New Year's resolutions

The turn of the year provides the opportunity to reflect on the failures and achievements of the year that has passed. The old slate of the past 12 months cannot be wiped clean, but we can hope to fill the new slate with worthy deeds.

It is a prospect, in the words of Tennyson, to ring out the old and ring in the new.

"Ring out the grief that saps the mind, for those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, ring in redress to all mankind."

Some of us will resolve to acquire career and material gains in 2005, while others will simply vow to stop smoking. There are those who will resolve to marry, or perhaps to repair fractured families. Whatever the resolution may be, the occasion of the New Year seemingly infuses our inured existence with a fresh vitality.

From the rather somber year-end festivities, we realize that too many of our cousins across the archipelago cannot simply turn the page. The New Year only perpetuates the grief that began in 2004.

The only resolution they can have for the New Year is simply to endure; hoping, even against hope, for a slight reprieve in one of the 12 challenging months that lie ahead.

The post-Christmas tsunami disaster has sprouted an overwhelming benevolence among the Indonesian people -- from the privileged to the rank and file. This spirit of altruism and brotherhood must be nurtured to foster common resolutions for the year that looms before us.

This nation must resolve to allocate as much of itself as possible to provide relief and rebuild the lives of those devastated by nature's wrath. Not just in Aceh, but all over Indonesia. There are a million displaced people in this country, many have lived in camps for years out of sheer neglect and poor organization.

We should resolve to start providing for our young and needy -- affordable schools and hospitals -- as an investment that will pay dividends in future generations. Every child born in this country must have the opportunity to fulfill his or her potential.

Each and every one of us must also resolve to vanquish our prejudices of race, religion and ideology, and to live as a harmonious community rich in diversity. The mental walls that people build to separate themselves from one another breed bigotry and faithless zealots.

We should exploit our precious environment only when necessary, and consume Mother Nature's riches only as needed.

We hope our political leaders will resolve to act with decorum, guided by statesmanship as they pursue legitimate political ambitions. Our politicians must recognize that their conduct should serve as a model of civilized behavior in a democracy still struggling to evolve and grow.

The nation should seek to allow expression to roam free, unbridled by misguided dogma. If, as they say, all great ideas begin as blasphemy, then it would be even more sacrilegious to imprison the spirit of creativity on the grounds of personal dislike or conservatism.

No less important should be the resolve to restore a degree of conscience to the appropriation of state resources, along with ethics to our judicial system.

We know now that honesty is a gift, not a virtue, that must be honed and encouraged. We cannot expect those suddenly responsible to adopt a conscience when corruption has become a function of greed, not need.

If the nation resolved to do all these needful things, by the end of 2005 we would not only be ringing in the New Year but ringing out for joy for the whole nation.

"Ring out false pride in place and blood, the civic slander and the spite; Ring in truth and right, ring in the common love of good."