A war among brothers?

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