Sabtu, 25 Februari 2012

Der Judenstaat - Theodor Herzl (1896)


Der Judenstaat (Jerman, Negara Yahudi) adalah sebuah buku yang ditulis oleh Theodor Herzl dan diterbitkan pada tahun 1896 di Leipzig dan Wina. Buku ini memiliki subjudul "Versuch einer modernen Lösung der Judenfrage", "Proposal untuk sebuah solusi modern mengenai masalah Yahudi", dan aslinya ditujukan kepada dinasti perbankan Rotschild yang sangat berperan dalam merealisasikan sebuah negara Zionis di Palestina.
Buki ini dianggap salah satu teks terpenting dalam fenomena Zionisme awal. Seperti tertulis dalam buku ini, Herzl memiliki visi mendirikan negara Yahudi dalam abad ke-20. Ia menyatakan bahwa cara terbaik untuk menghindari anti-Semitisme di Eropa ialah dengan mendirikan sebuah negara Yahudi yang merdeka. Herzl yang selama hidupnya adalah seorang sekuler dan bisa dikatakan adalah seorang Yahudi yang telah terasimilasi, tidak fasih berbahasa Yiddish maupun Ibrani. Herzl kurang bergaul dengan orang-orang Yahudi yang masih belum begitu berbaur dan kurang berhadapan dengan budaya Yahudi pula sebelum meluncurkan gagasan kembali orang Yahudi ke Zion. Hal ini membuatnya berpikir bahwa dukungan luas Yahudi untuk sebuah negara Yahudi selain di Palestina adalah riil. Dalam Der Judenstaat, Herzl menulis kemungkinan berdirinya sebuah negara Yahudi di Argentina.
Herzl memopulerkan istilah "Zionisme", yang diciptakan oleh Nathan Birnbaum. Gerakan nasionalis ini membidani kelahirannya Negara Israel pada tahun1948, meski istilah Zionisme kemudian dihubungkan dengan dukungan politik untuk negara ini.

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Rabu, 25 Januari 2012

Code of Hammurabi

The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code, dating back to about 1772 BCE. It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a human-sized stone stele and various clay tablets. The Code consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" (lex talionis) as graded depending on social status, of slave versus free man.
Nearly one-half of the Code deals with matters of contract, establishing for example the wages to be paid to an ox driver or a surgeon. Other provisions set the terms of a transaction, establishing the liability of a builder for a house that collapses, for example, or property that is damaged while left in the care of another. A third of the code addresses issues concerning household and family relationships such as inheritance, divorce, paternity and sexual behavior. Only one provision appears to impose obligations on an official; this provision establishes that a judge who reaches an incorrect decision is to be fined and removed from the bench permanently. A handful of provisions address issues related to military service.

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Rabu, 30 November 2011

Hagakure - Tsunemoto Yamamoto

The book records Tsunetomo's views on bushido, the warrior code of the samuraiHagakure is sometimes said to assert that bushido is really the "Way of Dying" or living as though one was already dead, and that a samurai must be willing to die at any moment in order to be true to his lord. His saying "the way of the warrior is death" was a summation of the willingness to sacrifice that bushido codified.
After his master died, Tsunetomo himself was forbidden to perform junshi, a retainer's ritual suicide, by an edict of the Tokugawa Shogunate combined with his master's disapproval of the tradition.Hagakure may have been written partially in an effort to outline the role of the samurai in a more peaceful society. Several sections refer to the "old days", and imply a dangerous weakening of the samurai class since that time.
The Hagakure was written approximately one hundred years after the start of the Tokugawa era, a time of relative peace. With no major campaigns to fight, the samurai were transforming from a warrior to an administrative class. His work represents one approach to the problem of maintaining military preparedness and a proper military mindset in a time when neither has much practical application.

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