About a Movement

About a Movement

I was going to say: 
I need a house 
But then I changed it to: 
Everyone needs land 
Note: everyone 
I thought about 
a protest movement 
but how’s that possible 
on my own? 
I’m not a holy man 
who can live on a handful of rice 
and a pitcher of water 
I need a shirt and a pair of pants 
to cover my nakedness 
I thought about a protest movement 
but how’s that possible 
if I don’t speak out?  

(Anonymous poem on the calendar-poster Tanah Untuk Rakyat. The author,  Wiji Thukul, is still missing, assumed kidnapped and later killed by the military  during the 1998 reformasi movement.)

(Translation of Tentang Sebuah Gerakan)
Source:
Land for the People: The State and Agrarian Conflict in Indonesia
by Anton Lucas
Ohio University Press  Athens 
© 2013 by the 
Center for International Studies 
Ohio University 
All rights reserved