A war among brothers?

I remember a teaching from Tsun Szu in his famous masterpiece The Art of War to the effect that a good "war" is won without a drop of blood being spilt on earth. And another thinker, whose name I forget (may God pardon me), says that a war is the result of a bad political maneuver.

Well, looking back to Southeast Asian history, wars between the island of Java and Peninsular Malaysia or the island of Sumatra and Peninsular Malaysia have not been uncommon. Going back to Sriwijaya, Majapahit, Malacca, Aceh, Johor, Kedah and so on up the list to the Dutch and the British, and the states inherited by Indonesia and Malaysia, the world would not be surprises by a war.

However, besides the so-called tension, there are still familial ties binding the people who live in these two nations. In fact, our two peoples are bound together eternally. Weird isn't it?

Do these people really care what Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur thinks? A man on Sebatik Island even has a part of his house in Indonesia and the other part in Malaysia. The best part is that, these are the people who live in the area that we are so patriotically claiming as our sovereign right and trumpeting our willingness to die for.

It's sad to say that while we scratch our heads trying to figure out why the Arabs fight among themselves, in our own backyards we are doing the very same. Do we ever think who might be laughing at us now because of our foolishness?

MOHAMAD DAUD SULAIMAN, Bandar Puncak Alam, Malaysia