aku, ayah, dan sebuah video

Aku dan ayah berasal dari generasi yang sangat berbeda.

Ayah penghisap berat surya 16, dan penghirup setia nafas orde baru. Ayah itu pegawai negara, bersekolah di akademi hukum militer, penganut dan pengamal P4 sejati. Jangan coba bicara soal pemikiran sosialis di depan dia, kamu akan dituduh komunis dan merong-rong kekuasaan negara.

Menurut ayah, tidak masalah kalau hutan dirusak dan dijadikan kebun akasia atau kelapa sawit. Toh tetap hijau-hijau juga. Dia penganut manusiasentris. Kepentingan manusia harus didahulukan, tak peduli kalau harus mengeringkan lahan gambut, atau membabat habis habitat apapun di Kampar.

Tentu bukan salah ayah, apa ada pendidikan di sekolah Indonesia yang tidak manusia-sentris?

Sebab itu ayah benci sekali mendengar GreenPeace. Kata ayah mereka itu sekelompok anak muda pengganggu, perusak.

Kalaupun ayah tidak meninggal 5 tahun lalu, mungkin dia akan menderita serangan jantung hebat waktu aku bekerja paruh waktu di NGO yang mengurusi sanitasi, dan begitu girangnya mendapat fellowship di GreenPeace Asia Tenggara.

Delapan tahun lalu, waktu aku masih cupu di semester I, ayah sering anggap aku aneh karena menyuruh ibu membawa keranjang ungu ke pasar. Begitu juga waktu aku bawa tas kanvas ke pusat perbelanjaan. Kata ayah, dia malu dengan kebiasaanku membawa tas belanja sendiri. Lebih bergaya kalau keluar pusat perbelanjaan dengan kantong bertuliskan merek tertentu. Haha...

Kupikir ibu dan adik juga sebal kalau berkendara bersama aku dan ayah karena kami sering berdiskusi yang berujung debat soal banyak hal. Terutama soal kantong belanja dan botol minum sendiri. Kata ayah aku seperti orang susah, bawa-bawa botol berisi air mineral, padahal air mineral botolan ada di mana-mana.

Mungkin Jogja yang mengubahku, tapi sebelum jogja, ada sebuah video luar biasa, yang entah di mana pertama kali aku lihat bertahun lalu. Aku berulang kali berniat menunjukan video tersebut kepada ayah, hingga ayah meninggal, niat tinggal niat.

Ini video yang aku lihat waktu itu, video luar biasa yang bikin nangis waktu pertama kali nonton, video yang harus ditonton sama generasi kita. Dan harus ditonton ayah.

Tapi aku yakin sekarang ayah sudah paham meski tak menonton video ini.

Hello, I'm Severn Suzuki speaking for E.C.O. - The Environmental Children's Organisation.

We are a group of twelve and thirteen-year-olds from Canada trying to make a difference:? Vanessa Suttie, Morgan Geisler, Michelle Quigg and me. We raised all the money ourselves to come six thousand miles to tell you adults you must change your ways. Coming here today, I have no hidden agenda. I am fighting for my future.
Losing my future is not like losing an election or a few points on the stock market. I am here to speak for all generations to come.
I am here to speak on behalf of the starving children around the world whose cries go unheard.
I am here to speak for the countless animals dying across this planet because they have nowhere left to go. We cannot afford to be not heard.
I am afraid to go out in the sun now because of the holes in the ozone. I am afraid to breathe the air because I don't know what chemicals are in it.
I used to go fishing in Vancouver with my dad until just a few years ago we found the fish full of cancers. And now we hear about animals and plants going extinct every day -- vanishing forever.
In my life, I have dreamt of seeing the great herds of wild animals, jungles and rainforests full of birds and butterflies, but now I wonder if they will even exist for my children to see.
Did you have to worry about these little things when you were my age?
All this is happening before our eyes and yet we act as if we have all the time we want and all the solutions. I'm only a child and I don't have all the solutions, but I want you to realise, neither do you!

•     You don't know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer.
•     You don't know how to bring salmon back up a dead stream.
•     You don't know how to bring back an animal now extinct.
•     And you can't bring back forests that once grew where there is now desert.

If you don't know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!

Here, you may be delegates of your governments, business people, organisers, reporters or politicians - but really you are mothers and fathers, brothers and sister, aunts and uncles - and all of you are somebody's child.
I'm only a child yet I know we are all part of a family, five billion strong, in fact, 30 million species strong and we all share the same air, water and soil -- borders and governments will never change that.

I'm only a child yet I know we are all in this together and should act as one single world towards one single goal.
In my anger, I am not blind, and in my fear, I am not afraid to tell the world how I feel.
In my country, we make so much waste, we buy and throw away, buy and throw away, and yet northern countries will not share with the needy. Even when we have more than enough, we are afraid to lose some of our wealth, afraid to share.
In Canada, we live the privileged life, with plenty of food, water and shelter -- we have watches, bicycles, computers and television sets.
Two days ago here in Brazil, we were shocked when we spent some time with some children living on the streets. And this is what one child told us: "I wish I was rich and if I were, I would give all the street children food, clothes, medicine, shelter and love and affection."
If a child on the street who has nothing, is willing to share, why are we who have everything still so greedy?
I can't stop thinking that these children are my age, that it makes a tremendous difference where you are born, that I could be one of those children living in the Favellas of Rio; I could be a child starving in Somalia; a victim of war in the Middle East or a beggar in India.
I'm only a child yet I know if all the money spent on war was spent on ending poverty and finding environmental answers, what a wonderful place this earth would be!
At school, even in kindergarten, you teach us to behave in the world. You teach us:
•     not to fight with others,
•     to work things out,
•     to respect others,
•     to clean up our mess,
•     not to hurt other creatures
•     to share - not be greedy.
Then why do you go out and do the things you tell us not to do?

Do not forget why you're attending these conferences, who you're doing this for -- we are your own children. You are deciding what kind of world we will grow up in. Parents should be able to comfort their children by saying "everything's going to be alright" , "we're doing the best we can" and "it's not the end of the world".
But I don't think you can say that to us anymore. Are we even on your list of priorities? My father always says "You are what you do, not what you say."

Well, what you do makes me cry at night. You grown ups say you love us. I challenge you, please make your actions reflect your words. Thank you for listening