Moving film on Munie released

Moving film on Munie released

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Following his death due to arsenic poisoning, human rights
activist Munir won recognition as a martyr.

It was a posthumous salute that elevated him to saint-like
stature, someone who was murdered allegedly by those who grew
restless with his campaign to expose wrongs in society, namely
state-sponsored violence.

A documentary film released to commemorate his death last week
could serve to reinforce people's convictions that Munir was
indeed a martyr, someone who led a modest life, yet was capable
of accomplishing what was once considered the impossible.

The documentary film, titled Bunga Dibakar: Dia Yang Tidak Mau
`Mati' Sebelum Mati (Burned Flower: He Who Refuses To Die Before
Death), chronicles the life of the slain activist from early
childhood through to his untimely death.

Bunga is an intimate, 45-minute documentary that can sap every
emotion from joy and anger to despair.

Joy, from knowing about some hilarious aspects in Munir's
daily life; anger, from learning that he was murdered in a
cowardly way when freedom of speech had already become
established in the country; despair, from the fact that there is
yet to be any light shed at the end of the tunnel regarding his
murder.

It was such a powerful documentary that when the credits
rolled at the end, the packed GoetheHaus audience stayed in their
seats, glued to the last snapshot that was beamed on a white
screen.

Young director Ratrikala Bhre Aditya, 19, a graduate of SMA 82
Jakarta, deserves credit for painting a comprehensive and moving
picture about Munir's life from a collection of raw materials: TV
news footage, soundbites from radio broadcasts, private
interviews with Munir's family and friends, as well as clippings
of information from national newspapers and newsportals.

In the hand of a lesser director such materials would produce
merely a dull and tedious documentary.

The films starts with a clip borrowed from a telecast from
Metro TV on the death of Munir aboard a Garuda flight that was
taking him to the Netherlands.

After a brief intermission, the films starts with three of
Munir's siblings giving sometimes hilarious accounts about
Munir's childhood and early schooling.

"Munir was so skinny that all his clothes were too big for
him. He was so peculiar with his reddish hair and when he wore
trousers he looked very funny because his knees dwarfed his
skinny legs," younger brother Mufid Thalib said in the film.

Mufid went on to say that Munir had a tendency to fight anyone
who offended him. "Despite his small physique, Munir had the guts
to challenge someone twice his size," Mufid said, adding that
Munir only resorted to fighting if he saw any kind of injustice
being perpetrated.

Munir's sister, Annisa Thalib, said Munir rarely got good
marks for his schoolwork; that was confirmed by a yellowing score
card bearing D and C grades all over it.

Another, rare revelation was that Munir was once drawn into a
Islamic fundamentalist movement during his university years in
Malang, East Java.

Munir felt that Islamic fundamentalism was not the appropriate
vehicle to right the wrongs in society; he subsequently embraced
a more inclusive interpretation of Islam.

After graduating from Brawijaya University, Malang, Munir
joined the Surabaya Legal Aid Institute and his early activism
was to organize poor laborers who suffered greatly from
probusiness regulations drawn up by the authoritarian regime of
president Soeharto.

In a scene from the film, blurry footage from the late 1980s
shows Munir giving a lecture in Javanese about the exploitation
of laborers by their employers.

The scene also shows a young labor activist who later became
Munir's wife, Suciwati.

Later in the film, Suciwati says Munir was also a family man
who loved his son Alif Allende and daughter Diva.

"Every morning while still in bed, he would always spend time
playing with Diva and Alif," Suciwati said, to the streaming of
tears from some in the audience.

Bunga Dibakar is applying the "copyleft" principle, meaning that
copies of the film may freely be made without permission from its
makers. For further information contact: The Commission for
Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) Jl. Borobudur
No. 14, Menteng. Tel : 3926983, 3928564. On the net:
www.munir.or.id