We Are Always At War

We live in a strange world, with confusing problems and ambiguous words. Where we hate everybody and everybody hate us. We are always at war. Mostly with ourselves, occasionally with people in different religion and country. We are always at war and we love to play victim. Whether we are at upper side or opposition, we always longed to be the victim.

You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two.

Hayao Miyazaki

I love this country called Indonesia and the messiness it holds within. The beauty of diversity. Sure we are always at war, long before this land found its name. We fought with each other and everybody said that we deserved a little bit of everything.

The founder of this nation believes that what will make us a great country is not the land, nor its landscapes. It is not the resources, nor the sea. It is the people. Bhinneka Tunggal Ika is our nation slogan and it doesn’t say anything about our land. For many years, it is always about the people.

But this great power called people is also the one who lead us to doom. The first great war I’ve experienced is on 1998. I still don’t get it until know the root cause of it all. What makes us believe we are greater than anybody else? What makes us think that we deserve more when we give so little? There are many wars after that, in the land that I’ve never stepped on, and in the land I knew so well. But the closest it gets to me is the 2014 Election. I saw people started a war amongst themselves. I don’t know whether it is something buried down within, or someone just get really mad about everything. But one thing indeed, we are still at war.

I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam.

Muhammad Abduh

Maybe I’m not that good of understanding Islam, like any of you. But not any bit of Islam that I know and dearly love, tell me about hating nor vengeance. But people love to play victim and suddenly having a religion becomes a reason to start a war.

We live in a country where we were betrayed by many people. It’s hurt a lot more when people who considered as a religious person does not reflected the same trait in his/her social behavior. It’s madhouse and it hurts too much. There were a time that I hate a lot of people, a figure, a political party, a political party based on religion, people, in general. But if I can repeat it in my head for its million time, not any bit of Islam that I know and dearly love, tell me about hating nor vengeance. We don’t deserve to be a judge and we already release too much anger.

To live in this kind of world, all you need is a lot of love and patience. It takes time to heal this country and its people. We are never be a great country, if we don’t stop the war. We will never be one, if we are ignoring many perspectives. Trying to understand that no one ever deserve more than any of us.

Tonight, all my prayer goes to all of you. Who is in constant seeking but always be found, who is found but forget to seek. Let’s not feed the evil by our anger and hatred. Let’s give love without expecting something in return. Let’s be human, as good as we can be.

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