The country will likely register a bleak record in the protection of religious minorities in the next four years following the government’s decision to reject a recommendation from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) urging Indonesia to revoke laws and regulations that curb religious freedom.
The UNHRC’s quadrennial “Universal Periodic Review” in May requested that Indonesia amend or revoke laws and regulations that banned religious freedom, including the 1965 Blasphemy Law, the 1969 and 2006 ministerial decrees on the construction of places of worship, and the 2008 joint ministerial decree on Ahmadiyah.
In response, the Indonesian government has included them on list of items that “the government is unable to support”. The government is expected to present its response at the UNHRC headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on Sept. 19.
The government maintains that the 1965 Blasphemy Law, for example, is guaranteed by the Constitution.
National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) chairman Ifdhal Kasim said the Blasphemy Law had commonly been abused by the majority to suppress minority groups.
“It’s crucially important that we amend the 1965 Blasphemy Law; otherwise, the government will gradually allow the majority to force those in minority groups to convert to its mainstream teachings,” Ifdhal said.
A coalition of human rights watchdogs have urged the government to change its decision and adopt the recommendation in order to prove its commitment to upholding and protecting minority rights in the country.
“Religious intolerance will continue to grow in the future unless the government revokes discriminatory laws, such as the 1965 Blasphemy Law. Majority groups have been using that law as an excuse to attack minority groups, such as the Ahmadiyah and Shia followers,” Choirul Anam, from the Human Rights Working Group (HRWG), said on Monday.
Choirul added that the government could amend or revoke some of the laws, although the Constitutional Court had upheld the 1965 Blasphemy Law when civil rights groups filed for a judicial review in 2010.
In addition to rejecting recommendations on religious rights, the government also states in its report for the UNHRC that it is unable to allow foreign journalists free access to Papua and West Papua, as proposed by the French delegation during the May meeting.
The Indonesian government also refuses to allow the entry of the United Nations special rapporteurs on indigenous people and minority groups into the country. The Foreign Ministry said the government had abided by the Constitution when drafting its response to the recommendations.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Michael Tene said the government’s refusal to adopt the recommendation on the Blasphemy Law was simply because it was subject to the Constitution.
“The Constitutional Court ruled that the 1965 Blasphemy Law conformed with our Constitution. We must respect the Constitutional Court as it is the highest legal institution in the country,” Tene said.
As for the government’s refusal to allow foreign journalists to enter Papua, Tene said: “This doesn’t mean that we prohibit foreign journalists from entering Papua. We can allow them to go there as long as they follow all the regulations laid out by the government,” Tene said.
In its report, the government also rejects a recommendation to halt human rights violations by military personnel and police officers, and put an end to the general state of impunity in Papua, as recommended by Japan, arguing that “the recommendations do not reflect the actual situation in the province referred to”.
BULAN September, bisa dibilang sebagai bulan paling bersejarah dalam cerita Indonesia modern. Pada bulan ini, terjadi satu peristiwa yang menjadi penanda lahirnya sebuah rezim politik paling berdarah dan paling kuat dalam sejarah Indonesia modern, rezim Orde Baru.
Cita-cita tentang Indonesia yang demokratis, yang menjunjung tinggi perikemanusiaan dan perikeadilan, yang meniscayakan kebhinekatunggalikaan, sejak September 1965 terkubur bersama jutaan bangkai manusia sebangsa. Setelah September 1965, kita seperti orang mabuk yang berjalan terseok-seok, kumuh, dan sering beringas dalam menggapai dan merumuskan identitas sebagai sebuah bangsa. Tapi mengherankan, tidak banyak studi yang dilakukan dalam masa-masa paling gelap itu. Tidak ada ’seujung kuku’ jika dibandingkan dengan, misalnya, studi tentang Holocaus Nazi/Hitler terhadap bangsa Yahudi di Jerman pada masa Perang Dunia II. Padahal, Peristiwa G30S 1965 dan yang menyertainya, merupakan tragedi kemanusiaan terbesar kedua setelah Holocaus dalam rentang skala, waktu, dan jumlah korban yang ditimbulkannya. Kita seperti ingin melupakannya ketimbang merenungkannya, ingin membantahnya ketimbang memahaminya.
Salah satu dari sedikit sarjana yang mendedikasikan dirinya dalam upaya mengungkap Peristiwa G30S tersebut adalah sejarahwan John Roosa, yang saat ini menjadi profesor di University of British Columbia (UBC), Kanada. Bukunya, Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto’s Coup d’État in Indonesia, yang diterbitkan dalam bahasa Indonesia menjadi Dalih Pembunuhan Massal: Gerakan 30 September dan Kudeta Suharto (Jakarta: ISSI dan Hasta Mitra, 2007), adalah bagian dari upayanya untuk memahami peristiwa tersebut. Untuk itu, bertepatan dengan bulan ‘gelap’ ini, M. Zaki Hussein dari Left Book Review (LBR), berbincang-bincang dengan John Roosa. Berikut petikannya:
Apa yang membuat Anda tertarik untuk meneliti G30S dan pembantaian orang-orang PKI serta sayap kiri pada 1965-1966?
Waktu saya belajar sejarah Asia Tenggara di universitas tahun 1990an, saya tidak habis pikir, kok bisa ada peristiwa sebesar dan sehebat ini tapi pengetahuan kita tentangnya sedemikian kecil. Sebagai sejarahwan, saya lihat ada kebutuhan untuk investigasi yang lebih mendalam guna membongkar sejarah yang digelapkan oleh pembunuh-pembunuh itu. Sebagai manusia biasa yang peduli dengan prinsip-prinsip moral, saya benci dengan rezim Suharto. Rezim itu berfungsi sebagai attack dog buat modal asing dan jadi penuh dengan pejabat-pejabat bodoh dan brutal, orang dengan watak preman yang sama sekali tidak peduli dengan prinsip HAM, yang mengkhianati prinsip kemerdekaan, membunuh dan menyiksa orang Indonesia sendiri, dan kemudian menjual kekayaan tanah airnya kepada konglomerat multinasional dengan harga murah.
Akhir tahun 1990an, saya heran kenapa gerakan reformasi tidak mempersoalkan kejahatan-kejahatan yang terjadi waktu Orde Bobrok baru dimulai, tidak bisa melihat rezim itu sebagai satu package dari 1965 sampai 1998. Miseducation orang Indonesia selama 32 tahun cukup lengkap. Untuk mengerti rezim itu, kita harus kembali ke hari-hari lahirnya.
’Saya tidak habis pikir, kok bisa ada peristiwa sebesar dan sehebat ini tapi pengetahuan kita tentangnya sedemikian kecil.’
Sekalipun sekarang sudah ada keputusan Mahkamah Konstitusi (MK) yang mencabut kewenangan Kejaksaan untuk melarang buku, tetapi buku Anda, Dalih Pembunuhan Massal, pernah dilarang oleh Kejaksaan Agung pada 2009. Apa komentar Anda mengenai hal ini?
Dari satu segi, pelarangan itu bisa dianggap sebagai penghargaan. Ternyata kekuatan buku saya tinggi sekali, sampai pejabat-pejabat takut buku itu bisa mempengaruhi rakyat Indonesia. Dan pejabat-pejabat diClearing house-nya Kejaksaan Agung teliti sekali waktu membaca Dalih. Konon, mereka telah siapkan laporan panjang dan mendaftar 143 kesalahan dari Dalih. Tapi, dari segi lain, pembredelan itu tentu saja, menyedihkan. Kok di era reformasi dan era internet ada pejabat yang mengira mereka masih bisa membredel buku. Saya lihat kemenangan kami di MK tahun 2010 sebagai kemenangan untuk rule of law dan hak kebebasan berekspresi. Yang tetap menjengkelkan, Kejaksaan Agung tidak mau membuka laporannya. Saya masih penasaran, apa keberatan mereka terhadap buku saya dan kenapa mereka membredel Dalih?
Anda menyebutkan bahwa PKI sebagai organisasi tidak terlibat dalam G30S, tapi ada individu PKI yang terlibat tanpa persetujuan partai, bisa anda jelaskan secara singkat hal ini?
G30S itu operasi rahasia. Badan-badan partai, seperti Central Committee (CC) dan CDB-CDB (Comite Daerah Besar) di tingkat propinsi, tidak pernah membicarakan G30S, apalagi ambil keputusan. Menurut Iskandar Subekti, panitera Politbiro, banyak dari anggota Politbiro itu sendiri tidak tahu persis apa itu G30S (Di Politbiro ada kira-kira 12 orang: Aidit, Lukman, Sudisman, dll.). Soal yang dibicarakan di Politbiro adalah: lebih baik PKI mendukung para perwira progresif untuk mendahului Dewan Jenderal (DJ) atau tunggu sampai DJ melakukan kudeta. Politbiro ambil keputusan bahwa PKI harus mendukung para perwira progresif dan Aidit ditugaskan untuk melaksanakan keputusan itu. Sehingga anggota Politbiro tidak melihat G30S sebagai aksi partai. Aidit membentuk tim inti yang terdiri dari beberapa anggota Politbiro, misalnya Sudisman dan Oloan Hutapea, dan hanya tim inti itu, tim ad hoc di luar institusi formal di partai, yang bekerja dengan Sjam di Biro Khusus untuk merancang operasi G30S. Tapi, belum tentu tim inti itu tahu persis apa itu G30S. Tampaknya, Aidit dan pemimpin PKI lain di tim inti itu tetap berpikir bahwa kelompok perwira progresif (Untung cs.) yang memegang peran utama dalam aksi G30S. Mereka kira Untung, Latief, dan Suyono punya kekuatan militer yang cukup untuk melawan jenderal-jenderal kanan dan punya rencana yang jelas. Padahal, Untung cs. berpikir bahwa pemimpin PKI yang memegang peran utama. Dua kelompok itu (orang PKI di tim intinya Aidit dan perwira militer) tidak pernah duduk bersama untuk menyusun G30S. Karena Sjam jadi perantaranya, persiapan aksi itu jadi kacau.
Rezim Suharto menangkap lebih dari satu juta orang atas nama ’penumpasan G30S.’ Jelas penangkapan semasif itu sebenarnya tidak perlu sebagai reaksi terhadap aksi kecil. Pepatah yang dipakai Sukarno benar: tentara ’membakar rumah untuk membunuh tikus.’ G30S merupakan dalih saja untuk kepentingan yang lebih besar.
’Kelompok Suharto mau membuktikan kesetiaannya kepada kampanye antikomunis Amerika Serikat (AS), supaya AS membantu tentara bertahan lama sebagai penguasa.’
Anda mengatakan bahwa peristiwa G30S itu sebenarnya merupakan dalih untuk sebuah pembantaian massal. Lalu, apa sebenarnya tujuan utama di balik pembantaian massal itu?
Ada dua hal: represi terhadap gerakan nasionalis kiri (pengangkapan massal, penahanan massal) dan pembunuhan terhadap gerakan itu. Kalau represi, tujuan utamanya menghancurkan kekuatan petani, yang sedang mendukung proses land reform, dan kekuatan buruh, yang sedang mengambil alih banyak perusahaan milik modal asing. Represi itu sebenarnya bisa dilakukan tanpa pembunuhan. Waktu itu PKI tidak melawan. Kenapa kelompok Suharto di dalam Angkatan Darat (AD) memilih membunuh orang yang sudah ditahan? Ada beberapa kemungkinan, tapi satu poin yang cukup penting: kelompok Suharto mau membuktikan kesetiaannya kepada kampanye antikomunis Amerika Serikat (AS), supaya AS membantu tentara bertahan lama sebagai penguasa. Suharto sadar bahwa rezim dia akan bergantung kepada bantuan finansial dari AS untuk memperbaiki ekonomi Indonesia.
Anda nyaris tidak membahas apa yang terjadi di Lubang Buaya saat peristiwa G30S, kenapa demikian? Apakah karena kurangnya data atau karena kejadian-kejadian di Lubang Buaya memang tidak signifikan untuk merekonstruksi narasi tentang peristiwa G30S?
Memang tidak banyak informasi yang bisa diandalkan tentang apa persisnya yang terjadi di Lubang Buaya. Hampir semua orang yang hadir di sana, tidak mau mengakui kehadiran mereka atau tidak mau cerita secara jelas dan jujur tentang kejadian-kejadian di sana. Wajar, kalau kita ingat teror yang mereka alami. Yang jelas, propaganda kelompok Suharto tentang Lubang Buaya itu bohong belaka. Ya, rezim itu sendiri tidak peduli dengan fakta: mereka tidak pernah membuat investigasi dengan benar. Malah, mereka memaksa beberapa gadis yang tidak punya hubungan dengan peristiwa itu mengaku membunuh para jenderal. Ada buku baru yang mengharukan tentang hal ini: Aku Bukan Jamilah (2011), oleh R. Juki Ardi. Kalau geng Suharto mau menghargai jenderal-jenderal itu, seharusnya mereka melacak kejadian di Lubang Buaya sampai bisa tahu persis siapa yang membunuh mereka dan atas perintah siapa. Kalau informasi itu bisa diketahui, kita bisa memahami proses pengambilan keputusan di dalam kelompok G30S (Sjam, Untung cs).
Presiden Suharto di Museum ‘Lubang Buaya’, foto: Setneg.
Anda menyebutkan bahwa Amerika Serikat memiliki kontak dengan kelompok Jenderal Angkatan Darat yang dinamakan ‘brain trust.’ Apakah kelompok ini yang disebut dengan ’Dewan Jenderal?’ Seberapa erat sebenarnya hubungan mereka dengan Amerika Serikat?
’Braintrust’ itu istilah yang dipakai oleh CIA sendiri dalam laporan tentang G30S tahun 1968. Saya kira, tidak ada satu kelompok perwira AD yang sering rapat dan menyusun bersama strategi yang jelas untuk semacam konfrontasi terhadap PKI. Organisasi mereka lebih informal dan strateginya disusun dalam pertemuan-pertemuan biasa. Yang jelas, jenderal Abdul Haris Nasution menjadi pemimpin para perwira antikomunis dan dia sering bicara dengan perwira lain tentang strategi untuk menghancurkan PKI. Hubungan antara pimpinan AD dan AS erat sekali sebelum dan sesudah G30S. Banyak perwira AD diterbangkan ke AS untuk latihan militer dan sebagian di antara mereka rela jadi informant untuk militer AS. AS kasih senjata, alat komunikasi, bantuan material, seperti beras, dan bantuan finansial serta daftar nama anggota PKI. AS membantu tentara menciptakan psychological warfare campaign. Perusahaan-perusahaan AS berhenti membayar royalti ke pemerintah Sukarno di awal tahun 1966 dan mulai mengirim uang itu ke rekening Suharto.
’Pembunuhan massal terjadi sesudah banyak orang PKI rela masuk kamp-kamp penahanan. Kemudian tugas milisi menjadi algojo saja. Kalau tidak adabacking dari tentara, orang sipil di milisi-milisi itu tidak bisa berbuat banyak.’
Ada yang menyatakan bahwa sekalipun pembantaian 1965-1966 diorganisir oleh Angkatan Darat, tetapi adanya ketegangan dan persaingan tajam antara kelompok komunis dan nonkomunis juga menjadi salah satu faktor yang mendorong terjadinya pembantaian tersebut. Bagaimana pendapat Anda mengenai hal ini?
Ketegangan antara PKI dan organisasi anti-komunis sebelum G30S, misalnya antara PKI dan PNI di Bali, atau PKI dan NU di Jawa Timur, tidak bisa menjelaskan pembunuhan massal. Orang sipil yang ikut milisi, seperti Tameng di Bali dan Ansor di Jawa Timur, tidak mampu membunuh sebegitu banyak orang sendirian. Paling-paling mereka bisa mengorganisir tawuran-tawuran. Dalam tawuran-tawuran seperti itu, orang PKI berani melawan dan tidak akan banyak orang yang gugur. Pembunuhan massal terjadi sesudah banyak orang PKI rela masuk kamp-kamp penahanan. Kemudian tugas milisi menjadi algojo saja. Kalau tidak ada backing dari tentara, orang sipil di milisi-milisi itu tidak bisa berbuat banyak. Sekejam apapun orang PKI sebelum G30S (dan kekejaman itu juga terlalu sering dibesar-besarkan), tetap tidak bisa membenarkan tindakan extra-judicial killing yang dilakukan milisi maupun tentara. Seharusnya para pelaku pembunuhan itu malu dan menyesal dengan apa yang mereka perbuat: membunuh orang yang telah tidak berdaya. Mereka adalah pengecut yang kemudian berpose sebagai pahlawan perang. Tidak ada perang waktu itu, kecuali dalam imajinasi orang yang tidak tahu apa itu perang yang sebenarnya.
Menurut Anda, apa dampak pembantaian 1965-1966 yang sampai sekarang masih terasa, baik terhadap korban maupun rakyat Indonesia secara umum?
Ya jelas masih terasa. Identitas banga Indonesia berubah total sesudah 1965. Semangat antikolonialisme hilang dan anti-komunisme menjadi dasar identitas bangsa. Ini berarti kebencian terhadap sesama orang Indonesia menjadi basis untuk menentukan siapa warganegara yang jahat dan baik. Sistem ekonomi dan sistem politik juga berubah total. Sesudah 1998 orang Indonesia menggali lagi ide-ide dari zaman pra-1965, dan juga pra-1959 (sebelum Demokrasi Terpimpin): ide-ide tentang rule of law, HAM, sekularisme, dll.
Apa pelajaran yang bisa diambil gerakan Progresif di Indonesia sekarang agar peristiwa mengerikan semacam G30S itu tidak terulang kembali?
Peristiwa G30S sendiri sebenarnya tidak begitu mengerikan. Seperti Bung Karno katakan, G30S merupakan gelombang kecil dalam sejarah Indonesia yang penuh dengan perang (RMS, DI/TII, PRRI/Permesta) dan kerusuhan. Berapa kali Bung Karno mau dibunuh? G30S membunuh duabelas orang (enam jenderal, satu letnan, anaknya Nasution, satpam di rumah sebelah rumah Leimena, keponakan Maj. Gen. Panjaitan, dan dua perwira di Jawa Tengah). Yang jauh lebih mengerikan adalah pembunuhan massal yang terjadi sesudah G30S. Sekarang yang penting menurut saya adalah upaya-upaya untuk meningkatkan kesadaran di Indonesia tentang kejahatan-kejahatan yang terjadi pada waktu itu. Secara umum orang Indonesia tidak tahu apa-apa tentang kejahatan itu. Juga harus ada pengakuan dari negara bahwa memang tentara dan orang sipil yang melakukan kejahatan. Extra-judicial killings, penghilangan paksa, penyiksaan, mati kelaparan dalam penjara, semuanya tidak bisa dibenarkan dan tidak bisa ditolerir.
Orang kiri sekarang harus mengoreksi diri juga: selama ini partai-partai Marxis-Leninis tidak menghargai prinsip-prinsip HAM. Kita harus belajar bagaimana berpolitik dan berperang melawan imperialisme dan kapitalisme seraya tetap memegang Universal Declaration of Human Rights dan Konvensi-konvensi Geneva.
The good news: More than a third of American women are now the family breadwinner (look at that!). The bad news: We still tend to pass the buck on important money matters, such as investing and retirement. Ready to take charge of your financial future? Start right here.
I paid bills on time. I bargain-shopped like a pro. I watched my wallet. So at age 21, working at my first job, I thought I had my act together when it came to my finances. Until I spoke to Joe, an older coworker, who discovered that I had not signed up for the 401(k) retirement plan offered by our company. He was appalled. Speaking slowly, my well-meaning colleague explained that if I participated in the plan, the company would match my contributions. When I stared at him blankly, he bellowed in frustration, “It’s free money!” Then he tried impressing me with numbers: By investing less than $100 per paycheck, I could eventually accumulate a nest egg of a million dollars or more. Again, crickets. The more he went on about the magic of compound interest, the more he sounded like the teacher on the cartoon Peanuts. I was bewildered. What does 401 even stand for? And, for that matter, (k)? To get my colleague off my back, I halfheartedly promised to look at the paperwork.
I dithered and kept putting off enrolling before finally keeping my word—one decade later. Signing up for a 401(k) was a bizarre psychological hurdle I couldn’t get over. But why?
I was part of a phenomenon that some money experts have dubbed “the female financial paradox.” Translation: Like millions of other women, I was perfectly happy to pinch pennies and hunt down sales, yet I couldn’t muster the slightest interest in big-picture financial planning.
What the heck is going on here? We women are hardly meek and passive in our careers. We have more power and earning potential than ever before. We’re graduating with more college degrees than men, and we’re climbing farther up the ranks in nearly every industry. Nor are we shrinking violets regarding everyday financial affairs. One survey found that a full 90 percent of women identify themselves as the chief bill-payer and shopper for the household. And yet we lag behind men in actions crucial to building wealth and security, such as investing and having a long-term money plan.
“Because we’re fighting against centuries of societal norms in which women were excluded from discussions about finances, many simply aren’t interested in these topics,” says Amanda Steinberg, the CEO and founder of the women’s personal-finance community DailyWorth.com. Eileen O’Connor, the vice president of wealth management for McLean Asset Management Corporation, in McLean, Virginia, agrees. She says that, traditionally, women have had a “head-in-the-sand approach” to long-term financial planning. No wonder a recent survey conducted byDailyWorth.com found that 60 percent of women thought their investing and planning skills were below average.
That lack of engagement has a high cost. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., roughly the same number of full-time employed men and women participate in retirement plans. However, men contribute far more to those plans: Their median account balance is $31,388, compared with women’s $20,877, according to Vanguard, an investment company. One would hope that women’s savings would be inching toward parity now that the gender pay gap is becoming a relic. Alas, no. The female financial paradox has continued unabated.
Experts have identified four key factors underlying the paradox: Women tend to be insecure about the subject of money; we focus on scrimping instead of investing; we rely too heavily on others for financial know-how; and we’re not always adept at translating abstract figures into concrete goals. Read on to learn more about these barriers and how to overcome them.
Financial Barrier No. 1: We Lack Confidence
Odd, isn’t it? So many women radiate competence and authority on a daily basis (brilliant doctors, strong managers, cool and collected stay-at-home mothers). But when it comes to this one particular subject, not so much. Take Amy, a 42-year-old senior manager based in New York City. “Money information just bounces off my brain,” she says. “It’s like I have a force field that won’t let it in.” She’s not alone. With the exception of women who work, say, on Wall Street or in accounting, even some of the most capable among us can become champion self-doubters when we have to talk about our money.
Experts say this is an understandable reaction to the relative inaccessibility of the male-dominated financial world. Take a peek at any mutual-fund prospectus and you’ll find tons of abstruse language: 12b-1 fee, market capitalization, front-load, back-load, no-load. Some men may savor the jargon and feel a sense of pride when they master it, whereas women tend to see it and shut down, explains Galia Gichon, the founder of the women-focused financial-education firm Down-to-Earth Finance, in Westport, Connecticut.
Gichon recalls working with a successful single mother in her 40s who didn’t have any long-term savings and refused to start planning for retirement. “The concept felt so overwhelming that she thought, Why bother? As a result, she ignored her big-picture finances completely,” says Gichon.
That desire to flee from financial planning means we aren’t always as well-informed as we should be. “Many women think that since they don’t know the language, they can’t ask questions—or they worry that their questions sound dumb,” says O’Connor.
Those fears may be reinforced by frustrating encounters with the financial-services industry. For every helpful and plainspoken adviser or planner, there’s another who can be intimidating or condescending. “Women tell me that their adviser talked about things they didn’t understand or spent the entire appointment speaking to their husband,” says O’Connor.
If money discussions make you feel nervous or clueless, you have to start talking about your finances more, not less. “To eliminate the intimidation factor, include topics of spending and saving in your regular conversation with your spouse or a trusted friend,” says New York City–based financial therapist Amanda Clayman.
It also helps to have an adviser you can depend on, even if you contact her only once a year. Make sure your money pro speaks clearly, without excessive use of jargon or acronyms, and that you feel 100 percent comfortable talking to her.
The other thing that will give you more confidence in money matters? Knowledge. For starters, review your financial statements on a monthly basis so you know where you stand. Then consider picking up a personal-finance book or visiting a money-information website to school yourself in any concepts that are eluding you.
Financial Barrier No. 2: We Sweat the Small Stuff
For women, being smart with money traditionally meant knowing how to stretch the family dollar. (Think of all those ladies who managed to turn out amazing multicourse meals during the years of World War II rationing and victory gardens.) “For generations, the idea was that men earned the money and women decided how to spend it,” says Laura Vanderkam, the author of All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending ($27, amazon.com).
Today not much has changed. Women still make most of the household purchases, and many are master deal finders. The overwhelming majority of women—76 percent—regularly clip coupons, and 38 percent buy in bulk, according to a recent Citi Economic Pulse survey. “Sales and coupons provide the instant gratification of saving,” says Gichon.
“When they find themselves hitting up the sale racks, women need to remember that even the best deal they find is worth far less than a smart investment in their retirement fund,” says Eleanor Blayney, the president of the Washington, D.C.–based financial-advisory firm Directions for Women. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with getting your money’s worth, experts say that women need to move beyond worrying about nickels and dimes and start thinking big.
Financial Barrier No. 3: We’re Waiting for Someone Else to Fix the Problem
Remember that the Mad Men era wasn’t that long ago. Most women were raised to believe that their husbands would handle the finances. Few people now in their 40s and older were raised by mothers who were the key financial decision-makers, says Gichon. “Often neither parent counseled daughters about saving or investing,” she says. And even some women in their 30s or younger have grown up “with the idea that they would be secondary earners and a man would be responsible for investing and long-term saving,” says Vanderkam.
Single women raised with this mind-set typically learn to take charge of their finances out of necessity, experts say. But even today some married women ignore such issues until they are forced to pay attention. For many, that reckoning may come when they are least emotionally prepared to deal with it: after they lose a spouse through death or divorce. “Unfortunately, for many of my clients, it takes a major life event to change their behavior,” says Gichon.
Financial Barrier No. 4: We’re Focused on Goals, Not Numbers
In the financial world, a great deal is made of the bold-faced number on your bank statement. And certainly women want to make money as much as the next guy. But we’re after a lot more than just a fat (but abstract) figure in our investment accounts, says Clayman. “I don’t care about how much money I have on paper,” says Sarah, a 33-year-old writer. “I want to know if I can make the choices that are important to me.” Can I afford to buy a new home? Send my children to college? Travel after retirement? These are the concrete goals that matter the most to us. “And that means the financial conversations about saving and investing that we have with our planner or spouse need to be directly connected to the results we want to see in our lives,” says Clayman.
That’s why it’s best to think specifically about what you would do with a pot of money. Make your financial goals as detailed as possible (including an estimated cost) to increase the likelihood that you’ll follow through with what’s necessary to achieve them. For example, Clayman recalls a woman in her 40s who couldn’t kick-start her retirement-savings plan until she envisioned spending her golden years in Florida. “Once she calculated what she needed to accomplish that target—as opposed to a large, vague amount she had to save—she became less anxious and more proactive,” says Clayman.
Being financially savvy doesn’t have to be about making more money just to increase your account balance. “Think of money as a tool to help achieve your goals, take care of yourself, and do things for the people you love,” says Vanderkam. “It’s a means to getting the life you want.”
Cacing bagi sebagian orang dianggap menjijikkan, kotor dan tidak bermanfaat. Lain halnya dengan Pastor F.X. Tan Soe Ie, SJ. Kotoran dari cacing justru dimanfaatkan. Untuk apa? Segala bahan alami yang busuk (organik) masuk dalam perut cacing, dicernakan dan dikeluarkan lagi berbentuk butiran-butiran halus, berwarna kehitam-hitaman dan beraroma sedap seperti tanah.
Kotoran cacing bercampur lendir dan air liurnya menjadi pupuk organik yang sangat berkhasiat bagi segala macam tanaman. Pupuk seperti ini diberi nama kascing. Usaha ini dirintis Romo Tan, panggilan akrabnya sejak 2004. Romo Tan dibantu 7 orang pegawai. Dalam satu minggu usaha ini menghasilkan 15 - 20 ton pupuk kascing.
Siapa romo Tan? Dia lahir di Gowongan, Jogjakarta, 16 Desember 1928. Anak ke-4 dari pasutri Tan Kiem Gwan dan Nyoo Gwat Nio ini ditahbiskan menjadi imam Yesuit pada tahun 1963. Tahun 1965-1969 Romo Tan menjadi pamong di Seminari Mertoyudan. Romo Tan juga pernah bertugas di beberapa paroki. Diantaranya, Paroki Baciro, Jogjakarta tahun 1970-1978. Paroki Santa Maria, Tangerang tahun 1978-1986. Setelahnya selama lebih dari 17 tahun ia bertugas di Dare, 60 km dari Dili Timor Timur. Disana ia merintis kader petani lewat Pusat Latihan Wiraswasta Pertanian (PUSLAWITA).
Sejak 2003 hingga kini ia tinggal di dusun Ponggol, desa Harjobinangun, Kecamatan Pakem sekitar 20 km arah utara dari kota Jogjakarta. Romo Tan memimpin sekitar 500 umat Katolik di Stasi Santo Ignatius Ponggol, Pakem. Karya lainnya, ia membangun bumi perkemahan di dusun Sumber Boyong, desa Candibinangun, Pakem. Usaha ini dibangun guna menghidupkan perekonomian warga sekitar. “Dengan adanya perkemahan ini, tentu banyak anak sekolah dan lainnya yang berkemah disini. Kehadiran mereka akan memberi kesempatan kepada warga sekitar untuk membuka peluang usaha,” demikian Romo Tan.
Untuk mengucapkan syukur atas usia yang ke-80, pada 27 Desember 2008 dirayakan Misa Syukur, mengambil tempat di kapel Stasi St Ignatius Ponggol, Pakem. Misa dipimpin langsung Romo Tan. Tak kurang 200 umat hadir. Selesai Misa, di Bumi Perkemahan Sumber Boyong diselenggarakan syukuran, sarasehan dan makan bersama. Hadir umat Stasi St Ignatius, juga warga masyarakat lainnya dari dusun itu. Hadir pula puluhan umat dari Lingkungan Santa Bernadette IV, Paroki St Yakobus, Kelapa Gading, Jakarta Utara. Aneka makanan tradisional seperti nasi liwet, lontong sayur, kacang rebus, wedang ronde menjadi hidangan khas malam itu. “Itu atas permintaan beliau.
Bersyukur dalam kesederhanaan demikian salah seorang panitia menjelaskan. Dalam pesannya Romo Tan menyampaikan salam damai untuk semua yang hadir. Beliau mengucapkan terima kasih terutama kepada warga masyarakat sekitar yang menerima kehadirannya selama lebih dari 5 tahun. Beliau juga berharap rasa persaudaraan yang ada di desa itu terus dijaga.
Pak Suparmin, mewakili warga sekitar mengharapkan kerukunan antar pemeluk agama di desa itu tetap terus dijaga. Ia juga mengucapkan terima kasih atas peran serta Romo Tan dalam ikut membangun taraf hidup masyarakat sekitar. Misalnya pemberian bantuan pipa-pipa saluran air. “Dengan dibukanya bumi perkemahan di dusun ini, warga dapat menjual salak hasil budidaya warga setempat, juga memberi pemasukan kas RW setempat seperti dari perpakiran dll,” demikian Suparmin. Mewakili umat Lingkungan Santa Bernadette IV, Paroki St Yakobus, Kelapa Gading, Jakarta Utara, JI Andilolo dan Sudjio Pranoto menyampaikan kesan dan harapannya. “Teladan Romo Tan hendaknya dapat memberi inspirasi semua pihak untuk tetap mengedepankan kepentingan orang banyak. Hidup rukun dalam kebhinekaan dan tetap semangat membangun masyarakat yang tinggal jauh dari kota besar,” Pada penutup acara, diputarkan film “Pemanasan Global”.
Tan Soe Le, Perintis Pupuk Bekas Cacing Itu Meninggal
Kamis, 26 Februari 2009
Romo Fransiskus Xaverius Tan Soe Ie SJ (80) , Kamis (26/2) dimakamkan di Makam Girisonta, Ungaran. Pastor yang merintis pupuk kascing atau bekas cacing untuk para petani ini meninggal, Rabu (25/2) dini hari lalu di Rumah Sakit Panti Rapih karena sakit. Romo Tan, begitu biasa disapa, telah menjalani perawatan intensif sejak 4 Februari lalu di RS Rapih, Yogyakarta.
"Beliau meninggal dini hari sekitar pukul 03.00, diindikasi karena penyakit kanker," ungkap Indra Gunawan, Pengurus Harian Yayasan Pangkal Sejahtera, yang dekat dengan Romo Tan, Kamis (26/2) di Yogyakarta. Romo Tan adalah pembina sekaligus pendiri Yayasan Pangkal Sejahtera yang bergerak di bidang pertanian itu.
Menurut Indra, sebelum dirawat di RS Panti Rapih, Rm Tan sempat dirawat di RS Panti Nugroho, Pakem, Sleman, selama tiga hari, pada 2-4 Februari. Indra menuturkan, Rm Tan sebelum meninggal mengaku mengalami keluhan daya penglihatan berkurang. "Sekitar 3-4 tahun lalu Rm Tan juga pernah mengalami gangguan pita suara. Beliau juga pernah menjalani operasi jantung, tetapi itu sudah lama," katanya.
Romo Tan tercatat berkarya terakhir di Gereja Maria Asumpta Pakem sejak tahun 2002. Selain menjadi pastor paroki, sampai akhir hayatnya Romo Tan berkarya di Dusun Ponggol, Hargobinangun, Pakem, yaitu memproduksi dan mengembangkan pupuk kascing yang tidak lain dibuat dari kotoran cacing. Pupuk ini ditujukan bagi peningkatan kesejahteraan petani. Untuk mengelola dan mengembangan pupuk kascing tersebut, Romo Tan sekitar 3,5 tahun lalu mendirikan Yayasan Pangkal Sejahtera.
"Beliau berpesan pupuk kascing itu sangat bermanfaat bagi petani dan diperlukan petani. Karena itu, harus dikembangkan untuk memajukan para petani," kata Indra.
Romo Tan lahir di Gowongan, Yogyakarta, 16 Desember 1928. Ia masuk novisiat Serikat Jesus (SJ) tahun 1950 dan ditahbiskan sebagai pastor anggota SJ pada tahun 1963. Romo Tan pernah menjadi pamong di Seminari—lembaga pendidikan calon-calon pastor—Mertoyudan, Magelang, 1966-1969. Ia juga pernah menjadi pastor Paroki Baciro, Yogyakarta, tahun 1970-1976, kemudian di Tangerangtahun 1977-1985, hingga berkarya di Dare, Timor Timur, tahun 1985-2002.
Indra mengungkapkan, Romo Tan berharap Gereja Katolik dan negara lebih memerhatikan petani. Selama ini petani kurang diperhatikan pemerintah.
Obsesi Romo Tan adalah meningkatkan kesejahteraan petani kecil.
Men seek youth and beauty, while women focus on wealth and status — evolutionary psychologists have long claimed that these general preferences in human mating are universal and based on biology. But new research suggests that they may in fact be malleable: as men and women achieve financial equality, in terms of earning power and economic freedom, these mate-seeking preferences by gender tend to wane.
The idea behind the evolutionary theory is simple: biologically, sperm are cheap — men make 1,500 sperm per second on average. In contrast, eggs are expensive; typically, women release just one egg a month and each baby girl is born with her full lifetime’s supply of egg cells. (Yes, this means that the egg from which you sprang was formed inside your maternal grandmother.) What’s more, pregnancy costs a woman nine months, while the initial male contribution to parenthood generally requires no more than a few minutes.
As a result, evolutionary theorists argue, women will be far more selective than men about their sexual partners, and they will tend to seek those with the most resources to invest in their children. Men, on the other hand, can afford to be less choosy. They’ll care far less about a woman’s ability to provide and far more about her basic signs of fertility, such as her youth and the symmetry of her facial features — a characteristic associated with beauty and good health.
But while these mate-seeking preferences may have made sense when humans first evolved — and subsequently shaped our unconscious desires — the world has changed since our species dwelled in caves. And so, researchers at the University of York in the U.K. wanted to know whether factors that characterize modern-day society, such as women’s increased earning power and status, made a difference.
In a study published in Psychological Science, researchers looked at two large samples of people who were surveyed about the qualities they most wanted in a mate: one survey was conducted in the late 1980s and included 8,953 people from 37 different cultures; the second survey was more current, administered to 3,177 people from 10 nations via the Internet.
Noting prior research finding that women who expect to be employed full-time on their own put less emphasis on a man’s “provider” qualities, the authors write: “As the positioning of men and women in societal roles changes, gender differences in mate choice criteria should change because people look for mates who fit into their anticipated future lives under prevalent societal circumstances.”
To figure out if that’s true, the researchers ranked nations according to a new measure of gender equity introduced by the World Economic Forum in 2006. Within various societies, they looked for relationships between the gender gap and how much of a difference there was between male and female mate preferences. And indeed, the researchers found, the greater the equality of power between the genders, the more similar were the traits that both men and women sought in potential mates. In Finland, the country with the greatest gender parity among the 10 countries included in the more current of the two surveys, there was a far smaller difference between male and female preferences than in Turkey, which had the biggest gender gap.
That means, basically, that the more equal men and women became, the less emphasis men placed on youth and beauty, and the less emphasis women put on wealth and power. These findings were borne out by the 37-culture survey as well; although it showed a definite gender difference in mate-seeking preferences, it also showed that these gender-based differences narrowed in countries with more equality. Further, it found that the top few most desired traits were shared by both men and women: most people first look for intelligence, kindness and sense of humor, even before men mention beauty or women mention wealth and status.
Other supposedly biologically based gender-based differences — such as gaps in math performance between men and women — have also been found to recede in gender-equal societies, suggesting that the role of culture in these variations has been underestimated.
In case you’re wondering, America ranks 17th in the world in gender equity. The top four most gender-equal nations are all in Scandinavia, and the bottom of the ranking is dominated by Middle Eastern and African countries.
However, the authors note that even the most egalitarian countries in the world are equally as far from perfect equality as they are from the level of inequality seen in the countries that score worst on this measure. The authors conclude: “As long as gender inequality prevails even in ‘egalitarian’ nations, an erosion of gender differentiation in mating preferences cannot be expected.”
Maia Szalavitz is a health writer at TIME.com. Find her on Twitter at @maiasz. You can also continue the discussion on TIME Healthland’s Facebook page and on Twitter at@TIMEHealthland.
What do you want in a mate? If you’re a free-thinking, independent, feminist woman in a relatively egalitarian society, you might want all kinds of things: a guy with a sense of humor, maybe, or who likes to cook exotic foods. And if you’re not overly familiar with certain annoyingly persistent theories of mate selection, you’ll be surprised to find out that you’re looking for all the wrong qualities, evolutionarily speaking. You’re supposed to want someone stronger, smarter, and richer than you. Someone who would sire healthy offspring and protect them from saber-toothed cats on the Pleistocene Epoch savanna.
And if you’re a free-thinking, independent, feminist man in a relatively egalitarian society, you might not realize that you are supposed to prize youth, fertility, and chastity (a woman who will birth all those babies you’re supposed to protect and let you know they’re really yours) over quirky taste in movies or a love of travel.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with evolutionary psychology—our thoughts and behaviors have been shaped by millions of years of hominid evolutionary history, and it’s worth studying how natural selection acted on traits that we still express today. But too often, evolutionary psychology is a force for social conservatism. Researchers identify a pattern of behavior, usually some stereotypical sex difference (in part because it’s easy to measure whether men and women score differently on a standardized test), construct a scenario in which that behavior would have been adaptive in the distant past, and say the behavior is therefore evolutionarily selected and encoded in our genes.
It’s tricky to disprove the notion that some human trait is the result of evolution. The logic is circular: if some trait exists, it must not have been fatal to our ancestors and it may have helped them reproduce. To critique a claim of evolutionary privilege, you have to show that the trait has no genetic component and therefore can’t be inherited, or demonstrate that the trait is instilled by culture, not necessarily biology.
And that’s why my favorite paper of the week is “Stepping Out of the Caveman’s Shadow: Nations’ Gender Gap Predicts Degree of Sex Differentiation in Mate Preferences.” Marcel Zentner and Klaudia Mitura of the University of York, U.K., asked more than 3,000 people in 10 countries what they valued in a mate. On a four-point scale, people rated the importance of various qualities: chastity, ambition, financial prospects, good looks, etc.—all identified by Buss and his likeminded peers as being qualities that only men or only women are evolutionarily predisposed to seek out.
The researchers used a World Economic Forum measure of gender equality to rank the 10 countries as (a) relatively gender-equal, (b) backwards but improving, or (c) screamingly sexist (my terms, not theirs). And the results were clear: The more egalitarian the country, the less likely men and women were to value traditional qualities that Buss and co. believe to be innate. In Germany, women said they’d very much like a man who is a good housekeeper. In Finland, men were more likely than women to prefer a mate a bit smarter than themselves. In the United States, women ranked chastity as more important than men did. At the other end of the scale, in Turkey and South Korea, women wanted mates with good financial prospects and men valued good cooks.
None of this is especially surprising, but there’s something so satisfying about having a chart with a straight line and a steep slope showing that the more egalitarian the country, the less constrained people are by stereotyped sex roles. That is progress.
The study fits with other recent research showing that supposedly gender-determined cognitive abilities, like math and spatial reasoning, are also a function of culture. The more egalitarian a society, the better girls are at algebra.
You can read about mate preferences and sex roles changing in real time in my colleague Hanna Rosin’s new book, The End of Men: And the Rise of Women. An excerpt that ran in the New York Times Magazine over the weekend told the stories of women who are adapting (take that, Pleistocene Epoch!) to the new economy and becoming bread winners for husbands who are trained for self-described macho jobs that have disappeared.
And that’s the real lesson of evolutionary psychology. The main quality evolution acted on over all those millions of years was our ability to adapt. It’s possible there are some ugly, genetically-predisposed legacies of jealousy and mate guarding and sexual deception rattling around in our great ape brains, but they’re nothing compared to our capacity to form friendships, value a relationship independent of its ability to produce offspring, and love a highly evolved guy for baking a great loaf of bread.
