How can we care to our nation?

          How can we care to our nation?

                                                          By Farsijana Adeney-Risakotta*)

I was running this morning as usually when this question raised on my mind. A friend of mine who discussed my book on the ecological art and the expression on women toward anti-violence made a comment that he would be hit by cars if he was thinking on a vision while running. He commented to my words on the book that the idea for putting together the ecological women art on anti violence arrived when I was running.  It is always truth for me anyway because I believe running is the next step for my brain to reconnect with think I have envisioned in my mind.

Running, taking shower,  they all are the same for me to get lots of a united inspiration to shift my words into sentences. I wrote my mind with so many sentences. Our brain needs to formulate our understanding for what we have had in our unconsciousness’ thoughts. When we were building our writing home in the current location, on the cliff of Parangtritis ocean where now our heirloom home stands, I told my husband that I wanted to have the door of the bathroom facing to the ocean. Now from the closet of the bath I can watch the ocean to have a dialogue with the open sphere of the horizon perspective of the nature to bring back the understanding for myself.

Running is just like the process I had anytime I am on the closet. It sounds so “kasar” (rude) and impolite to say in my writing. When the journalists of Kompas, Maria Hartiningsih and Wawan interviewed me on which room in the heirloom home of Pondok Jati Rasa that I like so much, I explained about this fact that I like so much my crown of the toilet but I asked them not to writing and taking the picture. It is too personal. However, this morning I decided writing this in my blog. 

As I made my point before to remind me that if I visit my blog every time, it is not about the blog itself, it is about all the connection I have been envisioning throughout my historical existence.  I have carried the vision of my parents, my grandmother, and the words of the meaning of my name which has depth understanding on important values given by Sanskrit, Persian, Arab and Hebrew.  Farsijana Rohny Cootje means a girl born in February is full with Holy Spirit, looking for knowledge and caring for family and people. The vision comes like an opened horizon that I can see from my crown on the toilet at the cliff house in Parangtritis.

So this morning, I have an inspiration to continue my thought last night as I wrote in Indonesian on the existence of an ethic of care. It starts with the story of my grandma whose name is with me now, Cootje. She is a nurse and spent her entire youth to the time when we got marriage with a Javanese guy in Serui, Papua. There, my mother was borne.  I visited Serui in 2007 for a university work and reminding me to the story of my grandparents. They were medical couples working to serve the people there in the period when everything was still called close to modern life. 

The house where my mother borne was still stood. It was a hanging house where according to my grandma, under the house usually there was a ghost walked out from the operation room of the hospital to the house. My imagination of this moment when I was little always creating a misterious life of Papua in me. Until I went there to see that how close is the house and the room where there was the operation area. Then my grandma continued saying that my Javanese grandpa would suggest to do a Javanese ritual to rotate the house seven times to disappear the ghost. Coming to this story I remembered the couple would argue to each other that they were not agree with each one approached. My grandmother would just pray when that happened. I smiled to remember their arguments.

So returning to the care! My thought was how we can care to our nations.  As a woman, the word of care is seen in the feminist study as an evident of weakness given by social system to women since they are little to hold in in their entire life. Women tend to be trained in their brain to care for others. Their natural response to their body as a future mother makes them to get ready for caring to the weak babies. Care becomes words that show submission of women to their family and larger society. Caring can create a condition of ppression to women. In many cases, this concern can be understood. However, I would argue that the impact of education to women especially to the context where women reconnect to new idea of equality, they can reshape their understanding of care.  Care becomes their icon with a new perspective to be critically reshaped and remaking.

Indonesian experiences provide many opportunities for women to be educated as equal as men.  The political contexts have given an access to women to participate for making their own contribution to the nation. This contribution is not mainly in the area of caring which relating with the common practices women will have to participate for example to do social work for family and others.

Women can participate to share their knowledge, their concern, and their reflection which comes out from the connection to the field of what they seeing, watching, smeeling, listening, learning, thinking and touching. Caring is not only about doing domestic work. Caring is also to share our perspective finding in our way to work with many issues relating with how we can live together.

My capacibilities as a scholar who had a chance to be trained in the field that is not many women interest in like studying theology, religions, development, conflict, violence should open me to lots of possibilities to share to others. I work directly with women on the grass roots throughout our province of Yogyakarta to serve the Indonesian women coalition. As an anthropologist, I learned to examine issues as ideas and the practices women want to do to achieve their better life. Then any time I had an opportunity I wrote down my thoughts to reflect. Something, the desire for writing flows easy sometime not. I have to feel which calls in my heart to formulate into words to make a good and short stories for my link that listen deeply. I wrote things that spring out as my concern.

Therefore I was very sad to learn that my article, title as “Orthodoxy of Religious teaching: blessing or curving toward violence?” as I posted in my site of Face book was discarded.  In the article, I explained about the history of splitting of religions due to the notion of orthodoxy search for making a different teaching. My argument, when people came to the process of doing orthodoxy interpretation, is they can be very fanatics, close-minded that can lead to the violent actions. It relates with interests and power to enforce to other people who are against with the orthodoxy thinking.  Orthodoxy has happened in the history of world religions. So can we learn to be more faithful in our religions, to be faithful in our struck of being religions according to the orthodoxy of religious institution without getting to the trap of violent actions.

My questions, my words, my arguments, can be dialogue with people as I see it as my contribution to our nation, more over my concern to this humanity and the sustainability of this earth. I have a dream to see we live together in peace day to day…therefore I care to you all then I write my thoughts. So please return my freedom to contribute to this discourse as I write any of my thoughts with respect and love to others, to their traditions in my heart and my action. Please listen to me my unknown friend who are around me but do not want to hear my voices. I hope you will not erase and block any of my words anymore because you begin to know me as I learn to know you all. May God guide our life together!

*A grass roots activist, an anthropologist and a theologian.