Why Religious Hatred?

 The most embarassing things in life are inter-religious hatred among religious followers. And it’s even more embarassing to see that this phenomenon prevail among the so-called ‘the three most-sacred and most-influential’ religion: Islam, Christian and Jews. I dont know, and it’s not important as well, who hate whom first. The damaged has been done, is still developing and deteriorating by the day.

It’s not the right place for me to analyse it from politico-historical point of view here in this page, although if you are curious enough to know you can click through the links –at the end of this posting– to my previous op-ed pieces (in Bahasa Indonesia) scattered in several Indonesian newspapers regarding this i ssue.

Everyone, every religious followers should go back towards the basic purpose on why he/she sticks to and choose certain religion during his/her lifetime: as life guidance. To guide your mental stability whenever you are in desperate situation; to look for solace in time of agony; to strengthen your mind at the time when your heart cannot be strengthen by a glass of beer, etc. In other words, the sole aim of religion and the purpose of being religious are to have inner peace.

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Denmark Cartoon Controversy

Inter-religious relation is just like inter-personal friendship. You gotta maintain a take-and-give balancing act in order to make sustainable friendship. In personal friendship, either side should try to maintain give-more-and-take-less principle, not the other way round. The more you implement this principle, the more friends you’ll have.

Take-and-give principle certainly not only limited to material things. The significance thing in this concept is it symbolizes the spirit of making your friend happy first, and he/she’ll make you happy too sooner or later. In other words, never try or make him/her unhappy intentionally or unintentionally. Once it happens, the breaking up is underway, especially if you offend him/her in a big way, on a sensitive matter to him/her.
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The Clash of Fundamentalism

Whether you are geographically or ideologically in the East or in the West, you’ll be tempted or at least hard to resist the temptation to conclude and believe that the current brouhaha between the East (Islam) and the West (Christianity) as a result of Denmark cartoon controversy as a strong sign of Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilization thesis. If you think and believe so, you are wrong.

The truth is it’s the clash of fundamentalism: the the no less dogma-bound secular fundamentalism in the West and the religious fundamentalism in the East.

First, religious fundamentalism and the often violent censorship it seeks to impose, is certainly not limited to Islam. In Britain, Sikh agitators disrupted the staging of a play (written by a Sikh) which depicted a rape scene in a Gurdwara.
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Indonesian President SBY Website Launched

Finally, Indonesian current President SBY (Susilo Bambang Yudoyono) launched his own website. The first of its kind. It’s a bit similar with a blog equipped with podcast, RSS feed, although without comment box. So, you can put it into your My Yahoo, or Google Fusion if you want.

The site contains anything relating to the President activities: from his own speeches on various occasions, interviews and news, including his SMS number, PO Box, and guestbook (I’ve tried the guestbook, it’s not working). Predictably, it’ll be a hit in no time.
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The Importance of Soul-Searching

Soul searching, self-reflection or self-criticism if you like are a tendency of an individual, society or nation that has been undergoing sort of anxiety kind of feeling. It used to happen when one feels there’s something wrong with him/her in case of individual, or in case of nation/country, with the nation/state. Soul searching in a big way done by an individual will make him/her a good philosopher, poet, . Hence the emergence of Sigmund Freud, Plato, Aristoteles, Kahlil Gibran, etc.
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Senior Junior Relationship

A few months back, I, along with a friend, was invited by a senior Indonesian diplomat in New Delhi. We talked a lot about various issues including current events in Indonesia, international, and some off-the-record stories. What I want to share here with you, my honorable readers, are his comments on senior-junior relationship of Indonesian officials.

He said that as far as old generation of Indonesian officials goes, senior-junior relationship has never been easy. You gotta obey whatever your senior wants you to do, including to mess things up. For example, if a higher official in rank want to “make-up”, or mark-up if you will, the auditing report, all you have to do is just do it or else face the consequences. He’s happy, he said, that the current Ambassador never asked him to do so (unlike his predecessor).
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Are you the Terrorist Blogger?

In the real world, the so-called terrorist defined as a person, community, or state who terrorise others through violence means for whatever reasons and purposes, either those terror acts carried out by individual, a group of individuals or states. The last criteria refers to any states who occupy other states, as there’ll be no successfull occupation without any physical violence . I think you agree with me on this regard.
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The East-West Dialogue

Many sincere and peaceful individuals in the East and the West desperately want to make a comprehensive dialogue as a step towards fruitful and flourished coexistence especially when the world become localized as a result of information technology. The question is how to do it. And how to start it in the first place. Don McKinnon, Secretary-General of Commonwealth gives us a recipe worth reading and considering. In an interview with an Indian newspaper The Hindu he talks about various topics including the current danish cartoon controversy, political development in West Asia and West-East dialogue. As far as the interview goes, we easily conclude that he’s the kind of honest and sincere person we’d like to talk to.
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Love Your Neighbour

We, human beings, are hardly grateful creatures to whatever privelege we are currently enjoying and tend to take it for granted unless and until we lost it. Only then we start mourning and remembering it and pray & ask for it to come back. Sometimes an individual accident or a national natural disaster like Tsunami in Aceh becomes a good way for the “nature” to remind us of the importance of thank-giving. There are another way to be grateful to what we already posses without any need to wait for a thief to steal our properties: by looking at someone else who yet to have it and desperately want it. Here’s one story I’d like to share.
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