'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.