Friday, January 19, 2007

Our Story on Munir will be Aired...

That's the title on NS' e-mail to a group of people that support and have made this thing happen. Here is the detail of this good news:

Dear friends and colleagues,
I am very happy to announce that The Global Village radio report on Munir that so many of us worked on will be aired next week on CBC (the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).

The first show will be aired on CBC Radio One on January 25 at 8pm EST, and the second on CBC Radio Two on January 27at 6:30pm EST. For those of you in Indonesia, it can be heard on the internet at
http://www.cbc.ca/globalvillage/ on January 26 at 8am and January 28 at 6:30am (I believe that you're ahead of Eastern Standard Time by 12 hours). It is a very short piece (just 3 minutes or so), but I hope that it captures the main messages of the campaign for justice being led by Suciwati, Kontras, Imparsial and so many other human rights activists and organizations. The report includes parts of my interview with Suciwati and with Endah Widiastuti, a young musician based in Jakarta. As you all know, The Global Village programme on CBC features "news through music", so the songs written in tribute to Munir by Endah and other Indonesian musicians (Iwan Fals and Segorames) will be played during the report. The solidarity of these and other artists is highlighted in this piece.

Thanks again to all of you who made this radio report possible. A special thanks to Suciwati, Usman, Rusdi, Mufti, Endah, Elisabeth and all the friends and family who worked hard behind the scenes to help make this happen.

With warm regards,
NS


... I'm glad, very glad indeed that this radio report on Munir will be aired on Canadian national radio (CBC) next week *smile*. While NS here there were a lot of people would go the extra mile to help her just so she could make it to the interviews, took the "ambience" during the Munir's Memorial gathering around HI, or converted the audio piece to the USB. Dear friend, we made it! Of course we have decided to donate the honorarium the CBC has paid us to do this report to help cover the costs of Suciwati and Usman's lobbying and advocacy visit to Canada. This will be a CCEVI contribution towards this important visit.

When I told one of my friends why I was so busy during that time and always re-scheduled our meeting... she later asked, "I'm concerned about it too. I wish I could join you. And, why did you do it?" I said, "Munir had done a great thing for us, for Indonesia... it's a pity if I was given the opportunity and I didn't do anything. Don't you think so?"

Like Mother Teresa said... do small thing with great love and care. Well, it's just my small contribution to the country that I love-to-hate and hate-to-love, like a drop in the ocean... Imagine lots of drops and we could make a huge wave *smile*.

Thank you, NS, for your admirable spirit!

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