I finally watched Christopher Nolan's latest film, Tenet. I won't attempt to explain what I understood from this notoriously confusing story, but what I will say is that I enjoyed the ride. It got me thinking about my rudimentary conceptions of time. What I would do if I could time travel? What would be at stake? So, as my mind wandered, I found myself going back in time, back to Jakarta, the capital of the world's 4th most populated country, Indonesia.
'Habitat Degradation: Deforestation' uses data showing the decline in rainforest area from 1970 to 2010. Image credit: Jill Pelto. Visit Jill Pelto's site to see more of her artwork that visualises data in arresting ways.
These lush ecosystems are disappearing before our eyes, and with them, millions of beautiful species. I’m quite certain that anyone would agree that a tiger is a magnificent creature, yet how many people realize that they are critically endangered? For this series I chose to separate the animals from their habitat because that is ultimately what we are doing. The tiger is trapped outside the forest, cornered. He is defensive and angry that we are sealing his fate.' - Jill Pelto
Late spring of 2014, nearing the end of my Master studies in Sustainable Development at Dauphine University Paris, I joined my wife, Sarah, in Jakarta. She had already commenced her internship at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) just shortly before I arrived. I was due to start at Greenpeace. Thanks to the help of Sarah's relative, journalist Abang Dio, who introduced me via email to Longgena Ginting, Former Country Director of Greenpeace Indonesia. A dream come true - the Greenpeace team agreed to receive me for 3 months! Having gotten married 8 months before in Paris, we were now starting another new chapter in our lives, living and working in this vibrant, heaving, sweltering capital.
I had been to Indonesia during the summer of 2012 to meet my fiancé's Indo family. 2 years later I was back on the bustling streets of Jakarta. Soaking in all the sights and smells gave me my Proustian moment. All the familiar smells were rushing back. Satay sizzling, intermingled with diesel fumes, and wafts of kretek swirling in the humid air. Such aromas can be found in places where the haves and have-nots rub shoulders, while hunched over on stools at kerbside warungs. A metropolis where sarongs stretch, crease, and bend in silent prayer. A city that is growing so fast, it is 6 hours ahead of Paris.
Soon after exiting Soekarno-Hatta International airport, kerbside in Jakarta for delicious satay and nasi goreng till I explode. Jom makan (let's eat)!
It was a summer unlike any other. I joined the Forest Team during a time when Greenpeace was one of the leading voices in the debate on what kind of economic growth path Indonesia should take to ensure sustainability is more than just a buzzword.
Plundering Indonesia's rainforests for economic interests could not continue unfettered and unchallenged without irreversible adverse effects on humankind. Working at Greenpeace was an honour. I met real heroes. Dedicating their blood, sweat, and tears, to ensure that their country and our common home do not fall victim to an irreparable tragedy of the commons.
135 million votes were going to be cast in a couple of months, in what would be remembered as the closest election in Indonesia's history. Head to head was former furniture maker turned politician, Joko Widodo, known as ‘Jokowi’ and hailed as Indonesia’s ‘Obama’, up against Prabowo Subianto, a former high ranking military official with allegations of human rights abuses, and son-in-law of Suharto, the former dictator, and second president reigning 31 years.
Watching television debates and media coverage of the Presidential campaigns, listening to what each candidate vowed to deliver for the world’s third-largest democracy, all felt like history was in the making.
Masks worn outside in a pre-covid world are normal for millions in Asia. This scene is from 2014. Sumatran forest fires are still problematic for millions, affecting Indonesia's neighbours in Singapore and Malaysia with transboundary haze. Image credit: Ahmad Yusni / EPA
El nino. Climate change. Deforestation. Sustainability. Drained Peat. Drought. Palm Oil. Forest fires. Toxic smog. Transboundary Haze. Economic growth. Democracy. Livelihoods. Life and death. All these words buzzed in my head while I would drift to sleep to the sound of a whirring air conditioning unit and Sarah snoring. They clattered in my head while I gripped for my life, to a bar or a limb, as a passenger in a Kopaja without apparent suspension. The ageing people carrier bound for my connecting Transjakarta bus would eventually take me to Greenpeace Indonesia HQ. Sarah and I refused advice to 'travel like expats' in air-conditioned Blue Bird Taxis, safe within the cool aircon cover away from the morning heat, pungent diesel-infused air, and frenzy of macet, afflicting millions of Jakartans daily.
Kopaja commutes were always grimy, intimate, hot, and sweaty affairs any time of day. For the equivalent of less than 50p (more or less depending on the mood of the fare collectors and negotiation skills), this green and white minibus brought me into contact with all generations of Indonesians, from street children busking musicians to grandparents making their way home after a day of selling their home-cooked food.
At Greenpeace Indonesia, campaigning to preserve the ‘lungs of the world’, to ensure our world will be enjoyed for posterity, was awe-inspiring and humbling to witness and be a part of. It wasn’t all protest and direct action. Hundreds of hours of cigarette breaks took place in the car park, kofi breaks, meetings after the meetings, macet on the way to more meetings, 5-a-side football after work, using motorcycles scouring for a jalan tikus (shortcut) to get to the astroturf pitch at a reasonable time despite the macet!
After a good game of footie with some of the Greenpeace guys!
In the presence of press and media outlets, our Greenpeace team of lead campaigners engaged in discussions with the political campaign teams of Jokowi and Prabowo during their rally events.
We launched a direct action during the televised Presidential debate to remind the Presidential candidates to not forget to talk about the environment!
Image Credit: Seto Wardhana
Selamat berdebat, lingkungan butuh perlindungan! Happy debate, the environment needs protection! Image credit: Faizal Fanani
Greenpeace co-hosted talks at cafés which were attended by Vice Presidential Candidate running mate of Presidential Candidate, Joko Widodo. We hosted volunteer gatherings and film screenings, bringing those who were suffering from the effects of forest fires in Riau, Sumatra into contact with the Greenpeace team and volunteers in Jakarta. I wrote Human Interest stories and spoke with Godi Utama, Regional Video Producer for Greenpeace Southeast Asia, and other local filmmakers about their journey from pre-production to post-production.
After work, I would meet Sarah outside her UNDP office and we would grab a bubble tea nearby. The same street that would fall victim to terrorist gunfire and the deaths of 8 people with 23 injured, just less than two years later, followed by life continuing as normal, just the very next day...
Before I knew it, my internship ended. Jokowi was elected President and a transboundary haze ASEAN agreement was in the works.
Sarah and I went to visit friends and family across the country and in Malaysia. We had some time to find some calm at Rimba ecolodge, before I returned to London to pursue a Master in Environmental Technology, specialising in Water Management at Imperial College.
“Why do you need to go back and do a Masters? I don’t have a Masters. We need people here, on the ground doing the hard work, not in University doing more studying”, said a senior Greenpeace colleague to me during my last week at Greenpeace.
I thought about what was said. The words still echo in my head today. Should I have stayed? Could I have stayed? Back then I realised that I needed the time to zoom out and see the forest from the trees. The people really needed, I believed, were either locals or individuals with technical skills that I didn't possess, yet.
I had the privilege of being able to go ‘back home’ to London, where millions of consumers, Government departments, and private companies were all entangled in a supply chain that was leading to the decimation of Indonesian rainforests, the deaths of Indonesians, and harm to their neighbours due to forest fires, and the extinction of flora and fauna at alarming rates, while turning a profit for those invested in such economic activity.
Being back in Europe wasn't the same after everything I had witnessed and learned. Back where the demand for unsustainable palm oil production, consumer goods production and consumption were all contributing to climate change feedback patterns that adversely affected millions of lives, and put millions more at risk.
Future generations would not have it any better unless real meaningful change was made today. Fast forward 6 years, and there is a peat fire emergency. According to recent studies, the compounding effects of the COVID pandemic, transboundary haze, and socioenvironmental-epidemiological feedback patterns, all make matters worse.
At Imperial College, I found more answers and yet more questions. I was surrounded by experts in their fields. I was exposed to learning about nexuses and interconnections that inspired me to cultivate a systems thinking approach to problem framing and solving.
I relocated to Paris to finish my desk-based research thesis. My wish to carry out field research in Tibet proved impossible given the political sensitivities of my research objectives. Instead, I conducted a comparative analysis and critique of the different perspectives on constructed and planned hydroelectric dams, focusing on the Yarlung Tsangpo – Brahmaputra River that flows from the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China.
Following the completion of my thesis, I contributed articles to Asialyst, an online French news agency. With Sarah, we co-wrote several articles, including an article based on my thesis. It also got picked up by France Tibet's news site. The articles on Asialyst are in French, but most browsers can allow you to translate the page if need be. They can be found at the following links:
Tibet under the weight of Chinese dams
Indonesia under fire from toxic growth
The Coral Triangle treasure in peril
Malaysia: fight against variable geometry fundamentalism
Having submitted my thesis at Imperial I returned back to Paris on a coach. While I was heading to my home in Paris, hundreds and thousands of asylum seekers would try to make their way across the Channel, in hope of maybe building a new home.
I juggled work as a Communications Officer for Théâtre Pixel, teaching English part-time, working as an independent researcher, and contributing articles for Asialyst. Settling into our new apartment, having a healthy work/life balance, life in Paris was good.
Sarah and I made plans to go out one evening with some friends. After some back and forth we decided to chill indoors instead. It was a decision that may have saved our lives. The area we were planning to wander in that evening would soon be all over the news. Sirens blared as murderers swarmed the streets, ruthlessly shooting people. Antoine Leiris lost his wife Helene in the Bataclan theatre in Paris. His letter to her killers left me speechless:
“On Friday night, you stole the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you will not have my hate. I don’t know who you are and I don’t want to know. You are dead souls.”
“You want me to be scared, to see my fellow citizens through suspicious eyes, to sacrifice my freedom for security. You have failed. I will not change.”
A few weeks later, COP 21 arrived in Paris. I met up with Teguh Surya, Forest Conservation Campaigner from Greenpeace. He gave me the rundown on what was going on inside the talks, while we ate peanuts and bought each other drinks at a cheap bar near Gare du Nord that gave limitless peanuts in small ramekins. It felt reassuring to know that someone like him was on the other side of the curtain fighting for the cause. The talks closed with an unprecedented signing of an agreement to limit the ideal global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celcius. Most countries put pen to paper, however, the USA would announce its withdrawal from the agreement under newly elected President Trump.
Sarah and I returned to London in July 2016. We secured new jobs in the charity and social enterprise sectors. I joined an innovative social enterprise called Solutions for the Planet as the South East Programme Coordinator and Lead on Communications. We arrived in London just before the combined shockwaves of the Brexit 'Leave' vote and Trump being sworn into office would leave us questioning whether this was all a surreal dream.
3 months later the surreal dream would become a nightmare. I received a phone call telling me that my childhood friend, Imran 'Deli' as he was known amongst us, had left a suicide letter. It had my phone number and instructions to call me and for me to tell the others. I was asked where he could have gone. I made calls and relayed possible locations. Within a couple of hours, as I was on my way to his home, I got a phone call from his family confirming that he had hung himself, in Hainault Forest, a place where all us guys once played keepie uppies together, thrown stones into the horizon, and laughed while sharing our dreams and sufferings.
"You're living the dream", Deli said to me during one of our last conversations about my new job that allowed me to work remotely. I told him we would have so much more time to catch up, now that I was back in London.
The days, weeks, and months that followed became a crash course, steep learning curve of denial, survival, acceptance, and mental health awareness. That winter, while with family in the South of France, I decided that I would continue making my moves to live up to my dreams.
Fast forward, and along the way, I have had the honour of working with thousands of young minds and students, spreading the light, informing, enabling, and facilitating change agents on issues that matter to us all. The next generation of thinkers and doers, to shape a better tomorrow.
"Through the highs and lows of life, we're all heroes," wrote Deli in his suicide letter. His words are never too far from me.
During these unprecedented, challenging times, with talks of lockdowns, vaccines, and new variants, it can appear that urgent issues like climate change and toxic smog from forest fires are beyond our horizons and time zones. Not on our radar, and therefore either not our problem, or a problem we can deal with later, after 'more urgent ones'.
We are, I believe, for now, irreversibly and inextricably (bar a nuclear holocaust or reverse entropy à la Tenet) part of a world, part of a globalised capitalistic system (in its latest edition), where even mundane lives, and daily actions and inactions in the so called 'developed world' and beyond, are causing ripple effects. Effects for better or worse, depending on your chosen paradigm and cup of tea.
How will it all unravel and play out in the end? Time will tell and by those who have time on their side. For now, Zachary, my beautiful 10 month old son is crying. It's time to change his nappy by the sound...and smell of it! Sarah is telling me it's my turn with a playful tone of 'don't even bother telling me otherwise!'. We all have our turn eventually.
It's was nice to read and reflect on your past encounters and experiences. To remember our brother Deli and keeping his memory alive. Great work bro.