C'est la vie

I happened to read this phrase of C'est la vie yesterday and my memory warped back to the end of 1970s. Memory of an old beautiful song with the same title. I even forgot who played it until several hits on Youtube search engine brought me a name, and it was Greg Lake, the vocalist of Emerson Lake and Palmer. Another search using Google engine, reveals the meaning of the phrase that I had never taken attention on it before.

C'est la vie apparently is an expression in French that means "That's life!" or "Such is life!" Wikipedia says that it is sometimes used as an expression to say that life is harsh but that one must accept it. True, in a sense that even though man has freedom to choose, but that freedom has also its limit.

Here's the cover version as the original one is copyrighted.


C'est la vie
Have your leaves all turned to brown
Will you scatter them around you
C'est la vie.

Do you love
And then how am I to know
If you don't let your love show for me
C'est la vie.

(Chorus) Oh, oh, c'est la vie.
Oh, oh, c'est la vie.
Who knows, who cares for me...
C'est la vie.

In the night
Do you light a lover's fire
Do the ashes of desire for you remain.

Like the sea
There's a love too deep to show
Took a storm before my love flowed for you
C'est la vie

(Chorus) Oh, oh, c'est la vie.
Oh, oh, c'est la vie.
Who knows, who cares for me...
C'est la vie.

Like a song
Out of tune and out of time
All I needed was a rhyme for you
C'est la vie.

Do you give
Do you live from day to day
Is there no song I can play for you
C'est la vie.

(Chorus) Oh, oh, c'est la vie.
Oh, oh, c'est la vie.
Who knows, who cares for me...
C'est la vie.

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The Break Up

In general people do not like surprises and uncertainties, business and common people alike, and hence things that will ensure stability and continuity will get support from the majority of the people. That's what exactly happened in the Indonesian politics these days, when the break up of the coalition between Partai Demokrat and Golkar, SBY - JK in particular, received negative reactions by the business community in particular. For common people, however, there were mixed reactions.

The organization machineries of Partai Demokrat are perceived to be not as strong as those of Golkar, either in campaign times, in the government, as well as in the parliament. PD won the legislative election against Golkar not because of its effective political and organizational machineries, but it was because of SBY factors. Hence PD's intention to continue partnership with Golkar was quite logical. Golkar’s platform also matches well with PD’s as nationalist parties.

Golkar on the other hand has no chance to rule the country again, at least for another three general elections, and hence JK's bid for presidency was seen as merely emotionally driven move and will be flatly futile, regardless how good JK is. Golkar will certainly have better chance and exposures to prove their commitment towards democracy and clean government when they are parts of the executive. Golkar's bid to form coalition with PDI-P is a weak move, as it only gives benefit to euphoric PDI-P due to the break up, but no benefit at all for Golkar.

To me, with the current Golkar's position, JK is finished. He should consider the party's future, instead of pushing ahead with his personal pride, which seemingly considered as party's pride as well. Even if Golkar can not take the VP's position, it still can put some of its best cadres in the cabinet and play important roles in the country's politics for the next five years.

For SBY, and the country, it would be much better for him to choose VP either from Golkar party or from a politically independent and nationalist person who have strong credibility among business community and people in general. Choosing VP from other parties will only weaken his position and chances in the upcoming presidential election.

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Statesmanship

Every person, institution or government has some blind spots, areas where the span of vision and control of the person could just not reach, and the person remains ill-informed until somebody be kind enough to share their observations in the form of critics, suggestions or in harsher forms of feedbacks. One should remember, however, critics may backfire to the senders when there are imbalances in the assessments.

I still remember quite clearly prior to the 1999 general election in Indonesia. The first free direct general election after the collapse of the authoritarian New Order regime, when many people were quite afraid on the high probability of acts of violence during the open campaign and after the election that might undermine the value and legitimacy of the election and might as well kill the still young democracy.

When many people just did the talk and got their names and faces appeared on the papers and TV stations as experts or smart political analysts, Garin Nugroho did it differently. Through Visi Anak Bangsa he produced a couple of TV spots sending simple messages suggesting common people to have peaceful open campaigns and election.

The selection of the characters, the dialogue (Inga, Inga!) and the properties used, created relax humorous atmospheres and hence the message could effectively enter into the people's MiHeS (the Mind, Heart and Soul), and remains there until today. As we all know, there were no violence reported during the street mass campaigns, and the historic 1999 general election ran smoothly. It would be good if these kind of TV spots be aired again for the next presidential election to refresh people's memory.

In the last April 9, 2009, however, there was no Garin Nugroho who reminded people with his simple but powerful messages to simply check whether their names were already in the list and to cast their votes in the voting day. There might be many talks by politicians and analysts regarding their concerns on DPT (Daftar Pemilih Tetap), but common people do not listen to them, and hence those who lost their votes most likely were those who gave no attention at all to their rights, until they lost them.

These days we read and watch in the media words of those smart political analysts and politicians who put all the blames to KPU and the government for failing to register millions of eligible voters, and they even challenge the legitimacy of the election and do not care what that would mean for the country. Those smart people really need to know where they need to stop. Stop to be smart political analysts and politicians, and be statesmen and -women.

In this beautiful country of Indonesia, with the quality of systems and people that we currently have, it's absurd to expect a flawless election without the support and contribution from individuals and the society.

The country clearly needs more persons like Garin Nugroho who apparently has more sense of statesmanship than those smart political communication analysts and seasons politicians.

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Vote with MiHeS

Thursday, April 9, 2009, is the day of General Election for the Indonesians. People cast vote to select candidates to be entitled for seats in the parliament. They are the lawmakers who suppose to represent people's interests and aspirations, both at regional and national levels. Many of the Indonesian people, however, will likely choose party, instead of persons, who have shown their strong allegiance to their favorite candidate for the upcoming presidential election. Some people probably have already lost their trust to the lawmakers, but not to the person who would be the president.

According to the 2009 general election law, presidential candidates can only be nominated by party or coalition of parties who won minimum of 20% seats in the parliament, or 25% of eligible votes in the general election. Hence, people who support a presidential candidate will think along that line, and will vote a party that strongly affiliated to the candidate, to make it easier for the candidate to get nominated. Parties are seen by voters to merely vehicles for their candidates to run for presidency.

Furthermore, people know well that when their candidate becomes the elected president, he or she needs strong support from the parliament for legislations and state budget approval to finance the government programs.

The general election, therefore, becomes the real test for the popularity and the eligibility of the presidential candidates, not so much of a battlefield for would be legislators who have spent a lot of time and money to make their faces seen and their voices heard.

From what we have witnessed during the relatively cool open campaigns, majority of the Indonesians see that general election as not a life and death situation yet, in a sense that people will not risk their lives to fight for their candidates to be elected or for certain candidate not to be elected. There were concerns that have been voiced out through various channels, but people get more mature in voicing out their political aspirations.

Hence, albeit various KPU shortcomings, election will likely run smoothly. If my prediction is correct, there will be a significant margin of the votes between parties in away that quick count results may easily reflect the final count compositions of the general election. Regardless the results, when you vote with your mind, heart and soul (MiHeS) intact, you will not be wrong or regret. Let Indonesia votes.

Updates:
Here's the Quick Count results by Lingkaran Survei Indonesia at tvOne:



Similar results can be found at Metro TV website, or DetikNews below at around 5 a.m. on Friday.


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Dewa.Tohpati@JavaJazz

Dewa Bujana and Tohpati performance at the JavaJazz Festival last March was the second first class performance of two guitarists on a stage that I have ever seen so far. The first one was Assad Guitar Duo's performance that I watched in 2007. At JavaJazz, the big names of the two guitarists had attracted a sizeable number of music fans who packed a hall at JCC.


Music fans were all happily sitting on the floor, making it easier for everybody to enjoy the show and to take pictures. The low stage arrangement has made it possible for people who sit on the first three rows to watch the musicians comfortably.


Dewa Bujana (left) and Tohpati were both seen quite relax and played flawlessly with their guitars, reaffirming their strong positions in the local music community, be it jazz or pop.


Tohpati was seen exchanging gestures with Dewa. In most of the compositions they changed roles smoothly a couple of times from playing melody to playing rhythm/bass, demonstrated their prowess as top class guitarists.


Dewa was a bit more talkative than Tohpati in building communication with the audience. The compostions they played were taken Tohpati's album, and also from Bujana's, such as Layang-layang.


Here's one of the compositions played by Dewa Bujana and Tohpati at the JavaJazz Festival, taken from Youtube, uploaded by PramborsRadio.


While music fans normally give more attention and appreciation to vocalists rather than to musicians, the show has proven that even without singers people could enjoy the music and were captivated with just the sound of fingers that were dancing on the strings of guitars.


The audience were sitting and listening intently, and were generous in giving their warm applauses at the end of each of the composition.


Taking photos or videos with cell phones or small digital cameras were quite common these days, thanks to the advancement of the digital technology.


Here's performance of Dewa and Tohpati in another music performance with Balawan in Trisum, uploaded by Ringstuben. Balawan is another big name from the country, famous with his high speed fingers in double neck guitar with each hand on each neck.




Most, if not all, of the music fans stayed in the hall until end of the performance.

It was definitely a successful show. Dewa and Tohpati have shown their class as two of the most talented guitarists in the country, and have proven that quality music could be produced and appreciated with two pieces of guitars, not only with complete big band and beautiful or handsome singers on the stage.

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