Guns, Germs, and Steel: Rute Perkembangan Masyarakat Manusia

Awicaksono

Judul buku: Guns, Germs, and Steel
Penulis: Jared Diamond
Penerbit: W. W. Norton & Company
Tahun terbitan: 1999
ISBN: 0393317552

Buku ini mencoba menjelaskan masyarakat mana yang mendominasi dunia dan mengapa. Tanpa harus terjebak pada rasisme (bahwa orang kulit putih lebih cerdas, misalnya) atau alasan-alasan keagamaan (orang kulit putih adalah masyarakat pilihan Tuhan), Diamond lebih mengajukan argumen-argumen tentang lingkungan hidup dan budaya secara elegan. Saya kutip catatan yang terdapat di sampul bukunya:

Why did the Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, instead of the reverse? In this groundbreaking book, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for histories broadest patterns. Here, at last, is a world history that really is a history of all the world's peoples, a unified narrative of human life even more intriguing and important than accounts of dinosaurs and glaciers.

Diamond memulai kisahnya dari 13.000 tahun lampau, ketika dunia dihuni masyarakat pemburu dan peramu di zaman batu. Pada masa itu rute perkembangan masyarakat manusia di benua-benua yang terpisah mulai berkembang mengikuti alurnya masing-masing. Budidaya tanaman dan penjinakkan hewan liar di China, Mesoamerica, wilayah tenggara Amerika Serikat dan wilayah lainnya, menjadi semacam modal bagi masyarakat di wilayah tersebut. Mengapa gandum dan jagung, sapi dan babi, serta tanaman dan ternak favorit di wilayah tersebut dapat berkembang pesat tetapi tidak di wilayah lainnya hingga sekarang, dijelaskan secara jernih oleh Diamonds.

Masyarakat yang berhasil melampaui tahapan pemburu-peramu lebih memungkinkan untuk memajukan dirinya dengan mengembangkan budaya tulis, budidaya (teknologi), pengurusan wilayah, agama-agama yang terorganisir - serta benih-benih agresifitas dan senjata yang mematikan untuk berperang diantara masyarakat tersebut.

Buku ini memberikan kita satu rujukan yang luar biasa dalam memahami masyarakat manusia. Sila lihat komentar dan kritik di bawah ini.

"This is a brilliantly written, passionate, whirlwind tour through 13,000 years of history on all the continents--a short history of everything about everybody. The origins of empires, religion, writing, crops, and guns are all here. By at last providing a convincing explanation for the differing developments of human societies on different continents, the book demolishes the grounds for racist theories of history. Its account of how the modern world was formed is full of lessons for our own future. After reading the first two pages, you won't be able to put it down." -- Paul R. Ehrlich, Profesor Bidang Studi Kependudukan, Universitas Stanford

Helping Children With Autism Learn: Orangtua Sebagai Sumber Pembelajaran Terbaik

Awicaksono

Judul buku: Helping Children with Autism Learn : Treatment Approaches for Parents and Professionals
Penulis: Bryna Siegel
Penerbit: Oxford University Press
Tahun terbitan: 2003
ISBN: 0195138112

Bryna Siegel memberikan orangtua-orangtua yang memiliki anak autistik hal yang paling dibutuhkan: Harapan. Buku pertamanya, The World of the Autistic Child, sudah menjadi rujukan klasik, mencoba membuka pikiran anak-anak autistik yang selama ini menjadi misteri. Lewat buku ini ia menawarkan pemikiran dan permenungan yang setara, sebuah panduan praktis yang menyeluruh bagaimana menangani proses pembelajaran anak-anak dengan keterbatasan dan kelainan yang seringkali mematahkan hati orangtua.

Menurut Siegel, masalah yang paling banyak ditemui dalam penanganan autisme adalah karena kelainan ini merupakan kelainan berspektrum -- kombinasi antara beberapa gejala dan penyebab. Pada kasus tertentu, terlihat anak-anak yang terasing dari kehidupan sosial, ketidakmampuan berbahasa serta kesulitan untuk bergaul -- tetapi kisarannya bervariasi secara dramatik pada setiap kasus. Kuncinya adalah dengan memahami setiap kasus autisme sebagai keterbatasan belajar yang unik dan khas, dimana dibutuhkan penanganan yang khusus. Siegel menjelaskan bagaimana mengenali dan mendaftarkan keterbatasan tertentu dari anak, menguraikan beragam keadaan khas dari autisme, membahas tentang status pengetahuan saat ini menyangkut kasus, serta meninjau strategi-strategi yang umum berlaku dalam penanganan autisme. Tidak ada proses penyembuhan yang sederhana untuk autisme, menurut Siegel. Bahkan ia menyarankan agar program penanganan harus dirancang sesuai dengan masalah masing-masing anak. Siegel memberikan pedoman praktis bagi orangtua untuk mengembangkan program, dan mendorong agar orangtua memberdayakan dirinya sendiri untuk secara langsung memimpin proses penanganan anaknya yang menderita autisme. Ia sangat memahami betapa paniknya orangtua untuk melakukan sesuatu, dan ia menawarkan orangtua dukungan lewat saran-saran yang menyentuh, sebagai kombinasi antara pengalaman, teori dan penelitian-penelitiannya.

Bagi para orangtua, autisme yang diderita anak-anaknya sangat menghancurkan hati. Tetapi hal tersebut harus ditangani. Bryna Siegel menawarkan sebuah pemahaman baru, serta pendekatan yang praktis dan penuh pemikiran, yang diharapkan dapat menumbuhkan harapan orangtua dengan anak yang menderita autisme. Komentar dari beberapa ahli tentang buku layak disimak:

"This book contains an abundance of clearly written, easy to understand information for educating the child with autism." --Temple Gradin, author of Thinking in Pictures

"This is a very positive book -- sensitive to the dilemmas that children with autism face and positive about their ability to learn and adapt. It focuses on solutions to the challenges that autism presents, solutions that lead to new learning and adapting. Siegel's conversational style of language makes the book highly accessible for parents, teachers, and the various interventionists who serve children with autism. Her description of the matrix of abilities and disabilities -- how the core neuropsychological features of autism come together to create patterns of strengths and weaknesses -- demystifies some of the puzzle of autism. She draws the outline of the separate pieces and shows how they fit together to form both the familiar pattern of autism that clinicians recognize but also the individual profile that defines each individual person with autism." --Sally Rogers, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, The M.I.N.D. Institute, University of California Davis Medical Center

"The landscape of educational and treatment options for children with autism spectrum disorders is complex and often overwhelming for parents and professionals. Drawing from her many years of experience, Dr. Siegel provides a helpful guide for making decisions about directions in educational programming." --Barry M. Prizant, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, Director, Childhood Communication Services and Adjunct Professor, Center for the Study of Human Development, Brown University

Jakarta, 9 Januari 2006

The Skeptical Environmentalist: Tantangan Terbuka Kepada Para Aktivis Lingkungan

Awicaksono

Judul buku: The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World
Penulis: Bjørn Lomborg
Penerbit: Cambridge University Press
Tahun terbitan: 2001
Tebal buku: 496hal
ISBN: 0521010683

The Skeptical Environmentalist melempar tantangan secara luas kepada siapa saja yang meyakini bahwa keadaan lingkungan hidup saat ini terus bertambah buruk. Penulis, yang pernah menjadi anggota Greenpeace, sangat kritis terhadap bagaimana organisasi-organisasi lingkungan secara selektif, dan bahkan mungkin menyesatkan, dalam menggunakan bukti-bukti ilmiah untuk advokasi dan kampanye-kampanyenya. Menggunakan informasi statistik yang tersedia dari berbagai lembaga internasional yang terkenal, secara sistematik Bjørn Lomborg mengkaji sederet masalah utama lingkungan hidup yang selama ini terus menjadi pokok berita di media-media dunia.

Argumen-argumennya ia paparkan secara non-teknis, menggunakan bahasa yang mudah dipahami dan secara hati-hati didukung oleh sekitar 2500 catatan kaki yang memungkinkan pembaca memeriksa sendiri kesahihannya. Menyimpulkan bahwa terdapat lebih banyak alasan untuk optimis daripada bersikap pesimistik, Bjørn Lomborg menekankan perlunya melakukan prioritasi secara jernih dan dingin atas sumberdaya-sumberdaya yang tersedia untuk menangani masalah-masalah yang kongkret, bukan masalah yang dibayangkan (imagined problems). The Skeptical Environmentalist menawarkan pembaca sebuah latihan intelektual yang menyediakan pandangan korektif yang bermanfaat bagi berbagai peringatan organisasi-organisasi advokasi lingkungan hidup yang bergaung lewat media-media terkemuka.

Sebagian komentar tentang buku ini dapat dibaca pada sampul belakang bukunya,

‘When Lomborg concludes that ‘ … the loss of the world’s rainforests, of fertile agricultural land, the ozone layer and of the climate balance are terrible …’ I agree. But we also need debate, and this book provides us with that in generous amounts. If you, like I do, belong to the people who dare to think the world is making some progress, but always with mistakes to be corrected, this book makes important reading.’ -- Professor Lars Kristoferson, Secretary General, WWF Sweden

‘The Skeptical Environmentalist should be read by every environmentalist, so that the appalling errors of fact the environmental movement has made in the past are not repeated. A brilliant and powerful book.’ -- Matt Ridley, author of Genome

‘This is one of the most valuable books on public policy - not merely on environmental policy - to have been written for the intelligent reader in the past ten years … The Skeptical Environmentalist is a triumph.’ --The Economist

Namun, buku ini bukannya tanpa kritik. Beberapa tokoh pemikir yang selama ini bekerja menyadarkan publik dan para politikus tentang buruknya mutu lingkungan hidup global mengomentari buku ini:

E.O. Wilson, ahli biologi terkemuka -- dua kali memenangkan penghargaan Pulitzer, penemu ratusan spesies baru, serta satu dari ilmuwan besar yang masih hidup -- merespon analisis Lomborg tentang kepunahan spesies:

My greatest regret about the Lomborg scam is the extraordinary amount of scientific talent that has to be expended to combat it in the media. We will always have contrarians like Lomborg whose sallies are characterized by willful ignorance, selective quotations, disregard for communication with genuine experts, and destructive campaigning to attract the attention of the media rather than scientists. They are the parasite load on scholars who earn success through the slow process of peer review and approval. The question is: How much load should be tolerated before a response is necessary? Lomborg is evidently over the threshold.

Stephen H. Schneider, satu dari beberapa ilmuwan iklim terkemuka dari Amerika Serikat, merespon analisis Lomborg tentang perubahan iklim:

It would take several pages to document how Lomborg lines up his citations to diminish the seriousness of climate effects while ignoring most literature that would stress the seriousness. (For that kind of documentation, see a review by my colleagues and me in the forthcoming January 2002 issue of Scientific American or Stuart Pimm and Jeff Harvey's review in the Nov. 8, 2001 issue of Nature.) Lomborg does acknowledge an aggregate $5 trillion benefit of controlling and minimizing climate change, but then contrasts this to an estimated cost of controlling global warming of "from $3 to $33 trillion."

Note that Lomborg offers a wide-ranging estimate for how much it would cost to control climate change but only one figure for how much the climate change itself would cost us. In reality, the cost of climate change itself is generally considered -- by the very economists whom Lomborg quotes for costs of control -- to be much more uncertain than the cost of controlling climate change. In other words, this putative statistician quotes a range of costs when convenient but not a range of benefits when inconvenient. Neither does he tell us, as any assessor should -- let alone a statistician writing a popular book! -- that these are very crude estimates grounded in subjective assumptions at every stage. To imply that the costs are empirically determined is to completely misunderstand the situation, or misrepresent Bayesian statistics (subjective) as frequentist probabilities (objective).

Norman Myers, seorang Honorary Visiting Fellow di Universitas Oxford, anggota U.S. National Academy of the Sciences, dan penerima beberapa penghargaan lingkungan hidup, mengomentari analisis Lomborg tentang keanekaragaman spesies:

Lomborg is equally sloppy in his analyses of the utilitarian benefits of species and their genetic resources -- for example, "aspirin from willow trees, heart medicine from foxgloves." It is simply not true, as Lomborg claims, that, "Most of this medicine is now produced synthetically." In several instances, scientists have tried for decades to synthesize plant-derived alkaloids and other biocompounds in the laboratory, investing huge amounts of money in the effort, to little or no avail. Yet Lomborg goes on to assert, "But so long as we do not even have any practical means of analyzing even a fraction of those plants already known to us, this cannot be used as a general argument for the protection of all species, for example in the rain forest." He might check with the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., where scientists have demonstrated that certain families of plants appear to be sound bets for medical breakthroughs.

Serta beberapa komentar lain, seperti Lester R. Brown (ahli kependudukan), Emily Matthews (ahli kehutanan), Al Hammond (ahli statistik lingkungan), Devra Davis (ahli kesehatan lingkungan), David Nemtzow (ahli enerji), serta Kahtyn Schulz (editor politik GRIST), yang dapat dibaca di GRIST Magazine: environmental news & commentary edisi khusus yang benar-benar khusus diterbitkan untuk merespons The Skeptical Environmentalist-nya Bjørn Lomborg.

Skandal Korporasi AS Terbesar Yang Menguap Cepat

Resensi oleh Stuart Shiffman
Pertama kali dimuat di Bookreporter

Judul buku: CONSPIRACY OF FOOLS: A True Story
Penulis: Kurt Eichenwald
Penerbit: Broadway Books
Tebal:
ISBN: 0767911784

Baca cukilannya

Perhaps the fallout from the first major decision of the Enron Corporation should have served as a warning for the company's future. As Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and others laid the groundwork for a new energy giant, they consulted with a New York firm to suggest a name for their company. Several months and millions of dollars later, "Enteron" was the suggestion. It combined both the international and energy aspects of the new enterprise. Everyone seemed to love the new name.

Unfortunately no one bothered to check Webster's. "Enteron" is also a word for the digestive tube running from the mouth to the anus. Given that one of "Enteron's" major products was natural gas, the choice of names made the new company a laughingstock. "Enteron" quickly became "Enron."

As you journey through the pages of Kurt Eichenwald's CONSPIRACY OF FOOLS, your analysis of the Enron tale will largely depend upon the perspective you held before you turned to the first page of this exhaustively researched and massively documented saga. Is it a tale of well-intentioned businessmen who simply made bad business decisions, or is it a saga of greed, corruption and corporate America run amuck? After 600 pages of reading, there is ample material to support either of those positions.

Although it has been more than four years since the collapse of Enron, the paint on the portrait of its collapse still has not dried. While several individuals involved in the debacle have gone to prison, there has yet to be an actual trial that would allow for public disclosure of many of the events that Eichenwald documents in his book. Obviously, much of the account comes from first-person interviews with many of the well-known actors in the financial tragedy. A cynical reader might be justified in believing that many of those interviews were self-serving attempts in advance of trial to make individuals appear as innocent as possible. In CONSPIRACY OF FOOLS we learn what happened at Enron from inception to collapse. We just don't know why it happened.

This is not a criticism of the book, but an observation of its style. Eichenwald has chosen to avoid dry historical narrative in favor of the modern style of recreating dialogue, meetings and scenes based upon anecdotal recollections of subjects all conditioned upon anonymity. While that may diminish the overall impact of the book, it certainly enhances its entertainment value. CONSPIRACY OF FOOLS reads like a popular thriller, albeit one without murder or mayhem.

Whether the Enron actors are criminals or dupes will be a matter resolved by jurors in Texas courtrooms over the next several years. Regardless of that verdict, however, it certainly is uncontradicted that the players on this stage were by and large greedy, selfish and arrogant. Andy Fastow, one of the Enron participants, already serving prison time, was far more interested in negotiating a severance package than either showing concern for the floundering company he controlled or accepting responsibility for its downfall.

Even Sherron Watkins, the whistleblower elevated to heroine status in the news, was far more interested in advancing her career through her whistle blowing efforts than saving the company. Eichenwald suggests that Watkins told Congress far more than she possibly could know when she publicly testified about Enron's activities. There are no heroes in this sordid history, an analysis that leads one to believe that there will be more Enrons in our future just as there have been Enrons in our past.

In 1841, Charles Mackay chronicled the investment bubbles and financial shenanigans of the 17th and 18th centuries in EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS AND THE MADNESS OF CROWDS. So prescient were Mackay's observations that the book remains in print today and is often cited as one of the best books ever written about investments and investing. Investment success has a synergy of its own that yields more success. As investors experience greater return they are less inclined to recognize or believe warning signs that portend danger. CONSPIRACY OF FOOLS reminds us all once again that while greed may be good for some, it is not good for all.

Bagaimana The Beatles Menapak Ke Puncak?

Resensi oleh Colleen Quinn
Pertama kali dimuat di Bookreporter

Judul buku: THE BEATLES: The True Beginnings
Penulis: Roag Best, with Pete and Rory Best
Penerbit: Thomas Dunne Books
Tebal:
ISBN: 0312319258

Will any true Beatles fan ever admit that there is no need for any further information regarding the Fab Four? Absolutely not --- the strong popularity of THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY is evidence enough that a voracious audience still exists for Beatles lore in all shapes and sizes.

THE BEATLES: THE TRUE BEGINNINGS really encompasses two book ideas: the Merseybeat music scene in Liverpool from which the Beatles developed, and Pete Best's experiences as an early Beatle. Either of these ideas, developed fully, would make interesting reading. As they are, however, two slender ideas are crammed into one unfocused book with big pictures and sparse text. Even so, I get the impression that this book was a stretch --- does any fan, no matter how obsessive, really require a picture of the case in which Pete Best carried his drums? How about a shot of the spare guitar strings he found inside?

A prominent outpost of the Merseybeat scene was Mrs. Best's Casbah Coffee Club, owned and operated by Pete Best's mother, Mona Best. This book is in large part a tribute to the remarkable Mona Best from her sons --- Roag, Pete, and Rory. Mrs. Best pawned her jewelry, placed a bet on a horse, and won the money to buy Number Eight Haymans Green, a giant house whose cellars were transformed into the Casbah when the Best boys discovered rock-and-roll and needed a place to perform and listen to music. The Beatles first performed at the Casbah as the Quarrymen. They played to a crowd of 1,500 and received three pounds as payment.

You probably know how the story goes. The Beatles were a huge success and got a gig playing in Hamburg, Germany where they endured a horrible, grueling performance schedule and living conditions like something from a Dickens novel (assuming Dickens might ever have written about a German red-light district). In short, the Hamburg experience was destined to make or break the Beatles. It made the Beatles, but Pete Best was not invited to continue their success.

Is the Best family bitter? Maybe a little; it is their theory that Pete Best was simply so much better looking that he was a liability to the other band members. Also, the title THE TRUE BEGINNINGS seems to imply that they are setting the record straight, but there isn't very much new information here and it's unlikely to change anyone's mind about the Beatles as individuals or as a cultural phenomenon.

Stasiun TV Yang Tidak Merasa Perlu Berkiblat Ke CNN

Resensi oleh Robert Finn
Pertama kali dimaut di Bookreporter

Judul buku: AL-JAZEERA: How the Free Arab News Network Scooped the World and Changed the Middle East
Penulis: Mohammed El-Nawawy dan Adel Iskandar
Penerbit: Westview Press
Tebal:
ISBN: 0813340179

As recently as six years ago no one had heard of the Arab-based TV network Al-Jazeera --- for the very good reason that it did not exist. Today it is arguably the world's most talked-about, argued-over, politically influential and cockily controversial news source. Based in the tiny Gulf emirate of Qatar, it has 35 million viewers, including about 200,000 in the United States.

It has been denounced as a sewer full of Anti-American vitriol, yet Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld have appeared on its talk shows, as have Tony Blair and Libya's Muammar Qaddafi. The authors of this fascinating study demonstrate that Al-Jazeera (variously translated as "the island" or "the peninsula") is just as controversial in the Arab world as it is in the West. A Saudi Arabian government official has accused it of serving up "poison on a golden platter" --- and bear in mind that tiny Qatar occupies a small peninsula right next door to powerful Saudi Arabia.

Two remarkable events made Al-Jazeera famous --- its broadcasting of three tapes of Osama bin Laden's anti-American rants and threats, and its presence as the only outside news source in Afghanistan during the early stages of the US-led coalition offensive that ultimately toppled the Taliban.

The authors of this book are both Egyptians who now teach at North American universities. They appear to have solid journalistic credentials and neither one ever worked for Al-Jazeera. They claim to be independent observers, though naturally writing from an Arab perspective. I could find no obvious evidence of bias or ax-grinding in their book. This is important to note in a book concerned with such a highly charged and politically volatile topic.

Westerners will be surprised to learn from El-Nawawy and Iskandar that Al-Jazeera actually is an offspring of the Arabic service of Britain's beloved BBC. There was a financial and journalistic disagreement that led to the defection of a number of the BBC unit's staff, who ended up being invited to set up shop independently in Qatar, a country smaller than Connecticut and with fewer people than San Francisco. Qatar's relatively liberal-minded government funded the station (and still does) but claims the network is totally independent of state control. El-Nawawy and Iskandar believe this to be true.

Al-Jazeera's answer to the torrent of criticism from the West is that it is simply doing an honest journalistic job --- presenting all sides of political issues in a part of the world where even allowing anyone with dissenting views to appear on your network is regarded as virtual treason. Al-Jazeera's model, its executives claim, is CNN. The network's motto is "the opinion, and the other opinion." It has, for example, suffered severe criticism and punitive measures for merely allowing Israeli officials to state their case on its talk shows. Since the authors of this book are both Egyptians, they understandably lay heavy stress on the uproar that Al-Jazeera's freewheeling style has caused in the Arab world.

What Western critics see as bias, El-Nawawy and Iskandar see as journalism that reflects an Arab point of view, just as CNN and the other American networks reflect a Western point of view. They urge the West to take fuller advantage of Al-Jazeera by having American officials present the Western case more fully than has been done in the past. Past appearances by Rumsfeld, Powell, Condolezza Rice, and a lower-level diplomat named Christopher Ross, they claim, have been only a small step in the direction the US must follow if it is ever to win over suspicious Arab states and peoples.

They also urge Al-Jazeera itself to find more moderate views instead of simply airing the most strident extremist voices they can find in talk shows that often resemble barroom brawls or boxing matches.

The core message of this book is that the West should stop mindlessly demonizing Al-Jazeera merely because it presents a point of view different from ours. Instead, they say, the West should take advantage of a unique opportunity to put its case to people brainwashed for decades by government-controlled media.

Teror Sebelum Tidur

Resensi oleh Qizink La Aziva*)

Judul buku: Dongeng Sebelum Tidur (Kumpulann Cerpenis Rumah Dunia)
Penerbit: Gramedia Pustaka Utama, Desember 2005
Harga: Rp. 30.000,-

Di era sekitar 70-an, orang tua kita sering mendongeng untuk anak-anaknya. Begitu banyak dongeng yang lahir dari tanah nusantara. Di Jawa Barat ada dongeng Si Kabayan yang kerap bikin kita tersenyum mendengarnya. Dongeng Malin Kundang dari Sumatera Barat sangat melekat di telinga anak-anak. Begitupun dengan dongeng Bawang Merah Bawang Putih, Jaka Tarub, atau Timun Mas dari Pulau Jawa.

Bagi orang-orang terdahulu, mendongeng merupakan wujud ungkapan cinta kepada si anak. Sehingga sangat wajar, jika kemudian dongeng begitu besar pengaruhnya dalam pembentukan perilaku anak. Kegiatan berdongeng biasanya dilakukan orang tua sebagai pengantar tidur anaknya sehingga kita pun kerap mendengar istilah Dongeng Sebelum Tidur.

Anak-anak sering terlelap tidur usai mendengar sebuah dongeng, karena khayalan mereka sudah jauh terbawa dalam dunia fantasinya. Namun keindahan sebuah dongeng bagi anak-anak ini tidak akan anda temukan ketika membaca kumpulan cerpen berjudul Dongeng Sebelum Tidur (DST) terbitan Gramedia, Jakarta. Dalam buku berisi 10 cerpen dari 5 penulis Rumah Dunia (Gola Gong, Toto ST Radik, Firman Venayaksa, Fahri Asiza, dan Tias Tatanka) ini, para pembaca tidak akan terlelap tidur tapi akan menemukan 'teror' yang akan mengganggu tidur.

Dalam dongeng (baca cerpen) Aku Ingin Jadi Clara karya Firman Venayaksa, kita akan dihadapkan pada sebuah cerita yang sangat mengerikan. Dalam cerpen itu, kita akan disuguhi sebuah cerita tentang seorang wanita yang berharap menjadi tokoh Clara dalam cerpen Seno Gumira Ajidarman. Clara merupakan tokoh yang menjadi korban pemerkosaan dalam aksi kerusuhan. Untuk mewujudkan keinginannya tersebut, wanita tersebut menawarkan dirinya kepada setiap orang (termasuk kepada pacarnya) untuk memperkosanya. Gilanya lagi, sekelompok pria malah menolak untuk memperkosa wanita tersebut. Mereka lebih suka memperkosa pacar si wanita!

Teror juga hadir dalam cerpen Mereka Bilang Kita Keturunan Monyet karya Tias Tatanka. Dalam dongeng ini, Tias mencoba mempertemukan cerita pembunuhan Qabil oleh Habil dengan Teori Evolusi Darwin yang terputus (missing link). Tias sangat berani melakukan perombakan mitos (demitologi) Qobil - Habil sekaligus mempertemukannya dengan sebuah teori ilmiah. Bukankah menurut Korrie Layun Rampan, teori ilmiah pun
pada dasarnya adalah fiksi.

Dengan imajinasinya, Tias seakan membenarkan (sekaligus mentertawakan) bahwa manusia sebenarnya memang keturunan monyet. Karena pasca pembunuhan pertama di dunia tersebut, Habil lari ke dalam hutan dan diperkosa segerombolan monyet. Pemerkosaan yang dilakukan kera betina terhadap anak pertama manusia di bumi inilah yang seakan 'memberi jawaban' bahwa manusia memang keturunan monyet.

Teror lainnya juga hadir dalam tujuh cerpen lainnya dalam buku DST ini. Dalam cerpen Batu Dalam Cermin misalnya, kita akan menemukan cerita manusia yang membatu dalam cermin, seperti dongeng Malin Kundang. Kita juga akan menemukan sebuah cerita tentang pemimpin sebuah negeri yang menjadi penjual pistol di cerpen Ratu Pistol karya Toto ST Radik.

Ketika membaca atau mendengarkan dongeng, kita akan lari sejenak dari kenyataan untuk berkhayal. Tapi ketika membaca dongeng-dongeng yang ada dalam DST, kita akan disodori beragam teror pemikiran agar tidak lari dari kenyataan. Dongeng-dongeng yang disajikan dalam DST tetap berpijak pada realitas, tak sekadar khayalan.

Sehingga berhati-hatilah dalam membaca dongeng-dongeng dalam DST. Karena anda tidak akan tertidur lelap usai membaca buku ini, seperti tokoh Inano dalam cerpen Dongeng Sebelum Tidur karya Gola Gong yang terus dipengaruhi dongeng tentang pelangi dan bidadari yang pernah didengarnya. Atau seperti tokoh wanita dalam cerpen Aku Ingin Jadi Clara yang terobsesi gara-gara baca cerpen!

Buku ini adalah kumpulan cerpen kelima Rumah Dunia, dimana 50% royaltinya disumbangkan ke Rumah Dunia. Jika anda sudah membeli novel ini, berarti sudah ikut membantu membangun Rumah Dunia. Belilah. Eh, Bacalah dan selamat membaca! Awas, Anda akan diteror dongeng sebelum tidur.

*) Penuils adalah wartawan Radar Banten