Cianjur, NU Online
Poets must be aware that their presence is important and is the same as politicians or engineers. The statement ws made by NU prominent poet Ahmad Tohari (Kang Tohari) when speaking at the writing program Mastera (Southeast Asian Literature Council), at the Jasmin Resort Hotel, Cianjur, West Java, on Sunday (7/8).

According to Kang Tohari, the importance of their existence is due to their works in helping build the nation's character, saying that Indonesia had long experienced multidimensional crisis "for the people and the government has too long ignored the literatures."

"Smart people are many. But those who are sensitive are very little. Literatures can foster human sensitivity," Kang Tohari said.

Therefore, Kang Tohari advised the writers to not feel inferior due to possible limitations or feel more established so that they stop proceeding. In fact, he added, to produce better works, the writers had to proceed themselves all time.

Kang Tohari also called on the writers engaged in a literary work to defend civilization by upholding the values ​​of divinity and humanity.

In the 2016 Mastera Writing Program, Kang Tohari is one of the mentors along with a number of other writers, such as Triyanto Triwikromo, Abidah El-Khaliqey, Agus R. Sardjono, Norsiah Abdul Gapar (Brunei Darussalam) and Dr Komariah binti Kamarudin (Malaysia).

Ganjar Harimansyah, the organizing committee chief who is also the secretary of Mastera Indonesia, said that the Mastera this year was focused more on the novel writing. The 2016 Mastera is the 19th program and is participated by 17 writers.

The 17 writers were from Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia. Two other Mastera member countries namely Thailand and Singapore, did not send participants in this year's program due to the policy and licensing difficulties in the countries concerned. (Kendi Setiawan/Masdar)