by Aboeprijadi Santoso - Jakarta Men and weapons are sometimes seen as a pair of symbolic importance in maintaining the greatness of the state. In Javanese mythology, one such weapon was named after the great master artisan (Mpu) who created it: Mpu Gandring. But once the master was illegitimately disowned from his creation, the weapon – the Mpu Gandring kris – turned into a curse that shaped a bloody discourse in which its users lost their divine blessing (wahyu). Modern reality is complex. However, the imagery (rather than the reality) and the public discourse (rather than the history) about Indonesia’s elite Army Special Forces (Kopassus), as a killing machine, has shown parallels with the bloody Mpu Gandring legend. The American journalist Allan Nairn recently accused the Kopassus of killing unarmed civilians. Such allegations are not new, except that they now refer to what he claims to be “a program of assassinations” of former rebels, who led the Aceh Party in the run up t...
Untuk hidup perlu ilmu, dengan ilmu itulah manusia bisa hidup dengan baik di dunia dan akhirat