Climate Change Is Critical, But …

It was once a bright morning where the sky was blue and clear, I was somewhere above the waters and headed for Karangmajat Island, a district of the Mentawai Islands. Our departure started around 07.00 WIB (West Indonesia Time) from Siberut Island with 10 passenger motor-boat, sailed through the rivers and swamps along the journey. An hour later, we reached the calm Southwest Siberut water. My heart was crazy instantly as I gaze at a gaggle of lovely small islands (they were about 90 cubic meters wide) every here and there; so tiny uninhabited except few seagulls, only white sands under one and two coconut trees and heaps of the seaweed.

The boat’s owner said, “We won’t to see more small islands around. Now they're long gone, Sis. This island was wider some time past.” He pointed to a little island as we went by. “This one gets narrower whenever I come here, and there’ll be always any island go vanish.” It was May 2006, 15 years ago. As a notable government official stated that the rising water level is more dangerous than COVID-19, I remember these small islands and their white sands scatter around Mentawai Islands. I've got no idea whether these islands still exist or drown nowadays.

A study revealed that in the year 2100, 630 million people who dwell in lands will probably must deal with periodic flooding due to higher and higher sea surface. Hence, if you and your family are enjoying a dry and safe homes at the moment, there’s any chance that your grandchildren, great-grandchildren, as well as your coming descendants may not able to enjoy the same luxury. We can just ignore this possibility, nevertheless, we might have passed away when the mega disaster swept the Earth as seen in the Hollywood movies. But, choosing to neglect and leave behind the responsibility over the damage we've drained the past are not any less than cowards that will die repeatedly before their deaths, and hurtful for our next generations.

 

Carbon tax - who will make the most benefit from it?

I believe that any of you know or read somewhere about rising sea level that was begun with the melt of icebergs in the North and South Pole. The massive meltdown is caused by the warmer temperature on the Earth surface as the result of carbon emission produced by industrial, power plants, and vehicles smoke, everything that releases smoke as the contributory result. Concerned for the Earth’s future and unwillingness to spend the rest of life above the waters someday, in 1973 David Gordon Wilson came up with the idea about carbon fee.

Based on this scheme, all goods and services product conditioning that brings carbon discharges, as a result, will be the objects for carbon fee instead of the carbon tax. While the carbon tax is getting into the government’s pocket, Wilson’s carbon fee will be paid back to the citizens indeed though the recipients are not always the ones who pay the price in the first place. Tax-based carbon, he said, tends to weaken purchasing power. People with lower income will get the hardest hit since they have to spend the utmost of their income on transportation or menage needs. If people from this category get the same share of carbon fee which accumulated by the end of the month, they will manage to survive.

The carbon tax scheme is not only hard on the knees and will weigh on the middle to low-income people’s expenses, the industrial sector (and particularly the oil sector) will also be affected by the new rule. In short, a carbon tax definition is a tax that assesses fuel usage formulated on its carbon level. On the one hand, a carbon tax subject is a person or an institution who buys any carbon-contained goods or involve in any conditioning which results in carbon emission. On the other hand, human activities in total – individually and or collectively – without carbon emission as the outcome is countable by fingers.

As for industrial business, carbon tax also means higher production costs will hinder post-pandemic recovery for several sectors in the long term. As luck would have it, the industrial world has an alternative i.e. cap-and-trade adopted by a few countries. Still, there is one critical question carbon tax and or cap-and-trade countries need to answer.

There’s already a brewing debate around how the carbon tax funds will be managed and employed. With its huge amount in total, it is natural for anyone to have curiosity on the allocation of carbon tax revenue and for what purposes. According to a source, there is a proposal to allocate carbon tax revenue to reduce levies assessed on various productive activities (e.g. paying a proportion of factory workers’ tax, so they will pay lower income tax). There is also a similar idea to David Gordon Wilson's, distributing all carbon tax revenue in carbon dividends to all consumers or using it to fund and maintain infrastructure. This conception is ideal on paper. Purposefully armed with the spirit to reach the mutual goal - a greener and more prosperous Earth equally for all its inhabitants. How wonderful!

Every single fray around the climate change issue is a little stale, not breaking news shakes the world abruptly like the COVID-19 pandemic. Ordinary people may be surprised to read the various discourses that shifting to green energy is the only solution to pull through climate change. Environmental activists may be amazed as they try to comprehend high-ranking officials’, both from within and outside the country, concerns about climate change when there are little to no impactful actions for harmful environmental messes such as legalized deforestation in the name of the economy. Or wildlife extinction. Some folks on the North Coast of Java have lost their homes due to rising sea levels, which has been happening for several years. Why did we see no effort about it?

Clean energy is expensive

Apart from nominal carbon tax adapted with different standards in each country, we must admit that the shift from dirty energy to clean energy is not a cheap bid. Electric cars are seen as a savior in the midst of increasing panic attacks due to climate change, with Tesla is appearing as the pioneer and Elon Musk as Tesla's founder is triumphantly becoming the richest person in the universe. Ideas and creativity must be rewarded accordingly, so it's only natural that the Model Y is priced at 61 thousand US dollars (around Rp 841 million, taxes and others have not been included). China has also to launch the Nio electric car, which it claims will catch Tesla thanks to its production speed and lower price. There is a strong possibility that the electric car war will flare over in the near future.

Then what about fossil fuel cars? At the time of writing, I see several advertisements promoting new types of fossil fuel cars from various brands. Some even offer big discounts, substantially those of secondhand car sellers. This practice seems to show the disinclination of auto manufacturers to bear losses due to energy shifts, to such an extent all fuel cars that produced must be sold out before the official energy transition policy is enforced. But of course, they will no way have to care how fossil fuel car owners may feel – the very people who need to deal with higher fuel costs due to the carbon tax at the end of the day.

To dispose of fossil energy completely is not as easy as turning the palm of the hand for some countries. Earlier, China which was accused internationally as one of the largest carbon-emitting countries outside Europe and America has taken drastic measures. Xi Jinping's government decided to push down carbon emissions by reducing the production and coal use for power plants. The impact of this policy was that the electricity supply decreased since 60% of power plants in China are coal-fueled ones. In turn, citizens and industrial activities were disrupted due to regular blackouts. Losses piled up, with industries becoming the most sufferers when they were about to rise again after the pandemic storm. Two months later, China revoked its so-called climate change policy.

 

Less is more

The impact of climate change shall not have to be borne only by the governments, on the ground that this problem is also a concern among communities everywhere. With some equitable advice, they can get people to take an active role and stand out for the Earth is ours. Such advice should not be limited to calls to get rid of fossil fuel vehicles and replace them with electric ones or install solar panels in their homes. This kind of energy solution costs a lot, while the purchasing power of people in various countries is weakening due to high inflation and rising taxes. Unless the state is willing to provide public funds to buy electric cars or purchase and install solar panels, it is unlikely massive enthusiasm for such environmentally friendly solutions will grow fast.

Why? In the previous article on Financial Repression, inflation was pushed to accelerate the recovery thus bringing back the economy to its pre-COVID-19 level. Added to the burden of the carbon tax, the consequence of this policy is excessively expensive for people, as goods and services prices increase when salaries don’t. Everyone everywhere is forced to lower expenses to keep the wheels of life going. In such a situation, managing household budgets is a must-have skill, except they don't mind borrowing money and choked in debt for some time. For those who are hesitant to go into debt, conscientiously choosing and dumping daily needs is the only way out. The longer the list, the better.

Less is more was highly praised when the minimalist lifestyle became hype not so long ago. The primary mission of this lifestyle is cutting consumerism to the lowest, while that doesn't mean you can't have anything but clothes that stick to your body. One with a minimalist lifestyle will prioritize the quality of an item over its price. For example, it’s better to buy an expensive but high-quality electronic device than a cheap one that breaks within 1-2 months since we bought it. Earphones or power banks, for example, are nonessential electronic devices for some, and they are inexpensive when compared to iPhone 13. Due to their low prices, we tend not to bother when such devices break and people will tend to suggest buying a new one instead of fixing it.

Have we ever thought, where the earphones waste will go, ones without sound or broken off wires? I am a big fan of earphones, and our family can produce about 10 broken earphones in one year. Imagine if that number multiplied by the number of cheap earphone users in one country. Buying expensive electronic devices is not a budget-friendly choice. But this option, believe it or not, is more practical in the long run. We don't need to be bothersome over vulnerable trivial devices and have to spend more money to replace them. Well, this is just one of many simplest ways to prove our role in saving the Earth. (dy)

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No More Freedom for Tech (Companies)?

 Jack Ma is known to the world as a Chinese entrepreneur with a total of 41.2 billion dollars net worth, one of a few Asian businessmen who once reigned among the ten wealthiest people in the universe. Born on September 10th, 1964, he started his career as an English teacher and translator. However, he failed twice on the university exam entry test as he is less potent in Mathematics. During his visit to the United States in 1995, Ma soon realized that the lack of Chinese websites is an ample opportunity that inspired him to create some. Among them is Alibaba, a marketplace website that began its journey as an intermediary between small businesses in China. It later emerged as an e-commerce giant and a meticulous success for a Jack Ma.

More than many criticized, Ma’s success is primarily supported by his close relationship with President Xi Jinping. It’s not a secret that Ma led an internet company in Beijing during 1998-1999, backed by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. He left the company since he did not want to miss millions of opportunities offered by the internet. Ma expressed his reluctance against the Chinese government in his speech in Shanghai on October 24th, 2020. He said that Chinese banks are like pawnshops, as they have informal lenders of yore mentality “pledge and collateral” system. In short, pledge and collateral here mean confiscating your fiduciary item is ineluctable if you fail to pay off your debt. Chinese government considered these words a subversive attempt, and Ma had to pay its fatal price. A month later, the Chinese government suspended 37 billion dollars Alibaba’s IPO, which should have been a record-breaking offering on Earth.

 

A cash-cow called tech companies

Jack Ma and Alibaba are not the only victims of governments' insistences. Along with the COVID-19 outburst in 2020, 90% of people worldwide moved into the online sphere, including routine office work, entertainment, shopping, education, and social interaction. Around the same year, Big Tech (Google, Amazon, Apple, & Facebook) must deal with massive raids from all directions. Lawsuits, tighter scrutiny, and fines against various accusations of unhealthy rivalry, users' data leakage, and abuse, misinformation outspread, to hidden commission practice. An article assumed that the main reason for pressures against Big Tech is their superpower to control users' minds and behavior through a complex algorithm for ordinary people, including most policymakers.

On the one side, IMF is confident that tech companies are the most profitable source of national income for European Union governments (and the rest of the world, of course). Due to wide-scale lockdowns, world trade has suffered a recurrence fever with a blurry sign of recovery. Governments have soon realized that the cure for economic sickness should not solely depend on Quantitative Easing. This measure may bring unwanted consequences to national currency value in the long term (Why? Read this article). Stagnation has pushed governments to seek additional income from increased business taxes, especially from the brightest stars of the pandemic, Big Tech, and the gang. Hence, some have seen digital companies as the shining future of a country, considering a large amount of taxes they will pay to the state.  In other words, more digital companies mean more prosperous a country is, supposedly.

Furthermore, the higher taxes digital companies must pay these days should have prevented a country from falling into the debt trap. Digital companies did not take anything from the soil, sea, and air it operates in, no air and sound pollution. The inevitable environmental impact will be old computers waste. Even though they still have a chance to get recycled if we spend more time and effort on that matter.   

Some digital giants finally decided to pay taxes to the countries where they provide services through prolonged and tiring discussions. At the same time, the amount is more significant than the previous years. Big Tech has shown their support over global taxes mechanism to combat accusations of moving their profits to taxes haven or lower taxes countries. Their spoke person has proposed an idea to ax digital services levies. He said, higher taxes will result in higher costs users must pay. Higher digital taxes could mean more ads on your screen for those who choose to use free digital services. Less comfortable, indeed. However, digital service providers need higher revenue to keep you entertained and served and comply with their obligation simultaneously. Tax raise has forced companies' management to cut budgetary on research & development, a sector which is responsible for seeking and undergoing innovation to keep any digital service afloat amid tighter competition. Governments' support for technology innovation is a privilege for their own sake. It's not only because technology is where the money will come from, but also one reason explained below.

 

Governments hacking

While still being a major social network with the most users globally, Facebook is no longer favorite among youths. Many of its users are adults in their 30s above, once reckless young guns between 2009-2012. During Facebook's heyday, anyone could post about anything on their (and others') Facebook wall. Daily users used to blatantly reveal gossips, online hang-outs, social criticism, any forms of swear words to domestic issues, everything upon Mark Zuckerberg's 'wailing wall.' We have forgotten that according to its history, the US government used to be the one who invented the internet to facilitate information exchange between state researchers. Upon this fact, no one seems competent enough to reject when the US government decided to use the internet for its own interest. With the help of digital companies' heads and hand, Big Tech is not an exception.  

Commoners may use the internet as to how they see the whole world that might be unreachable forever. The internet keeps track of citizens' activities in secrecy, safe and accurate regarding the governments. A while ago, it was known that a particular country had designed malicious software (malware) to carry out covert actions against activists, journalists, and dissidents. We should not naively trust any digital service which claims that our digital data is encrypted, nor it's impossible to hack it.  Various legislation, litigations, or unofficial pressures have made digital services providers like Big Tech powerless to disobey any authority's order to unlock protesters' digital prints. They want to find clues about their friends, their lovers, their love affairs, their debts, the color of their underwear. Every dark secret and shameful story they wish to forget for good. As a hot chat between an Indonesian mass organization leader and his mistress was taken as evidence to put him in the courtroom, we should have realized that there is no such thing as absolute freedom in the digital sphere.

More often than not, digital platforms are to blame for taking advantage of users' content and chats as the feed to execute mass surveillance and data mining. The hackers are declared a group of intelligent guys who have chosen the dark side to gain fame and glory. How if digital platforms and hackers are raised as authority's tools to lure us into some traps, read our minds, control, and divide humans? If the answer is yes, then who is their creator(s)? Somebody out there badly needs tech companies' presence to contribute national income and watch over "naughty kids" all at once. From here, we may have a clue about who is the real mastermind of users' data privacy issues seemingly without end. (dy)

Financial Repression: Solution or Disaster?

Hearing the word of cryptocurrency, perhaps anything we have in mind is a grim room inside an abandoned old factory. A mysterious figure is sitting in the middle of the room monitoring the henchmen: a line of mega computers miners working to create money in the virtual world. And at the same time, the guy sends a short text to somebody else who undergoes a plan to start a massive mass strike and rally in a city. Such an eerie depiction in an era as anti-cryptocurrency measures launched by governments worldwide, in turn, has an indirectly stuck label of not nationalist or even anarchists for its fans. Authorities have considered that the new currency has played an imminent part in money laundering, organized crime payment methods, and terrorism.  All of these have legalized the need to tighten the regulation and surveillance. This negative label is exaggerating since these illegal activities have been around for so long before Satoshi Nakamoto created bitcoin. They might proceed through the traditional banking system, though. 

 

Bloodless repression

Tesla's Elon Musk said that all crypto mining conquests require tremendous electric power. Excessive energy releases carbon emissions into the atmosphere, contributing to severe global warming. The criticism has successfully ravaged Bitcoin & the gang's price for a while. Then, the public realized that the number of so-called 'environment destroyers' crypto miners is about a few percent compared to the total amount of fossil fuel vehicles worldwide. The glorious purpose of cryptocurrency creation is to eliminate the third between two persons in completing any financial transactions. The money transferred will not be deducted to pay intermediary commission and keep the information exchange confidential. Bitcoin becomes the pioneer of an alternative to conventional financial systems that eliminate the third party's role.

Third-party refers to central banks, state banks, and private banks responsible for interceding, monitoring, and verifying the financial transaction's validity. Central banks acquire the highest position between the three since it has the most significant task of issuing, distributing, canceling, suspending, and terminating expired money. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, most countries faced financial difficulties due to restrictions to prevent the virus from spreading. The United States of America, the world's number one economy, is no exception. The Fed (US Federal Reserve) issued trillions of new dollars to buy the US government's bonds through particular commercial banks in the open market (Quantitative Easing/ QE). Central banks in different countries where the outbreak has taken its toll have adopted the same policy.

Why do central banks avoid printing money in unlimited amounts and distribute them among citizens so that poverty doesn't loom among us? Like supply and demand law, abundant goods or services supply in the market will lead to lower prices. It also applies to the money supply. To maintain the stability of national currency against QE consequences, governments urge people to increase consumption for disseminating money to various goods and services suppliers. Hence, we can apprehend why department stores have become the first place open for the public as soon as the pandemic is less deadly, aren't we? High consumption, exceeding goods and services supply, will trigger inflation when goods and services gradually become incredibly expensive within a relatively short period. As mass anxiety, such as outbreaks, natural disasters, wars, or political turmoil, starts to rise, people decide to hold cash in their hands due to their need to feel secure amid uncertainties. They have no choice but to withdraw their money from banks and spend their hard-earned monthly wages to pursue big sales before all their money loses its value the next day.

A difficult choice

You read above a few typical situations that commonly occur when a country decides to undergo financial repression. Financial repression is not that scary, even though the literal meaning of 'repression' is detention, control, and pressure measures. Advanced and developing countries are both familiar enough with this term. There is no legal action or sanctions imposed in response to financial repression. A standard measure is preferred and accepted as the way out of the critical economic situation in many countries. As the name tells us, financial repression sees any actions taken to tighten governments' regulation in the financial sector. When the money pump is exhausted, governments will likely prevent foreign capital influx into the country by decreasing the governments' bond yield. Decreasing benchmark interest rates is also enforced to accommodate those people who must fulfill their responsibility, paying the loan while struggling with endless-like gloomy life.

I believe that ads and news titles occupy your gadget lately are the excellence of domestically produced goods, newly cheap minimalist houses ads, electric cars, high-end devices, a gorgeous tourist destination in a far-away island, to name a few. Such publications are needed to bring forth the public's confidence in consuming goods and services. How if we don't have enough money to own all of these beauties? Let us borrow some money from the banks! We do not need to worry about paying car loans or credit card installment; the loan interest rate is lower these days than 2-3 years earlier, remember? For your information, governments of various states also benefit from it because a lower interest rate decreases the total amount of loans or debts governments must pay in return.

Being in the red or borrowing money is the only escape when all doors are closed for many people. On the one hand, some others might get into loans to expand their business and personal wealth. Nevertheless, a handful of persons gain pride when they settle up their Tesla car installment at the end of the day. Let's not overlook them who got their life fallen apart after debts. Some among them embrace debts as a part of a sophisticated journey to the end of life because they believe debts are supreme sacrifice in the fight to reach every dream. However, we should think twice before borrowing because the peace of your life is at stake. There is no pain living within our means. And choose not to enslaving ourselves to buy a house, car, jewelry, or expensive device, especially when they are beyond our wallet's purchasing power. Choose to become an outcast without luxury and without debts. (dy) 

To Build Dream upon Illusion: When State is a Shark Drug Dealer

 I came across the word “shabu-shabu” in 1999 when a wealthy college friend introduced the new “toy” to us. As I can remember, shabu-shabu, also called methamphetamine aka crystal meth, was incredibly expensive, and only wealthy students could buy it. Youngblood and adventures are undoubtedly forever friends, let alone adventures that occur inside the phantasy and don’t require our body to move somewhere. The thought is common among drug users. Someone gets in touch with the drugs through their friends, starts with two persons then become three, five, ten, fifty …  A university whereas 90% of its students were drug users, this is no hoax. COVID-19 pandemic has curbed students worldwide ability to hang out with their friends and degraded their academic achievements. However, lockdowns that happened and are still ongoing in the some countries might build a new social interaction behavior for young generations. Hopefully, a behavior that will protect themselves when they are far away from home and meet various kinds of friends who offer new lucrative things to try. But is this all enough?

 

Epidemic within Epidemic

Meanwhile, lockdowns in the United States have been effective since March 2020 and ended not so long ago. Anyway, the traces that lockdowns left behind need more time to vanish entirely. For almost all of us, lockdowns are not only the onset of our economic difficulties and long-term unemployment. Challenging situations in nearly all living sectors due to COVID-19 have triggered the rise of another outbreak, i.e., a mental disorder that is also popular as depression. Like other diseases, weak immunity is becoming a perfect pre-condition for any variants of viruses to reign. Fragile mental health is a fertile zone for depression and self-harming obsession. A report mentioned that substance-related death has increased to 30% year-on-year during 2020 in the US, with more than 93,000 cases. The article also highlighted the stigma addressed to people with mental health as “disabled folks,” which has driven many to avoid professional help and find the cure with painkillers consumption like fentanyl. At the time of the writing, this very substance is booming in Joe Biden’s home.

Some of us started to encounter fentanyl when the drug was linked to the death of pop star legend Prince in 2016. According to a DEA official statement, fentanyl is an analgesic (pain relief) and anesthetic, approximately 100 times more than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin. Ironically, fentanyl is also a variant of medication that is legally produced and sold in the US. Efforts to decrease fentanyl use as a prescription medication have begun since 2011, but it has not appeared effective yet. COVID-19 pandemic has triggered an epidemic within the epidemic when the number of fentanyl overdose deaths is growing along with the corona-virus linked deaths. Some have pointed to the partiality of the US government over Big Pharma (pharmaceutical giants which dominate drugs distribution and selling across the US and global) as the main factor of US failure to suppress fentanyl use nowadays. 

Sadly, fentanyl abuse is not the only subject of the US epidemic within an epidemic. Crystal meth is also a gross problem when most US states have legalized marijuana use since some years ago. One of the common triggers is the seamless process of crystal meth production, with a method called “shake-and-bake” using ephedrine or pseudoephedrine as the main ingredient. These two substances are widely used as decongestants inside cold and allergic medication inconvenient and drug stores across the US. Meth addicts use this tactic when law forces successfully raided and exterminated the Central America-based drug supply chain. DEA’s attempt urged US Congress to tighten the circulation of cold medication has been broken down once by Big Pharma, pleading that the public also has the right to buy cold medicines without prescription according to their need. A source mentioned, Big Pharma is the major contributor to the annual budget of the US Food and Drug Administration. The group also deploys an army of lobbyists consist of 1,378 people to spread its influence within Capitol Hill, assuring that the US administration’s policies will not stand their way to make a profit. 

 

Golden Crescent

Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, President Joe Biden has suspended 20 years of US military operation in Afghanistan. The world is divided in two, responding to the controversial decision. As the Taliban army is raging these days, they slaughtered the Afghan government and the state army officials, beheaded Afghan ex-interpreters who used to work for the US military. On the one side, some have accused US-Afghan military operations of interfering with other nations' internal affairs. Regardless of the controversy, there is one unfinished "trivia" matter when they reach the deadline on August 2021. Drugs trafficking.  

UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) reported that Afghanistan had become the number one heroine supplier on earth since 1979, only a while before the beginning of endless war take control.  In 2020, there were around 224,000 hectares of opium poppy in Afghanistan, increasing to 37% or approximately 61,000 hectares compared to 2019. As per a study in 2005, drug retailers have distributed Afghanistan's heroin to some countries, Europe, Southwest Asia, and China. In the meantime, the numbers of Afghan addicts decreased as they turned to crystal meth, soaring each day as life seemed uncertain due to the current domestic situation. Among them, ironically, women who end up as addicts after their husbands pushed them to the dark side. 

Amid their attempt to demolish Golden Triangle (Myanmar, Laos, Thailand) opium trafficking, China law enforcement has identified another drugs trade hotspot called Golden Crescent (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran) ruled over since the 1990s. The Golden Crescent drug makers have penetrated West China via Xinjiang Province, a transit area before the drugs circulated to other parts of China and Asia. The shift in the Golden Crescent production trend opium and heroin to crystal methamphetamine may have been pushed by an increase in the number of users worldwide. Rather than heroin or marijuana, a meth user will feel more confident, fitter during activities, clubbing, and having sex tirelessly. Lately, drug addicts no longer use crystal meth just to run away from the harsh reality and go floating in the clouds. They crave eternal energy since they have to work hard non-stop and raise a lot of money to achieve the ideals of a prosperous life that will elevate their position in society without sacrificing the needs of pleasure. The powerful effect of meth indeed provides a sensation of such energy. Even it's perishable.

The question is, who was on earth initiated the establishment of the Golden Crescent where all the energy of delusion came? Since the 1980s, there were indications that the Afghan mujahideen used opium production and sales to finance arms sales, later diversifying their business into the sale of methamphetamine. The purity of methamphetamine made from fever medicine will certainly be less to that of methamphetamine produced in Afghanistan, as ephedra (a type of plant ephedrine made of) is in abundance growth there. Relying on long experience in the processing and distribution of heroin, the Taliban controls the entire Afghan drug network with an income of about $4.2 million per year. Within a few years, drugs enforcement had caught off the smuggling of Afghan methamphetamine in Iran, Pakistan, and Indonesia. However, this was not enough to solve the root of the problem, while the increasingly widespread distribution of methamphetamine went unnoticed due to the tumultuous news of the Delta variant.

I remember a friend’s story whose brother was shot to death during a drug raid operation in a city. My friend had no idea that his brother was involved in an illicit trade network since the deceased did not smoke and was not a drunkard. Then, the brother and his friend, a high-profile bookie, were driving in a car carrying tens of kilograms of methamphetamine. The authorities shot him for trying to escape. My friend also told me that the big dealer had called him on the phone from prison before being sentenced to death in 2011, that he had donated his “hard-earned” money to several Islamic boarding schools in a town. Several years ago, I heard rumors that GAM (Independent Aceh Movement) was selling marijuana to finance their weapons purchases and rebellion. Whether it’s true or not, who knows.

We can conclude from the stories above that the Golden Crescent is not as divine as its name. It is undeniable that the Taliban's aspiration to establish an Islamic State that enforces Islamic Sharia has attracted sympathy from Muslims in various parts of the world, including Indonesia. As a Muslim who has not practiced Islamic Sharia properly, I was somewhat relieved when the Taliban guaranteed that they would treat Afghan women more humanely according to human rights. However, a dream should have thrived the right way. One should not manipulate any religion to justify and legalize immense evil deeds that we did intentionally, no matter the exact purpose of the action. Will the goal of enforcing Islamic Sharia make people condone the Taliban's gunfight upon drug sales?

I am not a perfect and sinless person, but I find it unacceptable knowing anyone undermines religion as an excuse or guise. I believe that is not what religion was created for. Results don't betray the process. A clean process will, of course, result in something positive, not the other way around. The Taliban's big homework as soon as they succeed in taking over the rest of Afghanistan is breaking the circle of drug trafficking that has supported the Afghan people for decades. Because I believe all countries require their citizens to be physically and mentally healthy without drugs so that together they can build a prosperous nation's life. I am grateful that I have found the light at the end of the tunnel of darkness, but drugs and especially meth are still a threat to some extent. A former marijuana dealer who died 15 years ago once said, "drug business will never die as long as the buyers don't die."  (dy)

Free Will, Will It Liberate?

I must confess that Freedom has been my favorite topic ever since, as I am a freedom devotee dropout from a college that was then heaven for (once) youngsters like me. We were fortunate enough to be a generation of exemplary ignorant, expressed our ideas boldly, bullying victims and executants who rarely followed up the bad seeds with struggles against each other. However, time is shifting forward than backward. As the hair is turning gray, we realize that Freedom has changed its face over time. Now, it is no longer something that we used to love during our youth, rather than a lustful monster that is all ready to consume and confine common sense. There were times when Freedom was immensely invaluable than gold because it was hard to acquire. Its price has been going downward drastically these days, and it almost loses its actual substance. The time has come for us to re-interpret the fundamental significance of Freedom without sacrificing human rights to live in peace and safety.

Given that it has been gained recognition in some regions globally, many are reluctant to bring up LGBT+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, + goes for anyone with a sexual orientation that does not belong to any of these groups) issues resolution over morality and appropriateness matters. LGBT+ communities have suffered from long-term abuse, discrimination, hate-crime victims, rape, and conviction as the price they must pay for what they believe is their identity. During the 1940s, LGBT+ communities found their foothold and risen in the United States demanded their rights to get better and equal acceptance as humans. The victory came when all US states finally suspended same-sex relationships and sexual intercourse prohibition in 2003.

An enormous upswing for the LGBT+ communities finally came when European Union approved the LGBT+ rights protection bill and imposed force against any EU members that fail to show any support and approval to follow the account to the utmost. Hungary has perceived the bill differently. The country has committed to protecting traditional family values against LGBT+ campaigns through an instruction that proscribe LGBT+ propaganda at schools, television, and advertisement for children under 18+. PM Viktor Orban, Hungarian Prime Minister, rejected any accusation that claimed the rule made to force because Hungary is an anti-LGBT+ state. Unfortunately, Hungary received criticism at the moment, threatened with being expelled from the UE if it doesn’t cancel the rule immediately. This accusation is not the worst part. At the time of writing, a discussion is underway among Western countries to work on a bill that will allow children under 15 years to change their sex.

 

When Freedom Fails to Liberate

Freedom is supposed to liberate humans not to crush by the rejection from within themselves of the ongoing situation around them, regardless of their direct or indirect involvement. It should have been something that arouses anyone to choose and determine what is best for themselves, to grow, and to improve in the direction of their hopes and ideals. Nevertheless, this is just a utopia about the ideal life because reality is unpredictable. Free will does not come out all of a sudden. In the beginning, free will arises because there is pressure, as lovebirds fill each other’s emptiness. When the pressure is no longer there, free will wanders, pressing in the narrow recesses of the human mind who has a narcissistic habit against the will of life to live naturally. Does this mean that pressure is eventually required to keep the free will within the human mind not to lose its path?

The United States' economic, financial, and military sanctions on Cuba are the longest ever in world history so far. For about 60 years, the Cuban people are not allowed to trade with any country, and they are prohibited from using any international payment methods for national and personal purposes. The government has been suffering a limited supply of medicine and food and could not sell their domestic products to any country. The sanctions are imposed since the era of Dwight Eisenhower and expanded further in 2021 have been in effect since 1960, when Fidel Castro overthrew US-backed President Fulgencio Batista (1952-1959). The US saw these sanctions as punishments for the Fidel Castro government's 1959 policy of nationalizing some assets which belong to US citizens in Cuba under the Agricultural Reform Act, worsen by the accusation of sponsoring revolutionary movements in the Caribbean region.

More often than not, United States sanctions are meant to give some lessons to the dissident countries burning the people's willpower to rise and end the ruling regime against the superpower country's interests. If sanctions are one of the pressure manifestations, then the people's resistance is free will, which should emerge as the origin of this causal relation. However, such pressure comes from outside (the United States) is a blatant violation of any nation's sovereignty. Some Cubans turned immigrants in the US realized this, marched to protest against the US government in Washington, demanding the lifting of sanctions on their homeland. Their struggle deserves our reflection because the latter Cuban community left the country due to long-term discord with the Cuban communist government.

The saga between Cuba and the United States began with the free will of President Fidel Castro, whose massive actions triggered US sanctions as the reaction. However, previously the United States had intended to overthrow communism in Cuba by supporting President Batista. America considers communism a severe failure, a violator of human rights as the state forces excessively binding regulations to maintain the discipline of its citizens from head to toe. People's well-being is guaranteed by the communist state, like parents who work hard to fulfill the needs of their children. In return, children must obey and listen to their parents' words to be safe into adulthood. In short, the children are trained not to have free will, which is immensely unfavorable for a communist government and may spread like a virus from one child to another.

Children who love freedom will be extremely frightened at the thought of the absence of space. In the democracy sphere, personal opinions are expressed without restrictions, as there is no punishment for the creators of caricatures or any president’s memes. Citizens are also free to earn a living and choose a religion or belief. The scope of freedom also expands over time, and the will to come out as LGBT+ is one of them. This section discusses cases when the free will fails to liberate human beings, individually and collectively, from exclusivity. They create a border that separates themselves from the normality of social life, be it Fidel Castro, the US presidents defending Cuban sanctions, and LGBT+ fighters. From my point of view, free will is not always in line with social norms prevailing in society. Still, individuals do not have to sacrifice their pleasures to create stability in society. The view is worth fighting for those who believe that the strength of a nation lies in the power of each individual’s will and how they struggle for it. The persistence of fighting for free will in the example above invites conflict in various forms and scales of severity, failing to liberate the community from the pressure to move forward achieving other, more meaningful matters.  

Does this mean free will is something forbidden? Not really. No one can decide another person's sexual orientation or tell a leader how to rule their territory, including how to behave towards their enemies. We need free will as the foundation of finding new possibilities and suffering the consequences simultaneously. A free will may liberate when it is no longer exclusive, understandable by society, while leaving a secret room for individuals to be free from different compulsions. Such space will be last when we no longer need recognition and be aware of our role in maintaining the stability of togetherness.

The Champion's Way

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to postpone the Tokyo Olympics, which were supposed to be held in 2020. The Japanese government, as the host, is forced to accept this bitter pill and accept the fact that the massive renovation of some stadiums and various other sports facilities will not pay off shortly. Although many people have profited from social restrictions and lockdowns, the scale of harm to the sporting field is enormous. Crowd restrictions require that matches go on without spectators, which means that sporting event organizers will not get any income from ticket sales. Lack of competition is not only bad for performance and stamina. The spirit to compete can also fade over time and put an end to the thirst for victory. Like any other fields of life that are forced to face a hard time during pandemic, athletes have to solve a big question. As for the athletes, the question remains: do they still need the audience to watch them when struggling for the achievement?

Nevertheless, the struggle for achievement is not only the righteousness of athletes. Just like human rights, each man and woman has the same right to make the most of their efforts to achieve. They have the right to forge themselves as best as possible by learning the knowledge, developing their talents, training their physical strength, and working up their skills to get recognition for what they have done successfully in their specialties. The smell of success is not only good for their pride; any physical prize (aka money) will pay off their hard work. Achievement will gain society recognition for one’s ability and upgrade their reputation in a larger scope of interaction. 

Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever, and neither does a victory. It is said that defending a champion title is far more complicated than striving for it since the beginning, which is so true. A sports team will definitely fight to their last breath for a victory that has never been achieved yet, cultivate their skills, learn their opponents’ tactics, try new strategies, and so on. In the next competition season, the champion can’t avoid the more challenging situations as the rivals have learned and sneaked their skills, and losing the title will definitely be something they can’t be proud of. Anyway, not all champions will choose logical and appropriate ways to defend their achievements. Some people dare enough to take every option at the table to maintain their pride, even such options are far from sportsmanship values and principles. 

The Ballad of Defending Champion

This article (link) explains how the United States of America managed to acquire its position as the finance world’s sovereign. Many similar stories and history have also exposed how the superpower nation exerted to maintain its position. COVID-19 pandemic was taken as a perfect moment to preserve the domination.  First, the US under Donald Trump blatantly said that COVID-19 is a manufactured virus created in a biological weapon laboratory in Wuhan, China. WHO once called the accusation a careless statement made under misleading and groundless shreds of evidence because Sars Cov-2 is purely nature-engineered. But US ignored the WHO report and kept standing on its ground. Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, has yet to show any sign of lifting the indictment, even though he promised to execute detrumpfication (removing all policies made during the Trump administration). On the contrary, Biden has ordered his men to double their efforts to prove the origin of COVID-19. 

Secondly, the US government has admitted that they persuaded the Brazilian administration not to approve rolling out the Russian COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V because the United States long to minimize any influence from non-ally countries in the American continent. From the spoken time to this very moment until indeterminate time, people of Brazil and the world need vaccine regardless of developer and the country of its origin. For Brazil government, people’s safety against COVID-19 is far more important than helping to safeguard any party’s political hegemony. There is a nightmare of the past that the US can’t forget concerning a nation’s ideology they see as a rival. After all, this rejecting to move on behavior does not come in sudden without cause. Humans are predictable creatures. The current demeanor we see today is a reflection of what they have been done previously.

The United States is lucky enough to have Britain as its ally. Their mutualism symbiosis relationship is like two lovers conquering the space and time boundaries. The devotion came up with an abundance of actions; one of them was the expulsion of Chagossians who once lived in Diego Garcia Chagos Island, a 56,13 square kilometers atoll in the Indian Ocean.  

Diego Garcia was first occupied in the 18th century when a group of Africans from Mauritius Island were sent to the atoll as coconut plantation workers. Along with the end of the slavery era, the Chagossians gained their freedom and lived happily for generations on the tropical island. But this did not come to last because, in 1965, the United Kingdom decided to make the Chagos Archipelago its colony and later expelled 2000 Chagossians from their homeland in 1967. The British’ did not reckon Chagossians as indigenous people, so they had no right to houses and land they inherited from their ancestors for a hundred years. The unrecognition is an excuse because Diego Garcia was rebuilt as a US military base in the Indian Ocean within a moment. It launched some bomber jets to destroy Iraq and Afghanistan. John Pilger filmed the sad story as Stealing a Nation documentary movie. However, some of us barely heard nor noticed it when it is also tragic, equally with the Gaza Strip occupation.  

Everyone can Win

It is humane to have desire in different shapes and goals, including the will to win. However, the podium is too small, which makes not everyone get into it at the same time. Humans must compete against each other who also yearn to enjoy the victory, which results in winners and losers over time. On one side, losing could be a valuable experience to measure self-capability and motivate one not to give up in seeking a path to glory for another day. Amid economic difficulty, freedom should ease the pain, reminding us to make the most of it and be something we always want to be, or reaching a certain degree that we have yet achieved, something better and dignified. 

Indeed, a victory could be a hidden trap to grow a champion’s arrogance and rejecting any sense of justice, neglecting humanity to fulfill his lust as a forever winner. There are a few people that can take losing positively as a delayed victory. The sore of falling from high is certainly hurting for a winner, than someone who always loses constantly. Instead of facing the truth eagerly, a defending champion does anything to avoid losing or losing possibility by letting the ego carry away uncontrollable and self-destructive. Unfortunately, these groups of people are in charge now, and they rule the world (the United States and its allies) seem not running out of ideas on how to get rid of the other groups who strive to make a difference (Russia & China).

Should nations that never taste the glory surrender to their circumstances and bury their dreams? We can only gain pride with hard work and discipline. Still, a country is responsible for giving something that we can be proud of and not feel inferior on the international interaction. Something that is not only measured by money and spent. (d.swastantika)   

 

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