In his adulthood, Eric finally arrived in Isfahan, Iran.He said, The warmth of the Iranian people is opposite to the bad image of Iran in the Western media.
By
Linda Christanty
·5 minutes read
SALOMO TOBING
Linda Christanty
The atlas was Eric's favorite book in his childhood. When studying the history of civilizations at school, he liked Persia, now Iran. Eric was also amazed by pictures of large rivers in various countries and imagined seeing those rivers up close one day. Lyon, the city where he lived more than three decades, is at a meeting of two rivers, the Rhône and the Saône. The lives of the Lyon people were close to history. The Roman Amphitheater, a heritage site 2,038 years old, is well maintained in Fourvière Hill and still functioning.
In his adulthood, Eric finally arrived in Isfahan, Iran. He was amazed to see the beautiful architecture of houses and the old mosque. A big family who was picnicking in a park invited the traveler to eat together and welcomed him by reading the poetry of the famous poet, Saadi Shirazi. "The warmth of the Iranian people is opposite to the bad image of Iran in the Western media," he said. He witnessed the large number of pilgrims at the tomb of major poet Hafez. Poetry was glorified in the lives of Iranian people.
In India, poets are worshiped like gods. When stopping by Kanyakumari, a coastal city in Tamil Nadu state, Eric saw a statue as high as 41 meters carved over a stone in the sea: the Statue of Thiruvalluuvar, a Tamil poet who wrote 1,330 verses containing life guidelines or Thirukkural.
Eric wrote about that experience in his travelog Fragments De Voyage d’Istanbul A Jakarta Par La Route, which recorded his travels from Turkey to Indonesia through a number of countries in 2013. This is a guide for travelers that ranges from cheap accommodation to the political situations and social conditions of the countries he visited. To welcome his return to Indonesia and before he moved on to other places, we ate soto ayam (chicken soup) in the Cikini area of Jakarta and shared stories.
Eric's first learned about Indonesia in a film screened at the Lyon Cinema in 1983, The Year of Living Dangerously (L'Année de Tous Dangers). The film was adapted from the novel of Christopher Koch, about the situation ahead of the Communist Party rebellion in Indonesia and the arrival of weapons assistance from China. In this fictional film, Soekarno is said to be competing with the influence of the Indonesian Communist Party. In 1999, a year after the reform movement in Indonesia, Eric visited Yogyakarta and fell in love with Indonesia.
His youth was filled with protests against colonialism and imperialism.
In 2004, several citizens in France founded the movement called Caravan for Palestine. Eric and some of his friends were involved in this movement. On 5 July 2005, the Caravan went from Strasbourg, France through Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Greece, Turkey, Syria, and Jordan to enter Jerusalem. “It was a citizen movement. No organization or NGO's behind. We were definitely independent,” he recalled.
More than 130 people from 18 countries and a number of children joined the convoy of 50 cars. They demanded that the walls built by the Israeli Zionist regime in the occupied Palestinian territory be torn down because the action violated international law, the UN Security Council resolution, and the decision of the International Court of Justice. Construction on the wall began in June 2002, resulting in protests from all over the world. The Israeli Zionist army stopped the caravan on Allenby Bridge, between Jordan and occupied Palestinian territory. The activists were beaten and forced to leave. Eric helped activists who had lost their passports and money.
Two years later, in 2007 Eric began his own journey. He traveled from Turkey to India by the road. In 2012, he traveled from Turkey to Indonesia by the road for his book. From this book, readers can learn the lives of ordinary people in other countries more fairly. "In these countries, the attitude of the government can also be very different from the attitude of its people," said Eric.
We discussed the war between Ukraine and Russia. Europe is most affected.
"People suffer from government politics. Inflation is very high. More and more families cannot eat three times a day in France," he said.
He experienced a worsening crisis, "especially in France and Italy, because these two countries do not have sovereignty in industry. In France, everything comes from China, India, or Vietnam. Hardware, glasses, medical products, dentures, pipes, water taps, clothing, cloth, computer equipment, sports equipment, shoes, cars, and truck parts all come from outside."
The war in Ukraine has led to a gas shortage in Germany. The underwater pipes that supply natural gas from Vyborg in Russia to Lubmin in Germany exploded.
I also dedicate it to my mother, who supported my trips and collected all photos from those trips in an album.
Seymour Hersh, a prominent American investigative journalist, wrote about the cause of the explosion in the paid online media substack.com on 8 Feb. 2023. According to Hersh's report, titled “How America Took Out the Nordstream”, it was the United States that led a secret undersea operation to blow up the gas pipeline involving Norway. In waters near Bornholm Island, the pipes were less than 80 meters below the sea and could be reached by divers. C4 explosives were placed on a number of pipes. The cover was NATO military training, so that the operation would be seen as part of the exercise. A Norwegian surveillance plane dropped a sonar buoy to trigger the explosion on 26 Sept. 2022. Washington said the Hersh report was fiction.
Soto ayam has been replaced with black coffee. Our conversation will end soon.
Eric said he wrote the travelog to leave a record on an intense, beautiful, and colorful journey. "I also dedicate it to my mother, who supported my trips and collected all photos from those trips in an album," he said.
LINDA CHRISTANTY, Woman of Letters and cultural activist
