One morning at a crossroads, an aqua bottle was dumped into the road from a glass gap in a half-closed car. Suddenly from behind someone paddled down and picked up the empty bottle, then threw it back into the trash bin that was half tilted on the sidewalk.
It struck me. My eyes fixed on the flip flops. The simplicity flip-flops that brought me back to a true activist who had been "lost" in Waimital, Seram Island, Maluku returned to IPB with his success story in helping poor transmigrant farmers. He is a Mohamad Kasim Arifin, who achieved success with his defense.
The charm of Kasim Arifin's simplicity also tore apart the conscience of the famous poet Taufik Ismail. As soon as he saw himself, a veterinarian who only worked his poetry (as he admitted in his poem in memory of Mohamad Kasim Arifin), he felt the need to hide his face poking at Ciliwung River. The eunuch whose life was sparkly made him feel ashamed and guilty.
Mohamad Kasim Arifin, an IPB student for 15 years served in Waimital, Seram Island, was born April 18, 1938 in Langsa, East Aceh. He is a student of the Faculty of Agriculture, Bogor Agricultural University. In 1964 the Kasim was sent by his faculty to undertake "Employment of Students" program (a kind of Real Work Lecture now) for several months in Waimital, with the task of introducing the Panca Usaha Tani program. But what happened instead was that he was so involved with his service teaching local farmers how to increase their crop and livestock yields. Finally he forgot to go home and finish his thesis.
Kasim helped the villagers become independent. Together he opened a village road, built new rice fields, made irrigation, and all that was done without the help of a cent from the government. The local people really appreciate simplicity, generosity and gentle speech. By the local community, he was called Antua, a term for people respected in Maluku.
His parents asked Kasim to go home immediately but the request was ignored. Likewise the school vocation, even the rector of IPB though, Prof. Dr. Ir. Andi Hakim Nasution, he ignored it. The third summons of his school, which was accompanied by a special envoy of the Rector of IPB, his own friend, Saleh Widodo, finally succeeded in moving Kasim to go home and receive a special agricultural engineer title, not because he succeeded in defending his thesis in an exam, but because he had shown his devotion for 15 years no strings attached and no salary.
Eunuchs usually only wear flops. But on the graduation day, September 22, 1979 he was wearing a suit, tie and shoes, donations from his friends, which only made him feel hot. Taufiq Ismail, a prominent Indonesian poet who is also a Kasim classmate, presented him with a poem entitled: "Poetry for a Farmer from Waimital, Seram Island, which today returns to his alma mater".