When Cyclone Senyar struck Acheh and northern Sumatra in late November 2025, it didn’t just submerge homes, sever roads, and bring down bridges. It stirred something deeper—something I’ve carried for years.
In those days of flooding, fear, and silence, I was reminded of an old truth: that the world sees Acheh when we are drowning, not when we are trying to breathe. That our wounds are witnessed, but only if they make no demands.
Though I was far from home, I followed the storm closely. For days, the silence was heavier than the news. When fragments finally came—an image, a few words, a call that dropped—they landed on my chest like stones. Villages were buried under mudslides. Survivors were stranded without food or clean water.
But the greater devastation came not just from the earth and water—it came from the silence of those who could act, but chose not to. No national emergency was declared. When the world reached out, it was kept at bay. Officials said the country could manage on its own. All for the sake of pride and sovereignty—even as help arrived slowly, inconsistently.
Meanwhile in the shelters, as people waited for food and medicine, that reasoning felt distant. It was hard to explain to a hungry child why help had to wait. That wait—the long days of uncertainty—was shaped not just by nature, but by the systems through which help was allowed to pass.
The aid that did come was filtered through official channels. Local voices were rarely asked what was needed or how it should be delivered. I heard the same phrases repeated—unity, resilience, national strength. But not once did I hear someone ask how people felt, or what they feared might come next.
The only light in the darkest of hours came from neighbors organizing themselves, walking for hours through wreckage to bring help to others. In one story that stayed with me, university students hiked 80 kilometers overnight to reach a village that had received no assistance at all.
Yet in the midst of this chaos, I saw a wave of kindness from people across the archipelago. From Sumatra to Sulawesi, families gathered donations. From community halls to Instagram feeds, people raised their voices in support. Students turned classrooms into hubs of care.
That generosity meant something. It reminded me that compassion does exist, and that many people truly care.
But I’ve also learned that compassion often comes with a price. I’ve noticed how care turns quiet when the conversation shifts from recovery to recognition. It’s easy to be embraced when I’m seen as a victim. Harder, when I’m seen as someone with questions—about place, about dignity, about history. In those moments, unity feels less like comfort and more like constraint.
There’s another side to this story too—one that’s harder to speak about.
For decades, the land around Acheh has changed. Forests were cleared, hills mined, rivers disturbed. I watched it happen bit by bit, even from afar. And when the rains came, the land couldn’t hold. Experts have confirmed what many feared: it wasn’t just the storm. It was everything that had been done to the land leading up to it.
The choices made far from Acheh made the region more vulnerable than it should have been.
We have known floods before. We have known the sea’s reach. In 2004, the world came—planes landed, volunteers poured in, and aid flowed through flattened cities. But even then, solidarity was uneasy—quick to act, but slow to listen. It brought more than medicine and food. It delivered a peace agreement. The Helsinki MoU ended decades of armed conflict—but it was forged quickly, under pressure, beneath the gaze of international goodwill. There was no time to grieve, no time to speak.
Pressure came not only from the powerful, but from those entrusted to mediate—diplomats, donors, and distant experts who never asked what peace would mean for us.
We were told to reconcile. To move forward. But never asked where we wanted to go.
Then that agreement, framed as progress, gave way to something quieter and
harder to resist: licenses, concessions, deals struck behind closed doors. Forests fell. Rivers were diverted. Gold was dug from wounds still healing.
And now, we drown—not in war, but in a peace that was never ours. Still, even in this kind of quiet undoing, something stronger has survived.
I resist despair. I heard how students, teachers, and villagers stepped up.
Communities worked together, shared what they had, and held each other up. That kind of solidarity didn’t need permission. It didn’t come with slogans. It came from a place of care that felt real.
I welcome solidarity. I just hope it doesn’t disappear when I speak gently about identity. I hope it won't falter when I ask to be seen not just in crisis, but in complexity. True solidarity does not fear that kind of voice. It listens—not to reply, but to understand. It does not arrive in times of need—only to speak over the voices it claims to help.
Through the long, dark nights, my people remain in tents—rocked by hunger,
silence, and the quiet ache of being forgotten. And still, I hold this hope: that one day, we will be met not with conditions, but with something willing to remain.
Compassion that stays.
