Arif Maftuhin

Have you ever heard about "the White Man's burden"? Let me quote from my favorite Wikipedia, "The White Man's Burden" is a poem by the British poet Rudyard Kipling. It was originally published in the popular magazine McClure's, with the subtitle The US and the Philippine Islands."The White Man's Burden" may be read as supporting the U.S. colonization of the Philippines and other former Spanish colonies or, alternatively, as a warning to the United States of the cost of imperial adventure. Although Kipling's poem mixed exhortation to empire with sober warnings of the costs involved, imperialists within the United States latched onto the phrase "white man's burden" as an euphemism for imperialism that seemed to justify the policy as a noble enterprise. At face value it appears to be a rhetorical command to white men to colonize and rule people of other nations (both the people and the duty may be seen as representing the ...

Publish in  The Jakarta Post, June 22 2006  (no longer accessible) Most proponents of Islamic law believe that to implement it, it has to be codified into a state law, transforming the Islamic law from fiqh (legal literature written by Islamic scholars) into a state-law (either state laws or regional bylaws or Perda). What they don't quite realize is that the very transformation changes the nature of Islamic law from a divine and religious law into a secular law. Contrary to what the proponents believe, what is happening in Aceh and other localities is not really the shariatization of state-law but is instead the secularization of Islamic law. Let me make it clear here. Historically speaking, from the time of the Prophet to the end of the caliphate system, Islamic law was implemented in a decentralized way where every judge had his individual and independent authority to issue a judgment out of his personal legal reasoning (ijtihad). There is a bold prin...

Football!!! Yes, why don't' I write about football? I was a top scorer when I was in high school playing for my Western Room and we won the champion twice. Football used to be a "half" of my life. I played it since I was 7 years and I played everyday for 3-4 hours. Football is the sport I spent a lot of my time during my youth. I just stopped playing this game when I graduated from high school: no field, no friend. The 2006 World Cup has been going on for a week and, so far, no surprise. The great teams, Brazil, Argentina, England, Germany, Portugal and Spain played very well. Italy is, always like this, struggling; while French has lost their power since they won the cup in their home; and the Netherlands... so far has been good but I didn't watch their game. Generally speaking: no surprise! Football is a "religion" for many people. We love it, we live with it, and we feel it. Football, like religion, draws a kind of solidarity and belonging. It is inte...

PART ONE INTRODUCTION Works and analysis in humanities and social sciences literature have been for a long time focused on attempts to explain why ethno conflicts and other conflicts sometimes occur and sometime not; and why, when they occur, the results are sometimes atrocious, leading to genocide, some are not. However, those very questions and attempts, put under a terminological umbrella of ethno-religious-nationalist conflicts, seemingly tend to complicate problems rather than make the problems better understood. Why genocides, mass killings, massacres, and mass rapes, tragedies with which we are concerned, should be seen through ethno-religious-nationalist conflicts frameworks? When our very concern is to understand these “dark” sides of human life, then ethno-religious-nationalist analysis could probably be a prejudice unconsciously constructing the “fact” in limited scholarly assumptions at the expense of an analysis open to explanations other than that triad of conflict. By so...

He is a terrorist. He is America's no. 1 enemy. He is hated by the Shiites. He is a hero for the those anti-American-occupation. He is a martyr for his al-Qaeda fellows. He is a man I don't know. But he is the man today I want to remark. First, look at this picture and see his face. Do you find a hostility or friendship? (I will not comment on this) Second, the context is a war in a land whose no master rules. The dictator Saddam has been arrested, while the new prime minister and president have only de jure power, symbolically they are in charge but in fact they have no power over the country. Chaos and anarchy are the best words to describe Iraq today. In such a situation, how we define the good guys and the bad ones? It would depend on who has more power. Third, Iraq is a fragile land where so many players has torn apart the country. There is Shiites, the majority who have been for decades under repression of Saddam Hussein. They want their rights. There are also important r...

Look at this picture. Read what they are bringing. The placards read "AS THE REAL TERRORIST". If I were American or other English speakers, I would ask, "what a hell they mean by as the real terrorist?" Type your summary here Worse, if we read the placard completely, from top till bottom, it will read, "Laa ilaha illa Allah. Hizbuttahir Indonesia as The real Terrorist". Oh... Why don't these Hizbuttahrir members write "US", instead of AS, is the real terrorist or US the real Terrorist? It is surely a small mistake but, to me, it really conveys a one way communication between the US and Muslim world. Muslims still think in their very own language while they want to deliver a message to their foe. In the picture it can mean literally (mixing Bahasa Indonesia and English) and terminologically (not giving even a little understanding that terrorism is a real threat). I don't blame them because I do understand that the US, on the other hand, th...

Having watched the movie, I simply think that I am likely not a good movie analyst. We have been waiting this movie with many speculations, controversy, and questions, but finally... as many critics say, the movie is boring. My first impression is that Robert Langdon, the semiotician, is too smart. He easily figures out symbolic text left by Jacques Saunière, a member of Priory of Sion, before he was killed by a member of Opus Dei. Robert ably figures out two difficult codes in a very short and critical time (I would call it "very bollywood"). O, Draconian Devil means "Leonardo Da Vinci" and it then means Monalisa. The second is so dark the con of man that mean madonna of the rock, another Da Vinci's painting, where Sonier put a key. Its plot only reminds me to another detective-genre movie I watched before, the National Treasure (Nicholas Cage). The ways characters of the movie figure out the puzzle are nearly similar to those of National Treasure. The scene wh...

Friday. It has been many weeks I have not prayed at the Northgate Mosque. During this quarter, because of my Friday class that lasted at 1.20, I always go to the Islamic House for the Friday Prayer. Today, I didn't have a class and I went to the Northgate Mosque. The preacher today was brother Ibrahim, an Afro-American. I am not sure if he is an American born or an immigrant; but he speaks both English and Arabic fluently. He was possibly born here but speaks Arabic as his first/family language. Anyway, what makes me think today is not his origin, but his position as a preacher and his black skin. When I was listening his interesting khutbah, I just felt as if I was sitting in the seventh century masjid with Bilal bin Rabah speaking about Islam to Arab listeners. In the seventh century, it was absolutely a revolutionary experience to find a community that see human being equally without any racial baggage. In the seventh century it made no sense to find a black teach other race. Bu...

Contrary to what most Indonesian think abut America as a full liberal and secular state where religions have limited influence on public life, the fact is that Americans are more religious than what we think. In addition to the previous political survey which shows 70% of Americans based their political preference on religious matters, this data on the most popular names in America show another interesting fact about the relation between religions and Americans. Look at top 5 male names. All are religious names. Jacob (the prophet, or Ya'kub), Michael (the angel), Joshua (the prophet, Yusuf), Matthew, (one of Jesus's student), and Ethan. This fifth name is less known to us (Muslims), and he is (1.) "The Ezrahite," distinguished for his wisdom (1 Kings 4:31). He is named as the author of the 89th Psalm. He was of the tribe of Levi. (2.) A Levite of the family of Merari, one of the leaders of the temple music (1 Chr. 6:44; 15:17, 19). Well, I vividly remember when I gav...