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11/15/02
A few days ago I attended a
break fasting service of Turkish Muslim community in
Iowa City, the US.
I came together with a good Ukranian friend of mine,
Andrei Sirtchenko with his wife and baby girl.
Besides Turkish people, the service was packed with
friends from Russia., China, Thailand, India, the
United States and other parts of the world. All were
happy and enjoyed each other conversation. Laugh, food
and of course the famous traditional Turkish dessert,
Baklava, were the main menu. No hatred and no
prejudice. Welcome to a wonderful world!
Just as the fasting
itself, breaking the fasting is an important ritual
tradition for Muslim friends since it symbolizes a
triumph over greedy and earthly desires. It is also a
wonderful moment for expressing thankfulness to the
Creator of the universe. But not all of us who were
there were Moslems. There were Buddhists, Hindus,
Christians and Atheists. It was a small representation
of the world. But we were there to celebrate life and
thank the Highest One. After all, we are human beings
and have the same Creator. So, if we can get together
to thank the Creator, wouldn’t the Creator of the
universe smile at us?
The
first fundamental tenet of life
We perhaps often hear,
”Love the creation, because of the Creator.” All human
beings - regardless their race, religion and
nationality – are falling short before their Creator.
And in order to live up to the “expectation” of their
Creator, human beings must love the Creator and the
creation. To love creation but ignore the Creator is
basically meaningless as it does not recognize the
authority of the Creator. On the other hand, to love
the Creator but destroy the creation is to deny the
works of the Creator and accordingly deny the Creator
Himself. This is the first fundamental tenet of life
that many people forget: We cannot simultaneously
praise and deny the Creator of the universe.
A tradition of attending
a break fasting service is not something new for me as
I used to live in one house or apartment with Muslim
friends from Iran, Pakistan and Palestine. Amir, a
wonderful Iranian guy, was my roommate a few years ago
in Boston. Together with his sister and other Iranian
friends we often discussed about many things in life.
Then I had Pakistani and Palestinian roommates and
the cycles began again: dialog and understanding. The
Pakistani, Akhtar, often mentioned that corruption and
the lack of modern education are the main problem in
his country. The Palestinian friend, more or less,
told me the similar story: Corruption, incapable
leaders and occupation. And my story was nothing but
corruption and the fragile fundament of Indonesia’s
unity. All of them are good Muslims but they take
their belief as something personal. I am a Christian
and treat my belief as something personal as well. No
one has any intention to impose his or her belief on
somebody else.
However, my close
encounter with good friends from Turkey has given me a
new horizon. While majority of its population are
Muslims, Turkey remains a secular country. For more
than two years, Necati Tecatli and Halil Kurt are
especially two Turkish friends with whom I often
discussed about humanity, power, religious and
economic issues. Just like Amir and Akhtar, the
Turkish friends also treat their belief as something
personal. But Necati and Halil go even nobler. To
them, religion is a fundament to enhance understanding
about life and humanity, to foster kindness and love
and to promote justice and equality.
And these are the values
and principles that my belief teaches me, as well. But
although there are similarities, I will not be naïve
to admit that both our beliefs are perfectly the
same. In reality, our beliefs are different. But does
the difference lead us into confrontation, hatred and
prejudice? No, in fact it is just the opposite! Why?
Here is the secret.
While we often have dialogs and discussion about many
things, we never try to search the truth from our own
side and impose it on others. Once it happens, it’s
guaranteed that in less than a second evil and hatred
will dominate our dialogs. Instead, we build our
dialogs and discussion on a self-consensus principle
that it is the concern for humanity, concern for love
for the creation and our Creator that unite us. Those
are the unifying factors that have energized and given
the right spirit to our dialogs on many things in
life. There is no demand to “please understand me and
I will respect you” attitude.
That is the
old paradigm of dialog in which to understand about
other is the first step toward harmony and peace.
According to this paradigm dialog is aimed at
achieving understanding about others. But when the
prerequisite to a dialog is an understanding about
others, what is then the essence of dialog? The
following comment from a reader in response to my
article
“End corruption, political abuse,
terror”
(the
Jakarta Post October 19, 2002) nicely put the basis
for my argument
"Communication and
learning about others deeply from their own
perspective are the first, then maybe we'll understand
each other better and unite; and peace will come
easier."
This is the old
paradigm. The new one is: Understand first about
humanity and be responsible for it. That's why we
have:
The
second fundamental tenet of life
The common problem in
the world today is many people are trying to
understand others very deeply from others’ perspective
while ignoring their own selves. The East demand that
the West should understand about them first, and vice
versa. Understanding about others will not guarantee
a better world. We don’t really need to learn about
others deeply from their own perspective to have peace
with others. Knowing that others are human
beings, just like ourselves, is more than
enough to promote peace with them. Is it the golden
rule - Do unto your neighbors what they want them
to do for you, not enough? The problem today is we
demand other people first to understand us, but we are
not trying to understand humanity.
It is the understanding
about and the responsibility on humanity that have to
be the basis for dialog across different religion,
race and nationality. And talking about humanity, one
cannot get away from the conversation of basic needs
and human rights. The satisfactions of basic needs
such as the need for food, protection, sanitation and
etc. for all are the utmost responsibility of all
people across religion, race and nationality. The
fulfillments of human rights such as the right to
speech, the right to live, the right to worship
whatever God that one wants to worship and etc. are
all the highest responsibility of all people across
religion, race and nationality. But the biggest BUT of
all is, in trying to fix and work on those two issues
- the basic needs satisfaction and the human right
fulfillment - people must not bring themselves back
into square one that is destroying humanity for
humanity clause. The end must never justify the
means. This is the second fundamental tenet of life
that many people forget: We cannot simultaneously
promote humanity while at the same time destroy it.
After about two hours,
the break fasting service was over. As soon as I
stepped out the room, the world was no longer perfect.
I was back to the real world where prejudice, hatred
and superiority are daily bread for millions of people
around the world. Welcome to a crazy world!
But, with a new paradigm, we could turn the crazy
world into a wonderful one.
Next: promoting dialog and understanding in Indonesia
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