Sophie: A Tale of Love and Violence

‘You must leave him. He’ll only hurt you’

‘No, I love him. You don’t understand love, Clara! If you do, you wouldn’t break up with your ex just because afraid of being hurt’

Saya tersentak. Begitulah percakapan saya dan teman saya, Sophie* berakhir. Usaha saya meyakinkan Sophie untuk meninggalkan pacarnya yang tidak hanya mentally tapi juga physically violent, membentur tembok.

Sophie adalah seorang perempuan Fiji yang bekerja sebagai asisten administrasi di RRRT (Regional Rights Resource Team), tempat saya magang selama tiga bulan. Usianya tak jauh beda dari saya. Walaupun tak punya gelar segudang, Sophie, menurut saya benar-benar cerdas. Sophie seringkali mematahkan argumen saya (yang di-back up oleh teori-teori yang saya pelajari) dengan menunjukkan dimensi lain yang saya tak pernah pikirkan.

Percakapan ini terjadi di minggu pertama 2012. Seminggu sebelumnya, di hari pertama ngantor, Sophie datang dengan beberapa luka di wajahnya. Salah satu matanya biru. Alasannya, dia terjatuh dari tangga. Dan saya percaya. Mungkin itulah alasan mengapa besoknya Sophie bercerita tentang pacarnya ke saya. Dari saat itu saya tahu betapa kasarnya pacar Sophie, George. Saat itu Sophie mengutarakan niat untuk berpisah dari pacarnya. Saya mendukung.

Selang beberapa hari kemudian Sophie absen dari kantor. Supervisor saya menanyakan keberadaannya karena saya dinilai dekat dengan Sophie. Respon saya, ‘hello, you know her for years already’. Tapi katanya, Walaupun semua staf mahfum dengan kasarnya George, Sophie tak pernah bercerita tentang George kepada siapapun kecuali saya. Saya panik. Saya telepon sana-sini (hp sophie disita George). Mulai dari ibunya, neneknya (Sophie anak tunggal of an amazing single mom), temannya, semua tanpa hasil. Besoknya Sophie kembali ke kantor, kali ini mengutarakan niatnya untuk menikah dengan George.

Setelah percakapan itu saya kembali ke meja kerja dan harus menulis laporan tentang bagaimana undang-undang dapat mengurangi angka kekerasan terhadap perempuan. Yeah, right!! Di depan saya adalah Sophie yang mengerti tentang HAM, gender, feminisme dan bekerja di LSM yang memperjuangkan hak-hak perempuan. Dan satu kata, cinta, a mere feeling, bisa menegasikan semua hal itu. Hari itu saya merenung panjang.

Sophie, tentu saja, tak sendiri. Di Pasifik, termasuk Fiji, kekerasan fisik terhadap perempuan dialami oleh tak kurang dari 68 persen perempuan (UNWOMEN 2011). Jangan tanya tentang kekerasan mental (Tak hanya perempuan sebenarnya. Saya punya seorang teman dekat pria yang pernah terjebak in a mentally abusive relationship). Banyak LSM, termasuk RRRT mengusahakan berbagai strategi untuk mengurangi angka ini dan mengadvokasi hak asasi perempuan. Tapi apalah arti semua ini, jika sebagian besar hak perempuan dinegosiasikan dalam ranah privat, seperti hubungan romantis atau keluarga. Dan seringkali solusi yang diberikan membebani, mendiskreditkan dan menyalahkan perempuan yang menjadi korban. Seperti Sophie pernah bertanya pada saya, ‘Do you think I am stupid for falling in love with George?’

Tapi ini tidak hanya terjadi di Pasifik yang terkenal dengan budaya patriakisnya**. Di Australia, saya berteman Nicole yang memiliki partner yang mentally abusive. Nicole tak diperbolehkan bekerja padahal Nicole sangat menyadari potensinya. Partner-nya merasa tersaingi, begitu observasi Nicole. Nicole memutuskan untuk bercerai. Sebuah kesempatan bekerja di ANU memaksanya untuk memilih. Berat. Nicole membawa Terry, putrinya, hijrah ke Canberra, dan harus rela terpisah dari Damien, putranya yang memutuskan tinggal dengan ayahnya di Brisbane.

Selain Nicole, saya juga berteman dengan Allison yang memutuskan berpisah dari suaminya, setahun setelah anak pertama (dan satu-satunya) lahir. Sekarang putranya berusia 12 tahun, dan teman saya ini tetap single sampai sekarang. Lagi-lagi berat. Tapi ini tak memudarkan niatnya untuk mengaktualisasikan diri. Malahan, being single, menurutnya memudahkan dia untuk mengejar mimpi-mimpinya dan tinggal di banyak negara, mulai dari Cina, Amerika, hingga kini Australia. She’s a qualified nurse and social worker with law and public policy degree. What could be more? And in doing so, she provides her son with a lot of great experiences.

Tapi tanya mereka, apakah keputusan untuk meninggalkan abusive partner itu mudah? A big NO is what you get. Butuh bertahun-tahun dan kesempatan emas di ANU untuk Nicole berani bercerai. Butuh sakit hati berkepanjangan dan dukungan keluarga untuk Gladys berani berpisah. Tanya mereka, seberapa dalam perasaan mereka kepada partner-nya? Chances are, they will say, ‘Of course I love him’.

Jika Nicole dan Gladys berakhir dengan manis, saya belum tahu apa yang bakal terjadi dengan Sophie. Karena takut kehilangan kepercayaannya (nantinya kalau ada apa-apa dengan dia, Sophie tak mau cerita lagi), saya berusaha menerima kehadiran George. Beberapa kali kita clubbing, saya dan seorang teman lain harus rela ‘dikawal’ oleh George dan bermanis-manis ria karena jika tidak, Sophie harus menanggung konsekuensinya. Di farewell party saya, George hadir. Betapa saya ingin mengatakan ‘Leave her alone’, but instead I said, ‘Please treat her well’.

Saya masih harus belajar banyak. Dulu, saya selalu percaya bahwa manusia itu rasional dan kalkulatif (no wonder I never work out my relationship :P). Namun, Sophie memaksa saya untuk meredefinisikan perspektif saya. Seperti kala itu, Sophie menunjukkan bahwa feelings, no matter how irrational they might be, are integral part of human decision.

*Semua nama adalah nama samaran

**Ada beberapa yang berargumen definisi budaya patriakis yang umum digunakan sangat simplistik. Perempuan Samoa misalnya mempunyai power yang besar tergantung posisinya di dalam sebuah klan. Segregasi public and private juga memberikan keuntungan buat mobilitas perempuan dan menentukan peran krusial mereka dalam masyarakat. Intinya kalau perempuan mogok masak, tak ada pekerjaan public yang bisa terselesaikan. Banyak yang berpendapat urbanisasi dan industrialisasi-lah yang menciptakan ruang kekerasan thd perempuan.

In the best 'pose' of the children

How many times, in a day, you see children? How many times, in a week, you interact with them? Answers will be vary. Have kids on your own, most probably you have to deal with them every day. A teacher? Monday to Friday.

Again, how many times in a day, when you are surfing the magic world of internet, you stumble upon some pictures of cute children with all their cheeky grins? Crying, playing, laughing, bathing, eating, sleeping. And in second, you found yourselves, like me, going, 'Aaaaah...' with eyes softened and eyebrows curving down. They are just so adorable, aren't they?

Images of children are everywhere. TV (most ads now use kids, even for product that children don't use or has nothing to do with children), radio, newspaper, magazine (how many magz are now dedicated to 'smart and sensible' parents? With glossy pages of proud good-looking mom and dad pose with their kids in oh-so-adorable-outfits), pamflet or business logo or NGOs' reports (from the appeal for war-torn kids in Afghanistan to NGOs' new hips of smiling African girls), and of course, your daily supply of online media.

On my facebook, I have some friends who are (recently) taking role as mothers (and it seems that the number grows exponentially every year, higher speed and soon I'll be attending christening rather than wedding -alone *sigh). Everyday, there'll always be two or three of them post pictures of their children doing stuff. Cute!!! I have to admit, although sometimes it gets too much. One of my friends irritates me (no I don't storm it out at her) by posting almost every single move of her son, from getting up in the morning, sleeping peacefully, crying, fighting, eating, sitting idly after eating, opening the gifts. Really, the same expose MJ's children or Surie Cruise would get, had the paparazzi be given full access. Oh ya don't forget mum's comment to stuff the context!

But why bother? Surely 6yo Bonnie is her son? It's not like all these moms are trying to do harm to their children. And it's facebook, where your friends are supposedly people you know, right? So what's the harm? Most comments on the pics came from close friends (because only close friends bother to sneak into your page hahaha). No weirdo would going to copy the pics and what? distribute? using them for dodgy stuff? Well, god forbids so, but who knows?

But no, my argument against posting your cute ones pics on facebook is NOT based on rare-but-it-does-happen act of phedophils. It's about privacy, that your kids are individual who have rights to privacy, just like you, me, your husbands, and billions others adults. Want something solid? Well, the Convention on the Rights of Children (as contestable as it is) stipulates the children's rights to privacy. And CRC, my friends, is the only human rights convention, all the countries have signed and ratified (except, our beloved US and Somalia).

Contrary to some would insist, children do understand privacy, although not in mainstrem-adult-way of defining or understanding it. Children, too, have their comfort and private zone. Remember, the time when you have that cheesy flowery diary with that smell of cheap-soap and you'd rather die than someone (esp. parents) have a look and read it?? That's privacy. All the secrets things that children hide (although parents insist on openness and honesty). They might not be things that matter for adult (how many times as a kid, your parents laugh at your best kept secrets when you were eventually game enough to share it?), but they do matter to us as kids, no less matter than they are to your children.

In current social media, privacy is a big and constantly debated concept. New social media like facebook or twitter that connect digitally-literate people of all ages (as you can always defy your age. my two youngest siblings, age 10 and 12, have facebook), and share information captured in words and pictures to all your friends. And they are there for only Mark Zuckenberg (and few others) knows how long. In facebook, with current higher privacy setting, you can control whom you share information with, and if your friend mind enough to pay you the luxury of courtesy, they'll tag you and inform you when shared information are posted. And you can either reject it or not. Although, what happen if they're not sensitive enough (some ppl think they own the complete rights to shared pictures just because their faces are also captured)? Similarly, adults are considered well-informed of the consequences of their presence in public spot or at least, when someone take your picture. Taking someone picture in public spot is another issue to discuss, something that I don't have enough knowledge.

So, imagine 1 yo old daughter and I, as a happy proud mom just want to share the joy of me having her to my friends. Facebook is the place, isn't it? And how, being mindful of the my daughter's privacy, do I ask for her consent? After all, she's only 12 months, the only word she can utter is 'mommy'.

No easy way. Back to CRC, acknowledging that children might not have all that it takes to make sound decision (this is too, debatable) considering the complexity of decision one can make sometimes, CRC provides the (overly-abused) principle of 'the best interest of the children'. This principle, although contestable and vague, is probably the only venue of guidance I can think of now. This principle lends space for adult to make decision for children, done in the manner of utmost consideration of (1) children's opinion and (2) their best interest. Assumptions are the one who make decision, knows better and has good intention. Remember the way your parents said to you, 'This is for your own good!' That's it, they're using the same justification, i mean, principle. But again, the principle begs the question of interpretation. Adult and children, no matter how close is their relationship, have different interpretations. And not to mention, the difficulty in defining 'interest' and measuring the scale of 'best'.

Best interest of children and their opinions. If your children are smart enough to comprehend the internet (and what it means by mommy putting your singing pictures in her facebook), ask their opinion or rather seek their permissions!! If your children, are too young to understand or for some other reasons cannot understand, think twice, deeply! Would this picture embarrass my son? Now, three years or thirteen years later? If I were him, at his age (or later) would I be happy if someone share my picture in my swimmer to 600 others people that I don't know (think hundreds times if you are a narcissistic person)?

Sounds too much, or too progressive. Not really. Children by the age of 4 or 5 can understand that anything with their image on it is, to some extent, their possession. They have opinion of what to do with it, which pictures are okay to show to people (not the one I wore that stupid bunny outfits), and to whom. So chances are, three years from now, the picture of your 1 yo daughter will still be accessible (remember no one knows how long facebook and internet keep all our information) and they might disagree on your decision putting the pics on facebook. After all, it's the token of their lives that you are sharing, something that they have full ownership of.

-that way, next time i procrastinate by flicking your children's picture, I don't feel guilty hehehehe-

Dear Clara

Clara!

I don't know if it is your story or if it is your writing, or may be both. But, your e-mail is remarkably riveting and engaging, as evident from the passion with which it is written.

T is going through a phase which is not very different from what you are going through - strange land, huge opportunities, new relationships, uncertain future. It is natural for people in the school to see both of you and form their own understanding of where you both are in terms of your academic careers. As for you, it is important to recognise the signs of competition, and to acknowledge the feelings and frustrations that accompany them. Instead of having to score points to assert dominance within competition, one can go a long way by saying to themselves that they have nothing to lose. Your life is ahead of you, many opportunities are ahead of you, and competition can only make your life better if you are able to handle it healthily by seeing opportunities through them. I always use the analogy of the government and the opposition. You govern your life. Outside competition although, can influence your life which you govern. Whilst most governments tend to defend their point of view by justifying their views as better, a good government takes the criticisms and challenges as opportunities for shaping and expanding their vision. There is nothing here for you to prove, nothing to defend, nothing to lose and a hell of a lot to gain. So use this T episode to identify what you have learnt through this, and utilise it to shape your vision for your life. It could even include simple things like: who are my real friends? How do I learn to handle competition effectively? How can I handle situations without running away from them, denying them or sweeping them under the carpet? etc etc. I think you are learning lots through this, and I am very optimistic that you will learn more as days go by.

Coming to your questions about me. Yes, I am applying to Oxford and Cambridge for a Master’s degree which will eventually lead into a PhD. My topic of research will be to expand on the God/humanity/creation interrelation in the Old Testament scriptures, focusing on psalms, proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Job. I will certainly be applying for scholarship, without which, I will find it very hard. I stare at Sophie's world every day. It is on my bed, begging to be read. I have been getting 2 hours sleep each night of late, which is why Sophie continues to wait for me. The same applies to Le Petite Prince, which is why I am kind of looking forward to the Christmas holidays.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the simplest things. I love to read and hear your stories, and I never see them silly. As a matter of fact I feel privileged that another person's experience can inform and influence my own life. So you and your stories are welcome as ever.

Good luck with all your preparations for Fiji. Have a blast.

The Piano Man

Dear Piano Man

Dear Piano Man,

Not sure why I write this email. Maybe because I feel guilty letting our catch up time consumed with my silly stories (and oh that good 15 mins of me crying my heart out and losing all my guards). and I do want to hear your stories. But thanks anyway

So, what's happening in your life? You told me you're applying for PhD? Where? Which universities? What's the topic of your research? Are you applying for scholarship too?Did you read all the books I gave to you? Sophie's world? Le Petite Prince? If so, how do you find them? Is there any interesting bit? Guess, for me those two fictions significantly framed my world views, my narratives (although, the narratives, of course, are constantly changing)

Hmm, alright, guess I know now why I'm writing email to you. I need to talk to someone, someone... you. Today has been of a bit of emotional turbulence. I met with my professor who helped me finding and arranging my internship in Fiji (he even arranged accommodation for me, such an ace!!)He introduced me to some members of the organisation that I'll work with. It was nice and good.

Then he told me that T came to him and asked him to endorse her internship. Guess I was a bit irritated because of that. Feel like I couldn't escape this girl. And my prof hinted something like, 'I smell you both are so in competition with each other'. Hate that!! I mean now the whole school knows. I just feel it’s inescapable now, everyone will compare us. and I am not strong enough not to resist to be consumed in this pointless comparison and competition.

I am so afraid that I would lose my track, and ability to actually 'be here' and enjoy things that I have. I guess in competition, you always look forward to score points, to affirm your advancement against others. This is so pointless and will hinder me to have a genuine interaction. It turns my 'friendship' with T into self-serving interaction to satisfy a selfish and egoistic affirmation of fragile self-definition. Maybe i don't really have a friendship with her since the very beginning. I don't know

Well, now I feel better. I've put it into words and I can observe my feelings. I feel lighter and I guess I can start building up my effort to get out of this silly frame.I just feel sad, for the fact, that what I thought was a real friendship or at least what could have been a real friendship is probably a fake one. Will there be any real friendship? how could you tell? Will there be any sincere unselfish relationship? how can you tell? All these things with T make me even more sceptical. I felt I've been fooled.

Anyway, now I don't know whether I should hit the send button or not? (click it actually). I decided to send it, for I would like to believe, friendship can happen

Have a good day

Cla

Narratives and advocacy

It was slightly out of expectation. Policy Advocacy would not provide their devotees with practicalities of advocacy. There would not be tips and tricks in effective persuasion. Rather, it taught us different attempts to make sense advocacy, to dissect it and its assumptions, to look beyond what is seemingly an obvious matter. Before, I always thought that advocacy was straight forward. Advocacy for me was demonstrations, strikes or boycotts. Advocacy is telling the reality that your government is too blind to see! Indeed, they are examples of persuasion at play. However, advocacy is more complex and subtler than those examples. One thing for sure, advocacy is so pervasive in our lives that we are actually advocates, often unconsciously.

Yesterday, I met my boyfriend and talked about the military violence that is happening in West Papua, Indonesia. I told him how paralysed I felt for not being able to do anything. His suggestion is for me to start gathering support from Indonesian students and plan a protest. He suggested that I should write articles, to persuade the Indonesian Student Association to release an official statement to the Australian and Indonesian media. The key, he said, is to wait for the right moment, when the condition gets worse, to execute all the strategies he mentioned. Aha! That's what John Kingdon's calls 'window of opportunity'! All the strategies he formulated are perfect examples of persuasion as 'manoeuvres' of an advocate. He understood that I, an ordinary student, do not have a 'claim to a hearing', a prerequisite of Kingdon's policy entrepreneur. Organisation like the Indonesian Students Association and the media will help me to grab attention. Intelligent as he is, he never heard of Kingdon’s eloquent idea of policy entrepreneurs. But we can see how ideas and practical ways of persuasion are every day’s conversation. One grieve observation is, often to ‘sell’ your cure you must wait until your patient is about to die. Is that a justified trade-off? How can we tell the right moment to push our prescription?

Come to think of it, what he did is an advocacy in itself. He was persuading me of what he thought was the best ways to advocate my cause. He was performing an advocacy on how to execute my advocacy. The way he did it was to appeal to my reason or ‘logos’. He laid out the argumentative analysis of how those moves he suggested are the best ways I could possibly exhibit. He also has that ‘ethos’ dimension as an ex-journalist in Australia. He knows how the media works and to utilize it. Add to the ethos his charms and we can tell now whether I was convinced or not.

The question then is how to persuade the bulk of mainstream Indonesian students to support my cause to stop violence in Papua? Their ignorance frustrates me. For me, it is obvious that what happens in Papua are human rights violation, developmental failures, and structural discrimination by the state. The evidence is crystal clear. How could most people be blind to those facts?! The answer seems to lie in the narrative approach on advocacy. In fact, the concept of narrative significantly changes my understanding of policy advocacy.

Politicians often say, ‘Let me tell you a story’. Indeed, to understand the policy, we need to ask the story first. Narratives help us make sense of a problem by encompassing and interweaving disjointed ideas and values and justifying the decision and policy action (Feldman et al 2004; Fischer 2002). In doing so, narratives blur the boundaries of personal stories with grand theme of a policy and the grand narrative of identities. In narratives, we find a complex interaction between the personal, professional and the public stories. Narratives serve as lenses to filter the ingredients of our construction of 'reality' and truth; so called facts and evidence. Facts and evidence only serve as justification for our narratives; ideas of ‘reality’.

Born in an activist family, I have a different narrative from most of my Indonesian peers. My father was a labour activist during Soeharto era. He told me stories of workers who suffered under Soeharto’s policies and his military atrocities. When I was 12, my father told me that my grandfather, his father, was murdered by the military in 1967 because he joined the communist teacher’s movement. So I grew up with deep antagonism toward the government, the military and the dominant narrative of Indonesia as a national identity and a nation. My story is part of the big narrative of struggling victims of government, including Papuan rebels (or heroes?). Now we see how my narratives shape my previous understanding of advocacy. Individuals are the culmination of public and personal stories, a dynamic negotiation of many interrelated narratives.

In advocacy, often we need to change the narrative which neither easy nor quick. We need to persuade people to step outside their narratives in order to observe and analyse the narratives onto which they attach personal stories and public roles; to identify and question the assumptions of the plots and values embedded in the grand story. The next step is to convince them that our counter-narrative is worth adopting; that this version of reality will make sense of the problem, and solve it.

In Papuan case, this means questioning the grand narrative of Indonesia. What is Indonesia? Who are Indonesians? How did we come to this idea of Indonesia? How do ideas of Indonesia shape my personal story, my identity and political stance; my opinion on Papuan issues? What is my version of Papuan story within the story of Indonesia? The advocacy continues by offering, and convincing people to adopt the counter- narratives where Papuan rebels are the brave protagonists against cruel authorities; that current ideas of Indonesia and being Indonesian are misleading and need to be redefined.

Most people will refuse to confront their narratives, let alone change them. To question our narrative is dangerous, both at individual and collective level. At personal level, it shakes our self-definitions and construction of reality; the meaning of our personal lives and roles in public domain; our identities. At collective level, it disturbs our foundation of our imagined collective identity, collective actions and its ways of making sense of our changing environment.

At this point, I am so perplexed. If policy heavily depends on narratives, where that leaves advocacy? How to change deeply pervasive narratives? If evidence, truths, facts are instruments of our narratives, what can justify such advocacy to convince others that our narratives, thus our ‘reality’ and evidence, is better (or more real)? Policy Advocacy course leaves me incompetent in answering those provocative questions; questions that might never be answered, or maybe, should not be answered.