Searching for Utopia

Most cancers are related to lifestyle factors, Elizabeth M. Whelan of the American Council on Science and Health reported. Tobacco use, poor diet, alcohol abuse, ionizing radiation (x-rays, for example), certain sexually transmitted diseases, certain reproductive patterns, and sunlight are among the proven causes of cancer. Therefore healthy lifestyle is a major key to prevent it. Of course, with the Global Cancer Report which said that cancer rates could increase by 50% to 15 millions by 2020, a cure is still needed.

There have been many efforts, but what HopeLab has recently announced is absolutely something different. It has released “Re-Mission”, the first PC-based video game scientifically shown to improve health-related outcomes for young people with cancer. The nonprofit organization is committed to help young people to deal with chronic illness; and the game is developed through a scientific study involving 375 young adults at 43 medical centers in the three countries—those are United States, Canada and Australia. They were helped by researchers, medical experts and game developers.

The game’s main character is Roxxi—a well-armed Nanobot. Its task is to destroy cancer cells throughout the human body, battling cancer and its life-threatening effects. Through 20 different levels of game play, Re-Mission illustrates what occurs inside the bodies of young cancer patients and how they can most effectively fight their disease. The study has proven that the participants who played Re-Mission maintained high levels of adherence to their prescribed medication regimens. They also maintained higher levels of chemotherapy in their blood and took their antibiotics more consistently than those in the control group who did not receive Re-Mission.

Saif Azar, a patient with Hodgkin’s lymphomas said, “It was perfect, actually. It helped me understand the things that were going on in my body.”

The president of HopeLab, Pat Christen, said, “Re-Mission works. It gives teens and young adults a sense of power and control over their cancer. Research on Re-Mission was conducted in much the same way research into a new drug is conducted, with rigorous testing based on scientific principles. Our study findings clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of the game in improving health-related outcomes for these kids. It’s great news.”

“We approached the study in the same way and with the same rigor that we would with a new drug,” she added.

The game will be available in English, French and Spanish and free to download through www.remission.net starting on May 1.

India’s Kishan Shrikanth—known as Master Kishan to many—may be small, but he has a big heart. At the tender age of 10, he has already acted in 24 regional feature films and has starred in 1,000 episodes of a hit soap opera on television in India. Yet he is aware that many are not as fortunate as he is, and he seeks to change it. And just what can he do, we hear you ask. Read along and find out!

“When I was six years old, I saw the kids selling newspapers on the streets at the traffic lights and felt sad. I asked my dad why they had to do this. He told me that they were not like us. They did not go to school or study and they had to work for a living. I wanted to talk about their life,” Kishan told the BBC.

“Then I wrote a short story and read it to my dad who narrated it to his friends as well. It was my dad’s friends who suggested that I should direct the film myself, as I had written the story.”

The boy was not daydreaming. C/O Footpath (Care of Footpath)—the feature film—is telling about India’s street child who had the chance for school and managed to be success and became an inspiration to many other street children in the country. He directs it with his mother’s support as the film’s producer as well as music director.

Before stepping into his new task, he got himself prepared. “I read many books on Hollywood and saw DVDs. I had to learn camera angles and understand which lens will make things look narrow or wide. I used to ask questions to directors, cameramen, assistants, everybody,” he said.

His genuineness convinced Bollywood star Jackie Shroff to take part. “He is such a genius that I had to work in his film. He is constantly thinking about his next shot, constantly innovating to make it better. He is sure about what he wants from his actors,” Shroff told the Press Trust of India.

The shooting took place at the south of Chennai and Mumbai, the center of Bollywood—the world’s most productive film industry. The production budget for this135-minute length film is US$ 170,000.

“It is not tough to direct senior actors. I tell them, they listen and even suggest changes if necessary. We do rehearsals before a shoot and I sometimes act and show them, as I am an actor myself. The film is 85% complete and due to release next April,” Kishan said to Reuters at his home in Bangalore.

Of course things are sometimes rough for him. While other children were enjoying Harry Potter, he barely had time for school during the filming schedules and missed playing with friends. But the boy-wonder understands what he wants. “When I am absent my friends take notes and give them to me,” he said. “I’ll pass my exams. My first goal is directing. All other things are secondary. I want all slum kids educated, that’s all.”

Well, he may say so, but the Guinness Book of Records awaits him as the world’s youngest director.

Anton Novak, 11, from Czech Republic was indeed very lucky. After losing his nose for two hours, he finally got it back. The unfortunate event happened last year on November 17. While the lad was out with his father, a neighbor’s dog—a German shepherd—attacked and bit off his nose. His father beat the dog up and rushed him to St Ann Faculty Hospital in Brno. Police was called to take the dog to the vets where it was killed.

Earlier the hospital had successfully reattached a patient’s ear after being bitten by a dog. Dr Jiri Versely, the chief plastic surgeon said, “Sewing back a nose is not so exceptional in surgery. But we have looked in vain in the specialist literature for a case where a nose was sewed back that had stayed for two hours in a stomach.” He went on by claiming, “It is proof that we are the first to do this.”

The first thing they did was to call the vets to search for the boy’s nose. “We thought it was worth checking inside the dog in case it hadn’t chewed it,” Dr Versely explained. The dog’s belly was then opened and amazingly they found the nose still in one piece; although it was in a poor state that it might cause infection. They carefully sterilized it and used microsurgery to reattach it back to Anton’s face.

“We cut off the digested part, disinfected the rest and put it back,” Dr Versely further said.
It took 11 hour for the team to finish the operation. After ten days, Dr Vesely confirmed that no infection had happened, “It was a very complicated operation but all is well. The boy will be able to breathe normally and will look the same as he did before.”

Last month Nigeria’s Patricia Odi (48) celebrated the most anticipated moment in her life as a woman: to be a mother, that is. It was such a long wait since her marriage to Cyprian Nnamdi Odi on February 10, 1979. Her pregnancy, however, was rather odd. She had to carry the baby in her womb for three years and eight month. How so?

“In April 2002, I missed my menstrual period. I went for a test and it was positive. Before then I had never missed my period and I had cried to God for the fruit of the womb for 23 years since I got married in 1979. I registered for antenatal at military Hospital, Yaba and looked forward to my delivery. Later—I don’t remember exactly when—I was told that my baby wasn’t growing well as it should. I was afraid but I continued in my prayers and started going to Ijaw women in Ajegunle for massages.

“I went for massages because there the Ijaw people gave me more hope and strengthened my belief that my baby would be born healthy. Meanwhile, I did not have the kind of pregnancy I expected. I never vomited; I never had any spitting of saliva. All I had were odd feelings, headaches, weaknesses and a bit of backache. My baby did not move in my womb until the pregnancy was about a year old and yet the doctor said there was no fibroid in my womb.”

By the time, she said, people started to stare at her whether she was in the bus or on her street, and even at church where she—being a devoted Catholic—never stopped praying. Some of them were worried that she might have fibroids. The others thought she simply tied a pillow around her stomach to conceal the truth that she could not have her husband’s baby. Her friends however continued to believe her when they saw and felt the baby as it moved in her womb.

Financial problem in the meantime had been a constant problem. Her husband was transferred to Enugu and their salaries were rarely being paid on time. Considering her condition at that time, doctors suggested her to have an operation—which she refused. Mother Mary did not deliver Jesus Christ with operation, she said. She did not want to. As a believer, she found her solace in different Catholic churches—by collecting holy water, blessed salt and anointing oil which she always used.

And apparently she did not have to wait forever. On the 21st of December, 2005, she was preparing the celebration mass for the new assistant parish priest at the church; when suddenly she felt something was wrong with her body. She ignored it. She was even able to finish the cleaning and then kneeling down at the Blessed Sacrament for a prayer before going home. When she arrived, she started to have pain on her lower back and under her womb where she could not sit nor stand. She decided to call her sister Mary to take her to the hospital.

They reached the hospital at 8 pm where she was told that she was in labor. They did not lie. The baby, Emmanuela Odi, was born at 10.30 pm without any complications and physically normal. There was a sigh of relief as the baby cried.

“Now, after over twenty-years of marriage, people in my area call me mama somebody. Ah, there is indeed a God who hears and answers if you call on him. My joy is boundless and my heart has been cleansed of all sorrows”, she said.

Such a miracle—as Patricia puts it—has no medical explanation on how the offspring could have survived after years inside the womb. The doctor, Babatunde Abiodun, supported her story. “Sometimes it happens. Anything is possible,” he said. While those who only hear the story might be a bit skeptical for Patricia had no regular doctor to monitor her; many saw her throughout her years of pregnancy.

When most of us were probably gathering together with our family for Christmas on last December 23, poor little Miracle was strayed somewhere in Newark. He kept walking to where his feet led him.

Suddenly a parked sport utility vehicle attracted his attention. His inquisitiveness then encouraged him to climb into the guts of the SUV. He played until he grew tired and fell asleep there. A moment later a sound of engine aroused him up from slumber. He started to panic when he realized his new home was moving. Terrified, the cat—yes, Miracle is a cat, mind you—clutched to where he could. After 70 miles of journey along the New Jersey Turnpike, a person at last noticed him through a wheel well. He was afterwards taken out.

The woman who was driving the SUV—she wished to remain anonymous—took him to the Animal Welfare Association in Voorhees, N.J. where they did not normally take in strays. He was in quite good condition despite some burnt paws and a missing claw. But nobody could ever tell how he escaped the fan blades inside the car.

Since then his journey have attracted more than twenty people already inquiring about adopting him, which is about 8 months old and about six pounds, as the shelter director, Karen Dixon-Aquino informed.
“It’s amazing that he lived,” she said. “I’ve never heard of one surviving the engine being turned on, let alone surviving a ride down the turnpike. He’s certainly used up 81/2 of his nine lives.”

Before Miracle, however, there have been several stories involving cats’ survival; including a year old kitten that stowed away in paper bales shipped from Wisconsin to Chicago, then to Belgium and France back in September. She made it back home, compliments of Continental Airlines, after the owners listed on her name tag were contacted.

The coauthor of the book “Mews Item: Amazing but True Cat Tales” says that cats find themselves surviving the most precarious situations. And Miracle, he said, would have made his book.

Santino and William

There are prospects for peace at last in Sudan when the government and main rebel signed peace accords in January 2005—ending the civil war in the world which had taken place since 1955 between the largely Muslim, pro-government North and largely non-Muslim rebel South. In 1983, the fighting turned to be genocide when the Attorney General Hassan Abdulah el-Turabi, the leader of Sudan’s Islamic Charter Front persuaded President Nemeiri to apply the Islamic Law and began the systematic destruction of those who disagreed; including two millions of southern Dinka Christians, moderate Muslims, and animists.

William Akoi Mawwin was only six years old by then. His father made him flee to the south to avoid the raids for his safety. He was however caught and endured almost two decades of slavery, starvation, and the threat of death, before escaping and continued to live on the streets and eating out of garbage cans. He lost his hands during those difficult times. Some 30-thousand other boys between the ages of 4 and 10 had the same fate. Those who could avoid being captured were wandering for months across Africa without any clue what to do. It was estimated that only one in three boys survived the journey to the refugee camps in Kenya. Thousands were either shot by pursuing soldiers, drowned, died of hunger, or were eaten by wild animals. Babies were killed; girls were raped, killed or forced into slavery.

In 2001 the United States government agreed to allow 3,600 of them to live in America—the lost boys of Sudan. The largest numbers of these orphans were placed in Arizona; where they have a nonprofit support facility called The AZ Lost Boys Center to provide them with education, employment, heath care—and a home base for them to meet with each others. Most of them have been separated from their families during the war and adopted by American families.

William was one of the lucky 70% of them who could enroll to college and get a full-time job. He even co-directed a documentary feature of his life on “It Takes a Village”, a documentary feature of his life, in hoping that the film will raise awareness and money to help build hospitals and schools in Sudan.

The 19-year old Abraham Maker could also smile after being enrolled to a school where he played soccer and is a runner for the athletics team. “I don’t worry now that if I sleep those people are going to shoot me,” he said.

But getting an education is a big problem for those above 18—which means they were too old for school. Because of their lacking of qualifications, they were often faced with the low-paying jobs.

Santino Majok Chuor, 21, had to go through it. As attending school was not an option, he was loading trucks for minimum wage. He sent most of his salary each month to his disabled brother and his three nephews in Kenya; which left him almost nothing to live in an apartment he shared with another lost boy in Houston.
“There’s no way out unless you get education,” he believed.

Another lost boy, Samuel Garang, 23 could work in the day and learn at night. “America wasn’t paradise and it wasn’t as easy as they told you in the camps,” he said, reciting his previous jobs from becoming a security guard to a bagger at supermarkets. Yet he did well enough in school that he was enrolled at Stanford University in California.

Truly there are more in life than a picture of black and white. Being grateful with what we have is perhaps the best way to cope with our problems. As Samuel said, “Back in Africa, they do not know how hard it can be here for us.”

On November 11, Aceh’s Marlina (16) could smile for the first time after one long suffering year of having a bullet lodged in her head. How did she get a bullet in her head we hear you ask?

It was at 11 AM, July 8, 2004, when Marlina and elder sister Ani were cooking at the family’s kitchen behind the house. All of a sudden they heard an intense shooting within 1 km distance. Long before the nonstop natural disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes, Aceh had been an area troubled with constant clashes between the Indonesian army and GAM (Free Aceh Movement). During that period, shooting was more like daily incident for the Acehnese; and also for Marlina. She lived with her family in a village, 257 km from the city of Banda Aceh.

At that time, she and Ani ran inside their house for a shelter when the shooting became more extreme. The whole family then burrowed in fear until the noise ceased. Marlina hurriedly went back to the kitchen to check her cooking. Another shot was heard shortly after, at which point her mother shouted for her to come back inside. But it was too late. For Marlina had lost her consciousness and fell down on the floor. Blood spilled out of her head, colored her clothes in red. Her mother grew feeble at the sight.

Ani knew what to do. She carried her little sister to the bed and walked her to the nearest medical center when Marlina awakened. The street was empty still empty. People chose to hide themselves inside their house after the gunfire. The two girls too were afraid, but they strengthened their mind. Ani told her younger sibling that she would bear a bullet herself, as long as Marlina could make it to the medical center. The poor girl had to grit her teeth for pain as they walked step by step. Luckily, they met a cousin who was then willing to accompany them; and afterwards an army commander lent his motorbike.

But Marlina’s suffering was far from over. The health center had inadequate means for treating her that she was rushed to Fauziah Hospital in Bireun. A nurse explained that a small operation would help the girl, but the family could not afford it. Several people suggested them to go to Cut Mutiah Hospital where they would treat conflict victims for free. Hurriedly they went there, and she was eventually operated the next day—only to know that the doctors found no bullet. Marlina suffered constant pain and headache afterwards.

The family was not idle meanwhile. To cover her $ 3,500 USD operation, her mother sold the family heirloom—a small coconut field; and borrowed cash from the neighbors. Three days later she was operated in Zainal Abidin Hospital, Banda Aceh: the doctors could not find the bullet still. Desperate, she was transferred to the Adam Malik Hospital in Medan; but because of financial problem she was taken back home for a week until her family collected more debt.

When she was back in Medan, the hospital suggested her to be operated in Malaysia. The family grew more hopeless. They decided that they would simply cut all the medication and treated Marlina at home. Since then she stayed at home and did her normal activities with a bullet inside her head. The wound sometimes discharged thick pus accompanied by blood; making it hard for her to concentrate on her studies. “When the pain strikes, it really hurts. I take painkillers regularly to neutralize the pain,” said she.

And help came when a journalist from the Jakarta Post who saw her and wrote her trouble on October 12. The Indonesian Brain Foundation, the Sukma Foundation could finally get her operated in Jakarta on November 11, 2005—a year after the shooting took place. After 3 hour of operation, a team of doctors in the Siloam Gleneagles Hospital managed to remove the 1.5-centimeter-long, 3-millimeter-diameter projectile from the back of her back brain. “From 1 to 5, the bullet inside her head could be categorized into 4,” the leader of the team said.

Marlina, no longer had the headache, said she was ready to go back to school and wished to go home as soon as possible to eat her mother’s cooking. “I want to eat my mother’s cooking: milk fish in thick coconut milk sauce,” she said joyfully.

Kenya’s Wycliffe Kepha Anyanzwa believes that everything happens for a reason. There is no lip service there; that is the man who could turn his disability into a story of success.

Born as a normal child in the town of Kakamega in 1955, Wycliffe suffered from suffered from severe stomach ache when he was eight. The local hospitals failed to diagnose the problems that he was flown to the Kenyatta National Hospital for further treatment by the doctors who were in a partnership program with the Ministry of Education at the time.

A white doctor gave him an injection and the problems disappeared despite his alarm after being told that he could have died had he come later. Yet the case was far from being over. Shortly after, Wycliffe was struck by paralysis over his legs. He soon learned that the syringe used by the doctor was used before on a polio sufferer—which was transferred to him. And there had been no cure of the disease.

There he was. When sick people mostly are healed after visiting a hospital, Wycliffe’s experience was a little bit different. “I walked into a hospital; came out a cripple and my life has never been the same again,” he recalled. His father, a devoted Christian, decided to forgive and forget. He was afterwards taken to traditional doctors, other hospitals and prayer sessions. But there was no cure.

After finishing his elementary, Wycliffe had to face more challenges as he went to a normal boy’s boarding school where he was the only disabled student. As the consequence, he had to lean on other students to wheel him around. That was not easy. He often could not attend his classes when there was no one to help him climbing the stairs. His grades were not so impressive, except for the language class. He spent most of his time reading literature which resulted in winning various awards from speaking contests.

In 1971 he received a motorized wheelchair from the Association for the Physically Handicapped when his father passed away. He fell in love with it and was shortly trained as a leatherwork technician by the same association. With his knowledge, somehow he managed to modify his wheelchair by installing bearings to increase its range of mobility. In 1975, Scot visitors sponsored him for six-month training in mobility engineering to Sweden, along with students from twenty other countries in Africa.

Then life became kinder for him after returning. He was able to hire ten employees to start manufacturing mechanical wheelchairs, tri-cycles and motorbikes, which would be very useful for the physically handicapped. The business went very well that the Swedish Board of Transport soon hired him as an instructor for seminars in the UK, USA and Sweden.

But he did not stop there. He was then modified his car to get his own driving license. It was very difficult. At the point he realized that people must be independent no matter what. That was when he began to hold seminars to encourage other handicapped people to strive for their independence. “In my experience, that is the only way you can change people’s attitudes
towards you. As long as you are dependent on people for your upkeep, they will look down on you. I advocated financial empowerment as the only way to earn respect,” he said.

Wycliffe is now the chairman of the Kenya Society for the Physically Handicapped, and also the administrator of Star Disability Training Centre—set up in 2003 to assist the physically handicapped.

“I have no bitterness over my disability as it has motivated me to succeed in life. How many able- bodied people have what I have? My desire now is to champion the cause of the physically handicapped and to inspire them to view themselves as victors rather than victims,” he explained, ended his story.

HIV has been a threat to people of all ages on all continents longer before most of us, including myself, knew that the H5N1 existed. Despite common belief that there is no cure for the HIV yet; there may be a man who holds the key to unlock the mystery. Step forward Mr. Andrew Stimpson.

The 25-year-old Scot moved to London four years ago. He then had a long term relationship with Juan Gomez, 44; an HIV positive. In May 2002, Stimpson continuously felt tired, weak and feverish which led him to take three blood tests at the Victoria Clinic for Sexual Health in west London. The tests were negative, but he took more tests in August and this time it was positive.

The result brought him nightmares followed by suicidal depression; knowing that a cure was impossible. He took no special medication, and had been keeping dietary supplements instead. Each month he went for routine blood tests, had check ups on his liver, heart, and immune system. Doctors said his immune system remained strong; which was unusual for an HIV positive. It continued until October 2003, where he took another HIV test—and the result was negative. He afterwards took three more tests: all of them came back the same.

“There was a massive relief but I was also deeply confused. And the doctors seemed as confused as me. I thought the first positive tests must have been wrong,” said he, even admitted that he tried to sue the hospital for its inaccuracy in the testing system. But an investigation by the hospital proved otherwise. “I can’t help wondering if I hold the cure for Aids. There are 34.9 million people with HIV and if I have something to contribute, then I am willing and ready to help,” Stimpson said.

Yet experts remain skeptical about the news. Dr Patrick Dixon, an expert from Acet, an international Aids group, said, “You have to be rock-solid sure that both samples came from the same person, no mix-up in the laboratory, no mistakes in the testing. This is the first well-documented case.” Those were absolutely important, as there have been several similar claims made in South Africa. Such a case, however, have never been heard in the UK, said a spokeswoman for the Terence Higgins Trust.

Dr Gert van Zyl, an Aids expert at Tygerberg Hospital, suggested that there have been cases that made it look as if there is something like a “passing HIV infection”. However, these were cases where the virus was contracted through a needle prick or during birth - cases where the virus passed on before it turned into a systemic infection of the body.

“In this case (Stimpson’s) it seems however that he had a well established infection for which he tested positive more than once and then became negative. In such a case, one has to ask whether the virus was in fact cured or whether our tests are no longer picking it up.”

The major point now is that Stimpson agrees to undergo further tests to reveal more about the working of the disease—and develop vaccine, if possible. The decision will surely bring a new hope to many. Statistics showed that there have been about 39.4 million people who had HIV at the end of 2004.

Surviving from a war is never easy. Tibor Rubin (76) had not only survived from two wars, but he also came up as a remarkable hero. For his valor, the Korean war veteran and Holocaust survivor received the highest military award in the USA, the Medal of Honor from U.S President George W. Bush on September 23—after fifty years he was a soldier and being recommended four times by two separate commanding officers for separate actions and his fellow soldiers.

“By repeatedly risking his own life to save others, Corporal Rubin exemplified the highest ideals of military service and fulfilled a pledge to give something back to the country that had given him his freedom,” Bush said in a White House East Room ceremony.

Born in Hungary as a child of a shoemaker, in 1943 young Rubin (13) was taken to the infamous Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria during the Nazis’ effort to eliminate Hungary’s Jews. His mother and 10-year-old sister died in an Auschwitz gas chamber; while his father perished in Buchenwald. Rubin stayed long enough until he was liberated two years later by American troops. “We stunk, had terrible diseases. Still, they picked us up and brought us life,” Rubin recalled recently. He then took a vow to join that Army one day.

In 1948, his remaining family moved to America where he worked in New York City as a shoemaker, and then a butcher, before enlisting in the Army in 1950—not yet a U.S. citizen. Within months, he found himself on the front lines in Korea under the thumb of First Sgt. Artice Watson, an anti-Semite who repeatedly sent Rubin for dangerous assignments, such as to hold a strategically critical hill so his battalion could withdraw. So for the next 24 hours, the lone Private fought wave after wave of North Korean soldiers—ran around to fire from different directions and rolled hand grenades down so the enemy would think there were many soldiers to face in the battle.

For his deeds, the two commanding officers ordered Watson to secure the Medal of Honor for Rubin. But they were killed soon after, and the First Sergeant never prepared the papers. Fellow GIs later signed affidavits stating that the Watson rebuffed Rubin because he did not want the combat honor to go to a Jew. “I really believe, in my heart, that (the sergeant) would have jeopardized his own safety rather than assist in any way whatsoever in the awarding of the medal to a person of Jewish descent,” former Cpl. Harold Speakman wrote.

His undaunted bravery did not stop there, however. In October 1950 at the Battle of Unsan, the US troops were attacked by a large Chinese army. Rubin defended his unit using the last machine gun to give chance for the badly injured ones to retreat. The battle ended with hundreds of US soldiers—including the severely wounded Rubin—were captured.

Since then they had to fight the constant hunger, fatigue, and disease. Life was made difficult for those prisoners of war that nobody would help the others. But Rubin was an exception. having survived the Nazis concentration camp, he knew how to get through the hardest times. Almost every evening he stole food from the Chinese and North Korean supply depots and share anything he could get with the others. In a letter written in 1982, fellow prisoner James Bourgeois told how everyday Rubin would boil a helmet full of snow to clean his bandages and tend to a large open wound on his shoulder; when the wound filled with pus, Rubin foraged for maggots and placed them in the gash to eat away the infection, saving Bourgeois’ arm. “he was a godsend,” says Leo Cormier, another fellow POW. “Tibor saved my life, as well as many other guys.”

More than 1,600 prisoners were reported to die at the camp that winter in Korea. Rubin was said to keep at least forty inmates alive. Yet he received nothing from the Army but his discharge; kidneys half gone; plenty of implanted stents to keep his heart beating; bad arthritis and an unusable right leg: 100 percent medical disability!

In the early 1980s, his fellow prisoners acted. They began a campaign to have his heroics recognized. In the affidavits submitted to the Army after their release they recommended him for the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross and Silver Star, the Army’s investigation showed.

In 1988, Sen. John McCain introduced a special bill on Rubin’s behalf to force the Army to look into his valorous conduct. In 2001 U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida introduced a bill to force the Pentagon to review the records of veterans who may have been denied the Medal of Honor because they were Jews. And finally Pentagon moved and gave the heroes what they deserved.

Rubin only said in his still-thick Hungarian accent, “After 55 years, I never figured I’m going to get it, so I’m very happy.”

This has been originally posted here on October 17, 2005

Kim Phuc Phan Ti was no ordinary girl. She is the girl in the picture taken by the Associated Press photographer, Nick Ut, which won him a Pulitzer Prize. Only, she was not a smiling photo model.The picture captured the moment when the nine year old Kim pulled off her burning clothes from her badly wounded body and screamed, “Too hot! Too hot!”

Being born in 1963 in the village of Trang Bang, 30 miles north of Saigon, Kim was raised during the war time. In June 1972, her hamlet was occupied by the National Liberation Front (NLF) forces—which U.S. soldiers came to refer to as Viet Cong; from the Vietnamese term for Vietnamese Communist .

On June 8, 1972, the South Vietnamese Army’s 25th Division swept through the village. Photographer Nick Ut, stood across the road with the soldiers and other reporters at that time, recalled seeing hundreds of refugees fled from Trang Bang. The village fell silent at noon. Most people believed that the North Vietnamese and their Vietcong allies had already withdrawn—not even communist snipers seemed to be left behind. The field commander of the troops outside the village then asked for additional air support from South Vietnam Airforce units based at Bien Hoa, some 15 miles away. At 2 PM a soldier finally threw smoke grenade to mark the target area for the approaching Skyraiders.

The two Skyraider aircraft of the Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) started the heavy bombings at the edge of the village, near the Cai Dai pagoda. Explosive bombs were dropped; followed by incendiary bombs—large containers with a mix of explosives, white phosphorus and the black oily napalm; and ended with heavy machinegun fire during closing strafing runs. The mission was accomplished, but it turned out to be a tragedy as soon as the terrified and wounded villagers came running from the village.

“When we (the reporters) moved closer to the village we saw the first people running. I thought ‘Oh my God’ when I suddenly saw a woman with her left leg badly burned by napalm. Then came a woman carrying a baby, who died, then another woman carrying a small child with it’s skin coming off. When I took a picture of them I heard a child screaming and saw that young girl who had pulled off all her burning clothes. She yelled to her brother on her left,” said Nick Ut during an interview.

The girl was Kim Phuc. With third-degree burns over half of her body, she was not expected to survive. But Nick Ut drove her to a hospital and urged the doctors to treat her. It took years of treatment and seventeen operations to bring her worth living life back to her. “I saw the bombs. I saw the fire. There was a terrible heat. I tore off my burning clothes. But the burning didn’t stop. People poured water over me from their canteens. Then I fainted,” she testified.

Her story received the world’s sympathy; but ten years after, her fame turned to be a nightmare when she was yanked out of a university by the Vietnamese government and kept as “national symbol of war”. School was banned; trips abroad were almost impossible as she received daily supervisions on her schedule. There were always foreign journalists who would track her down and expose her. Her liberty had been taken. Only in 1986 she was allowed to resume her studies in Cuba—under special supervision; where she met her husband and they decided to marry. Vietnamese officials gave them permission to go to Moscow for their honeymoon, but during an airplane refueling in Gander, Newfoundland, Canada, they got off the plane and asked for political asylum there.

Today Kim Phuc is living a different life in Canada with her husband and two children; but she remains the same woman. Her rough times are now part of history, yet they had never made her bitter. She continues to dedicate her life in promoting peace with her Kim Foundation International; a foundation to help children victims of war by providing medical and psychological help to get through their traumatic experiences. For her activities, she was appointed as the UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador on November 10, 1994.

“Pain never disappears. You just learn how to deal with it,” she said during a December 2003 presentation at a church in the United States. Everyone may have their own way of dealing with pain, but Kim Phuc has chosen forgiveness, reconciliation and tolerance, “Even if I could talk face to face with the pilot who dropped the bombs, I would tell him we cannot change history but we should try to do good things for the present and for the future to promote peace”.

This has been originally posted here on September 27, 2005

War, no matter on what purpose, has always been terrible. Lives are taken, infrastructures are destroyed, and rights are violated. Those are not unusual. But the worst is when one loses all without even able to defend themselves. Those unarmed civilians, that is. Wafa Abu Shmais knew it far too much, having spent her entire life in Nablus; a city home to over 100,000 people which has constant political instability due to the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. Having no relation to the conflict; she is an English teacher, the mother of four children, a wife and daughter, Palestinian, and Muslim.

She had seen oppression happened very often in her time. Her worst nightmare was during the three week invasion by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in April 2002 which they called as a self-defense. True or not; in any case terrorist attacks originated from Nablus did not mean that the whole city deserved the collective punishment. Wafa was among them, spending her days during the curfew by jotting down a diary: “Soldiers in My House”.

Ramallah, Qalqilyah, Tulkarem, Jenin and Bethlehem were besieged earlier that year, when Wafa and her family realized their time would also come. They were right. At 9 PM, Wednesday April 3, tanks and other heavy machinery began to move towards Nablus from the north and the south; accompanied with intense noises of explosions that shook windows and doors—and shattered some. Apache helicopters supported them from the sky—shooting missiles. Upon this, Wafa’s husband decided to move the whole family with his parents who lived next door, below the level of the main street. From their windows, the entrances to the house were visible.

Horror filled the children as they entered their grandparents’ house; they were Nana (14), Vino (12), Nammor (10), and Nadeen (3). Half an hour later, the electrical generator was turned off. Darkness covered the city, but was soon broken by the lights of the tanks. Four hundred tanks were expected to come. People hid in fear. IDF declared Nablus as a closed military area; press was not allowed to enter, making it impossible to enter or leave the city. These people were literally alone.

It was raining the next day. Balta, a nearby refugee camp, was targeted. A soldier called through the loudspeaker for a family in the camp to leave their house with their hands up within the count of ten. One started to count down 10, 9, 8, and as soon as he reached 1, there were loud explosions. Dust and the smell of dynamite covered the air. A three-story building had been completely destroyed within seconds. Bulldozers arrived, destroying everything in their path.

Friday and then Saturday, more tanks and bulldozers came. There was no electricity, no water, and no telephone. Mobile phones were already run out of power. There were only more countdowns for families to leave their house; more houses were destroyed. The next day, Wafa’s father-in-law went out for a breath of fresh air. He had walked about 100 meters when snipers in a nearby house shot at him. Though brave as he was, what could an old man do against fully-armed soldiers? Quickly he came back running. Neighbors shouted to tell that three nights ago the soldiers took over a house and stayed since then. The snipers shot at anything that moved.

Monday April 8, the children all looked depressed and tired. Nammor asked whether he could go out and play with his friends, in which Wafa replied, “Do you want to get killed? Even if you’re only lightly wounded, you’ll die because there won’t be any ambulances to get you to hospital.”

He asked tentatively, “I am a child, why would they kill me?”

At this point his grandfather pointed out, “Don’t forget that they shot at me and I am 80-years old. Their bullets won’t distinguish between an old man and a child.”

“When things are over, you’ll be able to go out to school and do whatever you want,” trying to encourage him, Wafa then murmured rather to herself, “There has always been rain after long droughts.”

The rain they expected, however, did not fall that night. There were even louder noises outside instead. It was so dark they could see nothing, but the strong hammerings followed by three explosions were inescapable from their hearing. They only thought that the soldiers were looting shops, but it was not really a shop: the soldiers occupied Wafa’s house. They rushed to get a closer look, but a soldier stopped them, “Go Home!” then started to fire after a few seconds. Shocked, Wafa cried bitterly.

One week since the invasion began; things had been more unbearable. They were running out of water and food. The snipers kept shooting and throwing stun grenades from inside Wafa’s house. It was ironic since no one fired at them. People were too afraid to go out.

The news reported that about 100 people had been killed so far in Nablus and a number of houses destroyed. It was like a horrible natural disaster—only that this one was caused by people; as those heavily armed soldiers “defended themselves” against sewage pipes, trees, electricity poles, and the unarmed civilians who were trapped inside their own homes with shortage of supplies.

One day the sound of breaking glass was heard from inside Wafa’s house: the soldiers were smashing glasses against the wall in front of them. It disheartened her to imagine the damage done inside the house. She had no insurance. To calm herself down, she and her mother-in-law then prepared the lunch from some dried food—as it was all they had left. But it caused three more shooting as her father-in-law ran to the neighbor to ask for a bottle of yogurt for lunch.

The evening news on the BBC carried the news about hundreds of dead people and tens of rotten bodies in Jenin camp, which were taken to Israel by the soldiers to be buried there. “Why? Was it an attempt to cover the amount of victims?” she asked angrily.

The children saw soldiers carried three huge boxes of food and drinks on the next day. They put the boxes up to Wafa’s house and threw a pile of garbage sacks in a tank size on the street afterwards. At this point the Israelis said that they had taken over the cities, purified the country of terrorists and that their mission was over. But they still made no sign of leaving; neither did the soldiers in Wafa’s house. They stayed; kept singing; kept throwing buckets of water. On April 15, three female soldiers joined the rest in the house. Heaven knows what they were doing.

Another night came. Things ran as usual, only more insane. The soldiers shot like maniacs. There were huge explosions before dawn and an Apache helicopter was flying low. Tanks and military vehicles clanked in distance along with intense shooting. It was difficult to decide whether they were coming or leaving the city. In the morning, however, a neighbor came to bring the great news that the soldiers had left!

Wafa was the last to arrive at the broken door only to see the emptied guest room. She ran to the living room where she found all the furniture heaped in one corner of the hall: the chairs, tables, even the pictures on the wall. Sands, toilet papers, and cigarette butts were everywhere. Still could not believe what she had just seen, she entered the kitchen to find worms wiggled from inside the refrigerator. Other rooms were in no better condition. Nothing remained in its usual place. There was a magazine with pictures of naked women on the girls’ desk.

“The soldiers have used my house for their own purposes, which were unacceptable and illogical what so ever. But why did they sabotage its contents before they left? Weren’t they supposed to be thankful for us for using it?” Wafa ran around in a daze, not knowing whether to laugh after the soldiers had really left, or cry to see the mess they had done to her home. There came the cleaning job. She heaped up piles of clothes and blankets in a room size. With many neighbors came to help, it was already dark when they finished.

Things remained the same in the next few days. Sorting things and cleaning were all they did with their sore hands—still without water and electricity. Nammor found 15 bullets inside the house; mostly spent. In a drawer, Wafa found her underwear with a white dry stuff on them. The soldiers had been using her underwear to masturbate. She thought with disgust, “I believe it wasn’t war against terror. It was terror itself. How could taking my house by force be justified as fighting terror? I was not even consulted for the keys. I was only staying at my parent-in-law’s house next door. None of the soldiers apologized for what they did as civilized people would do in such situations. How could destroying my furniture and tearing up the kids’ textbooks be considered as fighting terror? Who can explain to me that the magazines of naked women that they left in my kids’ rooms were ways of fighting terror?”

It was Thursday when finally electricity and water were fixed. The Israeli also told the Red Cross staff that the curfew would be lifted between 1 to 6 PM. The news gave courage for the family to drive to the old city only to see destruction along the way. The road was filled with pools of water, rocks, and uprooted roots. Garbage sacks everywhere made the air smelled awful. There were damaged cars, electricity poles lying on the road, and wearied people. Four schools were hit. The biggest mosque was completely destroyed. Houses were reduced to piles of rubble. Wafa cried. There were over 200 houses that had been taken over by the soldiers, and about 350 people in Jenin were slaughtered; according to the news.

An Israeli woman criticized her government whom she said to have prevented humanitarian aid and the Red Cross rescue operations from doing their duty in Jenin. She went on to say that they were the first to send food, tents, medical aid and trained dogs to Turkey, when there was earthquake earlier that day. “Why did we do it in Turkey and not in Jenin, which was less than one hour away from Israel?” she added.

That evening was again heavy with shooting which became more intense after midnight. It terrified the children that they moved to their parents’ room. In the morning they learned that the shooting was part of the withdrawal. It was a relief that they had gone—for now.

Despite her overwhelming despair, Wafa was grateful that all her family members were safe. Listening to others’ stories gave her strength. She knew a family of seven members whose house was shelled by the Apache helicopter. The whole family died under the house ruins, leaving two children alive to face an unknown dark future. A man was shot dead and his body was left in the streets of the city for days and by the time the curfew was lifted, rats had eaten parts of his body. It was when she knew that the biggest miracle was to stay alive.

This has been originally posted here on September 27, 2005

The gypsies have a long ominous history in their journey of life. Originated from Central and North-Western India in between the fifth and twelfth centuries, today they number up to 30 millions. A third of them are living in Europe. Although they were vaguely thought to have come from Egypt —the word Gypsy comes from Egyptians or Gyptian; in Eastern and Central Europe they prefer to be called Roma; in Western Europe they are known as Manush and Sinti; and Spanish and Portuguese call them Gitanos. They have retained strong tribal and family loyalties and preserved systems of collective security which conflict with common European traditions, resulted them to be most deprived yet fastest growing ethnic minority.

In Hungary, their suffering dates back to 1476, when King Mathias authorized officials to employ Gypsies as slaves, to be scattered throughout his kingdom, often to labor as blacksmiths hammering out weapons and metal implements for torture. In 1721, their fate had not become better when local superstition considered them as vampires and cannibals. The Austro-Hungarian Emperor Karl VI then ordered extermination of all Gypsies throughout his large empire. During World War II, as Gypsy historians claimed, an estimated 1.5 million Gypsies in Nazi-occupied Europe were executed.

In the past few decades, Hungary and most other European nations canceled racist laws against Gypsies. Communism however had a part in creating their still gloomy present, as the government outlawed the Gypsies’ nomadic existence for working at communist-run farms and factories. When freedom arrived as communism collapsed across East Europe in 1989, Gypsies suffered an upsurge in unemployment and racist violence. They were suddenly useless in a capitalist marketplace.

Professor Miklos Haraszti of the University of California’s Study Centre in Budapest said, “In Hungary, only 0.3 per cent of Roma hold post-secondary school diplomas and only one in four could complete primary school”. Their jobless rate is over 60 per cent—more than six times the Hungarian average; and their life expectancy is ten year less than the national average, to measure their economic and health condition. The educational gap between the Gypsies and the Hungarian ethnic majority has not narrowed over the past 40 years. And even today, only one in five Gypsy families could afford to send their children to secondary schools. No wonder that the victory of receiving an official diploma is considered a great success after having to go through a long hard struggle; whereas some of us could obtain the same honor twice at once with no trouble.

Krisztina Rostas is one among a few happy ending stories happen to the Roma. Being born in Miskolc twenty six years ago, she now lives in a tiny village called Arokto in northern Hungary where many Roma live in very poor conditions. Her mother is in a state-owned institution due to her mental illness. She has been living with her father and grandmother since she was very young.

She attended a grammar school in her youth but then failed to get into any secondary school for two reasons: She was born without one arm, and she did not have enough grades at grammar school. The latter is a common phenomenon for Roma students in Hungary. Krisztina however declined to give up. She applied to the bakery and dairy industry trade schools, but was rejected due to her disability. She thought of moving to Budapest to study in a gardening school for physically handicapped children there. With her father, she eventually came to visit the school, but it was no option. They could not afford for her to move to the city. Disappointed, she returned to home and tried her luck once again to find a job, to no avail. She then began to write letters to letters to foundations, high schools, technical schools, and trade schools. Most of them never even bothered to respond, and when they did, it was only to refuse her application.

The fourteen year old Krisztina afterwards visited those schools in person by hitch-hiking from one place to another. She talked to the directors, showed them the pile of letters she had sent, and those that she had received, all with the same message: “I am sorry to inform you that we are not able to accept your application.”

A common solution would be getting a job when one could not afford to go to school. In Krisztina’s case, it was almost impossible. She knew that, but instead of being idle, she went to the regional labor centers and tried to apply for a course. Of course there was no real possibility for her to ever become a dress- or shoe-maker with her one arm. Later she started a French language and accountancy correspondence course with the help of the labor center, and had to give it up for financial reason.

On September 12, 1995, the school year had already started, when she saw an advertisement for a preparatory course in the University of Miskolc which was still accepting applicants. Not wanting to let the chance slip away, the girl went to the university and asked to talk to the man who organized the course. She did not even know that one needs to graduate from high school before going to a university. The man said he could not admit her, of course, but after listening to her story, he promised to find her a job. That day she was very happy. The gentleman even gave her some money so she could by the bus ticket to go home.

In the bus, she met several students from Arokto who were traveling home from high school. They told her that there were still five open places in their school for new students. In her desperate effort, Krisztina decided to come to the school again, although so far she had been there twice already.

She talked to the director; begged him to listen for a few minutes. He was an elderly man with a strict look on his face. She repeated all she had always said. She told him that she wanted to study so much that she regretted all her bad grades on her grammar school. If only she were given the chance, she would be very diligent, she said. There were many things she would do in her life and how much she wanted to help others. She added, though, if her application was ever accepted, he should be aware that she was very poor that she could not afford to pay her own transportation to school.

All the while she was talking, the man looked through the pile of papers that she had brought. He did not even interrupt. When she finished, he just stared at her, “You do not have money, you do not have adequate grades, and you want to go to school?”

She explained that all she wanted was a single chance to try.

He stood up by this reply, went to the window and asked again, “Do you have any meetings for Monday?”

“No.”

“Do you have a bag?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Do you have enough money to come to school on Monday?”

“No.”

“Then you are in,” he said.

She goggled. Could not believe of what she had just heard, she could not even stand up from the seat for minutes. When she eventually left his office, he said: “Don’t forget to come to school on Monday!”

So school days were started, but her problems did not end there. During the first few days she was always late. In the first week, the history teacher asked the class “Who is this Krisztina Rostas who received the lowest grade on this easy test?” When Krisztina introduced herself, the teacher asked her why she was always late and never even bothered to take any notes during her classes.

She made up reasons that her bus was always late to school—which was a lie, since a classmate came with supposed to be the same bus and she testified never to see Krisztina there. Then she said that her father never got up early enough to cause her delay. But after a while she had to confess that she went to school by hitch-hiking. When she was lucky, she could arrive in school by 8. Otherwise, she would be late. She told the teacher that she was sorry, because she had no money to buy exercise book either.

The school then bought her exercise books and the director asked the municipality of Arokto to pay for her meals in school and a monthly bus ticket. The history teacher frequently brought food to school for her. The first year was very hard after she missed a year of studying and she had very bad grades.

Her financial state was no better. Her family’s income was 18,000 Forints—approximately US$ 90, barely enough for anything. She therefore started a part-time job for Melodiak, a company at the university that provides students with occasional jobs in Miskolc. She woke up at 03.15 in the morning so she could distribute newspapers before going to school. After returning from school at 13:30, she sold phone-subscriptions for the whole afternoon before going home to do the household works, as her grandmother was ill at that time. And in the evening she studied under the dim light of tatarka—a piece of cloth put in a spoonful of grease and lit—since the electricity in her house had already been turned off for so long after they could not pay the bills.

Fortunately there were always kindhearted people. Her history teacher later paid out her electricity bills. She also occasionally tutored Krisztina and prepared her for university. Her will to study was her key to success. In her third year of highs school, she received a scholarship from the Soros Foundation. After graduating in 1999, she managed to get into the faculty of social politics in a university in Budapest. She also worked at the Secretariat of the Department of Social Politics.

The Foundation for the Hungarian Roma—a non-governmental foundation that provides financial and professional support for Hungarian Roma students—then also gave her scholarship. She was able to take free English classes and had a personal tutor at the university. Today she is able to live and support her now ill father. Along her many activities, she always has some time to volunteer as a social worker. She began at the State Institute of Blind People to help adults and mentally disabled children.

She is aware that what had happened to her was an exception. There are more Roma who are not that fortunate. Therefore her desire now is to improve the situation of Roma people in society. It is a pity that discrimination towards Roma still exists nowadays, said her as she recalled her classmate’s experience. In Budapest, a Rom classmate applied for a dishwasher job at a fast-food restaurant. He was turned down and told that they did not need any more people. And they found out that half an hour later they hired another friend—a non-Rom student—for the same position. It is a pity that many people in Hungary do not trust a Rom college student to be good enough as a dishwasher. Claiming that education is the major issue, she hopes to help Roma people to earn people’s trust in the future. In her own words, she said, “It is frequently said that Roma do not want to work, that they are too lazy to work, and that is why they live in bad situations. I know that in my region there was no possibility to work, and if a company did hire a few people, they were not willing to take on Roma. Roma cannot take a valuable role in a society that considers them useless”.

This has been originally posted here on September 16, 2005

An Indonesian literature student was asked about Pramoedya Ananta Toer on an author forum in Paris in 1999. To the audience surprise, he answered that he never heard nor read any of his works. Later he explained. Pramoedya’s works were strictly prohibited in Indonesia by President Suharto—also known as the New Order regime—who ruled from 1966 to 1998. A student was imprisoned for 8 years because he discussed about Pramoedya’s novels. How bizarre!

Who is Pramoedya Ananta Toer really? He is one among many Indonesia’s authors. Yet his writings were his soul as they expressed his views. As a humanitarian who could never stand the injustices, his works were full of criticism towards the ruling government. As the result, life was constantly made uneasy for him. Almost half of his life was spent under imprisonment.

In his twenties, he joined a paramilitary group in Jakarta to defend the newly independent country from the Netherlands’ aggression after the World War II was over. During his military career, he began to write short stories and books. He was then jailed by the Dutch in 1948 and 1949. He could however read books such as John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” and “The Human Comedy” by William Saroyan which were his strength to survive.

In 1958 he was appointed a member of Lekra’s Plenum, an organization which was said to be a supporter of the communist party. Upon this decision, people accused him of moving leftwards, proven by his works which mostly challenged the government policies. This led him to receive a lot of criticisms from other authors. His story “Korupsi”—Corruption—had created a small feud with President Sukarno’s government. In 1960, under General Nasution’s order, he had to return to jail for disagreeing with the government policy concerning the discrimination towards the Indonesian Chinese. His book “Hoakiau” was banned since then, and only republished in 1998 after Suharto was forced to resign.

His other works since then were more or less received the same treatment. Many of his manuscripts had been ransacked by the Dutch, English, and mostly Indonesian government. “I don’t know why. They had looted everything,” said he. When he recalled those works, his face turned gloomier. “I don’t understand; if they wanted those documentations, I would give them gladly. But they could have used more humane ways. I have started to collect those manuscripts since the previous century. How could they do that!” There was a almost a tear he tried to hide on his old face.

But Pramoedya has always been strong. In 1962-1965, he was an editor of “Lentera” (Lantern), the weekly section of the leftist daily “Bintang Timur”; lecturing Indonesian literature at the University of Res Publika; teaching at Dr. Abdul Rivai Academy for Journalism; and one of the founders of the “Multatuli” Literature Academy.

While his star was rising, a tragedy happened in 1965 and changed his life forever . On October 1, he heard on the radio about an attempted coup which resulted in kidnapping and murdering six generals. The news was followed by the announcement of promotion and degradation for those who did and did not participate in the coup. He was stricken dumb and confused. It all happened in a sudden as he heard nothing of it before between his works which occupied most of his time.

However, the news was soon spread by several friends who came to him. There was a writer who asked him to allow him to stay at his house—which he refused, since he had not yet known the real situation. Shortly after, an officer from the university came to give his payment and said that the university was closed because of the situation was unsafe. A few days later, an officer from a pencil factory in which he served as an advisor gave him six months of emergency wages and said that the factory had to be closed because the situation worsened. A friend came and said that D.N. Aidit—the leader of the communist party—had his house burned down by a mob, along with a few others’. He also reported how these people moved: they attacked somebody’s house, and then people in uniforms would come. But it was strange, as they did not protect the owner of the house; they arrested him instead. “I’m sure you’ll be treated the same way,” he said then to Pramoedya. “But what is my fault?” asked Pramoedya in return. “Your only fault, sir, is because you’re an important figure.”

“Is that all? Then I am always here,” he said eventually.

During those days, the Armed Forces chief General Nasution made commando-like speeches on the radio, urging the public to “destroy the Communist Party root and branch.” After these statements, the murder, looting and burning of the army intensified to the point of madness. It was this general who awarded the military regime with the name “New Order,” which is used to this day to refer to Suharto’s government in Indonesia.

People kept advising Pramoedya to leave meanwhile. A tailor offered him a safe place somewhere in Central Java . He said thank you, but politely refused. He was even wondering why others could see that his life was in danger. Another friend warned him to escape. “What should I escape from? Why?” he repeatedly asked. To a young writer who acted suspiciously, he said, “I have been always here, alone. If the mob will really come, I will face them alone. I belong here.”

The clock was ticking, and the situation was becoming more and more terrible. Fortunately his wife who had just given birth two months ago stayed in her parents’ house; along with the children. Pramoedya then put his name plank which was fallen back to its place as if to say: “Here I am, don’t get lost!” He afterward returned to his work on the encyclopedia of Indonesian literature until he grew tired; and read an Islamic book where he turned off all the lights and sat alone at the courtyard. His only companion was his younger brother who returned to Indonesia from his study abroad to work on his dissertation.

They came! At 11 PM on October 13, he suddenly realized that his house was surrounded by people. He then switched the lamp-post on. He could see people tried to escape from the light. They wore mask. In an instant he had a bad thought that those people had just robbed somebody else. He had heard enough rumors already about the military officers ordered school students to shout against President Sukarno. And there was a soldier lived nearby who kept shouting since two days before, that the military had their own policy Sukarno had no more authority. “So I was not just blindly giving prejudice,” he explained.

However, the horde seemed to be in doubt. Each time he turned the light off, they appeared. But then when it was turned on, they ran away. He suspected that he knew those faces behind the mask. Not so long after, rocks were hurled onto his house—too big to be thrown by one person. “I could not imagine what would happen to my two month old baby if he were here,” Pram recalled. Huge rocks flew and landed through the roof. He was sure that these people wanted his life. He hurriedly grabbed a wooden stick and a small katana given by his friend who came from Japan. It was his last day, he thought, at his own place. There was no way to fight so many people, but he must defend himself anyhow; and at least to give something to remember to those people: words which are sharper than any weapons.

He shouted furiously at those people, “Is this what you call as struggling? I have been fighting since I was young, but not like this. Come, call your leader! What kind of fight is this?”

The noise stopped; and also the rock throwing. But a moment later a quite huge piece of stone broke the silence and landed on Pramoedya’s thigh before continuing to hit the front door to crash. Then the rock throwing continued. Some even hit the lamp-post and caused it broken.

A voice was heard, “Where is the oil? Let us burn the house!” Another voice replied, “Don’t! It would also burn my house!” Pramoedya turned back, and noticed that his brother was no longer there. He hoped that his brother could escape from the back gate and jumped to the neighbor’s courtyard. Things nevertheless turned to happen exactly as he heard from his friend. Soon after, people in uniforms arrived: a method which could be seen during the New Order rule. They were soldiers and policemen. He opened the door for them all. They came in and said, “It’s useless to fight against public opinion.” He answered, “They are lynch mob; they don’t represent the public!”

The leader proposed after checking the whole house, “Come Sir, we will guard you from here,” in which he responded by calling his younger brother to prepare things since they promised to guard them. He packed the manuscript of his book “Girl of the Coast” and a typewriter. He asked one of the policemen in the team to promise to save all his works and library within the house. The policeman promised he would. Then the guards took them—Pramoedya and his brother—away from the house followed by the people in mask. They brought spears, krises, daggers, and small swords. The guards did nothing to these men. When they reached the field behind Pramoedya’s house, before getting the prisoners onto the car, they tied their hand backwards and connected it to their neck; so that whenever they struggled, the tie would suffocate them.

Suddenly Pram regretted his decision. It was painful to die like that, he thought. It would be much better if he fought on the land he lived. But he kept walking towards the car waiting for them. There, an angry guard blew a strike to his face using the butt of his rifle. Hurriedly he turned his face so that the metal missed his eye. It “only” broke his cheek bone instead. He had almost completely lost his hearing since then.

The prisoners afterwards were brought to the Army Strategic Reserve Command (KOSTRAD) headquarter. Again, Pramoedya asked one of the soldiers to save his beloved private library. “The government could have them; just don’t let them to be destroyed”, he warned the officer, who promised he would do as he was told. Then they were marched to another house inside the building.

A guard took everything Pramoedya had in his hands, including: papers, typewriter, also the small katana which was slipped inside his socks. When he was left alone, however, the guard approached him and returned his Rolex, after warning him to hide it carefully. They were then led to a room where there had been several people laid down on the floor.

A young soldier with a charming face approached and asked him questions. He replied with a question concerning the soldier’s rank. The young soldier knocked him over several times before leaving. Two hours later another Nissan patrol arrived. It carried lots of things. He could recognize some of his belongings there. At that point he began to understand that his library which including 5,000 books and a few tons of newspapers collection from his students had been raided.

It was over midnight. In the meantime more and more people were captured. Some of them could not walk that the guards tossed them onto the floor. One of them recognized Pramoedya, and asked what happened to him. He looked upon himself. His clothes were full of blood stains from his face and also his wounded thigh. This man then told him that people had looted his house and left it empty; not even a single ripe mango could stay on its tree.

The morning was started by the arrival of barefooted journalists; they were all wounded on their knees. Among them there was his uncle. Soon he learned that those journalists were forced to crawl on their knees on the rock-strewn road. As always, the soldiers flung them out of the truck. The room was full of people already, and more were still to come. Painful moans were heard, including from female voices. On the other hand, growing tensions were felt as the media—those which supported the army movement—kept arousing people’s anger by making up insane stories: the female partisans of the party had cut the private parts of the generals who were kidnapped and did seductive dancing in front of them. Pramoedya was shocked to see that his own people could ever do such a thing. The guard who returned his watch entered the room and erased the words written on the blackboard: “Banish the communist party!”

And then there came Pramoedya’s turn for interrogation. He was taken to a room where terrible groans were often heard; also from women. But at that time it was rather quiet. The electro-shockers were switched off. In the corner there was an officer questioning an inmate; he was dark, tall, slim, and wearing heavy boots. He repeatedly trampled on the inmate’s naked feet. Between the poor lad’s fingers there were pencils; and repeatedly the officer squeezed his fingers. He smiled while asking, “What is wrong? Why are you shouting?” Pramoedya sat next to the boy. Yet, unlike him, he received a humane treatment. His interrogator started with the question why he was bleeding all over.

Pram: I fell down.

Question: What do you think about the last night movement?

Pram: I know nothing about it.

Question: Do you agree with it?

Pram: Given the real information, maybe I could answer the question within five years from now.

At that point, things were not yet clear, but Pramoedya could suspect that the communist party was thought to be responsible for the kidnapping—and murdering—of the six generals. Another inmate had also suggested him to admit that he was a member of the party whenever he was asked the question—the truth matters not—unless he wanted them to change him into a disabled for the rest of his life. So he did.

Question: Do you believe that this country will be a communist country?

Pram: Not within these 40 years

Question: Why not?

Pram: Because of the geographical factor and people’s conventionality

When the interrogation was over, he asked the officer who returned his watch to free his younger brother, which he accepted. Then he also entrusted his watch to be given to his wife. After that, he was removed to another CPM Guntur prison only to be ripped off from all he had left, including tooth brush and belt. His six month wages from Res Publika and the pencil factory inside his pockets were also taken. They said it was necessary to prevent them from being stolen. From there, they were all transferred to another prison called Salemba. Hands up behind their neck, walking on their knees; they must not stand as tall as the guards.

Subsequently the human rights of these people were continually harassed. Around 1.5 millions people were estimated to be the victims of this operation, including Pramoedya. He—along with 12 thousands more people—was then sent to the concentration camps in the infamous Buru Island where oppression and hard works had waited. The rest died in various other ways. A fellow detainee claimed, “Only your right to breathe could not be taken away,” which was exaggerated; since many detainees also died during the encampment.

They all were imprisoned by their own government, yet the treatment they received was even worse than the prisoners during the Dutch reign. Pramoedya could no longer read nor write, for papers were not allowed. There were several Catholic missionaries who secretly gave books for the inmates to read, but it was far from safe. An inmate was killed for reading newspaper. But of course, nothing can stop Pramoedya from telling stories. After trying to send letters to his family to no avail; after helps from outsiders failed to reach him—including a typewriter sent by the French author Jean Paul Sartre ; he never gave up. He wrote many essays, notes, and letters and smuggled them out of the island with the help of a German priest. “These are personal notes, nothing more. There is no grand plan here,” he wrote as a foreword on his best-selling work “The Mute’s Soliloquy”. However, these personal notes are read by many around the world as well as his other books; the ones such as “The Buru Quartet”. His true power lays on his courage to report all.

Alone, he could not fight the situation, as he described on the work of how the inmates woke up in the morning after being beaten the night before, “The bodies of those men who could stand were wet with dew, but many more were unable to get up; they were either dead, unconscious, or had no strength left to stand. A sour smell of blood and human waste clung to the air.” By the end of the book Pramoedya included an unfinished list about the people who died on Buru—men, women, children—with their manner of death and last-known addresses; hoping that they would receive some justice they deserved one day and remain to be a part of the national memory.

In 1979, he was finally freed. Again, all his papers were taken from him, including a letter from President Suharto in which he advised Pramoedya to pray to God for guidance in “returning” to the path of righteousness. There was never a sound from the judiciary about the violations of his rights; not a single trial; not a formal charge.

Things were never the same again. Violations on the human rights kept happening to him and other ex political detainees; including their families. Their release from the camp was continued by years of house arrest. Their belongings—including house—were taken. They were banned from participating in the country’s election. For generations they—and their relatives—were given special stamp on the identity card which explained that they were related to a political detainee. Traveling abroad was forbidden. Beatings and insults were part of their everyday life. One of Pramoedya’s sons was beaten by his schoolmates while he was still in Senior High due to his father’s circumstances. Police came, arrested and beat him.

It all happened due to an unproven relation to the bloody revolution in 1965 which remains mystery even nowadays. Indonesian history books and newspapers still refer to this incident as an “attempted communist coup,” but there is no evidence that the Communist Party of Indonesia, as an organization, was involved in the kidnapping. “It was one of the biggest parties in the country with three million members at that time. If they wanted to launch a coup, why didn’t they just mobilize their branches in cities and towns outside Jakarta? Why was the party leadership caught completely off guard by the kidnapping?” asked Pramoedya. There were new facts found since then, including the connection of Suharto to the incident, but nobody knows for sure; not even Pramoedya, who had been victim. As there was no trial for Pramoedya, there has never been any trial for Suharto.

Now, eighty years have passed since Pramoedya was born. Many have happened to him. His courage to speak his mind had made him one of the most influential authors in Indonesia, although it took years for readers in Indonesia to know that; following the banning of the works in the author’s homeland.

That, however, never prevents him from getting international acknowledgements. So far his works have been translated into at least 28 languages, and he was awarded the 1995 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts. He has also been considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He also won the 2000 11th Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize and most recently the 2004 Norwegian Authors’ Union award for his contribution to the world literature and his continuous struggle for the right to freedom of expression. He completed a tour of North America in 1999 and won awards from the University of Michigan. The new government in Indonesia not only allows his books to be published, but also permits him to travel abroad. There are academics and readers and friends—Pramoedya is a friend of German Nobel prize winner Günter Grass—who honor him for what he has done. Denying any grudge against his fate, the author was fond of saying, “In this world everything has its own purpose; even injustice has its purpose. What is the purpose? It is to be fought.”

This has been originally posted here on September 6, 2005

Premature birth is not an unusual case. In the United States the annual rate of premature infants being born has risen a staggering 27% since 1981. In 2001, as many as 476,000 babies were born earlier than 37 completed weeks of gestation. As the preemies have less time to fully develop, it has consequently been the major cause of death within the first month. Even surviving the infancy would still carry some risk of having severe health problems for the rest of their life including cerebral palsy, mental retardation and blindness.

Although there are possible causes including a previous premature birth, diabetes, drugs, tobacco, alcohol or poor nutrition, and multiple pregnancy; there is no clear reason for preterm birth. Nearly half of all the births have no known cause.

Nowadays advances reached in medical technology and knowledge are giving a promising chance for premature babies to survive as there are more varied methods available. In 1995, however, an exceptional case happened to Heidi and Paul Jackson of Westminster, Massachusetts. While most people expected modern medicine and technology to be able to save their preemies, the Jacksons learned a more simple remedy for one of their twin babies: a loving touch of a sibling. After the story arose, hospitals in the United States adapted the technique and caused a revolution in the policies.

Brielle and Kyrie Jackson were born October 17, 1995. It was twelve weeks prior to their due date. As it was the standard hospital practice to place preemie twins in different incubators in order to reduce the risk of infection to each other, the Jackson girls were treated the same way in the neonatal intensive care unit at The Medical Center of Central Massachusetts in Worcester.

Kyrie, the larger sister, was born at two pounds, three ounces. She then began gaining weight with no difficulty inside her own incubator. Brielle, on the contrary, had many health problems. She weighed only two pounds at birth, and could not keep up with her sister. To put some additions to her slow gain weight, the oxygen level in her blood was low. She was also reported to have breathing and heart-rate problems. Her condition got worse and on November 12 it went into critical. She began gasping for breath. Her face and stick-thin arms and legs turned bluish-gray. Her heart rate was higher than usual, and she got hiccups, a dangerous sign that her body was under nervous tension.

Her parents could only helplessly watch; terrified that she might die and nothing they could do to hinder it. Her condition worsened significantly. “She was turning colors,” said the mother, Heidi Jackson . “She was getting really worked up. Her heart rate was way up. She was getting hiccups. You could tell she was just completely stressed out.”

Nurse Gayle Kasparian had attempted all she could do to stabilize Brielle. She suctioned her breathing passages and turned up the oxygen flow to the incubator. But Brielle kept writhing and fussed as her oxygen intake sharply dropped and her heart rate soared . In her despair, the nurse remembered a technique which was rare in the United States despite that it was used in parts of Europe. It was known as “double bedding” or “co-bedding” where twins and other multiple-birth babies are put in the same crib so they would lie close together like in their mother’s womb.

Unfortunately the nurse manager, Susan Fitzback was attending a conference in the meantime. There was no hope to get permission to try the method, as it was against the hospital policy. Yet Kasparian never gave up hopes. She was willing to take the risk, considering that the conventional remedies could not help.

“Let me just try putting Brielle in with her sister to see if that helps,” she said to the alarmed parents, trying to get their consent.

Not knowing for what else to do, the Jacksons agreed to the offer. Kasparian then carefully placed the squirming baby into the incubator holding the sister she had not seen since her birth. And then they watched .

To the amazement of everyone, Brielle’s condition improved as soon as she touched her sister. Shortly after the door of the incubator was closed, Brielle snuggled up to Kyrie—in which Kyrie responded by putting one of her tiny arms to embrace her sister in protective manner. Brielle stopped crying and calmed down. A few minutes later her blood-oxygen readings reached the best rate since she was born.

“Kasparian closed the door and Brielle snuggled up to Kyrie and she was just fine,” said Jackson. “She calmed right down. It was immediate. It was absolutely immediate.”

Meanwhile the nurse manager Fitzback was attending a presentation on double-bedding, in which she thought to herself, “This is something I want to see happen at The Medical Center, although it might be difficult to make the change.”

On her return, she was doing rounds that morning when Kasparian greeted her, “Sue, take a look in that incubator over there.”

She obeyed and saw the twins cuddled up together—and both grew healthy.

“I can’t believe this,” Fitzback said. “This is so beautiful.”

“Do you mean that we can do it?” asked the nurse.

“Of course we can! ”

Before Christmas that year, Brielle and Kyrie had eventually allowed to go home with their parents. Each of them gained some weight and considered to be healthy when they left the hospital. Even Brielle weighed over five pounds. They were only two months old at that time. “They’re doing fantastic,” Heidi Jackson admitted.

The story made national headline in 1996 as “Reader’s Digest” and “Life” magazine published a beautiful photograph, entitled the “Rescuing Hug”, where Kyrie put an arm around her sister Brielle to embrace her. It was touching to see the tiny sisters could already value an expression of love, even if they could not yet talk to each other.

Inspired by the miracle of siblings’ healing touch, doctors reformed their conventional thinking. At that time it was believed that twin preemies should be placed in separate incubators to prevent infections from spreading. Brielle and Kyrie, on the contrary, had proven otherwise. As the result, experts now agree that the threat of infection is far less compared to the benefits of the comfort and security gained by the presence of the baby’s twin. It then led many more hospitals to adopt the practice of co-bedding.

Children’s Hospital in Columbia, Missouri, first began co-bedding in 1998 when the parents of twins Meagan and Jacob Breid asked that they be placed together. Medical staff at the hospital agreed after reading studies from other hospitals. “Research indicates that co-bedded infants tend to have better feeding patterns and thus develop at a faster rate,” according to the University of Missouri Health Care website. “And, because they help regulate each others’ breathing, these infants also present improvements in respiratory control and heart rate.” The Breid twins soon showed immediate progress on their condition. And the hospital continues practicing co-bedding. Marquette General Hospital in Wisconsin also allows this technique to be used for multiple-birth babies. “Besides being more comfortable, they usually gain weight quicker and maintain body temperature better,” said Cindy Ampe, maternal/child nurse manager, as cited from the hospital’s web site.

In January 1995, the scientific studies on this case were begun. But the practice of the technique was widely used in the United States only after it was proven on Brielle and Kyrie Jackson. Double-bedding is nowadays preferred as it reduces the number of hospital days. Heidi and Paul Jackson, however, needed not any academic studies to find out that the then unfamiliar technique would help their baby. Brielle was doing fine, even after she was taken home. She was thriving, and still slept with her sister Kyrie—and they snuggled.

This has been originally posted here on August 19, 2005