Saved from Myself

How often I've cried out
in silent tongue
to be saved
from myself

in the middle of the night
too afraid
to move

horrified the answer
may be beyond the
capability of my
own two hands

so small

(no one should feel this alone)

-- Quoted from Jewel: "A Night Without Armor --

The Darker Brother: A Review of The Movie The Great Debaters (2007)

I am the darker brother
They send me to eat in the kitchen when company comes
But I laugh, and I eat well and I grow strong
Tomorrow I will sit on the table when company comes
Nobody'll dare say to me 'eat in the kitchen' then
Besides, they'll see how beautiful I am and be ashamed
I, too, am America
- Langston Hughes, 1924 -

Opened with a witted poem read out loud by Denzel Washington in front of his class, this 'inspired-by-a-true-story' movie had all at once brought me up to my whole attention (though it was 00.00, my clock said). He was a literature teacher in the movie, politically radical, but also a strong-hearted debate team coach for one of the small 'black' colleges in America. It was 1934, and I just realized that at the time, black-racism was still so strong in America. Black people or coloured people or Negroes or Niggers could not be admitted to state universities. They were lynched instead. I just noticed that there were such a word, 'lynch', which according to my Longman Dictionary would mean:

(esp. of a crowd of people), to take hold of and put to death without a legal trial (a person thought to be guilty of crime).

Denzel in the movie taught me the history about this word:

Take the meanest, most restless nigger
Strip him off his clothes
In front of the remaining male niggers, female niggers and niggers infants
Tar and feather him
Tie each leg to a horse facing an opposite direction
Set him on fire
And beat both horses until they tear him apart
In front of the male, female and nigger infants
Bullwhip and beat the remaining nigger males within an inch of their life
Do not kill them, but put the fear of God in them
For they can be useful for future breeding

It was an expression made popular by Willie Lynch, a vicious slave owner in the West Indies. He was also very well-known of his simple-yet-diabolical methods of controlling slaves: "keep the slave physically strong but psychologically weak and dependent of the slave master: keep the body and take the mind". The word 'lynch' came from his last name.

Basically, this movie told us the story of a group of underdog Negro college students in a debate team that eventually took on the Harvard elite. I enjoyed very much the debates in the movie (since I was also in a debate team when I was a college student, *giggle*). But not only that, this movie also brought its audiences into an insight. It opened their eyes of the power of destruction of 'human-ego'. The ego that lied (and still lies and will always lie there) in each and every one of us. The ego that always sprouted hatred in the heart. The ego that kept people in boxes, classified by their colours, religions, sexes, and so on.

I myself believe in a non-violent way, that hatred can only be ceased by love. But this movie somehow made me undertand that some people could not simply just walk in that way so easily. Especially when you were black, and had just witnessed a fellow of yours being lynched, strung up by his neck up on a tree and set on fire burnt alive to death, simply for just being black. Therefore, I myself would give my every thumbs up for the Negroes that had managed to survive and prove themselves in a constructive way nobody else could.

This was part of the last speech by the debate team against the Harvard, giving us confidence that somehow, some way, non-violence can be the best moral weapon to fight for justice.

[Proposition: Civil disobedience is a moral weapon in the fight for justice]

But how can disobedience ever be moral?
Well, I guess that depends on one's definition of the words.
Word.
In 1919, in India...
10.000 people gathered in Amritsar to protest the tyranny of British rule.
General Reginald Dyer trapped them in a courtyard,
and ordered his troops to fire into the crowd for ten minutes.
379 died.
Men, women, children shot down in cold blood.
Dyer said he had taught them a moral lesson.
Gandhi and his followers serponded not with violence.
But with an organized campaign of non-cooperation.
Govenrment buildings were occupied.
Streets were blocked with people who refused to rise, even when beaten by police.
Gandhi was arrested.
But the British were soon forced to release him.
Gandhi called it a moral victory.
The definition of moral: Dyer's lesson or Gandhi's victory?
You choose.

In Texas, they lynched Negroes.
My teammates and I saw a man strung up by his neck and set on fire.
We drove through a lynch mob and pressed our faces against the floorboard.
i looked at my teammates.
I saw the fear in their eyes.
And worse....
The shame.
What was this Negro's crime that he should be hung without trial?
In a dark forest filled with fog.
Was he a thief? Was he a killer?
Or just a Negro?
Was he a sharecropper? A preacher?
Were his children waiting up for him?
And who are we to just lie there and do nothing?
No matter what he did, the mob is the criminal.
But the law did nothing.
Just left us wondering why.
My opponent says: "Nothing that erodes the rule of law can be moral"
But there is no rule of law in the Jim Crow South.
Not when Negroes are denied housing.
Turned away from schools, hospitals.
And not when we are lynched.
St. Augustine said, "An unjust law is no law at all"
Which means I have a right, even a duty, to resist...
But with violence or civil disobedience?
You should pray I choose the latter.

I Miss si Ndut.......

June 14th 08, I brought si Ndut from her home.....
I brought her to the grooming store, bought her all the stuffs i thought she would need.....
They adored and praised her....
Then I brought her to my friend's house and stayed the night there
They adored and loved her.....
I practically couldn't leave her alone....
If she woke up all by herself and couldn't find me then she'll start whining.....
I even had to sleep on the couch to accompany her...
And she would just roll herself up close to the couch...

June 15th 08, I started my journey to bring Ndut to Jakarta.....
I had to convince the travel agent that she's good and wouldn't be a problem in the car all the long way to Jakarta
Then I had to convince all the passengers as well....
And finally they allowed us to ge on....
Though I had to pick another destination which had less passengers...
She did pretty well the whole journey...
Never complained, never whined..... just as long as she was close to me.....
Dang the car..... Its tyres got into some problems, so we had to pull over then had to slow down.....
Dang the car.... Its air-cond sucked and malfunctioned....
I was worried with Ndut, since she was supposed to be in a cool-to-cold place
But she just slept her way so peacefully.....
She was never naughty.....
We got home.....
I was so proud of how beautiful and cute she was....
She wet my room.... LOL..... Kinda upset.... But nevermind.... She's nervous at her new home....
She wet my room the second time... Nevermind.....
And the third time and the fourth and go on....
LOL.... Looked like my plan to house-train her didnt start very well..... LOL....
Then she played by herself.... With the artificial bone I bought her.....
But she just didn't like to be ignored....
She would come and nip me if I got too concentrated on my computer...
Then she slept.... Then I slept....
Two hours later, she woke up and woke me up as well......
I had to get down to the floor to watch her play and play with her...
One hour passed by....
She got bored and slept away..... And so I slept too.....
But after two hours, she would just woke up again and she would woke me up too.....
It just went on and on and on.....
LOL.....
It pissed me off at the time.... But now..... I miss it......
Oh, and have I told you that I couldn't even go to the bathroom without her looking nervously and would cry and whine if I took too long?

June 16th 08, I had to skip work......
Felt not right to leave her by herself......
Besides I had to go buy her kennel......
But when I thought and re-thought.....
Guessed it's just too selfish to keep her alone for too long a time everyday when I had to go to work....
Guessed I had to take her home......
So I went straight JKT-BDG that day......
And again, she was so quiet along the way...... So nice..... So loveable....
She would roll herself up close to me then went to sleep.....
Finally, she got back together with her sister, Citta...., her mother, Wira...., her friends, Gilang and Arya....
She can play now all the way she wants.....
But when I got back to my room and saw the mess she left....
There's something missing.....
.........
.........
.........
Hope we can meet again someday.....
And hope we can be together......
Ndut.......

I Miss si Ndut.......

June 14th 08, I brought si Ndut from her home.....
I brought her to the grooming store, bought her all the stuffs i thought she would need.....
They adored and praised her....
Then I brought her to my friend's house and stayed the night there
They adored and loved her.....
I practically couldn't leave her alone....
If she woke up all by herself and couldn't find me then she'll start whining.....
I even had to sleep on the couch to accompany her...
And she would just roll herself up close to the couch...

June 15th 08, I started my journey to bring Ndut to Jakarta.....
I had to convince the travel agent that she's good and wouldn't be a problem in the car all the long way to Jakarta
Then I had to convince all the passengers as well....
And finally they allowed us to ge on....
Though I had to pick another destination which had less passengers...
She did pretty well the whole journey...
Never complained, never whined..... just as long as she was close to me.....
Dang the car..... Its tyres got into some problems, so we had to pull over then had to slow down.....
Dang the car.... Its air-cond sucked and malfunctioned....
I was worried with Ndut, since she was supposed to be in a cool-to-cold place
But she just slept her way so peacefully.....
She was never naughty.....
We got home.....
I was so proud of how beautiful and cute she was....
She wet my room.... LOL..... Kinda upset.... But nevermind.... She's nervous at her new home....
She wet my room the second time... Nevermind.....
And the third time and the fourth and go on....
LOL.... Looked like my plan to house-train her didnt start very well..... LOL....
Then she played by herself.... With the artificial bone I bought her.....
But she just didn't like to be ignored....
She would come and nip me if I got too concentrated on my computer...
Then she slept.... Then I slept....
Two hours later, she woke up and woke me up as well......
I had to get down to the floor to watch her play and play with her...
One hour passed by....
She got bored and slept away..... And so I slept too.....
But after two hours, she would just woke up again and she would woke me up too.....
It just went on and on and on.....
LOL.....
It pissed me off at the time.... But now..... I miss it......
Oh, and have I told you that I couldn't even go to the bathroom without her looking nervously and would cry and whine if I took too long?

June 16th 08, I had to skip work......
Felt not right to leave her by herself......
Besides I had to go buy her kennel......
But when I thought and re-thought.....
Guessed it's just too selfish to keep her alone for too long a time everyday when I had to go to work....
Guessed I had to take her home......
So I went straight JKT-BDG that day......
And again, she was so quiet along the way...... So nice..... So loveable....
She would roll herself up close to me then went to sleep.....
Finally, she got back together with her sister, Citta...., her mother, Wira...., her friends, Gilang and Arya....
She can play now all the way she wants.....
But when I got back to my room and saw the mess she left....
There's something missing.....
.........
.........
.........
Hope we can meet again someday.....
And hope we can be together......
Ndut.......