CHILDREN IN SUICIDE

“Suppose the sky is empty, and life isn’t having purpose anymore, should we kill ourselves? Should we concede our defeat, and determined this life isn’t reasonably to keep on anymore”. This is a philosophy question which submitted by Kirilov on Les Possédés, an inquiring thought from the absurd character on that Dostoievsky masterpiece.

Suicide is an individual phenomenon, weird and elusive, and also offered a different view about death.

Among realities which place suicide as an extraordinary theme, Albert Camus considered suicide was the only philosophical problem which actually serious. Evaluate whether this life proper to go through or not, was the principle answer about philosophy.

Camus philosophies struggle on revealed suicide at the absurd world provide honestly perspective (and also gladden), that human being have to accept their weird condition.

What all said by Camus, and Kirilov too, was a relevant thing at our present life. Suicide stills a concrete reality, apart from its value philosophical debate. Wherein opportunity for suicide escalation quite large, together with increasing of our life pressure.

Global inclination regarding to our complicated future not only give an extremely space for interpretation of Charles Darwin’s “survival of fittest”, but also possibility of suicidal escalation. Both consequences equally worst.

Nowadays, from television or newspaper at our family room, on previous years when they found their freedom once again, we’re easy accessible to a suicidal news (which as popular as the other criminal news). High acceleration of suicidal statistic is a worrying fact. Moreover, if we’re seeing reality that suicidal victim not only an adult, but also children in school age.

Complex Determinant

Traditionally, suicide was comprehensible as an extreme self-defeating behavior, which majority done by an adult with personal reason. Emile Durkheim research which famously explored about suicidal rate in several Europe countries concludes: functionally, suicide was consequence from slack off social integration, although its determinant has variation and individual intensely.

Social background, added with life pressure, visibly make sense as a dominant reason for adult to commit suicide. Nevertheless, when suicide happen to our child in significant amount, we ought to inquired and pay close attention to this symptom. How children, with their innocence and playful contentment, could do this?

An outcome of Kaoru Yamamoto research toward 1.814 children (in USA, Australia, Canada, Egypt, Japan and Philippines) attempted to help us to understand this idiosyncrasy.

Dr Yamamoto, psychologist at University of Colorado in USA, asserted how an embarrassment could bestow a solid blow to children self-esteem and their mental state. The idea when children detected doing something bad, on children mind, will have meaning that they always seem bad. Or, if embarrassed, they thought that they never attain their self-esteem as before again.

Self-image of children shaped continually on a brittle process. As a consequence, children tend to exaggerate something out of proportion. And occasionally, conscience-stricken of children is more fervent than adult.

If we observe child suicide carefully, much case is caused by parent’s lack of ability to fulfill children needs, which finally create a solid blow to a child: an embarrassed sense and inferiority complex among their friends.

These facts, as said by Ann Epstein, psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School in USA, could summarize that the most usual trigger on child suicide is an embarrassing experience.

These explanations not only give a warning that parents doesn’t actually understand about what things which make children feel stress and shattered their self-esteem, decided what happen (and thinking by children) too quick, and often take a hasty decision.

But, these explanations also focus on the family and peer’s effectiveness role, as an early social circle for child. How family and peer running their traditional function to support child development, with produce a warmth and familiarities atmosphere which offer a secure state. These functions could translate as a root of social integration to our society.

Because of that, present families have to carry out more complex responsibilities. They’re demand to supplied a proper life for their children, protected from external jeopardy, and included maintain their sensitivity toward their child mental health.

Social Disintegration?

On the other perspective which still linked, if we believe in what Durkheim done on his research, we have to relate suicidal escalation, whether on child or adult, as an inclination features of weaken social integration to our society.

This hypothesis seems reasonable. On wider scale, we’re metamorphoses at unlimited global village. We’re face with west civilization, which its principal spirits is consumerism, belief in capitalist machine, materialism, and individualisms life style and which related with it: absolute freedom.

Some of that values manifested on our completely apathetic toward anguish and problem of the other. This altruism deficiency afterwards becomes a trigger for social agitation, vertical conflicts, and even suicide. This is a subtle deadly disease on the heart of our society.

However, all sorts of determinant (and also consequence) that mentioned above is only strengthen suicidal phenomenon as a complex psycho-social reality. Because, not only talk about individuals, family and society. But also about education which should have been sharpen society’s emotional state, expand and share values which said by Camus: human beings have to accept a desire which planted inside them wisely. A desire for obtains clarity in the middle of obscurity and excessively uncertainties.

And the important one is an optimal achievement from our government to manage society, and bring prosperity which is evenly distributed through all kinds of improvement programs and sustainable development.

***

METAMORPHO-SELF

Hidup itu netral.

Itulah metafora yang disimpulkan oleh Fred Spencer, penulis buku The Jungle Is Neutral. Spencer adalah tentara Inggris semasa Perang Dunia II pada sebuah garnisun kecil di Singapura. Ia menuliskan pengalaman survive dalam hutan, selama 9 bulan, setelah Inggris kalah di kepulauan itu.

Menurut Spencer, hidup ternyata sama seperti hutan. Hidup tidak ‘berusaha’ menghancurkan, dan tidak pula mendukung kita. Kemampuan bertahan bergantung pada semangat, menggali kemampuan diri dan kemudian memanfaatkannya. Bahkan di medan yang sama sekali belum kita kenali.

Hal ini terjadi karena manusia, dengan neo-korteksnya (perangkat otak berpikir) yang tidak dimiliki oleh mahluk hidup lain di muka bumi ini, mempunyai kapasitas untuk beradaptasi.

Seperti yang dikatakan Robert Ornstein, otak ternyata tidak dirancang pertama-tama untuk berpikir. Tetapi untuk belajar, bereaksi dan beradaptasi demi kelangsungan hidup. Mahakarya ini, yang memiliki kemungkinan hubungan antar sel lebih banyak dari jumlah atom jagat raya, menempatkan manusia sebagai spesies yang superior. Dan masih bertahan hingga saat ini.

Manusia mampu meneliti lingkungannya, membuat sesuatu yang baru, meramalkan masa depan, bahkan memanipulasi kondisi fisik demi tujuan-tujuan tertentu. Intinya, apa yang bisa dipikirkan, maka dapat dilakukan!

Lalu apa hubungan antara hidup yang netral, potensi beradaptasi dengan kita? Kita setidaknya dapat mempertautkan tema ini dengan trend-trend pembicaraan yang sedang hangat saat ini.

Salah satu pilihannya adalah momentum pergantian tahun. Perayaan tahun baru, dengan atau tanpa sense of crisis, tidak semuanya hura-hura, liburan dan pesta, atau kebisingan yang disengaja. Ada juga yang berkhidmat dalam rasa syukur, merefleksikan dan mengevaluasi setiap hal selama setahun yang lalu.

Yang lebih mencerahkan, ada yang menjadikan detik pergantian tahun sebagai deklarasi target-target yang ingin dicapai tahun depan.

Wish of the Year

Alan Kay, eksponen penting di Pusat Riset Palo Alto, pernah mengatakan kalau satu-satunya cara untuk meramal masa depan adalah dengan menciptakannya.

Dan proses lebih awal dari penciptaan adalah perencanaan; inilah bentuk adaptasi sistematik manusia, meskipun seringkali diperkuat oleh keputusan-keputusan intuitif, serta cenderung emosional.

Dalam struktur linguistik Ferdinand Saussure, seorang filosof Prancis yang berusaha me-rekonstruksi pemaknaan atas dunia, terdapat logika oposisi biner untuk setiap konsep. Oposisi untuk terencana adalah proses acak, tidak sistematis atau fleksibel.

 Kita sering mendengar idiom hidup seperti air, mengalir, let it flow dan tanpa rencana. Tetapi, boleh jadi, tidak ada yang benar-benar mengikuti pola hidup tanpa rencana tersebut. Karena setiap manusia pasti memiliki tujuan, disadari atau tidak, baik jangka pendek ataupun panjang.

Dengan adanya tujuan, berarti kita telah melewati salah satu proses dari perencanaan. Sehingga yang ada hanyalah gradasi perencanaan dalam hidup; dari yang tanpa disadari, sampai pada bentuk yang sangat detail.

Jika kita memilih untuk menghadapi hidup apa adanya, mengalir begitu saja, mungkin kita akan

menemui kejutan-kejutan yang tak terbayangkan. Tapi, selaras dengan filosofi air, kita juga bisa terjebak dalam arus yang tidak bisa kita kendalikan.

Untuk itu, tidak ada salahnya untuk punya rencana tahun depan. Lagipula, kita leluasa memilih tingkatan dan caranya.

Rencana yang sederhana, adalah kebebasan kita dalam berimajinasi mengenai apa yang kita inginkan. Pencapaian terbaik seringkali diawali dari khayalan ‘gila’, yang bisa dilakukan sambil mendengar Eine Kleine Nachtmusik-nya Mozart.

Kita bisa mencatatnya dalam daftar 101 keinginan. Wish of the year. Atau mengurainya dalam bidang spesifik, semisal: target akademis, pekerjaan, kegiatan atau keterampilan baru yang harus dicapai, relasi sosial ataupun kehidupan asmara.

Rencana imajinatif seperti ini juga penting, dan dapat membuat kita mengalir mengikuti tujuan ideal kita.

Ada juga media perencanaan yang ber-presisi lebih tinggi. Seperti penggunaan kaidah SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic dan Time Bound), yang mendesain pencapaian tujuan kita dalam langkah terkecil dan dapat diukur.

Semakin kita dewasa, dan semakin kompleks permasalahan yang kita hadapi, membuat perencanaan bertambah rumit dan detail, layaknya sebuah analisis SWOT ataupun penerapan SAP (Strategic Advantages Profile) dalam metode perencanaan strategis.

Kita juga dapat meminta bantuan program komputer, yang secara cerdas membantu kita dalam berpikir linear serta sekuensial.

Metamorphoself

Hebatnya lagi, selain membantu kita mengarahkan hidup, perencanaan setidaknya dapat membawa kita pada keadaan mental yang positif. Karena kesemua proses menempatkan kita pada pengembangan diri yang berkelanjutan.

Manfaat yang terbaik tentu sikap optimis, sikap yang dapat dipelajari oleh siapapun. Rencana kita, atau imajinasi mengenai cetak biru masa depan kita pastilah yang terbaik, sehingga dapat men-stimulasi positive thinking dan sikap optimis, sekaligus meredam negaholics (selalu berpikiran negatif).

Bagi mereka yang merencanakan perubahan revolusioner dalam hidup, menurut Charles Garfield, guru besar Universitas California, berarti menjadi bagian dari manusia-manusia yang berani keluar dari ‘wilayah aman’-nya. Dimana hasrat perubahan ini dapat memicu energi quantum; yakni suatu interaksi potensi dalam diri manusia yang membentuk energi dahsyat, dapat ditularkan pada orang lain, dan berpotensi membawa manusia pada level yang tidak terkira sebelumnya.

Dari hasrat perubahan ini pula, kita berusaha mengenali potensi diri dan memanfaatkannya dengan optimal, seperti cerita Fred Spencer diatas.

Dan sesuai dengan keyakinan Sun Tzu, kita semestinya akan memenangi seribu perang sekalipun dalam hidup, ketika kita sanggup mengenali diri, lingkungan dan musuh-musuh kita.

Masih banyak segi taktis lain yang bermanfaat dari perencanaan. Namun, tetap saja, apakah kita akan mendesain rencana untuk tahun depan atau tidak, adalah sebuah pilihan. Kita yang memilih bagaimana menjalani kehidupan.

Quo vadis 2019, hendak diarahkan kemana kehidupan kita di tahun 2019 nanti? Semuanya bergantung pada kita. Belum terlambat untuk sekedar merencanakan resolusi dan pencapaian-pencapaian kita di tahun depan.

Tanpa obsesi untuk menyimpulkan, perencanaan mungkin adalah bentuk sintesa, atau komplemen dari kenetralan hidup.

Semoga kita semua menjadi person of the year di akhir tahun ini. Minimal bagi diri kita sendiri.

***

Newspeak Noam Chomsky

Bagi kita, masyarakat dunia ketiga, menyebut para pemimpin Amerika Latin yang galak (Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez dan Evo Morales), ataupun para fundamentalis Islam di Iran sebagai penentang kepemimpinan global Amerika Serikat, boleh jadi merupakan kelaziman.

Menjadi lazim karena polarisasi musuh-musuh utama AS itu kental dengan prasangka politik. Suara penentangan akan berbeda jika muncul dari jantung peradaban itu sendiri: intelektual AS, dan jika memungkinkan berketurunan Yahudi.

Satu sosok intelektual berbeda itu ialah Noam Chomsky, seorang analis paling tajam atas kebijakan luar negeri AS. Selain menentang neo-liberalisme, Chomsky juga melihat desain ‘propaganda mental' AS akan tata dunia baru justru memperlemah demokrasi, menindas HAM dan hanya membawa kepentingan segelintir pemilik modal.

Bagi Robert W. McChesney, profesor komunikasi Universitas Illinois, Noam Chomsky adalah seorang anarkis, oposan berdimensi sosialis libertarian dan figur otoritatif di bidang linguistik.

Necessary Illusions

Noam Avram Chomsky (7 Desember 1928), putra seorang emigran Rusia, dibesarkan oleh keluarga Yahudi radikal, yang sempat melewati masa mudanya dengan menjual koran di kios pamannya di New York.

Pendidikan dasarnya diselesaikan di Oak Lane dan Sekolah Menengah Pusat Philadelphia. Lalu, Chomsky kuliah di Universitas Pennsylvania, dengan mendalami studi bahasa, matematika dan filsafat. Selama menjadi mahasiswa, Chomsky muda sangat terkesan akan pandangan politik radikal dari dosen linguistiknya, profesor Zellig Harris.

Minat politik inilah yang membuat Chomsky mengintroduksi 'revolusi kritis' pada kajian linguistik. Dengan integrasi linguistik, basis matematika dan logika modern, Chomsky menghasilkan master piece-nya di bidang generative grammar (pendekatan yang menghubungkan bahasa dan pikiran).

Dalam buku pentingnya, Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), yang ditulis bersama Edward Herman, profesor keuangan Universitas Pennsylvania, Chomsky menegaskan peran propaganda media global dalam mendesain persepsi publik akan isu-isu tertentu. Terutama isu politik internasional, terorisme dan tata dunia baru.

Media global membangun simbolisasi bagi lingkungan palsu di sekitar kita, dengan menyuplai informasi bias secara berkelanjutan. Informasi menyesatkan ini dinamakan Chomsky dengan 'ilusi-ilusi yang perlu' dalam membangun 'skema kognitif' kita akan suatu peristiwa, sesuai dengan agenda dari negara adikuasa.

Menurut Chomsky, sistem ini mengontrol pikiran kita dengan penggunaan kata-kata dan pemberian makna tertentu, yang dikenal dengan Newspeak. Sejumlah Newspeakdiproduksi untuk membatasi pandangan kita akan realitas. Secara reflektif, Chomsky menyebutnya sebagai 'the American Ideological System'.

Penulis Profilik

Sebagai intelektual yang hidup di salah satu episentrum kemajuan dunia modern, Chomsky berperan sebagai bagian penggerak perkembangan intelektual dengan mengajar di Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), tepat setelah Ia meraih Ph. D di Universitas Pennsylvania pada 1955. Chomsky bahkan menjadi profesor linguistik dan filsafat di universitas tersebut.

Hingga kini, selain mengajar di berbagai penjuru dunia dan menjadi aktivis politik berbasis keadilan sosial, profesor Chomsky juga menulis lebih dari 30 buku politik dengan beragam tema.

Karya-karya terpentingnya, selain Manufacturing Consent diatas, antara lain adalah Political Economy of Human Rights (1979), Towards a New Cold War (1982), Pirates & Emperors: International Terrorism in the Real World (1986), Necessary Illusions (1989), World Orders, Old & New (1994), hingga Profit over People: Neo-liberalism & Global Order (2003).

Seluruh karya politis profesor Chomsky (dari anti imperialis, analisis media kritis, bahasa, demokrasi dan gerakan buruh), merupakan suatu jalinan karya mengenai demokrasi, polarisasi terhadap kebijakan AS serta whistle-blower atas ancaman mencemaskan dari neo-liberalisme.***

HEGEMONY & THE BUSINESS OF WAR

Recently, those who have criticised the actions of the US government (myself included) have been called "anti-American". Anti-Americanism is in the process of being consecrated into an ideology. The term is usually used by the American establishment to discredit and, not falsely - but shall we say inaccurately - define its critics. Once someone is branded anti-American, the chances are that he or she will be judged before they're heard and the argument will be lost in the welter of bruised national pride.

What does the term mean? That you're anti-jazz? Or that you're opposed to free speech? That you don't delight in Toni Morrison or John Updike? That you have a quarrel with giant sequoias? Does it mean you don't admire the hundreds of thousands of American citizens who marched against nuclear weapons, or the thousands of war resisters who forced their government to withdraw from Vietnam? Does it mean that you hate all Americans?

This sly conflation of America's music, literature, the breathtaking physical beauty of the land, the ordinary pleasures of ordinary people with criticism of the US government's foreign policy is a deliberate and extremely effective strategy. It's like a retreating army taking cover in a heavily populated city, hoping that the prospect of hitting civilian targets will deter enemy fire.

There are many Americans who would be mortified to be associated with their government's policies. The most scholarly, scathing, incisive, hilarious critiques of the hypocrisy and the contradictions in US government policy come from American citizens.

To call someone anti-American, indeed, to be anti-American, is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination. An inability to see the world in terms other than those that the establishment has set out for you: If you don't love us, you hate us. If you're not good, you're evil. If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists.

Many people around the world made the mistake of scoffing at this post-September 11 rhetoric, dismissing it as foolish and arrogant. It's actually a canny recruitment drive for a misconceived, dangerous war. How many people believe that opposing the war in Afghanistan amounts to supporting terrorism.

Now that the initial aim of the war - capturing Osama bin Laden - seems to have run into bad weather, the goalposts have been moved. It's being made out that the whole point of the war was to topple the Taliban regime and liberate Afghan women from their burqas. We're being asked to believe that the US marines are actually on a feminist mission. (If so, will their next stop be America's military ally, Saudi Arabia?) Pakistan and Bangladesh have even worse ways of dealing with minority communities and women. Should they be bombed?

To fuel yet another war - this time against Iraq - by manipulating people's grief, by packaging it for TV specials sponsored by corporations selling detergent or running shoes, is to cheapen and devalue grief, to drain it of meaning. We are seeing a pillaging of even the most private human feelings for political purpose. It is a terrible, violent thing for a state to do to its people.

The US government says that Saddam Hussein is a war criminal, a cruel military despot who has committed genocide against his own people. That's a fairly accurate description of the man. In 1988, he razed hundreds of villages in northern Iraq and killed thousands of Kurds.

Today, we know that that same year the US government provided him with $500m in subsidies to buy American farm products. The next year, after he had successfully completed his genocidal campaign, the US government doubled its subsidy to $1bn. It also provided him with high-quality germ seed for anthrax, as well as helicopters and dual-use material that could be used to manufacture chemical and biological weapons.

It turns out that while Saddam was carrying out his worst atrocities, the US and UK governments were his close allies. So what changed?

In August 1990, Saddam invaded Kuwait. His sin was not so much that he had committed an act of war, but that he acted independently, without orders from his masters. This display of independence was enough to upset the power equation in the Gulf. So it was decided that Saddam be exterminated, like a pet that has outlived its owner's affection. (Maybe, in future, if our country, Indonesia, wants to re-negotiate or nationalized the mining projects which interrelated with American's multi-national corporate, they could bomb us too!)

A decade of bombing has not managed to dislodge him. Now, almost 12 years on, Bush Jr is ratcheting up the rhetoric once again. He's proposing an all-out war whose goal is nothing short of a regime change. Andrew H Card Jr, the White House chief-of-staff, described how the administration was stepping up its war plans for autumn: "From a marketing point of view," he said, "you don't introduce new products in August." This time the catchphrase for Washington's "new product" is not the plight of people in Kuwait but the assertion that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Forget "the feckless moralising of the 'peace' lobbies," wrote Richard Perle, chairman of the Defence Policy Board. The US will " act alone if necessary" and use a "pre-emptive strike" if it determines it is in US interests.

Weapons inspectors have conflicting reports about the status of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and many have said clearly that its arsenal has been dismantled and that it does not have the capacity to build one. What if Iraq does have a nuclear weapon? Does that justify a pre-emptive US strike? The US has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. It's the only country in the world to have actually used them on civilian populations. If the US is justified in launching a pre-emptive attack on Iraq, why, any nuclear power is justified in carrying out a pre-emptive attack on any other. India could attack Pakistan, or the other way around.

Recently, the US played an important part in forcing India and Pakistan back from the brink of war. Is it so hard for it to take its own advice? Who is guilty of feckless moralising? Of preaching peace while it wages war? The US, which Bush has called "the most peaceful nation on earth", has been at war with one country or another every year for the last 50 years.

Wars are never fought for altruistic reasons. They're usually fought for hegemony, for business. And then, of course, there's the business of war. In his book on globalisation, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Tom Friedman says: "The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." Perhaps this was written in a moment of vulnerability, but it's certainly the most succinct, accurate description of the project of corporate globalization that I have read.

After September 11 and the war against terror, the hidden hand and fist have had their cover blown - and we have a clear view now of America's other weapon - the free market - bearing down on the developing world, with a clenched, unsmiling smile. The Task That Never Ends is America's perfect war, the perfect vehicle for the endless expansion of American imperialism.

In the past 10 years, the world's total income has increased by an average of 2.5% a year. And yet the numbers of the poor in the world has increased by 100 million. Of the top 100 biggest economies, 51 are corporations, not countries. The top 1% of the world has the same combined income as the bottom 57%, and the disparity is growing.

Now, under the spreading canopy of the war against terror, this process is being hustled along. The men in suits are in an unseemly hurry. While bombs rain down, contracts are being signed, patents registered, oil pipelines laid, natural resources plundered, water privatized and democracies undermined.

But as the disparity between the rich and poor grows, the hidden fist of the free markets has its work cut out. Multinational corporations on the prowl for "sweetheart deals" that yield enormous profits cannot push them through in developing countries without the active connivance of state machinery - the police, the courts, sometimes even the army.

Today, corporate globalization needs an international confederation of loyal, corrupt, preferably authoritarian governments in poorer countries, to push through unpopular reforms and quell the mutinies.

It needs a press that pretends to be free. It needs courts that pretend to dispense justice. It needs nuclear bombs, standing armies, sterner immigration laws, and watchful coastal patrols to make sure that its only money, goods, patents and services that are globalize.

Not the free movement of people, not a respect for human rights, not international treaties on racial discrimination or chemical and nuclear weapons, or greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, or, God forbid, justice. It's as though even a gesture towards international accountability would wreck the whole enterprise.

Close to five year after the war against terror was officially flagged off in the ruins of Afghanistan, in country after country freedoms are being curtailed in the name of protecting freedom, civil liberties are being suspended in the name of protecting democracy. All kinds of dissent is being defined as "terrorism".

Donald Rumsfeld said that his mission in the war against terror was to persuade the world that Americans must be allowed to continue their way of life. When the maddened king stamps his foot, slaves tremble in their quarters. So, it's hard for me to say this, but the American way of life is simply not sustainable. Because it doesn't acknowledge that there is a world beyond America.

Fortunately, power has a shelf life. When the time comes, maybe this mighty empire will, like others before it, overreach itself and implode from within. It looks as though structural cracks have already appeared. As the war against terror casts its net wider and wider, America's corporate heart is haemorrhaging. A world run by a handful of greedy bankers and CEOs whom nobody elected can't possibly last.

Soviet-style communism failed, not because it was intrinsically evil but because it was flawed. It allowed too few people to usurp too much power: 21st-century market-capitalism, American-style, will fail for the same reasons.

| Original Tittle: Not Again, by Arundhati Roy | Published at Guardian, 27 Sept 2002 |

GERAKAN MELEK EKOLOGI

Krisis lingkungan menjadi arus utama perdebatan masyarakat dunia dalam beberapa tahun terakhir. Bukan hanya pada peringatan Hari Bumi, setiap 22 April saja, yang menjadi momentum untuk merejuvenasi perasaan peduli kita pada alam. Saat sekarang, setiap orang yang peduli dengan keberlangsungan kehidupan manusia berusaha menjadikan krisis lingkungan dan bagaimana cara penanggulangannya sebagai isu bersama.

Seperti beberapa pakar multidisiplin dari berbagai negara, yang berkumpul dalam Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations. Para pakar ini mencoba menganalisis kemungkinan penyebab rangkaian bencana dalam beberapa tahun terakhir. Hipotesis yang muncul adalah bahwa pemanasan global akibat emisi gas rumah kaca, dapat memicu perubahan iklim global, menghadirkan gelombang panas, memicu kenaikan permukaan laut, termasuk kekeringan dan banjir yang datang silih berganti. 

Krisis lingkungan akibat perubahan iklim global, bukan semata berdampak pada keseimbangan alam, tapi juga menjadi ancaman luar biasa bagi keberlangsungan bumi di masa depan. Hal inilah yang membuat upaya-upaya anti-tesis bagi krisis lingkungan menjadi derivasi yang krusial bagi pembangunan berkelanjutan.

Pusat-pusat studi lingkungan berbentuk organisasi intergovernmental, program lingkungan PBB (UNEP), Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), hingga KTT Bumi di Rio de Janeiro pada 1992 dan Protokol Kyoto hanyalah rangkaian kampanye untuk menegaskan dukungan politik untuk mereduksi pemanasan global. 

Selain menjadikan arus utama perdebatan masyarakat dunia, komunitas-komunitas yang peduli lingkungan juga mengampanyekan integrasi antara antitesis krisis lingkungan, ideologi kontra pemanasan global dan konsepsi pembangunan berkelanjutan (sustainable development). 

Pembangunan berkelanjutan ini diawali oleh sekelompok masyarakat dengan pemahaman kognitif yang memadai tentang hakikat dan prinsip-prinsip ekologi. Proses meningkatkan pemahaman inilah yang dinamakan ecological literacy atau ecoliteracy. 

Desain Ekologi

Ecoliteracy, sebuah paradigma baru yang dipopulerkan oleh Fritjof Capra, bertujuan meningkatkan kesadaran ekologis masyarakat. Ecoliteracy berupaya memperkenalkan dan memperbaharui pemahaman masyarakat akan pentingnya kesadaran ekologis global, guna menciptakan keseimbangan antara kebutuhan masyarakat dan kesanggupan bumi untuk menopangnya.

Pada awalnya ecoliteracy lebih dikenal dengan ecological awareness, atau kesadaran ekologis. Dengan penggunaan kata ecoliteracy, berarti kita bukan sekedar membangkitkan kesadaran untuk peduli terhadap lingkungan, tapi juga memahami bekerjanya prinsip-psinsip ekologi dalam kehidupan bersama yang berkelanjutan di planet bumi ini. Kita memercayai bahwa prinsip-prinsip ekologi sejatinya menjadi penunjuk arah bagi penciptaan komunitas belajar berbasis pembangunan berkelanjutan. 

Dengan demikian, `melek ekologi` merupakan tahap pertama dari pembangunan komunitas-komunitas yang berkelanjutan. Tahap kedua adalah apa yang disebut dengan ecodesign, atau rancangan bercorak ekologi. Ecodesign dapat diterapkan di hampir segala bidang. Kita mengenalnya dalam frasa-frasa yang mulai lazim belakangan ini, semisal ecoeconomy, ecocity, ecofarming, ecotechnology, hingga ecopsychology. Tahap ketiga dari proses ini adalah terbentuknya komunitas-komunitas berkelanjutan yang menyadarkan dirinya pada prinsip ekologi.

Untuk mendukung gerakan `melek ekologi` ini, Fritjof Capra bersama Peter Buckley dan Zenobia Barlow mendirikan The Center for Ecoliteracy pada tahun 1995, di Berkeley, Amerika Serikat. The Center for Ecoliteracy diperuntukkan untuk memperjuangkan dan menyebarluaskan paradigma baru berupa konsep ecoliteracy diatas.

Selain mencoba menginternalisasi prinsip-prinsip ekologi dalam bidang praksis diatas, Fritjof Capra juga mengungkapkan pentingnya integrasi paradigma ecoliteracy dalam kurikulum di sekolah. Pendidikan perlu memastikan pemahaman peserta didik yang lebih baik akan sistem kehidupan, siklus dan jaring kehidupan, ataupun daya dukung bumi di masa depan.

Frijof Capra sendiri, dalam sebuah kuliah di Liverpool Schumacher Lectures, 20 Maret 1999, mengatakan, keberhasilan `melek ekologi` membutuhkan kurikulum yang memastikan guru dapat mengajarkan prinsip-prinsip ekologi, seperti: (1) bahwa ekosistem tidak menghasilkan limbah dalam arti sebenarnya, karena limbah dari satu spesies merupakan makanan bagi spesies lainnya, (2) zat makanan berputar secara kontinu melalui lingkaran kehidupan, atau web of life, (3) bahwa energi yang menggerakkan perputaran kehidupan berasal dari matahari, (4) keanekaragaman dan kompleksitas jaringan ekologis menjamin stabilitas ekosistem, dengan keseimbangan yang dinamis, (5) dan bahwa kehidupan semua organisme, sejak permulaan kehidupan sekitar 3 miliar tahun yang lalu, tidak dilalui dengan peperangan, melainkan atas dasar kerja sama, kemitraan dan jaringan.

Karena keberlangsungan kehidupan (manusia) bergantung pada kemampuan kita memahami prinsip-prinsip ekologi, dan bagaimana kita menjalani keseharian hidup berdasarkan prinsip-prinsip tersebut. ***

*Juga dipublikasikan di Harian Umum PIKIRAN RAKYAT, 07 Mei 2009