'Ocean of Tears' worth a thousand words

'Ocean of Tears' worth a thousand words

Emmy Fitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Samudra Air Mata, Ocean of Tears

Gallery Foto Jurnalistik Antara

176 pp

This photo collection was produced for the benevolent reason
that the publisher could send proceeds from the book sales to
tsunami survivors -- it was not made for commercial purposes.

Ocean of Tears will endure longer than the photographers who
contributed to it and longer than man's short-term memory of the
apocalyptic disaster that claimed thousands of lives, even an
entire way of life, in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam.

The photos will serve as priceless reminders for mankind that
we are nothing in the face of life and death of such a
catastrophic scope.

It is fortunate that Antara, the state news agency, has the
equipment and access necessary to dispatch its personnel to the
field and capture the best -- and most immediate -- shots from
the disaster of Dec. 26.

No less than senior photographer Oscar Motuloh, head of the
Antara Photo Journalistic Gallery and the editor of Ocean of
Tears, went into "ground zero" in Aceh.

His keen eye for selection has assembled a collection of
photos that arouses in viewers an entire range of emotions, from
terror to mourning, to contemplation, and in the end, hope.

The images on the very first pages portray the massive scale
of destruction and the panic of tearful and terrified Acehnese
seeking refuge. These images appear to have been taken only
minutes after the earthquake and tsunami struck Banda Aceh and
other towns in the province.

The first image in Ocean of Tears was taken by Mohammad Iqbal
at badly hit Ulee Lheue, and shows a torn Red and White -- the
nation's flag -- at half mast on a tiny twig. It is titled
Setengah Republik, which literally means half a republic, but it
has been translated as A Republic in Mourning.

This photograph opens up into an array of even more grim
images. Binasa, or Demolished, by Maha Eka Swasta portrays a
coastal landscape of barren, decapitated coconut trees and heaps
of dried seaweed left beached by the massive waves unleashed on
the northern Sumatra coast.

On and on roll out the heartbreaking images of people running
for their lives, their faces stricken, and aerial views of
Meulaboh in West Aceh -- completely wiped out -- as well as
devastated Pidie. It is enough to make us cry.

These photos work well to achieve such an impression in the
starkness of their black-and-white imagery, and are in contrast
with the final pages, where the photos are in color: these
signify rising hope.

Oscar's Jumat Pertama, or First Friday Prayer, is one of the
most well-known images from Aceh, and was taken on the first
Friday after Sunday's calamity. The prayer took place at the
packed Baiturrahman Mosque in the heart of Banda Aceh, one of the
few buildings that still stood after the disaster.

Known as a home for devout Muslims, many Acehnese survivors
believe that the mosques remained intact because they are the
houses of Allah. However, logic tells us that the construction
funds for mosques are not corrupted -- no one would dare -- and
the structures are therefore of better quality construction
material, making them stronger than other buildings.

Children are effective in portraying hope and cheer in the
face of such destruction, perhaps the effect intended by Oscar
Motuloh: images smiling and laughing children on temporary
playgrounds close Ocean of Tears.

The final photograph is somewhat anticlimactic against these
images of reemerging hope. Suatu Senja, or An Eerie Afternoon, by
Ramdani captures a peaceful dusk at Lam Dingin, Banda Aceh, with
a flock of birds rising in a breathtaking blue-grey sky, and
leaves a lingering question as to the following morning.

What will tomorrow hold for Aceh?

This fateful question lingers until today, with thousands of
people left with uncertain futures and the government still
searching for panaceas of Aceh reconstruction.

Long before the tsunami, Aceh was a war zone between the
Indonesian Military and Acehnese proindependence guerrillas. The
tsunami has changed the world perspective on Aceh, as it opened a
window to an area that had been virtually sealed for decades from
international view. Foreign aid continues to pour in for
survivors and for the province's reconstruction.

Now, people everywhere can see with their own eyes how poorly
Jakarta has provided for the people in the resource-rich
province.

However, despite the criticism and blame over the country's
poor earthquake warning system, no one is truly to blame for the
disaster -- as it is said, God works in mysterious ways.

Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust. We are nothing as we come
from nothing -- this is one of the humble lessons that we can all
learn from this calamity.

Essays by Ignas Kleden, Mohammad Sobary and Goenawan Mohamad,
and poems by Taufiq Ismail serve to guide our contemplation to
make some sense of what happened in Aceh.

Taufiq's Membaca Tanda-Tanda (Reading the Signs) stabs the
heart of the matter: Whatever Thou wish from proof of this? When
can we learn to read the signs? But our eyes are shielded by the
ceremonies of bodies, A heart-rending sight that unfolds a
doomsday panorama. Is it really so?

Meanwhile, Ignas writes, "It turned out that the order of the
universe or cosmology has its way of announcing its existence to
us.

"The tsunami on the northern shore of Sumatra confirmed to us
a different reality: 'I destroy, therefore I am', or deleo ergo
sum.

"Aceh, with its disaster and victims, now has left behind a
legacy for all of us to extract a lesson from, that man can no
longer thump his chest and think he can do as he wishes with the
external world."

Ignas, a veteran sociologist who heads the Center For Eastern
Indonesian Affairs, also sends a strong message on how disasters
must be managed sensibly by both the government at home and our
sympathetic friends abroad.

Chief of Antara news agency Mohammad Sobary perhaps best
represents our sentiments. This prolific essayist confesses that
he does not know what to write. His numbness and sense of
hollowness from shock is felt: "When I was going to write this
essay, with all reasonable humbleness, I summoned the name of God
and asked for His inspiration as to where I should begin and to
which direction I should aim. So I closed my eyes, and slowly
leafed through the pages of the Sacred book. I stopped at a
page."

His eyes opened at the final verse of the Al Israa Letter in
the Koran and the beginning of the Al Kahfi Letter: "And in
truth/We shall truly render (also) that which whose surface
becomes flatland, in barrenness."

In brief, his essay brings us to the most certain destiny of
our being, that this life is not ours to claim, but a borrowed
gift. This is the ultimate understanding to which we arrive on
Ocean of Tears.

The 100th-day anniversary of the Aceh disaster fell on April x.