|
05/01/03
Peace
is within each individual's heart. This may be true universally. But how peace begins
always a puzzle to me until I saw a sticker today at
my favorite café house. It’s called JavaHouse, a
popular place for coffee drinkers to hang out in Iowa
City, US. Although its name is “Java” but it has
nothing to do with Java Island or Javanese people in
Indonesia. I don’t know how the owner came up with
the name.
Certainly
it is not the same café as the one that the
developers of Java computer language visited when they
came up with the name of the currently popular
computer program. As James Gosling, one of the
Java’s builders recalled, “It's surprisingly
difficult to find a good name for a programming
language, as the team discovered after many hours of
brainstorming. Finally, inspiration struck one day
during a trip to the local coffee shop”.
Others have speculated that the name Java came
from several individuals involved in the project: James
Gosling, Arthur Van Hoff, Andy
Bechtolsheim.
It
is rather depressing when college or graduate students
do not know about Java Island. Once I was in the café
with a friend of mine.
Too my surprise he did not know much about Java
Island. “Next
time,” I said, “Remember that Java is the most
populated island on the face of the earth.”
Imagine
these fatcs. The size of Java (132,187 sq. km) is almost the
same as that of Greece (131,940
sq. km). But the Java
population (113.25 millions – in 2000) is more than
ten-fold of Greece’s population (10.62
millions - July 2001). In
case one is not familiar with the size of Greece, Java
is almost as large as New York State (127,190
sq. km). Yet, the Java
population is six times that of New York (18.98
millions – in 2000).
As
I was waiting for my coffee, my eyes were struck at a
small sticker sticking next to the brewing machine. It
says, “Peace begins with a smile”. As I recall,
this is a famous quote from Mother Teresa, a truly
amazing figure who totally dedicated her life for
others.
Not
all smiles could bring peace, however. It is not how
long a smile would last, either. It is the quality that matters.
Perhaps, Monalisa’s smile is the longest smile in
the history. Yet, such smile could hardly bring peace.
It is an honest, humble and sympathetic smile that can
bring peace to others. A smile that says, ”You are
welcomed.” Or, the one that expresses, “I am glad
that you are here.” A humble smile which signals that
“You are important to me.” It is a gesture of
acceptance.
Peace
is about accepting the existence of others. When one
rejects the existence of someone else, it is
impossible to have peace between them. That’s why
peace is unattainable in the Middle East if one party
does not fully accept the existence of the other, and vice versa.
Smiles need to flourish in the region. Neither anger
nor pride can bring peace to the region. And neither
tanks nor suicide bombers can promote peace in the
region. But smiles can, as the famous group band
BeeGees composed a beautiful song lyric about
30 years ago, “Smile, an
everlasting smile, a smile that could bring you near
to me…” Just like in other parts of the world,
people in the region need to get closer to each other.
Unfortunately,
some people forgot about it. When people were
demonstrating for non-war solution in Iraq, some of
them expressed their demand for peace not with smiles,
but with anger. This
is not unique to the Iraq case or Israel-Palestine
conflict. It commonly occurs in
our daily lives.
While
we
often dream of having “ice”, in reality we
frequently ask for it with “fire.”
And
so let’s offer sympathetic smile to others because
as Mother Teresa once said “we
shall never know all the good that a simple smile can
do.”
With
smiles - the ones that bring peace to others -,
Indonesian people could promote their country to a
better nation.
Your
comment
Back
to top
|
The Prospect
is published by The Indonesian Institute. Our messages are
study, democracy and unity.
