The cruel world<\/p>\n
The motto Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity) seems to
\nhave a hollow sound if we read in newspapers or see on TV what
\nhas been going on in various regions, such as Sambas (West
\nKalimantan), Ambon, East Timor, etc. Each time I read about such
\natrocities it sends a shudder through my innermost thoughts and I
\ncannot help muttering to myself: \"How can a man be so cruel to
\nhis fellow countrymen? It is like annihilating your own sisters
\nand brothers.\"<\/p>\n
Bisnis Indonesia, in its March 22, 1999 edition, reported that
\nsince the previous week, conflict had exploded between ethnic
\nMalay and Dayak against a minority newcomers from Madura. Last
\nSaturday, indigenous Dayak and Malay armed with bows and arrows
\nand torches paraded around the town of Tebas with human heads
\n(severed from bodies) on a pick-up truck.<\/p>\n
Newsweek of March 8, 1999 reported: \"Evil to the end.\" John
\nWilliam King and his friends apparently killed James Bird (an
\nAfrican-American) as an initiation rite to their own Klan-style
\ngroup. The friend allegedly picked up 49-year-old James Bird who
\nwas hitchhiking on a Saturday night last June. They chained him
\nto the truck and dragged him, still alive, through the town until
\nhis elbows peeled away on the pavement and his head rolled off
\nthe road. John William King was sentenced to death by lethal
\ninjection last week Texas, U.S.A.<\/p>\n
Newsweek of March 15, 1999 reported that in 1947, Mikhail
\nIsayevich Tanich, two years after returning from Berlin as a
\nvictorious Red Army soldier, was shipped to a labor camp in
\nSiberia. He spent six years of his life -- from 23 to 29 -- in
\nJoseph Stalin's gulag. His crime was prototypically absurd. He
\ntold the people in the home country (Russia) that the highways in
\nGermany were excellent and he had never seen such good roads! The
\nso-called Autobahn. That a man could be jailed for six long years
\nfor expressing his thoughts boggled my mind! And to top all this,
\nthe atrocities that are now being committed in Kosovo, which can
\nbe seen daily on TV are almost unbelievable!<\/p>\n
A. DJUANA<\/p>\n
Jakarta<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/the-cruel-world-1447899208", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }