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11/28/02
I often thank that I wasn’t born during the War World II.
At that time
Indonesia
was occupied by Japan and from the history books as
well as from the stories told by my parents, people’s
lives during the occupation was a complete suffering.
Thanks to the progress that had been made by both
leaders and people of the countries, Japan and
Indonesia have enjoyed a mutual economic relationship
since the 1970s. Despite significant protests in the
early 1970s of the influence of Japan on Indonesian
economy which culminated in the Malari
incidence in 1974, Indonesian people tried not to be
held hostage by the past and now are striving to move
from victim to victory. Good luck.
On the other situation,
Japan also was not held captive by their defeat and
devastation during the war. Rather the country had
become a number two or three as the strongest
nation in the world economically. Thanks to its
people’s hard working and innovative attitude which
seems suggest that hate and the commitment to destroy
others are now becoming alien words for them.
As I watched a TV program at Discovery channel last night,
portraying the suffering and the release of the
American prisoners of war (POW) in
Vietnam
in the early 1970s, I was reminded once again that
suffering and hate are essentially not sisters or
brothers. They don’t belong to the same family. An ex
POW who suffered for more than five years and, just
like many other POWs, was brutally tortured told the
interviewer what he felt about the people who tortured
him. He said that our lives in this world is too short
and too precious to be channeled for hate because, as
he said, the consequences which are brought by hate
are far more damaging to the hater than to the
individual(s) or entity that he hates. His name is
John McCain, a
US
presidential candidate in the 2000 election.
A few days before the first year of the September 11
memorial, a father who lost his daughter on the one of
the planes hijacked from
Boston and slammed into one of the twin towers told
the interviewer from MSNBC cable news how he was
copying with his loss. Instead of wasting his time by
hating other people, he said he organized a small
group of people to provide humanitarian assistance to
the Afghan people. In addition, his small group went
to Afghanistan and lived there for days sharing the
misery of the Afghan people who were also suffered
from the US bombings.
Sixty years ago, a physically weak and yet powerful mind
gentleman, Gandhi urged his people in India not to
respond their suffering from the British
colonialization with hate rather he advocated them to
fight peacefully, work hard and cooperate with one
another. Undoubtedly, Gandhi
emerged as the few who used the concepts of truth and
love as weapons against suffering and injustice which
have inspired many other freedom fighters in many
other countries such as Martin Luther King, Jr. who
used the concepts in his fight against racism in the
US in 1960s.
In his fight for liberty and justice,
Gandhi managed to show the
British their sins. When Gandhi and his followers
marched with him to the sea in order to protest the
salt tax, the British beat them down, but they
continued to walk peacefully. This stung the British
conscience and through this the British realized their
evils and the cruelty that lay in their oppression.
As an individual who was born in the late 1960s, I am well
informed enough to know the horror of the Cold War,
the brutality of the wars in
Afghanistan
and in the Middle East (Iran vs Iraq) in 1980s and
many other horror stories from around the world. Those
were inspired and energized by hate. And today, there
is an unprecedented phenomenon where hate is even
trying to rule the world. That makes me really unhappy
of the current development.
The world has long been crazy but today is even crazier. It
seems now our small planet is held hostage by the
wrong four alphabetical words.
Instead of offering help, many people deny
others. Instead of being nice, many people
slay others. Instead of providing care,
many people envy others.
Instead of giving gift, many people raid
others. Instead of making themselves to be liked,
many people fear others. Instead of saying
okay, many people veto others.
And instead of showing love, many people hate
others.
There
is no need to repeat here the bloody stories occurred
around the globe from New York, Bali, Moscow, Nigeria,
Middle East and other regions. All were driven
by a mixture of hate and misunderstanding about
life.
As much as love is, hate is also powerful, but it is
powerful to bring people into a complete destruction.
Hate and love reside in people’s mind and heart. People are
born with them and always with them in their daily
lives. But people do have a choice: a
self-destruction or a victory. Environment, teaching
and education are all factors that affect which direction that
one will follow either to walk in the world of love or
to march in the valley of hate. Gandhi, the story of
McCain and the father who lost his daughter in the
September 11 have shown that people really do have a
choice. Also, they show that the treatment of others
often do not matter for their choice. It is all about
conscience and the values they hold. There is no
excuse.
The world now desperately needs people who can emulate the
story of the father above. The world also badly needs
leaders and influential individuals like Gandhi,
Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Theresa. Each
country must have at least one of those calibers these
days in order to make the world a safer and a better
place to live. But average people can do much more
effective and efficient. How?
While there are individuals who commit evil acts, the
number of good people is actually greater. But when the good people
are passive and act as if there are good reasons for
evil acts, the world will be doomed very soon.
Once Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for
the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
Indeed, the good people of the world must
take active role by showing the evil doers that their acts
are totally wrong and by educating others not to
worship hate and abandon love. Convincing others that we are
good is not going to work unless we fight against evil doers
and bring them to a realization that their choice is
wrong. I call this a majority’s blunder.
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