Putting It Together

Societies today are decorated with numerous Non-Profit Organizations, Charity Groups and Activists that attempt to serve different causes for humanity. Some are moved to fight poverty, others are moved to eradicate diseases. There are also groups of people who believe in and dedicate their lives to save the earth, 'The Green People' is what I call them.

In a contemplation of A2G concentration of its philanthropy ends, I had found myself curious about the causes of death and their statistics. Death toll is hardly accurate as it is usually intricate when it comes to deciding what or which are the true causes of death in relation to the number of people actually died in course of event. Parts of the causes had been those that were considered man-made or contributed by actions of men, and those that were considered to be natural causes such as earthquakes, flood, cyclone, typhoon, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions.

In my discoveries, some major man-made causes of death were wars, genocides, mass suicides, famine due to political oppression, some diseases, and murders. Each have its own various definitions. Spanish Flu (a disease), for instance, annihilate millions of people in 1918 - around the same period as World War 2. To decide which deaths are caused only by the disease and which are casualties of the war were perplexing. Some wounded soldier might survive the Spanish Flu attack if they weren't wounded.

As I perceive it, there is always the possibility of any natural causes of death to be contributed by human activities. Chopping of trees and pollution are the two major reasons why the Green Peace activists exist since the past century. Global warming is an imbalance state of the Planet Earth, which it requires to eventually balance back somehow. Earthquakes, floods, cyclones, typhoons, volcanic eruptions and drought could be what is necessary to happen for Planet Earth to sustain its balance. We, the humans, are all contributing to the maturity of Global Warming, even the 'Green People', and the planet simply does not care about humanity.

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Another cause of death that I find most intriguing is murder. Since young, I have always wonder how a person can take the life of another person. What could be in their minds before they kill, when they kill, and after they take somebody else's lives? Sometimes I would even try to recall the moments when I feel so angry or hateful that I might kill a person, nothing seems to pop up in my imagination. During my research, I have encountered the reading of some serious killers. I thought, these people could be the worst type of killer ever exist so if I learn about them, I might learn something. I did.

A famous U.S. most prolific killer in the past century, Ted Bundy, who confessed to more than the murder of 30 people grew up believing that his mother was his sister. FBI suspected that he is responsible for hundreds of murders, whose victims' bodies are not yet found today. 'No wonder he's a sicko', we might think. A young girl who were brought up at her mother's house with her sex-offender-step father ended up killing 7 men within a year as an adult, during her prostitute career. This girl was Aileen Wuornos, whose story was made into a movie played by Charlize Therone and Christina Ricci called "The Monster". When caught by the police, Wuornos genuinely believed that she had to kill the 7 men because of self-defense. Apparently, both Bundy and Wuornos had dark childhoods. They were not happy as children and they weren't brought up properly by their parents. And perhaps they might be those children who we might often judge as 'weird', and their so called weirdness escalate to murder. Not to mention other famous serial killers of our time who had taken hundreds of lives accummulatively and to name a few there were: Jeffrey Dahmer, David Birnie, Erik Edgar Cooper, The Ken and Barbie Killers.

Between 1932 and 1933, humanity has found Joseph Stalin responsible for the death of some 6 to 10 millions in the famine that he has caused. Now we need to ask, did Stalin's mom and dad raised him right? Or did they raise him so rightfully as a child that he grew up with a great intelligence to 'kill' people? The event of Stalin in power fell into the definition of genocide. Genocide, is it a form of murder? Similarly, Mao Ze Dong in power has caused the death of 20 to 30 Million people in a course of three years between 1959 to 1962. Twenty to Thirty Million died because of starvation, in agony and cruelty comparable to torture and mutilation. It was never disclosed in his official biography, but how did his personalities and identity formed in his early life that let multimillion people died from starvation under his nose without remorse given his power to do turn the situation at the time? Sure, many families and relatives of the casualties had cursed him a big time murderer at that time.

It was not merely the stories of serial murder or the case of murder that caught my interest, it was the thrill of knowing what can become of a child who was not brought up as a decent non-murdering citizen of the society. Jeff Dahmer, a homosexual cannibalistic serial killer, was never taught about religion or beliefs about superior being when he was a child (according to his father's claims during an interview after Dahmer repented before his execution). You can find in Youtube, a question raised 'what would have happened if Dahmer believe in God earlier?' The root of the sinister minds that these remorseless individuals posses, the way I see and believe it, is in family. It was learned that most criminals have some sorts of family malfunctions. 

Coming from a broken home myself, I understand how a form of darkness was developed inside me that nobody would know (neither I can express it) while growing up. Being constantly and continuously belittled by my parents, it gave me a reason or a drive to prove something. Many times, there is a rage inside that needs to be manifested out and without conscience and tenacious determination to control it, I would've been dead by now. In my case, instead of needing to manifest such rage into violence or murderous thoughts, I had found myself in a suicidal state of mind a few times. From my own stories, I have formed a passion to help other children who need to be nurtured, cared for, educated, nourished and fulfilled both physically and mentally.

The hypothesis is, how many lives can be saved when a child is saved from being a victim of family malfunction? Yes, the odds are very little that he or she will become like Stalin or Hitler or Dahmer or other intellectual culprits who deliberately created deadly viruses, but the chance is alwasy there if not prevented from young.

A2G is focusing on children in need, as well as the women (who will become their mothers) who are often victims of family malfunction or often the weaker victims of man-made conflicts such as war, infidelity, and domestic violence. Of course, the focus of family welfare is included.

The World of Children

This boy is 18 years old originated from a city in Sumatera, Indonesia called Palembang. His name is Mustar, a primary school graduate. When I asked him why he did not continue with his studies, he claims that his parents were Bandits.Palembang is a place where many husbands work as Bandits for a living, while their wives work as whores. They have children like many other people, and still live as a family.

Indonesia, especially in rural areas such as where I live is inhabited by people with traditionally conservative moral. Husbands work to bring the bacon home, while their wives stay at home as housewives, bear children and raise them at home. Sex before marriage is very much a taboo, while early marriage (aged 16 - 18) is still quite common.

I met this boy on Wednesday, 7th April 2010 at 10:30pm Local Time.

Earlier on the day, at 3pm, I received a report from the Security Department that said 'A girl found naked in a Room of a Male Employees housing, mouth foamed and unconscious. The girl is not our employee, but our employee's relative. It is suspected that the girl was locked up. Currently sent for medical attention, we have the local Police handling the case.' The first thing that came to my mind when I heard the news was 'Raped'. As the Police was already handling the case, I proceed with my work at the time.

By 7:00pm, I was only done with daily errands and I called Security Department to check on what I thought was a 'victim of rape'. Later at night, it was reported totally differently - The girl was not found naked, was not locked up, but ran away from home stayed at her boyfriend's house (the house where she was found) and her mother was furious about where she found her, beat her up so badly and she fainted for one and a half hours and released from the clinic.

The fact that the neighborhood where the girl was found (inside my 'house')  was frightened by the rumor that there is a rapist going loose in the area makes me responsible for the security of the employees. Later at around 7:45pm, I called the victim named Mira and her family (her mother and older sister) to come to my place. I thought, this issue must be investigated to the bottom of the matter.

At 7:45pm, Mira a Bugis tribe descendant stumbled into the Guest Room and as she found the sofa, she lied down holding her neck with her hands. Soon, my colleague and I approached her to ask her where she find it painful and she said "on my back neck". We asked "Do you know what happened to your back neck?" and she answered "someone kicked me". We asked "who kicked you?". For a moment she went silent, and seemed as if she was thinking and she said "my cousin". "Is your cousin a man or a woman?" we asked her again, she said "a woman, now working at night shift. Her name is Evy". As soon as I found out, I asked to call this cousin of her for interrogation.

Soon after asking Mira about her condition, her mother and sister walked in. As soon as they sat down, we began the interrogation:
We first asked: "what happened to her?"
Older Sister: "she went missing last night at about 6pm, and we found her this afternoon at about 1pm at this boy's house. The door was pad locked from outside, we had to batter down the door and we saw her there unconscious. Soon after we sent her to the clinic."
We asked: "Did someone beat her? Why is she saying that someone is beating her?"
Older sister: "Not sure"
We asked: "What happened to her neck? Are you sure you don't know if someone beat her or why? Could there be some relationship issues here?"
Older sister: "Not that we know"
Suddenly, Mira cut it and said subtly "My mother, my sister and my cousin beat me"
So we asked the older sister: "Did you beat her? Why?"
Older sister: "She went missing for 2 days, I had been worried sick about her. When I found out, she had ran away to a boy's housing and slept in his room. I became very angry, my mother was very upset."
We asked: "Was she naked?"
Older sister said firmly: "No! she was perfectly clothed"

The cousin walked in, and suddenly they suddenly spoke in their dialect discussion about what is going on. We then started to interrogate 'the cousin':
We asked: "Do you know what's going on with her?"
The Cousin: "She ran away from home to her boyfriend's house, today at 1pm we found her in his room"
We asked: "Did you find her naked?"
The Cousin: "I didn't find her, her sister did. She had came to me and said angrily 'go check on Mira, she's shamelessly naked' while pointing to the boy's house. So I walked in and she was on the floor"
We asked: "Did you beat her?"
The Cousin: "Yes, we all did. We were all worried sick about her, and we just got very angry when we found her in a boy's room. Her mother was so angry, she even asked us to just vanish her. We tried to find the boy but he already ran away".

We had found dissimilarity of  their stories, where Mira's sister persisted that she was not found naked and was merely got beaten because she ran away from home while Mira's cousin implied that she somewhat had some sexual relationship with a boy. Later, I found out that for Bugis people it is a great disgrace for a girl to even visit a boy's house. Mira's sister attempted as much as she could to protect her family's so called dignity. I also found that Bugis tribe protect each other immensely, and that they are very primitively violent towards resolving issues.

I knew, this problem cannot be solved until we can find the boy. I had asked the Security Department to go on search, that night, around the housing area. Eventually, at about 10.30pm after we waited for a while we found him. Immediately, we called him for isolated interrogation:
We asked: "Why did you run away?"
He said: "I didn't"
We asked: "You know the girl who was in trouble today? Did she stay in your room last night?"
He said: "Yes"
We asked: "Did you sleep with her? Where did you sleep while she was there?"
He said: "I slept inside and outside from time to time"
We asked: "Did you sleep with her? Have sex with her?"
He went quiet.
We asked more firmly: "Did you have sex with her? It's okay to answer us the truth, we will protect you. If you do not tell us the truth, we cannot protect you from her family. Her family are now hunting you down to take away your life."
He said: "yes"
We asked: "How many times?"
He answered quietly: "three"
We asked: "How long have you known her?"
He said: "Two Days"
We asked: "Two days, and your relationship with her have gone this far? Okay now, are you going to be responsible as a man? Will you marry her?"
He said: "Of course I want to be responsible, I have no intention to run away at all. I see no point of it. I will marry her, but please... let me still work here do not fire me."
We said: "Don't worry about working here, if you say you are willing to be responsible now you have to go to meet her and her family and tell them about it."
And so we walked back to the living room where Mira and her family were.

The living room by then was intensely heated, only because both 'the victim' and 'the culprit' were in the same room, sat to each other. We were the few people of moderators who tried to save this boy's life and bring the two families together at peace.

We said: "For Mira's mother, sister and cousin, are you all willing to accept your daughter Mira to marry this boy?"
They said: "We have no choice but to approve. If do not approve to this, we're sure our relatives who are so heated with the incident, will hunt this boy and take his life."
We said: "Okay, that is quite big hearts you have."
The boy suddenly said: "But I've only worked for one month and I have no money"
The girl's family started talking angrily saying that he had been an idiot to do such thing to an innocent girl knowing that he cannot even bear himself for a living. At the end, we managed to calm them down and offered to help with financial needs for marriage (which was not very significant) and also managed to ask the girl's family to convince their relatives that they will be married the next day and he should not be harmed.

This incident has taught me a few lessons about the lowest level of people in Indonesia. These two youngsters, only met each other for two days and they were forced into marriage. Could it be love that brought them together? Or was it merely lust, or even desperation because of their problems at home with their parents or siblings? What will become their family in the future, or their children? Will this event repeat itself somewhat or somehow with their children? 

Their problems were created by themselves, not even knowing that they are the ones who created it because they are simply incapable of thinking. They were not taught or brought up with proper morals or ethics. They are simply uncivilized. Can we blame their stupidity or gullibility to them? Or.. should we blame it on their parents for not teaching them right? Or perhaps even their grandparents for not teaching their parents with morals and ethics to exist harmonically in the society?

Living in this part of the world, I get to hear a lot of sad stories from burglaries to murders for small matters that cost lives. Just two weeks ago, we had a murder case: A woman stabbed 26 times to death in her own house. After investigation, we discovered that she was murdered by her nephew whose girlfriend worked for her and recently got fired. The nephew became very angry and arranged to assassinate her. The value of life is very cheap here, but the world does not know nor it cares.

I had felt awful after having to handle Mustar's case in such a way, but I know, I have saved one life. Perhaps, I might also have saved a child to be born fatherless. Though, they are only children who will make more children and they have the whole stretch of life ahead of them. What will become of them, I wonder, or their children? 

Some of us may expect this boy to be a man, who can be responsible for his own and his family. The question is, does he know how to be? The question is, how many Mustar's and Mira's exist and live and meet each other, live their lives not knowing they are who they become and not knowing why the become the way they are. They just live, simply exist in our society and contributing to each aspects of our society. Yet, everyday they hope for the world to be a fairer place. 

This is the world of children who will bear their children and their grand children and great grand children. They will simply re-create themselves. This is a sad story and a true story. Indonesia is full of these kind of people, people who do not understand the value of life. Could they be educated for civilization? What can we do to help them?