Yoko Ono Lihat Makin Banyak Aktivis di Usianya ke-80
At 80, Yoko Ono Sees a World Full of Activists
Editor : Heru S Winarno
Translator : Parulian Manalu
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HAMPIR setengah abad yang lalu, seniman Yoko Ono mengadakan aksi protes bersama suaminya John Lennon dengan berada di tempat tidur selama seminggu. Aksi itu dikenal dengan sebutan "bed-in". Kala itu, mereka melalukan aksi untuk memprotes Perang Vietnam.
Kini di usianya yang ke-80, semangat aktivis Ono belum padam. Ia bahkan melihat dunia yang penuh aktivisme dan konsisten mencurahkan energinya untuk kemanusiaan.
"Saat John dan saya melakukan aksi ´bed-in´, tidak banyak yang mendukung kami. Tapi sekarang aktivis banyak sekali. Saya tidak kenal orang yang bukan aktivis," kata Ono saat ulang tahunnya yang ke-80 di Berlin, Senin (18/2).
"Bahkan perusahaan - John dulu selalu berkata perusahaan harus bersama kami. Sekarang, perusahaan mengatakan 10-20 persen keuntungan mereka diberikan untuk amal," kata Ono.
Ono mengatakan penting untuk membela perdamaian meski banyak konflik selama beberapa dekade ini.
"Saya tidak mau tenggelam dalam kesedihan. Menurut saya, kita harus berdiri dan mengubah dunia," katanya.
Seniman yang lahir dari kalangan berada di Tokyo pada tahun 1933 belakangan ini aktif menentang fracking, prosedur kontroversial di Amerika Serikat dalam mendapatkan energi tapi menuai kritik karena mengotori air dan meningkatkan risiko gempa bumi.
"Fracking ancaman luar biasa, saya tidak mengerti kenapa mereka melakukannya," kata Ono seperti dikutip Zimbio.
Yoko Ono kini merasa dirinya lebih bebas dalam hal berkesenian.
"Sikap saya berubah...Saya membiarkan hal-hal terjadi di luar rencana saya," katanya.
Ketika ditanya bagaimana rasanya berusia delapanpuluhan, ia menjawab "Saya terkejut. Saya merasa mendapat keajaiban berusia 80. Saya bangga. Tidak semua orang ada di usia itu."
HALF a life-time ago, artist Yoko Ono lay in an Amsterdam hotel bed with husband John Lennon, staging a week-long "bed-in" for peace and feeling they were very alone in their activism.
Today, Ono, whose own energy for campaigning has never tired, sees a world full of activists, maintaining her energy and faith in humanity.
"When John and I did the bed-in, not many people were with us. But now there are so many activists, I don´t know anyone who is not an activist," she told Reuters in an interview in Berlin on Monday, her 80th birthday.
"Even the corporations - John always used to say the corporations need to be with us... Corporations now say 10-20 percent of their profits will go to such and such charity. They have to do that almost for people to feel good about it."
"I don´t want to be drowning in sadness. I think we have to stand and up and change the world," she said.
The artist, born to a wealthy Japanese family in Tokyo in 1933, has recently become a passionate opponent of fracking, a controversial procedure which has sharply lifted energy output in the United States but which critics fear pollutes drinking water deep underground and could increase earthquake risks.
"Fracking is an incredible risk to the human race, I don´t know why they even thought of doing it," she said.
Ono, whose birthday is being marked by a major retrospective of her work in Frankfurt, said she feels she is becoming freer in her art.
"My attitude has changed... I´m allowing things to happen in a way I hadn´t planned before," she said.
Asked about her feelings on becoming an octogenarian, she said: "I´m surprised. It is a miracle in a sense that I am 80, I am proud about it. Not everybody gets there."
