READING James Ferguson’s The Anti-Politics Machine: “development,” depoliticization and bureaucratic power in Lesotho (2005) reminds me of what the global developmentalist regime has done in Indonesia from the second half of 1960s until recent time; even though these two countries have different characteristics in many ways.

Nevertheless Ferguson’s presentation tells how the idea of developmentalism being spread through out what is then called and categorized the third world, developing, or under developed countries mostly in Africa and Asia. This idea has been used as political banners to widen and strengthen the developed countries’ power in the regions. Continue reading →

THIS is a colorful, sparkling, and rich narratives of how an imagination of a particular nationality, society, and polity has been assembled, shaped, campaigned and delivered by the radicals and avant-garde persons, scholars and political activists among the colonized people during the second half of the nineteenth century in an archipelago that later become the Philippines. The story line in this book is full of dramatic intrigues and conflicts, agreements and schisms, comradeship and resistances, treason, and sacrifices as well. The author, Benedict Anderson, once again shows his talent and capability to provide vivid and detail accounts about the making process of nationalism and external factor that influenced its trajectory.

ARTIKEL ini dikutip dari buku “Human Rights Violation by The United States of America” yang dikeluarkan pada 2007 oleh Departemen HAM—Kementerian Politik Luar Negeri, Iran. Continue reading →

Knowledge, Power and Islam in the western media
IF knowledge is power then those who control the modern western media (visual and print) are most powerful because Continue reading →

KATA banyak orang: semakin marah, Michael Moore semakin lucu dan tajam. Itu betul. Continue reading →

SUATU hari di tahun 1475, tak kurang dari 1.000 tentara Demak yang dipimpin Jin Bun menyerang Semarang.

Mereka bagai gelombang raksasa, melumat apapun yang dilalui, menghancurkan banyak bangunan dan memaksa keturunan Tionghoa non-Muslim di Semarang lari tunggang langgang. Tak perlu waktu lama bagi Jin Bun menaklukkan kota itu. Continue reading →

KABUL kembali berubah. Saat itu musim gugur 2001. Pasukan Aliansi Utara bergerak dari Gurun Panshir di kaki Hindu Kush. Mereka merengsek ke arah selatan, mendekati Kabul. Thaliban telah dilucuti, dan ibukota Afganistan yang sudah terlalu lelah dilibas perang bertahun-tahun itu kini hanya reruntuhan.