Impian Besar "Raja Tempe" di Jepang

KOMPAS,
Minggu, 21 Februari 2010
GM SUDARTA

Perjalanan dalam udara dingin musim gugur ke daerah pegunungan di Katsuragawa yang terletak sekitar 30 kilometer dari Kyoto adalah perjalanan yang menyajikan keindahan alam Jepang.

Jalan menanjak berliku dihiasi pepohonan momiji yang daunnya mulai memerah cerah di sepanjang jalan. Kabut meliputi puncak-puncak gunung dan hutan pinus lalu berakhir di sebuah lembah hijau. Rumah tradisional Jepang beratap rumbia tebal masih tampak di sana-sini dengan tamannya yang khas seakan bersatu dengan alam. Itulah awal perjumpaan saya dengan Rustono (41), sang Raja Tempe, sebagaimana teman-teman Jepang menyebutnya.

Di kawasan desa yang indah inilah konotasi yang menyepelekan tempe, seperti sebutan bangsa tempe atau mental tempe, sirna. Dari sinilah tempe mulai dikenal dan merambah hampir ke seluruh Jepang. Kemasan seberat 200 gram dengan label Rusto’s Tempeh bergambar ilustrasi suasana kehidupan kampung di Jawa tersebar di berbagai toko swalayan di Jepang.


Rustono (kanan)
sumber Kompas

Sebuah rumah tradisional Jepang, cagar budaya yang telah berusia dua abad, adalah tempat perjanjian saya bertemu dengan Rustono. Ketika kaki mulai melangkah memasuki gerbang kayu di halaman berpagar bambu, terdengar tiupan saksofon sopran yang mendendangkan lagu ”Going Home” dari Kenny G.

Rupanya sang raja sedang asyik melantunkan lagu penuh kerinduan yang menghanyutkan itu dengan duduk santai di batu besar di tengah taman di bawah rindangnya pohon momiji, ditingkah suara gemercik sungai jernih yang membelah desa, ditemani sang istri di sampingnya.

Semangat dari kerinduan

”Kampung halaman di tanah kelahiran memang selalu mendatangkan rindu,” Rustono menjelaskan ketika ditanya tentang lagu favoritnya itu. ”Dan berdendang dengan tiupan saksofon adalah alunan suara jiwa paling dalam,” tambahnya.

Kerinduan akan tanah kelahiran di sebuah kota kecil Grobogan, nun jauh di pedalaman Jawa Tengah dengan hamparan sawah dan hutan jati, rupanya masih saja mengusik Rustono meskipun sudah 13 tahun dia menetap di Jepang.

Bagi Rustono yang alumnus Akademi Perhotelan Sahid (masuk tahun 1987), kerinduan tersebut bukanlah bernuansa sendu berlarut-larut, melainkan pembawa semangat menentukan keputusan jalan hidup.

Tahun 1997, setelah enam tahun bekerja di Hotel Sahid Yogyakarta, perubahan jalan hidup mulai menunjukkan arahnya. Ketika sebuah grup wisatawan Jepang berkunjung ke Yogya, seorang bidadari dari Negeri Matahari Terbit, Tsuruko Kuzumoto, yang tinggi semampai berkulit kuning langsat menambat hati Rustono. Dan rupanya dia tidak bertepuk sebelah tangan. Tahun itu juga berangkatlah Rustono menyusul ke Jepang dan mulai menempuh hidup barunya di Kyoto.

Berbagai pekerjaan pernah dia lakukan. Dari bekerja di perusahaan roti sampai ke perusahaan sayur-mayur. Di situ Rustono banyak memerhatikan etos kerja karyawan Jepang. Selain penuh tanggung jawab, mereka juga berupaya mencapai target dan ikut serta dalam menjaga kualitas produksi. Pun Pemerintah Jepang sangat teliti dengan secara periodik memeriksa kualitas produksi, meninjau perusahaan, sampai memerhatikan kebersihan ruangan, termasuk peralatan dan meja kerja.

Menurut pengamatan Rustono, makanan adalah kebutuhan paling pokok kehidupan manusia. Itu sebabnya mengapa segala bentuk makanan diproduksi di Jepang dan industrinya sangat maju. Terbetik dalam pikiran Rustono, kenapa tidak mencoba membuka usaha makanan yang belum ada di Jepang. Inspirasinya datang setelah mengenal nato, sebangsa makanan dari kedelai yang rasanya sangat khas untuk lidah Jepang.

Jadilah dia mencoba membuat tempe dengan sedikit pengetahuan yang pernah dia kenal. Selama empat bulan dia berkutat mencoba membuat tempe, dengan ragi dari Indonesia dan kedelai Jepang, tetapi selalu gagal. Hingga kemudian dengan menggunakan air dari sumber mata air di kediaman mertua, dia berhasil membuat tempe.

Perjalanan panjang

Jalan untuk mencapai keberhasilan usaha yang dia tempuh sangatlah panjang dan terjal. Meskipun berhasil dalam percobaan membuat tempe, dia belum yakin benar. Pastilah itu bukan hanya karena menggunakan air asli dari mata air langsung.

Setelah anak pertamanya, Noemi Kuzumoto, berusia tiga tahun, dengan izin istrinya Rustono kembali ke Indonesia selama tiga bulan untuk belajar membuat tempe kepada 60 perajin tempe di seluruh Jawa.

Beberapa perajin memang ada yang tidak sepenuhnya memberi rahasia pembuatan tempe, tetapi banyak hal yang bisa dia serap dari pengalaman para perajin tempe di Jawa Tengah. Misalnya, kenapa tempe bisa lebih terasa gurih, bagaimana hasilnya tempe yang dibungkus dengan daun bambu atau daun pisang, ataupun dengan plastik, dan bagaimana bisa menghasilkan fermentasi tempe dengan baik.

Yang kemudian tak kalah berat adalah memperoleh izin produksi di Jepang. Dia harus melalui penelitian dan tes di laboratorium, hingga harus memenuhi kesanggupan bertanggung jawab atas kualitas dan kandungan bahan produksi sesuai dengan yang tertera di kemasan bahwa kandungan gizi tempe kedelai setara dan kandungan gizi daging, termasuk mematuhi peraturan daur ulang kemasan.

Kendala cukup berat yang juga dapat dia lalui adalah soal menghadapi iklim alam di Jepang. Fermentasi tempe hanya bisa berhasil dalam cuaca kelembaban 60 persen hingga 90 persen, yang tentu saja tidak masalah di Indonesia. Di Jepang yang mempunyai empat musim, mempunyai kelembaban udara yang dibutuhkan tempe hanya pada musim panas. Tetapi, lewat penelitian kecil-kecilan dan telaten, hasilnya sangat besar. Dia bisa mengatur kelembaban pada segala musim di dalam ruangan produksi.

Peralatan produksi juga hasil inovasi Rustono sendiri. Alat pencuci kedelai dia modifikasi dari bekas mesin pencuci cumi-cumi yang dia dapat dari perusahaan perikanan. Begitu pula untuk pengemasan, dia datangkan mesin bikinan Bantul dan Surabaya.

The King of Tempe

Meskipun julukan ini hanya gurauan teman-teman sejawatnya, rasanya memang tak ada yang salah. Kini kapasitas produksi Rustono setiap lima hari bisa mencapai 16.000 bungkus tempe dengan kemasan 200 gram. Untuk mendukung produksi, dia mengadakan kontrak kerja sama dengan petani kedelai di Nagahama, kawasan Shiga.

Dari peta penyebaran Rusto’s Tempeh yang tertera di ruang kerjanya, terlihat konsumennya tersebar di kota-kota hampir seluruh Jepang. Selain masyarakat Indonesia di Jepang dan masyarakat Jepang sendiri, konsumennya juga meliputi perusahaan jasa boga, rumah makan vegetarian, toko swalayan, sekolah, hingga rumah sakit di Fukuoka.

Memang usahanya berawal dari skala kecil dengan pemasaran dari pintu ke pintu. Rumah produksi dia bangun sendiri tanpa tukang bangunan dan tanpa pemikiran arsitektural, tetapi hanya dengan intuisi yang mirip intuisi seniman. Dan dari usaha rumahan itu sekarang Rustono mencapai taraf pembangunan pabrik tempe di kawasan pinggir hutan yang bermata air, di atas lahan 1.000 meter persegi.

Penghargaan

Di Jepang sudah banyak buku mengupas tentang tempe. Di antaranya yang terkenal adalah The Book of Tempeh, tulisan William Shurtleft dan Akiko Aoujaga. Buku besar ini lengkap dengan uraian dan ilustrasi menarik tentang pembuatan dan manfaat tempe dengan latar belakang budaya Indonesia, terutama Jawa.

Ada juga buku terbitan Asosiasi Tempe di Jepang yang dikelola para profesor dan ahli gizi. Asosiasi ini mengadakan penelitian dan setiap tahun mengadakan seminar tentang tempe. Salah satu kajiannya adalah kandungan gizi tempe tak kalah dari daging sapi.

Berbagai restoran vegetarian di Jepang banyak menyajikan olahan tempe dengan berbagai bentuk olahan Jepang, seperti misoshiru tempe dan tempura tempe. Yang paling terkenal adalah burger tempe.

Mereka memperkenalkan tempe dengan semboyan ”Makanan enak belum tentu menyehatkan, makanan tidak enak bisa menyehatkan. Tetapi, makanan enak dan menyehatkan adalah tempe!” Terberitakan pula sebuah perusahaan kosmetik memproduksi bahan kecantikan dengan jamur hasil fermentasi tempe ke dalam kapsul yang konon bisa menghaluskan kulit.

Soal hak paten yang pernah jadi pergunjingan di negara kita bahwa tempe diklaim Jepang, Rustono menjelaskan, ”Ah, itu kesalahpahaman. Bagaimana kita mematenkan tempe yang semua orang sampai di Amerika pun tahu tempe adalah makanan asli Indonesia. Apakah Jepang juga akan mematenkan sashimi atau sushi? Mereka hanya mematenkan olahan burgernya, bukan tempenya.”
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Very civilised savages: A new exhibition asks who were more brutal - the Aztecs, or the 300 Europeans who annihilated them?

By Tony Rennell
The battle-hardened, armour-clad soldiers stopped in their tracks and stared in amazement. Rising out of the waters of the vast lake before them was a majestic island-city of wide streets and white stucco-fronted houses.
Bathed in bright sunshine and against a backdrop of snow-covered mountains, palaces and temples towered into the clear blue sky.
'Glorious!' exclaimed the Catholic monk who accompanied the gold-seeking adventurers from Spain on their journey of exploration from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean

Slaughter: For the coronation of the one Aztec king 80,400 human hearts were cut out in four days

They might have expected to find little more than a settlement of mud huts when they landed on this foreign shore more than 5,000 miles from home.

Instead, gleaming there in the winter sunlight of November 1519, was the magnificent capital of the rich and thriving Aztec civilisation.
It went by the name of Tenochtitlan and was larger than any place these Europeans had ever seen or even dreamed of.

With a population in excess of 200,000, it was bigger than London, Madrid and Rome put together. It drew its immense wealth presiding over an area the size of Britain.
As the Spanish captain, Hernan Cortes, and his conquistadors, rode in procession through an arrow-straight causeway into the city, there were more sights to amaze them.

Venice-like canals criss-crossed it. Artificial gardens floated on the water. Man-made dykes protected it from flooding.
Compared to the crowded, rubbish and excrement-strewn conurbations back in Europe, the place was pristine, as were its people. Sweepers kept its streets clean. There were public bathing places and even public lavatories.
'On all the roads, there are shelters made of reeds or straw so the people can retire when they wish to and purge their bowels, unseen by passers-by,' wrote one contemporary Spanish chronicler, well impressed. This was the height of civilisation.
In the marketplace, gold, silver and precious stones - notably blue-green turquoise - were traded, along with jaguar skins and brightly-coloured parrot feathers.

Food of all types was plentiful, as were tobacco and a heady alcoholic potion made from cactus juice.
Prized above all else were cocoa beans for mashing into chocolate, a potent bitter-sweet beverage that was highly addictive. It was served cold and frothy in small, gold cups and reserved for the royal family, noblemen and warriors.

Montezuma II: Emperor of the Aztec Empire from 1502 to 1520, before being murdered by the conquistadors

At the heart and head of this sophisticated civilisation was the imposing figure of the god-like Aztec ruler himself - Moctezuma (or Montezuma, the more recognisable version of his name). He is the centrepiece of a ground-breaking exhibition opening at the British Museum in London this week.
Sculptures, idols, gold artefacts and dazzling, jewel-encrusted masks and skulls from half-a-millennium ago bring a forgotten era back to life. Around them, a story unfolds of a world-changing power struggle, political intrigue and brute force as two cultures, Europe and America, clashed head on.
A key historical figure, it was Moctezuma's inexplicable submission to the Spanish invaders without a fight nearly 500 years ago that was the starting point of the colonisation of the Americas.
The exhibition's organisers hope visitors will reach a deeper and more sympathetic appreciation of this maligned and misunderstood native emperor.
What has over the centuries been held against him, and his people, was discovered by Cortes and his men as they reached the precise geometric centre of the city, a huge plaza containing the Great Temple.
From a platform high up on this stone pyramid ran steep flights of wide steps. The horror was that, from top to bottom, they were streaked red with human blood, while alongside them were rack upon rack of skulls. A rank smell of putrefaction hung in the air.
It became clear to the invaders from Christian Europe that, in this otherwise perfect city of hospitable and well-mannered people, human sacrifice was practised on a massive scale.

A stone at the top of the steps was where men - usually but not always tranquillised with 'magic mushrooms' - were held down while the high priest slit open their chests with a sharp blade made from flint or volcanic rock, and plucked out their hearts.
According to one Spanish account, he would hold up the steaming heart to the sun - to whom the sacrifice was made - before throwing it into a stone urn to burn.

Then he deftly kicked the corpse down the steps. At the bottom, prime cuts of flesh would be stripped from the legs and arms to be cooked and eaten.
How often this bloody ritual took place is unclear, but there were stories of epic sacrificial ceremonies. For the coronation of one king, 80,400 hearts were cut out in four days and the lines of victims waiting for their slaughter stretched back to the far ends of the city's four causeways.
There never was, recorded a priest in the entourage, 'a people more idolatrous and given over to the killing and eating of men'.
But the Aztecs made no apologies for their bloodthirsty traditions. Rather, these rites were at the core of their beliefs. Only if the gods were fed blood - or 'precious water' - would the soil be fertile and rains return.
They claimed the victims, most of whom were prisoners taken in battle, went willingly to their deaths, knowing that their sacrifice would keep the cycle of life turning.
The killing was done with respect and veneration, not in hate or anger. The sacrifice blessed both the dying and the living and was a fate to be embraced.

Aztec belief reassured those about to die that they would toil helping the sun god to banish the night, and after four years return to life as hummingbirds and butterflies.
Such pagan concepts were anathema to the One-God-fearing Cortes and his men, or so they declared. They made the dangerous journey across the ocean and into the unknown to hunt for gold, but also to spread the Christian gospel. The downfall of Moctezuma would further both missions: moral and the mercenary.
It did the Spaniards' case no harm if, in their subsequent accounts - the ones on which history has to rely - they tended to exaggerate the Aztecs' appetite for ritual slaughter.

In their righteous indignation, they chose to ignore that European 'civilisation' was also drenched in blood, and contemporaneous monarchs like Henry VIII butchered with as much religious zeal as Moctezuma did, and probably with more relish.
Montezuma receiving a chocolate aphrodisiac to satisfy his harem

But there is no denying that human sacrifice was central to Aztec culture. Each year a seven-year-old boy had to die at the altar of the rain god. His blood was sprinkled over a feast of turkey, game and chocolate. A young girl was sacrificed to appease the water goddess and her blood poured into the lake.
In ceremonies, Moctezuma pricked his ears, arms and legs with eagle claws to draw blood and demonstrate his own power to feed the sun and the earth with 'precious water'.
He himself was both priest and a warrior. The Aztecs were essentially a nation of fighters, who, through conquest, had expanded from a small tribe to a rich and powerful empire in just 150 years. They were always grabbing new lands or suppressing uprisings in those they already held.
Terror was a useful weapon. Like modern-day punks, warriors - the ruler included - had ear and nose piercings. Flat discs were also inserted into their lips to stretch their faces into frightening grimaces.
It was a tradition that the first prisoner taken in any battle was skinned to make a cloak for the ruler to wear as a warning to his enemies.
But Moctezuma was as terrifying to his own people as he was to his foes. Fifty years old, slender with short hair and a long, thin black beard, he was described as astute and learned but also harsh and irascible. His name translates literally as 'Angry Lord'.
His subjects never dared look into his face or raise their heads in his presence. They approached him barefoot. He was never touched, except by the four beautiful women who washed his hands before he ate.
Why, then, did this tough, ruthless and experienced king, who had ruled his people fearlessly for 18 years before the Spanish arrived, fall prey so easily to the invaders, allowing his fiercely independent people to be subjugated?
The fact was that the Aztec ruler was utterly baffled by the newcomers. With reports flooding in about their tall ships, metal armour and horses - never before seen by them - he was at a loss to know how to deal with them.
There were just 300 of these alien beings approaching his capital. His armies could have overwhelmed them easily, despite their advanced weaponry of steel swords and muskets. But he was beset by curiosity and a strange chivalry that made him want to be welcoming.
Were they gods, perhaps? He sent gifts, keen to impress them. But by deciding to play a waiting game, he gave the wily Cortes every opportunity to manipulate the situation.

Along the way, the Spaniard made pacts with rebellious towns who were ready to rebel against Moctezuma's rule. He sacked one town that stood in his way, slaughtering the populace and burning its temples before marching on towards the city in the lake, his army swollen by local recruits.
On the Spaniards came, and Moctezuma, in green feather headdress and gold sandals, went to meet them at the causeway gate.
The conquistadors were impressed, but not overawed. Once settled inside the city, Cortes played his masterstroke in one of history's most brazen and successful acts of deception. In a speech of welcome, Moctezuma mentioned how Aztec lore spoke of the return one day of a great overlord, to whom he would pledge allegiance.

Seizing on this, Cortes told the startled Aztec he came on behalf of just such a supreme emperor. Cortes invited him to submit to the overlordship of this emperor, which the obliging Moctezuma duly did.
For a while, relations were amicable. But they soured when Cortes's men erected a Christian cross on the top of the Great Temple.

With unrest growing, Cortes seized Moctezuma and held him captive in one of his palaces. He was allowed to carry on governing his lands but as a puppet ruler. His grip on power was slipping away.
Among the Aztecs, there was growing discontent. Priests were barred from temples and the idols of their gods replaced by the images of Christ.
When priests and warriors crowded into the Great Temple for a religious festival, Cortes's men perceived a threat. They sealed the doors and butchered thousands of them.
Open warfare was about to break out, until Moctezuma was pressured to step in. He ordered his people not to attack and they reluctantly obeyed. But by this act his sway over them was fatally undermined.
An uprising began in the city, led by Moctezuma's brother. The Spaniards sent the captured ruler out on to a balcony to confront his people and make them withdraw. A volley of rocks and arrows came at him. He was hit in the face - the crucial blow said to be a stone hurled by his brother - and died three days later.
The more likely truth, say modern scholars, is that it was the Spaniards who killed him. With his authority gone, he was no longer any use to them. They stabbed him to death.
Cortes and his men now left the city in a desperate fighting retreat across the causeway. But the excuse was there for them to return.

A year later, Cortes was back with a reinforced army and took the Aztec capital after a bloody battle. In the name of the Emperor Charles V of Spain, he established himself as Governor and Captain-General of 'New Spain'.
He hanged Moctezuma's brother, who had succeeded as ruler. The reign of the Aztecs was over.
Much of their heritage was lost as the Spaniards looted the land. Fervent friars arrived to convert the people. Smallpox, an inadvertent import by the conquerors, killed 90 per cent of the indigenous population. Spanish settlers came in increasing numbers.
But the blood line remained. Cortes took Moctezuma's sister as his mistress and fathered a child by her. He married off some of his captains to the daughters of Aztec noblemen. From this integration, a new and distinctive Mexican nation began to emerge, part Spanish, part Aztec.
The past was buried. Tenochtitlan was destroyed and a new Spanish city built over it. Given the name of Mexico City, it has grown into a megametropolis of 20 million people, as much a wonder of the modern world as its forgotten island predecessor.
Recovered from beneath its streets, the lost past is back in all its gore and glory and set to live again in London.

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Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for seven years - and are the U.S. and Britain covering it up to continue war on terror?

By Sue Reid
The last time we heard a squeak from him was on June 3 this year.
The world's most notorious terrorist outsmarted America by releasing a menacing message as Air Force One touched down on Saudi Arabian soil at the start of Barack Obama's first and much vaunted Middle East tour.
Even before the new President alighted at Riyadh airport to shake hands with Prince Abdullah, Bin Laden's words were being aired on TV, radio and the internet across every continent.

Genuine picture: Osama Bin Laden in October 2001

It was yet another propaganda coup for the 52-year-old Al Qaeda leader. In the audiotape delivered to the Arab news network Al Jazeera, Bin Laden said that America and her Western allies were sowing seeds of hatred in the Muslim world and deserved dire consequences.
It was the kind of rant we have heard from him before, and the response from British and U.S. intelligence services was equally predictable.
They insisted that the details on the tape, of the President's visit and other contemporary events, proved that the mastermind of 9/11, America's worst ever terrorist atrocity, was still alive - and that the hunt for him must go on.


Bin Laden has always been blamed for orchestrating the horrific attack - in which nearly 3,000 people perished - eight years ago this week. President George W. Bush made his capture a national priority, infamously promising with a Wild West flourish to take him 'dead or alive'.
The U.S. State Department offered a reward of $50million for his whereabouts. The FBI named him one of their ten 'most wanted' fugitives, telling the public to watch out for a left-handed, grey-bearded gentleman who walks with a stick.

Yet this master terrorist remains elusive. He has escaped the most extensive and expensive man-hunt in history, stretching across Waziristan, the 1,500 miles of mountainous badlands on the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Undeterred, Barack Obama has launched a fresh operation to find him. Working with the Pakistani Army, elite squads of U.S. and British special forces were sent into Waziristan this summer to 'hunt and kill' the shadowy figure intelligence officers still call 'the principal target' of the war on terror.
This new offensive is, of course, based on the premise that the 9/11 terrorist is alive. After all, there are the plethora of 'Bin Laden tapes' to prove it.

Yet what if he isn't? What if he has been dead for years, and the British and U.S. intelligence services are actually playing a game of double bluff?
What if everything we have seen or heard of him on video and audio tapes since the early days after 9/11 is a fake - and that he is being kept 'alive' by the Western allies to stir up support for the war on terror?
Incredibly, this is the breathtaking theory that is gaining credence among political commentators, respected academics and even terror experts.
Of course, there have been any number of conspiracy theories concerning 9/11, and it could be this is just another one. But the weight of opinion now swinging behind the possibility that Bin Laden is dead - and the accumulating evidence that supports it - makes the notion, at the very least, worthy of examination.
The theory first received an airing in the American Spectator magazine earlier this year when former U.S. foreign intelligence officer and senior editor Angelo M. Codevilla, a professor of international relations at Boston University, stated bluntly: 'All the evidence suggests Elvis Presley is more alive today than Osama Bin Laden.

Prof Codevilla pointed to inconsistencies in the videos and claimed there have been no reputable sightings of Bin Laden for years (for instance, all interceptions by the West of communications made by the Al Qaeda leader suddenly ceased in late 2001).
Prof Codevilla asserted: 'The video and audio tapes alleged to be Osama's never convince the impartial observer,' he asserted. 'The guy just does not look like Osama. Some videos show him with a Semitic, aquiline nose, while others show him with a shorter, broader one. Next to that, differences between the colours and styles of his beard are small stuff.'
There are other doubters, too. Professor Bruce Lawrence, head of Duke University's religious studies' department and the foremost Bin Laden expert, argues that the increasingly secular language in the video and audio tapes of Osama (his earliest ones are littered with references to God and the Prophet Mohammed) are inconsistent with his strict Islamic religion, Wahhabism.

He notes that, on one video, Bin Laden wears golden rings on his fingers, an adornment banned among Wahhabi followers

This week, still more questions have been raised with the publication in America and Britain of a book called Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive?
Written by political analyst and philosopher Professor David Ray Griffin, former emeritus professor at California's Claremont School of Theology, it is provoking shock waves - for it goes into far more detail about his supposed death and suggests there has been a cover-up by the West.
The book claims that Bin Laden died of kidney failure, or a linked complaint, on December 13, 2001, while living in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains close to the border with Waziristan.
His burial took place within 24 hours, in line with Muslim religious rules, and in an unmarked grave, which is a Wahhabi custom.
The author insists that the many Bin Laden tapes made since that date have been concocted by the West to make the world believe Bin Laden is alive. The purpose? To stoke up waning support for the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.
To understand Griffin's thesis, we must remember the West's reaction to 9/11, that fateful sunny September day in 2001. Within a month, on Sunday, October 7, the U.S. and Britain launched massive retaliatory air strikes in the Tora Bora region where they said 'prime suspect' Bin Laden was living 'as a guest of Afghanistan'.

This military offensive ignored the fact that Bin Laden had already insisted four times in official Al Qaeda statements made to the Arab press that he played no role in 9/11.
Indeed, on the fourth occasion, on September 28 and a fortnight after the atrocity, he declared emphatically: 'I have already said I am not involved. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge... nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act.'
Within hours of the October 7 strikes by the U.S. on Tora Bora, Bin Laden made his first ever appearance on video tape. Dressed in Army fatigues, and with an Islamic head-dress, he had an assault rifle propped behind him in a broadly lit mountain hideout. Significantly, he looked pale and gaunt.

Although he called President George W. Bush 'head of the infidels' and poured scorn on the U.S., he once again rejected responsibility for 9/11.
'America was hit by God in one of its softest spots. America is full of fear, from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that.'
Then came a second videotape on November 3, 2001. Once again, an ailing Bin Laden lashed out at the United States. He urged true Muslims to celebrate the attacks - but did not at any time acknowledge he had been involved in the atrocity.
And then there was silence until December 13, 2001 - the date Griffin claims Bin Laden died. That very day, the U.S. Government released a new video of the terror chief. In this tape, Bin Laden contradicted all his previous denials, and suddenly admitted to his involvement in the atrocity of 9/11.
The tape had reportedly been found by U.S. troops in a private home in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, after anti-Taliban forces took over the city. A label attached to it claimed that it had been made on November 9, 2001. The tape shows Bin Laden talking with a visiting sheik. In it, he clearly states that he not only knew about the 9/11 atrocities in advance, but had planned every detail personally. What manna for the Western authorities! This put the terrorist back in the frame over 9/11. The Washington Post quoted U.S. officials saying that the video 'offers the most convincing evidence of a connection between Bin Laden and the September 11 attacks'.
A euphoric President Bush added: 'For those who see this tape, they realise that not only is he guilty of incredible murder, but he has no conscience and no soul.'

In London, Downing Street said that the video was 'conclusive proof of his involvement'. The then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, added: 'There is no doubt it is the real thing. People can see Bin Laden there, making those utterly chilling words of admission about his guilt for organising the atrocities of September 11.'
Yet Professor Griffin claims this 'confessional' video provokes more questions than answers. For a start, the Bin Laden in this vital film testimony looks different.

He is a weighty man with a black beard, not a grey one. His pale skin had suddenly become darker, and he had a different shaped nose. His artistic hands with slender fingers had transformed into those of a pugilist. He looked in exceedingly good health.
Furthermore, Bin Laden can be seen writing a note with his right hand, although he is left-handed. Bizarrely, too, he makes statements about 9/11 which Griffin claims would never have come from the mouth of the real Bin Laden - a man with a civil engineering degree who had made his fortune (before moving into terrorism) from building construction in the Middle East.
For example, the Al Qaeda leader trumpets that far more people died in 9/11 than he had expected. He goes on: 'Due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the explosion from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. That is all we had hoped for.' (In reality the Twin Towers' completely fell down).

The words of the true Bin Laden? No, says Griffin, because of the obvious mistakes. 'Given his experience as a contractor, he would have known the Twin Towers were framed with steel, not iron,' he says.
'He would also known that steel and iron do not begin to melt until they reach 2,800 deg F. Yet a building fire fed by jet fuel is a hydrocarbon fire, and could not have reached above 1,800 deg F.'
Griffin, in his explosive book, says this tape is fake, and he goes further.
'A reason to suspect that all of the post-2001 Bin Laden tapes are fabrications is that they often appeared at times that boosted the Bush presidency or supported a claim by its chief 'war on terror' ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
'The confession tape came exactly when Bush and Blair had failed to prove Bin Laden's responsibility for 9/11 and both men were trying to win international public support, particularly in the Islamic world, for the anti-terrorist campaign.'
Griffin suggests that Western governments used highly sophisticated, special effects film technology to morph together images and vocal recordings of Bin Laden.
So if they are fakes, why has Al Qaeda kept quiet about it? And what exactly happened to the real Bin Laden?
The answer to the first question may be that the amorphous terrorist organisation is happy to wage its own propaganda battle in the face of waning support - and goes along with the myth that its charismatic figurehead is still alive to encourage recruitment to its cause.

As for the matter of what happened to him, hints of Bin Laden's kidney failure, or that he might be dead, first appeared on January 19, 2002, four months after 9/11.
This was when Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf told America's news show CNN: 'I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a kidney patient. The images of him show he is extremely weak.'
In his book, Professor Griffin also endorses this theory. He says Bin Laden was treated for a urinary infection, often linked to kidney disease, at the American Hospital in Dubai in July 2001, two months before 9/11. At the same time, he ordered a mobile dialysis machine to be delivered to Afghanistan.
How could Bin Laden, on the run in snowy mountain caves, have used the machine that many believe was essential to keep him alive? Doctors whom Griffin cites on the subject think it would have been impossible.

He would have needed to stay in one spot with a team of medics, hygienic conditions, and a regular maintenance programme for the dialysis unit itself.
And what of the telling, small news item that broke on December 26, 2001 in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Wafd? It said a prominent official of the Afghan Taliban had announced that Osama Bin Laden had been buried on or about December 13.
'He suffered serious complications and died a natural, quiet death. He was buried in Tora Bora, a funeral attended by 30 Al Qaeda fighters, close members of his family and friends from the Taliban. By the Wahhabi tradition, no mark was left on the grave,' said the report.
The Taliban official, who was not named, said triumphantly that he had seen Bin Laden's face in his shroud. 'He looked pale, but calm, relaxed and confident.'
It was Christmas in Washington DC and London and the report hardly got a mention. Since then, the Bin Laden tapes have emerged with clockwork regularity as billions have been spent and much blood spilt on the hunt for him.
Bin Laden has been the central plank of the West's 'war on terror'. Could it be that, for years, he's just been smoke and mirrors?
^Daily Mail^

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Istanbul-Jakarta flight opened

JAKARTA - Turkish Airlines has opened an Istanbul-Jakarta flight service to increase cooperation between the two countries. "The opening of the service is part of the company’s efforts to widen relations between the two countries," the airline’s chief, Candan Karlitekin, said here on Saturday.

He made the statement at the opening of the service, which was also attended by the chairman of the Indonesian People’s Consultative Assembly, Hidayat Nur Wahid. The opening of the service had long been awaited by various parties in the two countries, Karlitekin said adding the route to Jakarta was one of hundreds the airline was serving in the world.

He said he was optimistic the service would increase the two countries’ relations in the economic field and also in tourism and make the relations between the two countries and their communities closer. "Indonesia is a big country and potential so that the company has considered it necessary to open flights to Jakarta," he said.

For the time being flights would still make a stopover in Singapore but in 2011 there would be direct flights, he said. Hidayat Nur Wahid welcomed the opening of the service and hoped it would make the two countries’ relations closer.

"I welcome the opening of the service and hoped it would benefit both Indonesia and Turkey," he said. The Istanbul-Jakarta service will be carried out five times a week namely on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday departing at 11.20 pm local times and arriving at 05.25 pm local times.

The Jakarta-Istanbul service will also be carried out five times a week on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday with schedule of departure at 07.15 pm local time and arrival at 05.40 am local time.

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