Tuhan di antara Desakan dan Kerumunan: Komodifikasi Spiritualitas Makkah di Era Kapitalisasi

Artikel ini ditulis berdasarkan data etnografi berupa catatan, observasi, pengalaman langsung penulis dan beberapa wawancara ritual umrah di Makkah tang gal 12-20 Maret, 2016. Tulisan ini berusaha memotret kota Makkah modern dari relasi antara perkembangan kota ini dan bagaimana pelaksanaan ritual umrah meliputi: tawaf, sai, dan kehidupan para peziarah di sana ketika penulis melaksanakan ibadah itu. Lebih jelasnya, penulis coba menilik pencarian Tuhan di tengah kerumuman manusia dalam kehidupan modern-postmodern dalam kesibukan kota Makkah sebagai pusat ritual dan sakralitas Muslim. Proses komodifikasi ibadah dengan berbagai motif dan latar belakang bisnis dan kehidupan sosial dan ekonomi terlihat jelas dalam ibadah umrah. Pencarian Tuhan dalam ritual ini tidak pada kondisi kesepian dan menyendiri, tetapi pencarian di tengah kerumunan kapitalisasi dan komersialisasi tempat-tempat utama Makkah di sekitar area Haram. Ritual umrah dan komodifikasi ritual di tengah pasar global menunjukkan menyatunya Islam dengan kapitalisme.This article is written based on ethnographical notes, that is observation, and experience of the writer during the performance of umrah (lesser pilgrimage) to Mecca March 12-20th, 2016. Firstly, this articles portrays the modern city of Mecca and its relation to the performance of umrah which includes tawaf (Ka'ba circumambulation), sai (running between Shofa and Marwa), and the way Muslims performed the rituals. This article describes the way Muslims sought for God amids crowded city with hundreds of people visiting the sacred sites of Kakbah, drinking water Zamzam, in the complex of Mosque Haram. The process of commodification of the ritual of umrah amidts the booming business within the political, social, and economy contexts can be seen. In this regard, praying to God in the ritual is not necessarily in the quietness,but in the crowded process of capitalization and commercialization of places in the area of Haram of Mecaa. The umrah ritual and commodification of all related activities amid the global market demonstrates the unity of Islam and capitalism

Islamic Acehnese Identity, Sharia, and Christianization Rumor: a Study of the Narratives of the Attack on the Bethel Church in Penauyong Banda Aceh

This paper explores the narratives of the attack on the Bethel church (GBI/Gereja Bethel Indonesia) in Penauyong Aceh on June 17, 2012, provided for by the victims. Among these are those who hold fear of Christian missionaries, including one of the likely perpetrators, and those who dismissed these as mere rumors. After relating the incident to other violence across the nation during the reform period and to the local Aceh context, the paper delved into the interviews undertaken on July 2013, from which the sources of narratives were taken, explaining motivations behind the mob, trauma resulting from it, and other factors contributing to the incident. Through this article I argue that the sharia implementation raise the new identity formulation of Islamic Acehnese, through which the dividing line between ‘Muslims' and others ‘non-Muslims' is further stressed. This in turn nurtures, among other things, the sentiments among the Acehnese against the non-Muslims

Fears of an Open Market: Citizens' Voices of the ASEAN Economic Community (Aec)

This article presents the way in which Indonesian citizens responded to the idea of the open market in the South East Asian country established by the AEC. The article chooses some opinions published by the Indonesian media: Kompas, Dakwatuna, Koran Muria, Koran Yogya, Islam Pos, Hizbut Tahrir website, and Jawa Pos from 2014 to 2016 which show fears of and resistance against the free market. In the arguments they exhibit the fears which are motivated by the citizens' sentiments of nationalism and religion. The article also finds that the AEC is not well understood by the citizens of Indonesia, perhaps due to the lack of socialization by the government. Indeed, the AEC documents do not show any aspects outside economy as the main enterprise of the community, such as religion and nationalism which indeed motivated the fears of the Indonesian citizens. This led to difficulty by Indonesians to accept the idea of the free market who are mostly religious and hold nationalism in high regard. This paper also presents the detailed reasons and the arguments of the fears of the free market in the South East Asia

A Descriptive Analysis of a Problem-Based Learning Police Academy

In the 1970s, Egon Bitner offered a critique of police academy training, signified by the ability to train compliant soldierbureaucrats rather than competent practitioners. Over the years, subsequent training models have been implemented, evaluated, and modified in an attempt to exceed what has been deemed adequate training. This research provides the first of several outcome evaluations as part of a longitudinal study on the efficacy of problem-based learning in a Basic Law Enforcement Academy (BLEA). Data for this research include survey results for the period of 2009–2012. Early results suggest the problematic nature of the dualistic dilemma within police academy training. Discussed are adaptations in the context of this dilemma. Furthermore, the research explores how environmental factors and broader socialization and acculturation processes should be included within subsequent implementations

Remapping in cerebral and cerebellar cortices is not restricted by somatotopy

A fundamental organizing principle in the somatosensory and motor systems is somatotopy, where specific body parts are represented separately and adjacently to other body parts, resulting in a body map. Different terminals of the sensorimotor network show varied somatotopic layouts, in which the relative position, distance and overlap between body-part representations differ. Since somatotopy is best characterized in the primary somatosensory (S1) and motor (M1) cortices, these terminals have been the main focus of research on somatotopic remapping following loss of sensory input (e.g. arm amputation). Cortical remapping is generally considered to be driven by the layout of the underlying somatotopy, such that neighboring body-part representations tend to activate the deprived brain region. Here, we challenge the assumption that somatotopic layout restricts remapping, by comparing patterns of remapping in humans born without one hand (hereafter, one-handers, n=26) across multiple terminals of the sensorimotor pathway. We first report that in the cerebellum of one-handers, the deprived hand region represents multiple body parts. Importantly, the representations of some of these body parts do not neighbor the deprived hand region. We further replicate our previous finding, showing a similar pattern of remapping in the deprived hand region of the cerebral cortex in one-handers. Finally, we report preliminary results of a similar remapping pattern in the putamen of one-handers. Since these three sensorimotor terminals (cerebellum, cerebrum, putamen) contain different somatotopic layouts, the parallel remapping they undergo demonstrates that the mere spatial layout of body-part representations may not exclusively dictate remapping in the sensorimotor systems

Real-time decoding of question-and-answer speech dialogue using human cortical activity.

Natural communication often occurs in dialogue, differentially engaging auditory and sensorimotor brain regions during listening and speaking. However, previous attempts to decode speech directly from the human brain typically consider listening or speaking tasks in isolation. Here, human participants listened to questions and responded aloud with answers while we used high-density electrocorticography (ECoG) recordings to detect when they heard or said an utterance and to then decode the utterance's identity. Because certain answers were only plausible responses to certain questions, we could dynamically update the prior probabilities of each answer using the decoded question likelihoods as context. We decode produced and perceived utterances with accuracy rates as high as 61% and 76%, respectively (chance is 7% and 20%). Contextual integration of decoded question likelihoods significantly improves answer decoding. These results demonstrate real-time decoding of speech in an interactive, conversational setting, which has important implications for patients who are unable to communicate

The potential for preventing the delivery and perinatal mortality of lowbirth- weight babies in a black urban population

Objective. To determine the potentiaJ for preventing the delivery and perinatal  mortality of low-birth-weight (LBW) babies in a black urban population.Design. Cross-sectionaJ descriptive study.Setting. All women delivering babies weighing less than 2 500 g at Kalafong  Hospital in a 6-month period (December 1991 - May 1992).Main outcome measures. The primary obstetric reason for delivery; whether the  labour was of spontaneous onset or iatrogenic; whether labour was theoretically  preventable using currently accepted practice; the number of patients in whom suppression of delivery was attempted in the theoretically preventable group; and the perinatal mortality rate of that group.Results. There were 124 perinatal deaths (22.5%) in the 550 LBW babies delivered from 465 singleton pregnancies, 42 twin pregnancies and 1 triplet pregnancy. The  primary obstetric reasons for delivery were spontaneous preterm labour (28%), hypertensive diseases (19%), premature rupture of membranes (180/0),  spontaneous labour in lightfor-gestational-age babies (16%), unexplained intra-uterine deaths (8%), antepartum haemomhage (8%) and other causes (3%). A medical decision to terminate the pregnancy before labour was made in 177 (34.8%) cases, the major reason being hypertensive diseases (84 mothers;  47.5%). In the remaining 331 mothers with spontaneous onset of labour, labour was theoretically preventable in 63 (19%) and prevention was only attempted in 12 (2.4% of the total mothers). The major reason for not attempting to suppress labour in the others was that the patients arrived too late at the hospital for intervention to take place.Conclusion. Hospital staff can do little to prevent the delivery of LBW babies in a black urban population

Spin-guides and spin-splitters: Waveguide analogies in one-dimensional spin chains

Here we show a direct mapping between waveguide theory and spin chain transport, opening an alternative approach to quantum information transport in the solid-state. By applying temporally varying control profiles to a spin chain, we design a virtual waveguide or 'spin-guide' to conduct individual spin excitations along defined space-time trajectories of the chain. We explicitly show that the concepts of confinement, adiabatic bend loss and beamsplitting can be mapped from optical waveguide theory to spin-guides (and hence 'spin-splitters'). Importantly, the spatial scale of applied control pulses is required to be large compared to the inter-spin spacing, and thereby allowing the design of scalable control architectures.Comment: 5 figure