian terus naik, dan tidak bisa disamakan dengan “second wave” yang terjadi di negara lain seperti negara-negara Eropa. Di Eropa gelombang kasus sudah turun drastis dan kenaikan sekarang hanyalah riak-riak kecil karena ekonomi dibuka lagi. Sedangkan di AS baru turun sedikit tapi sudah melonjak lagi, jadi ini masih dihitung “first wave” yang masih terus semakin parah.

Apa yang bisa dilakukan masyarakat?

Selalu menjaga jarak, jangan ke tempat keramaian. Selalu gunakan masker saat di luar rumah dan ada kemungkinan berkontak dengan orang lain. Jika memang harus ada acara kecil-kecilan, lakukan outdoor (luar ruangan), lebih aman dibanding indoor (dalam ruangan)

Apakah kalau muda tidak harus memikirkan menjaga jarak?

Jangan merasa takabur walaupun masih muda. Memang efek COVID-19 untuk anak muda tidak separah untuk orang tua, tetapi tetap saja banyak kasus yang menyebabkan anak muda sakit selama berminggu-minggu sehingga tidak bisa beraktivitas normal. Selain itu, anak muda tetap terinfeksi (walaupun tidak menimbulkan gejala) sehingga acara ngumpul-ngumpul anak muda menjadi perantara penularan bagi setiap orang tua, kakek, nenek, om-tante, dari mereka yang datang.

Bagaimana proses pengembangan vaksinasi saat ini?

Ada banyak yang sedang dikembangkan menggunakan berbagai strategi, dan beberapa melibatkan lembaga-lembaga pemerintah. Pengembangan vaksin selalu bersifat trial-and-error (metode coba-coba, setiap “calon vaksin” memiliki risiko kegagalan), sebelum akhirnya berhasil ditemukan dan dibuktikan calon yang aman dan efektif.

Jika berjalan lancar, mungkin bulan Juli, Agustus, September, Oktober akan ada percobaan tahap 3 (menguji keampuhan/efficacy di lapangan) untuk calon vaksin yang lolos percobaan tahap 1 dan 2 (menguji keamanan dan reaksi antibodi di laboratorium). Baru pada akhir 2020 atau awal 2021 baru akan diketahui hasilnya apakah calon-calon ini terbukti aman dan efektif. Hasilnya tidak bisa dipastikan dari sekarang.

Bagaimana proses produksi vaksin dipercepat?
Metode uji klinis tidak bisa dikompromikan. Vaksin harus bisa membuktikan keamanan dan keampuhannya di lapangan tanpa terkecuali. Untuk mempercepat, perusahaan memproduksi berbagai calon vaksin dari sekarang, walaupun uji klinisnya belum selesai. Kalau ternyata nanti lulus uji, sejumlah besar dosis vaksin bisa langsung dipakai. Untuk yang tidak lulus uji, semua calon vaksin yang telah dibuat itu akan dimusnahkan.

Dengan kata lain, berbagai perusahaan atau lembaga mengambil risiko membelanjakan uang dan sumber daya untuk produksi calon vaksin yang mereka tahu kemungkinan besar akan dimusnahkan, demi mempercepat produksi beberapa bulan kalau-kalau uji vaksinnya berhasil. Yang dikorbankan hanyalah uang investasi, tidak ada kompromi dalam keamanan dan keampuhan.

Bagaimana sih pengujian tahap 3 itu dilakukan?

Pengujian melibatkan 30.000 orang di daerah yang terkena penyebaran virus. 15.000 orang menerima calon vaksin, dan 15.000 orang lagi menerima placebo (suntikan palsu). Dari membandingkan kedua kelompok inilah bisa diketahui apakah vaksin itu benar-benar berfungsi dan bukan cuma sugesti atau kebetulan untuk segelintir orang saja. Pengujian dilakukan di berbagai tempat di AS dan mancanegara.

Partisipasi masyarakat dibutuhkan untuk menjadi sukarelawan, terutama dari kelompok-kelompok yang rawan dan seberagam mungkin. Dari percobaan tahap 1 dan 2, keamanan vaksin sudah dibuktikan, sehingga tidak perlu takut menjadi “kelinci percobaan”. Fungsi tahap 3 adalah membuktikan keampuhan di lapangan.

Bagaimana dengan pengobatan?

Ada beberapa obat yang sudah terbukti secara klinis dan diterima oleh berbagai lembaga regulasi, tetapi untuk kondisi tertentu saja dan efeknya juga terbatas. Sedang dicari obat yang ampuh untuk orang yang berada dalam tahap awal penyakit, karena biasanya semakin cepat ditangani, semakin baik peluang kesembuhannya.

Apakah vaksinasi akan menimbulkan kekebalan seumur hidup?

Belum tahu. Belum tentu vaksin COVID akan seperti vaksin campak yang sekali divaksinasi akan kebal seumur hidup. Masih perlu diteliti apakah nanti akan perlu dosis rutin, misalnya setiap siklus penyakit (6 bulan atau 1 tahun). Tetapi paling tidak, vaksinasi akan memberikan kekebalan selama satu siklus.

Apakah orang yang sembuh dari COVID bisa kena lagi?

Belum tercatat ada kasus orang yang sembuh terus terkena infeksi lagi, dalam artian virus kembali memperbanyak diri di dalam tubuh. Yang ditemukan selama ini, hanyalah orang sembuh lalu masih ada sisa-sisa virus yang terdeteksi dalam tes PCR, dan ini wajar. Menurut perkiraan Fauci, sangat kecil kemungkinan orang yang sudah sembuh untuk sakit kembali, kecuali untuk kasus yang sangat langka.

Bagaimana dengan mutasi virus?
Golongan virus RNA (termasuk COVID) memang selalu bermutasi, tetapi tidak semua mutasi itu berbahaya. Sejauh ini, mutasi-mutasi yang ditemukan pada COVID-19 tidak menimbulkan “konsekuensi fungsional” yang berarti, menurut Fauci.

Apakah siswa akan bisa kembali ke sekolah di tahun ajaran depan? (keterangan: Sekarang sekolah-sekolah AS sedang libur tengah tahun atau musim panas)

Untuk sekolah lokal, seperti SD dan SMP, tergantung kondisi setempat. Ada kabupaten-kabupaten di AS yang kasusnya memang 0, jadi bisa aman untuk membuka sekolah. Tetapi untuk daerah dalam situasi COVID19 aktif, menutup sekolah terus menerus ada efek negatifnya juga, yang tidak bisa diabaikan. Kalau memang ingin membuka sekolah, harus kreatif dalam mengubah kondisi sekolah untuk menghindari penyebaran. Misal: mengubah jadwal, menjauhkan tata letak meja, mewajibkan masker, mengizinkan sebagian siswa (yang lebih rentan penyakit) untuk memilih belajar online.

Intinya, semua tergantung kondisi perkembangan COVID di lokasi setempat. Artinya, testing (pengujian) harus benar-benar ditingkatkan sehingga setiap daerah bisa tahu dengan jelas kondisi masing-masing.

Apakah para pakar kesehatan masyarakat cenderung mengabaikan ekonomi dan kondisi sosial, dengan selalu menggalakkan metode-metode seperti menjaga jarak dan menghindari aktivitas?
Jangan dianggap begitu. Semua pihak, termasuk pakar kesehatan, juga sangat ingin agar roda ekonomi berjalan lagi. Metode-metode seperti lockdown dan menjaga jarak bukan bertujuan mematikan ekonomi, justru itulah jalan yang akan membawa ekonomi bergerak lagi. Fauci lalu meminta masyarakat untuk bersabar menunggu sementara para pakar kesehatan menggunakan sains untuk menemukan jalan keluar dari kondisi sekarang ini.

‘Java Heat’ (2013): Review and cultural explanation

2018-04-13 hamdanilIndonesia, Java Heat, moviesLeave a comment

So, my wife and I watched Java Heat from Netflix. It’s a Hollywood cop action movie, set and shot in Indonesia. The heroes are an Indonesian cop, Hashim (Ario Bayu), and an American “art history professor”, Jake (Kellan Lutz), who investigate the death of a Javanese princess (Atiqah Hasiholan). It’s an okay movie in terms of storyline, but in terms of cultural depiction, I think it got a lot right about Indonesia. It got low rating and negative reviews in the West. I’m not sure why; I quite enjoyed watching it. I’m very pleased by the effort to depict Indonesia (its culture, ambiance) accurately, even though it’s not perfect.

In this post, I’ll try to explain a bit the cultural background in this movie. Hopefully it clears things up for non-Indonesians.

Background: Indonesia

Indonesia is a developing country in Southeast Asia. Despite not being in the news a lot, actually it’s the fourth most populous country in the world. As alluded in the movie, it has a Muslim majority and also sizable religious minorities (including Christian and Buddhists depicted in the movie). There’s also ethnic diversity, but in this movie most Indonesians depicted are Javanese (the largest ethnic group) – which quite makes sense given the premise of the story is in Java. There’s some degree of intolerance and extremism – these too are in the movie – but largely people live in peaceful coexistence, symbolized in the movie as the friendship between Hashim—a devout Muslim cop—and his cop partner who is a devout Christian.

“The Sultanate of Java”

sultan_hamengkubuwana_x_official — Hamengkubuwono X, current Sultan of Yogyakarta

There is literally no “Sultanate of Java”, as the movie puts it, but the Sultanate and the royal family here closely mirror the Sultanate of Yogyakarta. Indonesia is a republic, but due to historical legacy, one of its provinces, Yogyakarta, is governed by a monarchy instead of an elected governor. The current Sultan (and Governor) is Sultan Hamengkubuwono X. So the royal family part is not entirely made up. However, the movie exaggerates the influence of the royal family. The princess would not be the “most revered woman” in Indonesia. The royal influence were strong only in their domain, the Yogyakarta Special Region – which makes up less than 2% of Indonesia by population. Meanwhile, the rest of Indonesians do not have any strong attachment—reverence or otherwise—towards this royal family.

Ambiance and culture

The movie was shot in Indonesia and the ambiance and culture were depicted quite accurately. The cops, the royal family, the royal guardsmen, wear the right uniform or costume. What the American cop disingenuously calls “Hawaiian shirt” is actually batik and it is the formal dress for parties. It’s also true that people especially kids kiss the hands of elders as sign of respect. Many chase scenes take place in alleys surrounded by houses, populated by street peddlers and navigable only by motorcycles: this is really how a lot of suburban Java look like.

Cultural inaccuracies

Well the movie’s not perfect. One of the most jarring cultural weirdness is when Jake meets Vitria—Hashim’s wife, a Muslim woman who wears hijab—he greets her by kisses on the cheeks. Dude, if this happened in real life it would be a huge faux pas.

javanese guards2 — The sultan’s palace guards in the movie

There’s also the depiction of royal guards. The Yogyakarta monarchy is not sovereign and it has no real army. Instead, it has royal guards who serve ceremonial purpose. However. as far as I know they do not function as elite commando as depicted in Java Heat. In the movie the troops are young, as well as well-trained in martial arts and modern rifles. One of them even fires an iPad-guided rocket launcher at some point. In reality, they are really ceremonial guards,

IMG_20160731_100054 — The guards in reality

often made up of aged traditional courtiers, and bear traditional weapons like keris and very old muskets.

The main characters

I should also mention that I like the way they combine the duo of an Indonesian and an American as the heroes. For sure, the movie is a Hollywood one, and i needs to have a Western character for the audience to relate to, but the Indonesian counterpart isn’t bad. In fact, Hashim is depicted as a wise and highly educated family man, contrasted with the often careless and culturally insensitive Jake. Hashim even corrects Jake on his Shakespeare lines! Though to be honest, Shakespeare isn’t well studied in Indonesia and this part seems unrealistic to me.

Language

In the movie, main characters mainly speak English, including when Hashim talks to his general (both Indonesian). In reality, English fluency is very low in Indonesia, and it’s extremely rare that Indonesians would speak English to each other in a normal situation, like depicted in the movie. With each other, Indonesians would speak Indonesian (aka Bahasa Indonesia), the national language, or sometimes a regional language like Javanese. But I understand why the movie does this, it’s to make the movie easier to follow for non-Indonesian. As a plus, in my opinion the Indonesian actors in this movie speak very good English with just the right amount of Indonesian accent.

Other minor nitpicks:

In the beginning scene, the Indonesian police watches a surveillance video using a black-and-white TV of the 80’s. Come on, do we really need to exaggerate Indonesia’s backwardness before starting the movie?
When Anton, (the Christian cop) died, Hashim took care of the funeral with a clearly Muslim ritual (e.g. ritual washing, mosque). This strikes me as weird, realistically it should be the deceased family would take care of the burial in a Christian way. Wouldn’t they be offended for Anton to be buried as Muslim?
Gunfights in broad daylight in Indonesia. I get that this is an action movie, which must have gunfights, but guns are really rare in Indonesia, and people would be super freaked out if there’s a gunfight in the city.
In the Borobudur scene—the crowd recognizes that the princess is being kidnapped—but they just let her and the kidnapper pass to the temple? Isn’t it easy to tackle him in that crowd?
The Sultan’s advisor is called “vizier”, even in Indonesian? It’s an English word borrowed from the Arabic “wazir”, but neither term is used in the context of a Javanese monarchy. Would “patih” be a more accurate term?
The Sultan’s guardsman has a rocket launcher and fires it in broad daylight in the city, guided by an iPad :O Too badass to be true.

In defense of ngontrak rumah

2018-03-172018-03-17 hamdanilinvestasi, properti, rumahLeave a comment

Takdir saya so far hidup di daerah-daerah dengan harga perumahan yang mahalnya gak karuan. Baik ketika di Singapura maupun ketika di SF Bay Area. Dengan harga rumah yang mahal seringkali pilihan yang tersedia hanyalah terus mengontrak atau beli rumah dengan KPR atau mortgage dan itupun harus mengumpulkan uang lama untuk membayar DP nya.

Kadang suka mendengar teman-teman yang galau karena mengontrak dan mengira kalau mengontrak itu ibarat membakar uang tanpa pernah memiliki asetnya. Dulu saya pun berpikiran begitu, tapi setelah baca-baca ternyata pemikiran seperti ini mungkin ilusi saja. Dengan sedikit riset dan mengolah data saya menulis tulisan yang dimuat di Bolasalju—sebuah situs edukasi investasi pribadi, dengan judul: Mengontrak Rumah, Bakar Uang? Di artikel ini saya meninjau dengan hitung-hitungan matematis dan data historis, membandingkan strategi membeli rumah dengan KPR versus mengontrak rumah dan menginvestasikan selisih yang tidak masuk KPR setelah dikurangi uang kontrakan. Kalau dari perhitungan sayam terlihat bahwa mitos bahwa ngontrak rumah = bakar uang itu tidak mesti benar. Silakan disimak, mudah-mudahan bisa mengurangi galau 😀

Link: Mengontrak Rumah, Bakar Uang? di bolasalju.com

Terima kasih untuk Mas Arif Widianto dari bolasalju yang bersedia mengedit dan memuat tulisan saya.

Account of a Muslim funeral in Indonesia (Pekanbaru 2017)

2018-01-172018-01-17 hamdanilfuneral, IndonesiaLeave a comment

My dad passed away on November 2017 in our family home, Pekanbaru, Indonesia. I am writing this account for posterity, a kind of log which hopefully will be useful for me in the future and for you, my reader, whatever your reason for reading this is. I try to write in a matter-of-fact way, and to minimize editorializing or emotional content.

My dad passed away at 5am, a few minutes after finishing his dawn prayer. I (his eldest), my mom, brother and 2 sisters were all there as well as some relatives. It was, of course, a very sad event for all of us.

After the initial emotions subsided, we began the necessary processes for his funeral. Unlike some other cultures where funeral wouldn’t happen before many days, in the Islamic tradition it is preferred to bury the deceased as soon as possible.

We made calls to some close friends and relatives to break the news (they would disseminate the news to even more friends and relatives). Both my parents are from Kamang Hilir, about 5 hours by car from Pekanbaru, and many of our extended families there left for Pekanbaru that early morning.

One my mother’s sisters lived just 15 minutes away from our home. Her family knew many of our neighbors (they used to live in the same neighborhood), and her husband (my uncle) was often involved in community events, so once they arrived, he emerged as the de-facto coordinator of the funeral process. Initially, I was thinking about getting supplies and arranging logistics for the funeral rituals and burial, but he told me not to worry and explained that “the community” (i.e. our neighbors) would usually take care of it, in accordance to the Islamic principle that the funeral of a Muslim was the responsibility of not just the immediate family, but of the Muslim community where he lives.

He directed us to clear the living room area because “soon everyone would be here”, and then woke up the Ketua RT and other neigborhood notables. Before we know it, dozens of neighbors (whom we knew) arrived to volunteer, helped with cleaning the house and putting away stuff, brought the funeral supplies, set up (open-air) tents and portable chairs on the street in front of our house, and directed traffic/parking for the incoming funeral attendees.

Meanwhile, we decided on the funeral time and place. One of our neighbors secured a funeral lot less than 1 km from our house, and we went for it–over the objection of a few Kamang Hilir relatives who wanted him to be buried in his birth village. We decided the funeral prayer and the burial would take place immediately after Dhuhr (midday prayer) at the mosque. As the eldest, I would lead (be the imam for) the funeral prayer (salat al-janazah).

We wrapped my dad and moved him to the living room downstairs, and our neighbors, friends, colleagues, and relatives began streaming in to say their condolences and see my dad for the last time. The immediate family (my mom, me, my siblings) were seated on the floor next to him; we met and shook hands with the guests. Everyone were very sympathetic, many offered consoling words and their help if needed. Then they waited in the tents for the funeral after noon. Since words already got out, streams of WhatsApp messages also came directly or in groups I was part of. I also took the opportunity to re-memorize the recitations for the funeral prayer that I’d lead.

At around 10.45 we proceeded with the bathing (ghusl) of the deceased, part of the Islamic funeral process. It was done in our garage. The logistics were taken care of by our neighbors–they were obviously experienced in this. They set up a platform were we laid the body down, and a hose was set up underneath it which drained water to the ditch (selokan). There were buckets of water and other supplies as well. A blind covered the garage, so that people could not see this private affair from outside. Me, my brother, my uncle, and some of my dad’s nephews cleaned and bathed my dad, as well as a couple trusted religiously-learned neighbors to ensure that it was ritually correct. Then we shrouded the body, and put him on the bier in our front porch.

Here everyone gathered, and a small function was held. My uncle, representing the family, gave a short speech, formally announcing the passing of my dad, asking for the attendees’s forgiveness and prayers for my dad and thanking everyone for coming. Then there were three eulogy-like speeches, first from our Ketua RW, then from one of our mosque’s notables, and then from a representative of my dad’s University. They praised my dad as someone with integrity, discipline, and spoke of his eagerness to help others and contribute to society. Our family had been one of the first to move in the neighborhood, and my dad had played no small role in the nascent community as well as in the founding and early management of our neighborhood mosque. Then a prayer (du’a) led by one of the regular imams from the mosque. Throughout all this, people stood in our yard and the street in front of it, under the heat of Pekanbaru sun just before noon.

At the end of this function, it was less than half an hour before Dhuhr time. People began to walk to the mosque, which was literally across the street from our home. My dad was also moved there in the bier. I managed a quick lunch–our neighbors were gracious enough to bring us food,–made my ablution (wudu) and went to the mosque. It was not yet Dhuhr time, but the mosque was already overflowing. This was my childhood mosque and I had attended funeral prayers for other people here, and I didn’t remember the crowd had ever been this big. I think this was due to the vast respect people had for my dad. I couldn’t find space to sit, so I stood in the back until a mosque elder called me to the front, given that I would be leading the funeral prayer. At a few minutes past 12 the adhan for Dhuhr was called.

The Dhuhr prayer was performed in the packed mosque–some worshippers had to pray outside. The regular mosque imam led it and I prayed in the first row. After Dhuhr, the imam announced a standard reminder for everyone about the movements and recitations in a funeral prayer, and then we prayed– I was the imam.

After the prayers, a funeral ambulance waited outside the mosque. We carried my dad’s bier there. With the bier inside, there was only space for a few people, which was filled by me, my brother, and few other family friends/relatives. On the way to the cemetery, I saw rows of cars of funeral-attendees parked on the streets and empty fields in our neighborhood. But other than our ambulance, other funeral attendees walked to the cemetery, except for one other car which carried an elderly cousin of my dad’s who couldn’t walk anymore.

At the cemetery, a grave was already dug, and a ladder was set up. My uncle, my brother and my uncle went down the grave. Others brought my dad’s body and carefully handed him to us, then we laid him down. Then we went up and everyone began to bury the grave. I managed to shovel a few scoops before someone offered to relieve me. It was quite a physical job that needs a lot of people to help.

Then we planted a marker on the grave, and we stayed at the grave and said prayers before the ambulance took us back home. At home lunch was prepared for me and my family, and others returning from the burial were offered food at the house next door (who happened to also be our Ketua RT), prepared by volunteers from the neighborhood. This was a most welcome offer because it was lunch time and people had been standing and walking in the hot sun.

After lunch, most of the guest asked their leaves and went home, except for close relatives and friends who still stayed. The Kamang Hilir relatives mostly began arriving now, except for those who rode with my dad’s brother–they had managed to arrive well before Dhuhr by leaving very early in the morning and probably taking liberties with the speed limit. In the afternoon, I took some of the out-of-town arrivals–who weren’t there during the burial–to visit the grave.

In our neighborhood, it is customary that in the there would be recitations of Yasin and Tahlil for three consecutive nights at the bereaved house. This practice is somewhat controversial, as some argues that it constitutes a forbidden ritual innovation in Islam. My mom was not a fan of this practice for a different reason – the whole recitation would be in Arabic, and most attendees would just read (or sleep) through the ~1 hour without much reflection. So we would skip this practice. But our home would still be open for visitors in the next several days, and at night there would be speakers delivering reflections about death (mostly from religious point of view) as well as related topic.

Visitors did come at nearly all times of day in the next few days. Most looked for my mom, who was both entertained but also exhausted by the guests. She tried to manage short naps between visits. Thankfully we did not need to worry about food, because our neighbors sent delicious meals for us (and our relatives who stayed over) several times a day. In fact we often had more food than we need, and we sent some to our less affluent neighbors. We really appreciated the neighbors for arranging the food.

The peak for the visits was at nights, when we had the speakers after Maghrib prayers. The house was full, as well as the chairs and tent that still remained on the street. The mosque people brought microphones and loudspeakers for the guest outside to listen to the speakers. The guests were there until it was time for Isha. The mosque across the street had noticeably more worshippers than usual, as visitors made their Isha prayers there. On the third night, by popular request, we had light food (100% brought by attendees, so we did not have to prepare anything), and the timing was moved after Isha so that there would be time for light socializing after the lecture.

During these days some close relatives (if their schedule permitting) stayed with us, including some from Kamang Hilir. They helped with chores, entertaining guests, as well as of course consoling us. I really appreciated the consoling part, amid this sad mood it was so nice to hear jokes, or see little kids playing, in order to take our minds off the sadness. My uncle and some of my cousins cracked jokes which made us laugh so hard that I half-worried about what random passerbies would think about hearing laughs that hard from a bereaved house. Also, in a Minangkabau family, sleeping arrangements weren’t a problem. Crashing a relative’s house is very common, hosts don’t usually mind the several extra families overnighting and guests are usually content sleeping in the carpet if no room is available.

In the next following days, visitors & relatives ramped down, as well as the meal delivery. I stayed for several more days to be with my family and to help take care of administrative stuff. Life slowly returned to normal, even though it would never be the same..

Siapa itu “Negro Fort” yang disebut di biografi Hatta?

2017-10-042017-10-04 hamdanilJames W. Ford, Mohammad Hatta, Negro Fort, Untuk Negeriku1 Comment

Di biografinya “Untuk Negeriku”, Hatta menyebut pernah bertemu dengan seorang tokoh bernama “Negro Fort”, yang beliau deskripsikan sebagai seorang komunis dari Amerika Serikat

Pada Kongres Liga Menentang Imperialisme (…) yang berlangsung di Frankfurt (…) Juli 1928, kaum komunis hebat sekali menggasak gerakan yang bukan komunis. Juru bicara mereka ialah Lu Ki dan komunis Negro Fort dari Amerika Serikat.

(dari Hatta “Bukittinggi-Rotterdam Lewat Betawi” (2011) hal. 303, penerbit Kompas, kusingkat dan kugarisbawahi)

Tokoh ini disebut lagi di halaman 304, dimana Hatta menulis Fort dan Lu Ki meminta izin Hatta (pemimpin sidang Kongres) untuk berpidato, tapi Hatta tidak mengizinkan karena merasa pidato mereka akan “menghantam” tokoh Kongres lain, padahal Hatta sedang mengusahakan persatuan.

Nama ini lumayan memancing rasa penasaranku karena namanya janggal sekali (istilah “Negro” sekarang ini ofensif sekali di Amerika Serikat) dan anehnya lagi dia seorang komunis di Amerika Serikat yang nantinya jadi negara musuh besar komunis. Ketika penasaran begini aku suka cross-check di internet, dan anehnya tidak ada hasil yang jelas ketika ngegoogle namanya (coba lihat sendiri).

Usut punya usut ternyata yang dimaksud Hatta disini adalah James W. Ford, tokoh kulit hitam Amerika yang menjadi aktivis Partai Komunis Amerika Serikat. Clue-nya adalah

Ia hadir di Kongres Liga Menentang Imperialisme di Frankfurt, Juli 1929. “In 1929, he and William L. Patterson attended the Second Congress of the League Against Imperialism in Frankfurt, Germany” (profil James W. Ford di website Communist Party USA). Di kutipan diatas disebutkan “Juli 1928” tapi sepertinya kesalahan ketik karena di teks sebelum dan sesudah kutipan tersebut Hatta membicarakan kejadian tahun 1929.
Ford adalah tokoh Partai Komunis USA. Ia bahkan 3x menjadi cawapres partai ini tahun 1932, 1936, and 1940 (walaupun hasilnya urutan papan bawah). Menurut Wikipedia memang ada Partai Komunis USA, yang lumayan populer selama Depresi Besar (mulai 1929). Ketika itu belum ada perang dingin Amerika Serikat-Uni Soviet. Malah ada yang menganggap gerakan komunis sebagai sekutu melawan gerakan fasis yang mulai bangkit di Jerman dan Spanyol. Partai ini baru mengalami kemunduran ketika komunis menjadi musuh besar Amerika Serikat di Perang Dingin.
James W. Ford di poster kampanye 1940
Ford memang tokoh Afrika-Amerika, yang ketika itu umum disebut “Negro”. Menurut Wikipedia, istilah Negro hanya menjadi ofensif sejak dekade 1960an, dan sebelum itu istilah ini dianggap biasa saja untuk merujuk kepada orang-orang kulit hitam di Amerika Serikat. Bahkan kata ini digunakan oleh tokoh kulit hitam Martin Luther King Jr. dalam pidato terkenalnya I Have A Dream: “But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination”.

Yang membikin bingung adalah kesalahan penulisan nama di buku ini. Nama marganya disebut “Fort” padahal aslinya “Ford” dengan huruf ‘d’, dan nama depan dan tengahnya (“James W.”) tidak disebut sama sekali malah diganti dengan “Negro” yang sepertinya sama sekali bukan nama yang bersangkutan. Dan bukan sekadar sekali saja, nama ini disebut beberapa kali di halaman 303 dan 304.

Aku tidak tahu ini kesalahan Hatta atau kesalahan penerbit, tapi aku cuma bisa berspekulasi saja. Biografi Hatta terbit pertama kali pada 1979, setengah abad setelah peristiwa ini terjadi, dan sangat mungkin Hatta lupa detail ini. Mungkin salah baca dari catatan, dan peristiwanya juga sudah lama. Atau bisa jadi salah dengar karena bunyi t dan d di akhir tidak begitu kedengaran beda. Dan tentu saja ketika itu tidak ada internet untuk memastikan. Ini kesalahan kecil yang sangat bisa dimaklumi.

Oh ya, tulisan ini maksudnyaa bukan untuk menghakimi buku ini. Cuma ingin mengkarifikasi kesalahan kecil, barangkali ada juga yang bingung terus jadi terjawab dengan tulisan ini (tolong tulis di komentar kalau Anda orangnya! hehe). Lagian, memoar Hatta ini menurutku bagus sekali dan sangat pantas dibaca. Selain politisi dan ekonom, ternyata beliau juga penulis yang hebat. Tulisannya renyah dan akrab sekali, dan selain berisi cerita hidup, kita juga bisa sekalian belajar sejarah Indonesia dan Eropa ketika itu. Serius – mungkin salah satu buku terbaik yang pernah kubaca.

Belajar sejarah dan menghafal tahun-tahun

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Ketika ujian sejarah sering kali ditanyakan tahun atau tanggal berapa suatu peristiwa terjadi. Misal, “Pendudukan Jepang di Indonesia terjadi pada tahun ____?” (Jawab: 1942-1945). Seorang nerd sejarah sering digambarkan hafal berbagai tahun dan tanggal diluar kepala.

Apakah tahun dan tanggal perlu dihafalkan? Padahal bisa dicari dengan mengetik beberapa kata di hape Anda. Apa untuk mempersulit siswa kalau ujian saja?

collectie_tropenmuseum_schets_van_de_japanse_intocht_in_batavia_zoals_de_japanners_het_zich_voorstelden_tmnr_10001766 — Pendudukan Jepang : Terjadi pada 1942-45 (Koleksi Tropenmuseum)

Menurut saya, memang menghafal tanggal dan tahun persis peristiwa sering sulit sekali dan tidak begitu banyak gunanya, tapi tunggu dulu. Dalam memahami sejarah kita sering harus mengerti konteks dari suatu peristiwa, hubungannya dengan peristiwa lain, dan sebagainya. Tanggal menyerahnya Belanda pada Jepang (8 Maret 1942) mungkin tidak begitu penting, tapi kalau kita menganggap bahwa tanggal dan tahun tidak penting sama sekali, kita mungkin tidak akan paham bahwa pendudukan Jepang terjadi setelah ratusan tahun penjajahan Belanda, terjadi pada konteks Perang Dunia II dimana Jepang pada fase awal berekspansi besar-besaran di Asia Tenggara, dan berlangsung hanya sekitar tiga tahun sebelum proklamasi kemerdekaan. Konteks dan relasi ini penting untuk memahami pendudukan Jepang yang dimaksud.

Karena itu, sebagai penggemar sejarah saya tidak setuju kalau mengetahui tahun-tahun peristiwa itu tidak penting. Tapi bukan menghafal mati, melainkan bisa memperkirakan kapan terjadinya peristiwa suatu di luar kepala. Hal ini memudahkan kita untuk memahami konteks peristiwa dan relasinya dengan peristiwa lain tanpa harus googling sana sini. Tentu saja, semakin jauh dari masa kini, “resolusi” pengetahuan sejarah biasanya berkurang dan wajar kalau perkiraan kita jadi lebih kasar. Misalnya, saya tahu berakhirnya Orde Baru itu di tahun 1998. Runtuhnya Uni Soviet, tidak tahu tahunnya tapi bisa dikira-kira 1990 ± 1 atau 2 tahun. Kemerdekaan Amerika Serikat: akhir abad ke-18. Masa kekhalifahan Abu Bakar dan Umar: di luar kepala saya cuma bisa bilang mungkin sekitar abad ke-7.

About flexible working hours

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One of the topics I get asked the most from non-Silicon Valley friends is “What is the working hours like over there?”. I think this is a very interesting topic, worth blogging about.

Flexibility

First off, I worked on only one Silicon Valley company (in Google) and heard stories from similar (big, public, software) companies in the area. These are my only sources in this writing 🙂

In general working hours are not enforced. It’s generally up to the individual engineer. It’s quite normal to see some who only come at lunch-time and also others who leave relatively early in the afternoon (maybe beginning 4pm?). However it’s not a wild west world where you can miss work to your liking. Probably, the minimum expectation is that

you do your job and reasonably meet what’s expected of you,
you show up for meetings when you’re needed (they are usually scheduled in hours friendly to both late-comers and early-leavers),
you’re available in the office for certain duration during the day so that people can consult/discuss with you in person.

As long as you meet those, people, including your boss and teammates, will generally tolerate whatever time you usually come to work and leave.

For me, this is quite a departure from my previous working experience in Singapore. I worked for a company that was relatively relaxed in Singapore’s standard, but there was still general expectation of working at least 8 hours/day, being in no later than 9.30, etc.

Making sure things get done

I think the trick that enables working hour flexibility is the fact that the employees have other motivation to deliver. It’s not necessarily because the tasks are amazing -it is probably impossible to give such tasks to everyone in a company. It’s more because the employees have clearly defined objectives, for example quarterly ones, and a set of incentives make them want to attempt to fulfill it.

For example, managers or stakeholders regularly check and provide feedback on progress.Some projects may be a part of a big publicly-visible project, and you don’t want to let that down by being the bottleneck. And also, most importantly, fulfilling or exceeding expectation has a big impact on your career. There is a technical ladder, and your probability to get promoted depends to large extent on how you can demonstrate your past achievement to a neutral third-party. The consequence of the technical ladder is quite serious – higher level means significantly better compensation as well as respect and influence within one’s team.

Another trick is to make the workplace as attractive as possible. There’s food and beverages all the time at the pantry, and breakfast, lunch and dinner are provided in the office cafeteria. Also, there are the old-fashioned financial incentives like bonus and stock units that are based on performance – these makes up big part of one’s total compensation.

Necessity

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From the companies’ point of view, providing flexibility is also important to attract talent given the competitiveness in Silicon Valley.

The software engineers have various background and different needs with regards to working hours. Some have kids that needs to be sent to and picked up from school, and these employees might need to synchronize their commute with school schedule. Other employees are more of a night owl and free dinner is an incentive for them to stay late in the office. Also, business are not always open during weekdays, so you often have to go to bank, dentist, or mechanic during business hours.

Aggressively working or work-life balance?

A question I’ve often been asked: “Do people work really hard over there?” Of course people do work hard, but do they work all the time? Here, again, people have flexibility and choice. Some people choose to work really hard and they get rewarded accordingly (they get the respect that they deserve, promoted faster, etc.) But if you don’t want that, you don’t have to and you can have balance between work and other interests such as family, hobbies, or travelling.

In conclusion, I think flexible working hours is a workable concept – especially in this case where companies and employees both have interests to make it work. Companies need it to attract employees and increase their contentedness, but they also need to be sure that this won’t negatively affect productivity. Employees love flexibility, and with proper incentives they will still do their best at work. If it works out for both, there’s no reason not to do it.

Road Trip to the Redwood Coast with kids

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The North Coast of California, often called the Redwood Coast is a coastal region north of (roughly) San Francisco Bay Area all the way to Oregon. On the Pacific coastline, it offers a series of small towns with breathtaking coastal views. If you go a little bit inland, you see a rugged, hilly terrains with rivers flowing towards the ocean, as well as redwood (Sequoia) forests. We took a short road trip there last weekend (26-27 Sep) and boy did it show how beautiful California was.

The trip was only for a 2-day weekend from the Bay Area, so this blog post isn’t exactly the ultimate road trip guide, but hopefully this can give you some interesting ideas if you’re planning a similar trip.

Day 1

We started off in the morning from Sunnyvale in South Bay, through the Golden Gate Bridge (SF is not that crowded in Saturday morning) and made our first stop in Bodega Bay.

In retrospect probably this isn’t the brightest idea, since area around SF bay is known for being very foggy in the morning, and the beach was foggy indeed. But the kids have fun in the beach anyway and it’s also nice to take a break after ~2 hours driving at this point.

Next we drove up Highway 1, a scenic route closely hugging the shoreline. Here are some of the spectacular views I was talking about. The road is a bit winding, and there is a faster way to go north using 101, but the views here are worth it. You can enjoy it from the car, but there also a lot of spots to pull up, feel free to stop and enjoy the views. A lot of them have cliffs though, so be careful with the kids

Two stops that we particularly liked (pictured above) were this spot in Jenner with a good vantage point to see the hills and the ocean and this spot in Gualala where you can see the Gualala River flows into the Pacific. We ate our bagged lunch in the second spot and it was terrific.

Our next stop was the pygmy forest in Van Damme State Park. A pygmy forest is a forest that due to geology and soil only contain small trees. The one here has a short boardwalk that gives you a self-guided tour which highlights, the various trees that exist here. Pretty interesting, but not super impressive. But as usual the kids have fun running around and planking in the boardwalk.

Next we drove further north and hit Caspar Beach. It’s your typical small town Northern California beach, I guess. It’s not too crowded, we could lie down and play with sand and the wave, the kids could get wet and dirty, what’s not to like? 🙂

We stayed here for a while, then checked into our hotel, got cleaned up and stuff and then went to the Glass Beach in Fort Bragg to see the sunset. It’s only about 5 minutes from the hotel and actually we kind of decided to go there at the last minute.

It’s as impressive as sunset can be, so we’re really glad we come here. One problem though, the area has a lot of cliff, and our son is on the “I-like-running-everywhere-with-little-regard-for-safety” side, so it was quite an exercise trying to contain him.

Day 2

We came to the Glass Beach again the following morning – this time to see the piece of coast that give the beach its name.

This part of the beach is covered with semi-transparent stones. According to the beach’s signs, the area used to be a dump site (before 1967). Over the years, the waves broke down and ground the glass and the pottery in the dump to make these beautiful looking (some say jewelry-quality) pieces.

The view around the beach is very beautiful – clean, super blue sea, big waves crashing into the cliffs, and surprisingly it wasn’t foggy in the morning! And needless to say the kids liked playing with the stones and the waves, and from this part there is no cliff 🙂

We checked out of the hotel and drove further north along Highway 1. The highway becomes narrower, more winding and uphill here, even scary at some points just inches from the cliffs. We went to the Drive-Thru Tree Park in Leggett, which is named after a tree so big that you can drive through it (someone carved a hole in its base apparently).

There is a $5 entrance fee for this park. Initially I thought I was in for a gimmick, but this park was super awesome, especially for kids. The huge, 96-metre tree is just one thing, but there are also picnic tables where we had lunch, a large meadow, and a redwood forest. There are also mini attractions lying around that kids really like. Like a huge hollow tree where kids can get inside like a cave, a dead tree arranged in an incline so that the kids can slide, and so on. The kids have so much fun here, we decided to stay here longer and skip the next planned stop.

If you enjoy redwood forest (like me), the park also has an easy trail where you can go inside and enjoy it.

Leggett is at the end of Highway 1, and from here we went home by 101. This is less winding and faster than Highway 1, which served us well because we’re too tired to take the winding road again and would prefer not to arrive home before too late. It was about 4.5 hours driving back to the Bay Area. We stopped for dinner in Fremont, coincidentally just in time for the lunar eclipse 🙂

Overall it’s such a fun trip, and I’m glad to see more of California’s natural beauty, and also learnt for the first time that a road trip like this (even a short one) is fun!

Map location of places mentioned here (sequential order):

Doran Beach, Bodega Bay ($7 entrance fee; in restrospect, should have probably looked for a free spot spmewhere nearby :))

A spot in Jenner along Hwy 1

A spot in Gualala along Hwy 1

Pygmy Forest in Van Damme State Park, Little River (note we went to the pygmy forest only, didn’t go through the main entrance of the park).

Caspar Beach, Caspar

Glass Beach, Fort Bragg

Drive-Thru Tree Park, Leggett ($5 entrance fee)

Altruism is not data-driven: Why a story prompts more actions than statistics

2015-09-062015-09-10 hamdanilLeave a comment

On September 2015, the body of a 3-year old Syrian boy (his name was Aylan) was found on a beach in Turkey. Photos of Aylan, with a red T-shirt, blue jeans and toddler shoes, lying lifeless face down in the beach, spread virally on both the social networks and mass media. Not only that, the tragedy prompted concrete actions. Major charities received massive boosts in donation, one of them recording a 1500% increase in 24 hours. Political leaders – a lot of whom had previously grudged about the “migrants” – were moved, and in the following days countries like Germany, Austria, and Britain announced that they would take more refugees.

Some people asked, why such a huge reaction, and why only now? Anyone reading the news regularly must have known that the Syrian Civil War killed a lot of people (220,000 according to UN on January 2015), many of them in no less tragic condition than Aylan. There are millions of refugees, a lot of them crossed dangerous terrains to flee their war-torn homeland to the safety of other lands. We’ve read about previous boat accidents which drowned hundreds. Why did this tragedy make so much difference?

According to the book The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely (a best-selling writer who’s a professor of psychology and behavioral economics), something like this is hardly surprising. As a rule, people don’t always use rational pros and cons analysis to make decisions, including when helping those in need.

An experiment about how data affects donation

He described an experiment where he had 3 groups of participants to donate to the hunger crisis in Africa. The first group was given the story of a specific girl named Rokia, with her close-up photo and biography. The second group was given information about the crisis, including all the awful statistics like how many people died of hunger, that millions of people suffered, and so on. The third group was given both the story of the girl and the information. Can you predict which group gave the most donation?

In the experiment, a picture and a story of a girl like this prompted more donation than the full story and statistics about how awful the hunger crisis in Africa is

It’s the first group! They only saw the specific story of a single individual, but d
onated twice more than the second group which knew the full extent of the crisis. The third group donated somewhere in between the other groups. Ariely dedicated a chapter describing this phenomenon (corroborated by other observations), and subtitled this chapter “Why we respond to one person who needs help but not to many“.

There are several reasons that explains this. For one, the driving force behind donations and helping others are mostly emotion and empathy, not calculations. Adding data and statistics to the story only serves to trigger our cold calculations and suppress our compassion.

Closeness, vividness and the drop-in-a-bucket effect

If calculation does not inspire action, what does? Ariely mentioned 3 factors. The first is closeness, either in term of location, kinship or how you can identify with the victim. The second is vividness, e.g. whether you witness the tragedy or can strongly imagine doing so. The third is what he call “drop-in-a-bucket effect”, whether you can single-handedly and effectively help, as opposed to just contributing a small insignificant aid.

These 3 factors explains why a specific tragic story is more powerful than statistics. A lot of people have kids, siblings, nephews/nieces, neighbors, etc who are toddlers like Aylan. In my case, he was roughly the same age as my son Umar, had approximately the same physical shape, and wore the kind of clothing that Umar does. Looking at the photos greatly saddens me and it’s really hard not to feel empathy.

The photo is also vivid. Looking at it you can’t help imagining the boy, how helpless he probably was in the sea, meeting his death very tragically. You don’t get this kind of vividness from statistics and numbers.

In terms of the “drop-in-the-bucket effect”, with an individual story you can make people feel they can make a difference. You can’t sort out the war in Syria, or prevent 200,000 people from getting killed there, or take care of 4 million Syrian war refugees. But you can singlehandedly help a person, or a family like Aylan’s, so that they don’t have to make those dangerous trips. In developed countries, it would only take a fraction of an average person’s savings to provide food, water and shelter for an individual refugee. Suddenly you feel like your contribution is not a drop in a bucket anymore.

What does this mean?

Knowing our weaknesses and behaviour, we can use them to be better at giving. For individuals, this means that when you feel the impulse to contribute, just follow your heart. Don’t delay, and don’t make a complicated calculations or analysis about it. Just do it! Personally, I think religion is a major influence as well. The promise of a better rewards from the All-Powerful is a very powerful motivation compared to responding to numbers.

For charities or volunteers, this means that in events like fundraising, it’s more effective to focus on individual and vivid stories that people can identify with and do something about, and also importantly avoid emphasizing on data and statistics. This may sound counter-intuitive, but people are more willing to help one person than a million people.

You can watch Ariely explains this chapter here:

The book is The Upside of Irrationality, and the chapter discussed here is Chapter 9.

Indonesia as a French colony: a history trivia

2015-08-312015-08-31 hamdanil2 Comments

The history class in Indonesia’s school list our former colonizers as : Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, England, and Japan. A little known fact and interesting trivia is that France is also a member of this list. It ruled Indonesia for some period, mostly indirectly (as master of our Dutch rulers), but for at least one year Indonesia was a titular French colony.

The story began with the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon which saw a lot of wars and changes in Europe. Anyway, in the War of the First Coalition (one of a lot of wars that happened after the French Revolution) the Dutch Republic joined the coalition against the French Republic. The war went badly for the Dutch, and in 1795 the French conquered the Netherlands, and founded the “Batavian Republic[2]” (Bataafse Republiek) to rule the Dutch. The Treaty of Den Haag in the same year formalized the relationship between this new Republic and the French Republic. Basically the Batavian Republic became subordinate to the French, locking the Dutch in alliance with the French, requiring them to pay a lot of money to France and allowing France to maintain an army of occupation in the Netherlands.

This began the indirect rule of the French. Indonesia was still a VOC (Dutch East India Company) colony and the Dutch retains the rule of this colony, but the Netherlands itself isn’t exactly independent. Also note that in 1800, the VOC was dissolved and its possessions (including its territories in Indonesia) nationalized.

Louis Bonaparte (Koning Lodewijk), Napoleon’s brother and the King of Holland (1806-1810)

In 1810, in an attempt to have even more control over the Dutch, Napoleon Bonaparte (who had become the Emperor of the French since 1804) forced the Dutch to become a kingdom – with his brother Louis Bonaparte as king. This kingdom was called the Kingdom of Holland (Koninkrijk Holland), and Louis become also known as “Koning Lodewijk” (Dutch for King Louis).

It is during this time that King Louis made Herman Willem Daendels the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. HW Daendels wasinfamous in Indonesian history, due to his institution of forced labor (kerja rodi) in Java for various projects (best known of which was the Great Post Road), which resulted in the deaths of thousands of native laborers.

Interestingly, Daendels was known for being pro-French, in fact he was the general of the Dutch contingent in the French army that conquered the Netherlands in 1795. Part of his task was to defend the Dutch East Indies against a possible British invasion (the British was one of France main enemy), and this is part of the reasons for his projects.

Meanwhile in Europe, even with his brother on the Dutch throne, Napoleon still felt dissatisfied about his control over the Dutch. In 1810 he forced his brother to abdicate, dissolved the Kingdom of Holland, and annexed its territories to the French Empire. Now the Dutch no longer have their own state, and the French become, in title, the direct master of Indonesia.

The administration and defense of the colony was still done primarily by Dutch personnel. Daendels originally stayed as governor-general until in 1811 he was appointed a general in the Napoleon’s army that was about to invade Russia and was replaced by Jan Willem Janssens, another Dutchman. Janssens didn’t stay long in his position though, for the British invasion troops invaded Java (the center of the colonial power in Indonesia) in the same year and captured the island from the France.

The colony remained in British hands for the remainder of the Napoleonic Wars. They returned the colony to the Dutch in 1814, after Napoleon was defeated[3] and the Dutch regained its independence. This time the Netherlands became a monarchy, which would later be known as Kingdom of the Netherlands (Koninkrijk der Nederlanden), which continued to exist until today. They held their territories in Indonesia, until defeated by the Japanese in World War II.

[1] Technically, in 1811 the sovereign state was the United Kingdom. England was just a country inside the UK after the Acts of Union, but Indonesian language text seem to rarely recognize this difference and refer to everything as “Inggris” (England/ the English)

[2] Batavia was also the former name of Jakarta, but it was not the reason the Republic is named this. Both Batavia the city and the Batavian Republic was named after the Batavi, a Germanic tribe believed to be the ancestors of the Dutch.

[3] This was not his final defeat. He would in 1815 return from exile, led another campaign that ended in his final defeat at the famed Battle of Waterloo.

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