"A president, who was said to be different from previous presidents, because he once ignored by President Joe Biden, often raised his two fingers while talking and never wanted to opened his one or three fingers, for some reason, together with his minister and undersecretary, was caught by foreign troops who had infiltrated his country.The captors first took the undersecretary for interrogation. They tied his hands behind a chair and tortured him for two hours before he spilled the beans. The captors threw him back into the cell and took the minister in for their interrogation. Like before, they tied his hands behind the chair and began torturing him. The minister resisted for two hours before giving in as well. The captors threw him back into the celland then dragged the president. They again tied his hands behind the chair and began torturing him. Four hours passed by, five, then seven, then thirteen hours and even almost one day and night, the interrogators had not gotten a word out of the President. Frustrated, they threw him back into the cell.Impressed by the supreme commander's resistance, the two of his right hands, asked him, “How did you manage to keep quiet for so long, Sir?” The president responded, 'Oh, I wanted to talk. But I just could not move my hands!'""Why do we write?" said the sunflower while holding a pen then wrote something on a paper. "Whenever people have had to record and preserve the events of history, the need to write has made itself felt. Jean Georges tells us that almost twenty-two thousand years ago, in the cave paintings at Lascaux and elsewhere, human beings produced the first pictures. It was to be another seventeen millennia before humankind’s most extraordinary achievement, the art of writing, made its appearance. One might imagine that people thought up the first written signs in order to preserve their traditional stories. For tens of thousands of years there were many means of conveying simple messages using drawings, signs, or pictures. Writing, however, in the true sense of the word, cannot be said to exist until there is an agreedupon repertoire of formal signs or symbols that can be used to reproduce clearly the thoughts and feelings the writer wishes to express.Such a system does not appear overnight, and the history of writing is a long, slow-moving, and complicated process. As far as we know, the process began in ancient Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (modern Iraq). This area was, around the 3rd millennium BCE, divided into Sumer in the south and Akkad in the north. Although the Sumerians and Akkadians lived harmoniously in the same geographical area, they spoke two languages as drastically different from one another as English and Chinese. These two highly civilized societies lived in small communities clustered around larger cities, such as Babylon, controlled by their rulers and protected by their deities.The first written signs were used for agricultural accounts. Other contain information about the social structure of the Sumerians. This kind if 'writing' is actually more of an outline, consist of simplified drawings used to create stylized representations of objects.From one end of the world to the other, people, seeing writing as a divine gift, set themselves to record their past on stone, clay, and papyrus. Egyptians hieroglyphics were from the beginning a true form of writing, because they could almost completely record the spoken language and they could deal with abstract as well as concrete entities and transcribe equally well texts concerning agriculture, medicine, law and education, religious prayers, traditional stories and, indeed, literature in all its forms. So, Five thousand years ago scribes were already using paper, pen, and ink. In Egypt, as in Mesopotamia, knowing to how to read and write was both a mark of privilege and a source of power.Like the Egyptians, the Chinese attribute a legendary origin to writing, three emperors were involved in the birth of writing in China. In particular, the emperor Huang Che, who lived during the 26th century BCE, was supposed to have discovered the gift of writing after studying the heavenly bodies and objects in nature, especially bird and animal footprints. In Chinese and Japanese painting the calligraphy of the characters constitutes a separate semantic element: the style of writing, the color of the ink, and the intensity of each stroke can all contribute to the overall meaning. Chinese writing conforms to a series of subtle rules that make it a truly poetic art form.The Greeks of the 2nd millennium BCE had a writing system that fell out of use around 1100 BCE, when their civilization was overrun by the Dorian invasions. Three or four centuries later the Phoenician writing system reached Greece. This first alphabet, contained only consonants. In about 800 BCE, in the cities of modern Syria (then called Aram), another alphabet was developed that was in many aspects similar to that of the Phoenicians— Aramaic.In about 800 B.C., in the cities of modern Syria (then called Aram), another alphabet was developed that was in many aspects similar to that of the Phoenicians—Aramaic. Aramaic and Hebrew, which used in transcribing the Old Testament, were born. The history of writing is decidedly a family history, of Arabic writing, like Hebrew, derived from the Phoenician alphabet. Nabateans, were already using a script that was neither Phoenician nor Arabic. Equally, it would seem to be an established fact that the first truly Arabic inscriptions date to A.D. 512-3. According to Jean, when Christians speak of the Scriptures (literally, 'writings') they are of course referring to their holy books. In the same way, even the writing of the Quran is the writing of Allah. Both jus as the Egyptians hieroglyphs were the 'writing of the gods'.For more than a thousand years writing skills are virtually the monopoly of Monks. Very few lay individuals mastered the art of writing. Charlemagne, the most powerful man in Western Europe at the time, was illiterate. He signed royal commands with a cross, which he inserted into the loops of the signature prepared for him by a scribe. Unlike the Mesopotamian and Egyptian scribes, the monks who were trained as copyists in Europe in the Middle Ages were neither creative writers nor men of power; they wrote, but they did not compose. The creative aspects of their work lay in a different area, that of calligraphy.The early scribes, those who copied biblical texts, wrote on rolls of papyrus, called volumen in Latin. However, these volumen were far from ideal; papyrus was costly and fragile, and only one side of the sheet could be used. The introduction of a new medium, parchment, was to alter the art of writing completely. Parchment is usually made from sheepskin, calfskin, or goatskin, although gazelle, antelope, and even ostrich skins are known to have been used. Vellum is high-quality parchment made by using the skins of either very young calves or even stillborn animals. The scriptorium, where manuscripts were copied, decorated, and bound, was usually located near the library. The scriptores, as they were known, wrote using goose-quill pens, which were cut to different shapes depending on the style of writing to be produced.Towards the end of the 12th century the quasimonopoly of the church over teaching began to weaken, and the secular scribes, who were collaborating with the monks, began to organize themselves into guilds and workshops. They drafted official documents for the new merchant bourgeoisie, and they also wrote books.Johann Gutenberg of Mainz was the first to mechanize printing in about 1440, and Peter Schoeffer, a friend of Gutenberg’s, discovered a method for casting letters, especially those with asymmetrical shapes, by using an alloy oi lead and antimony. Gutenberg was well aware of all the advantages of paper, a material that had long been in use in China. Then, in the 16th century printing houses grew up, combining the talents of engravers, typecasters, and typesetters. The first commercial typewriters were introduced in 1874. At the end of the nineteenth century, the term 'typewriter' was also applied to a person who used such a device.In the modern world—in particular under the influence of advertising—the letter has become a separate entity. Removed from the mass words, sundered from all semantic associations, it has become a visual experience unto itself. In Western civilization, the letter is evolving from abstract representation back into a visual image. Then emerged the Typographer’s art.Besides recording human speech, writing also includes musical notation. The earliest form of musical notation can be found in a cuneiform tablet that was created at Nippur, in Babylonia (today's Iraq), in about 1400 BCE. The scholar and music theorist Isidore of Seville, while writing in the early 7th century, considered that 'unless sounds are held by the memory of man, they perish, because they cannot be written down.' By the middle of the 9th century, however, a form of neumatic notation began to develop in monasteries in Europe. The founder of what is now considered the standard music staff was Guido d'Arezzo, an Italian Benedictine monk who lived from about 991 until after 1033.Unlike other aspects of writing, it is difficult to establish when ink appeared in history. The Chinese chronicles give it a legendary beginning, in attributing its invention to Tian Zhen, who lived under the mythical rule of Huang Di, the Yellow Emperor. This effectively hides the truth of the origins of this material. The era of Huang Di was also said to be the time when Chinese characters first came into existence.So, after knowing a little bit of the background about writing, now we'll find out the perspective of what writing actually is. Thomas S. Kane suggests that writing is a rational and a valuable activity. To say that writing is rational means nothing more than that it is an exercise of mind requiring the mastery of techniques anyone can learn. You don't have to be a genius to write clear. You just have to understand what writing involves and to know how to handle words and sentences and paragraphs. That you can learn. If you do, you can communicate what you want to communicate in words other people can understand.Kane also suggests that writing is worth learning. It is of immediate practical benefit in almost any job or career. Certainly there are many jobs in which you can get along without being able to write clearly. If you know how to write, however, you will get along faster and farther. And there's another, more profound value to writing. We create ourselves by words. Before we are businesspeople or lawyers or engineers or teachers, we are human beings. Our growth as human beings depends on our capacity to understand and to use language. Writing is a way of growing. No one would argue that being able to write will make you morally better. But it will make you more complex and more interesting—in a word, more human.The various effects a writer may wish to have on his or her readers—to inform, to persuade, to entertain—result in different kinds of prose. The most common is prose that informs, which, depending on what it is about, is called exposition, description, or narration. Exposition explains. How things work—an internal combustion engine. Ideas—a theory of economics. Facts of everyday life—how many people get divorced. History—why VOC attacked Sunda Kelapa. Controversial issues laden with feelings—abortion, politics, religion. But whatever its subject, exposition reveals what a particular mind thinks or knows or believes. Exposition is constructed logically. It organizes around cause/effect, true/false, less/more, positive/ negative, general/particular, assertion/denial. Its movement is signaled by connectives like therefore, however, and so, besides, but, not only, more important, in fact, for example.Description deals with perceptions—most commonly visual perceptions. Its central problem is to arrange what we see into a significant pattern. Unlike the logic of exposition, the pattern is spatial: above/below, before/behind, right/left, and so on.The subject of narration is a series of related events—a story. Its problem is twofold: to arrange the events in a sequence of time and to reveal their significance.Persuasion seeks to alter how readers think or believe. It is usually about controversial topics and often appeals to reason in the form of argument, offering evidence or logical proof. Another form of persuasion is satire, which ridicules folly or evil, sometimes subtly, sometimes crudely and coarsely. Finally, persuasion may be in the form of eloquence, appealing to ideals and noble sentiments.Writing that is primarily entertaining includes fiction, personal essays, sketches. Such prose is certainly important, but it is more remote from everyday needs than exposition or persuasion.One of the writings about Indonesian history, presented by Steven Drakeley (2005). He begins his writing by describing that Indonesia, an archipelago nation consisting of no fewer than 17,508 islands strung over 5,200 kilometers, is situated astride the equator between Australia and mainland Asia.Many of Indonesia's islands are small and uninhabited [probably could have negative implications such as being bought and sold or rented out secretly]. Others, such as Sumatra and the Indonesian portions of the islands of New Guinea (Papua) and Borneo (Kalimantan), are very large, the size of Spain, California, and France, respectively. Paradoxically, Sumatra, Papua, and Kalimantan have relatively small populations, while some smaller islands are densely populated, including Java, home to 135 million people (including the city of Jakarta) and tiny Bali with 3.3 million people. At one extreme the population density for Papua is only 6 people per square kilometer compared with 951 people per square kilometer for Java at the other extreme.The reasons for these wide discrepancies have much to do with terrain and soil quality. Java and Bali have rich, volcanic soils and abundant rain, making them suitable for growing many crops, including large quantities of rice, the staple of most Indonesians. Large parts of Sumatra are suitable for plantation crops, but much of the island is mountainous or swampy and the soil is not as rich. The same can be said for Kalimantan and Papua, while much of eastern Indonesia is dry with relatively poor soils.With the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Indian Ocean to the west, Indonesia's location could hardly be more strategically significant, an importance underlined by being easily the largest country in Southeast Asia in terms of both landmass and population. With a population of 220 million people (in 2005; Q2 2023: 279 million estimate), Indonesia is the world's fourth-most populous country (after China, India, and the United States). Culturally and politically it is also one of the more complex countries in the world, with over a thousand ethnic and subethnic groups (1300 ethnic groups) speaking many hundreds of languages and dialects [more than 700 living languages]. It is only in comparatively recent times that these peoples have been contained within one political framework, brought together through the construction of the Dutch colonial empire, the Netherlands Indies. Throughout most of history, Indonesia's inhabitants were divided politically in many different ways [Ichsanuddin Noorsy expresses this more deeply in his work 'Bangsa Terbelah' (Divided Nation) (2019)] as over the centuries a bewildering array of kingdoms and empires rose and fell within the region. Indeed, parts of Indonesia were previously united with territories and peoples now included in the neighboring countries of Malaysia and Singapore. Thus one of the many challenges confronting Indonesia since independence in 1945 has been the construction of a unified national identity, given the lack of shared historical experience.We will continue this Drakeley's exposition in the next episode, Bi 'idhnillah."Then Sunflower samg.Please come with me, see what I seeTouch the stars for time will not fleeTime will not flee, can't you see? *)
Citations & References:
- Georges Jean, Writing: The Story of Alphabets and Scripts, 1992, Harry N. Abrams
- Steven Drakeley, The History of Indonesia, 2005, Greenwood Press
*) "Ordinary Day" written by Vanessa Carlton
