Lesson Learned from "Sexy Killers" Documentary Movie

Written by: Arif Wicaksa

When I watched the phenomenal documentary movie titled “Sexy Killers” which describe to  me about how exactly some actors performing collaboration in nature exploitation and cause damage and victims, my first reaction and feeling, of course were; angry and sad. No doubt. But I took a moment to contemplated and rethink, tried to see beyond the surface of this problem, and I found that this problem is not only about how government and corporation take responsibility to the victims of nature exploitation. But this phenomenon is as same as iceberg phenomenon, it’s just a surface.

Nature problem fundamentally is very complex problem that require complex solution. We actually cannot expect high political actors to do things to get the problem solved. Historically, nature problem is not something really new instead it is a classic problem. For instance, Industrial Revolution in Europe some centuries ago or contemporary industrialization in China, are very evidence on how nature becoming marginalized by human in order to achieve material profit. Both cases either in Europe or China, shown that actor involved in nature exploitation is complex. We can’t expect government and corporations to stop doing what they do. It will be the tough one. It takes time and patience.

What I’m trying to say is; we cannot reduce actors involved only to The Big Two, which are government and corporation. Indeed they are both actors involved in nature exploitation and to some extent responsible for the damages and victims. But we need to see beyond, look for the root of the problem so the future damage and victims can be avoided. Cursing is not a solution. We need to take action, and the closest action we can do is, change ourselves first.

It’s not a secret that human being nowadays heavily depends on nature to support their daily life. Let’s say; Electricity. I believe most people can’t imagine how life would be without electricity. And for Indonesia context, electricity is a thing which heavily depends on nature. Who is actual actors that depending heavily on electricity? I believe the answer is all of humankind. Either this humankind aligned to government, corporation, or society. Every one of us has a sin to nature but perhaps on different levels.

The movie sends a message indirectly that society is just a victim. Yes of course society is a victim, but for me, at the same time it also a suspect. Why? Well, let’s say that society is also consumer of products from nature exploitation. We, as part of society basically is part of structural problem of nature exploitation. Consumerism lifestyle. That’s bad.

If we want to take a radical action to stop this once and for all, then we need to start to change our mind about nature. Nature is not an object to fulfill our needs. We can imagine nature still will be nature without human, but human will be zombie without nature. If human is just a dead body without nature, therefore all of mankind doesn’t matter on which social level they live, must treat nature in proper ways, don’t be greedy! Greedy behavior is source of every problem in this vast universe. Money is too cheap and low to measure nature.

Don’t be greedy! That is a message for me, you, anyone who claim themselves as human. After we released ourselves from greedy behavior, now we can talk about how to reduce our dependency on natural resources? Can we possibly use high cost clean energy for developing country such as Indonesia? Or shall we move from highly industrialized modernized country to be more traditional less-automatic lifestyle? Well those questions are up to you to answer.

Finally, I hope the victims from nature exploitation that explained by the movie will get justice they are looking for and be more resilient for crisis in the future.