Overcoming evil
About a year ago, and even before that, Indonesian was becoming the envy of many poor and developing nations due to its seemingly prosperous economy. Back then, many of its poor people were gradually passing above the poverty line, with millions of tourists visiting the country and a lot of investors pouring in.
Perhaps by fate, or coincidence, when the government changed its plan to buy fighter planes from the most powerful country and instead started negotiating with the Russians in a food-for- fighter planes barter deal, the economic turmoil started to hit Southeast Asia, with Indonesia receiving the hardest punch.
In just one year, the rupiah lost 80 percent of its value, and to add insult to injury, many people lost their jobs due to closure of their workplace (economic reasons and riots) and the prices of basic commodities skyrocketed.
If this is not acted upon correctly by all concerned, and soon, Indonesia will fast become the sick man of Asia.
In a brighter view of the situation, Indonesia is a huge nation with lots of resources, human and natural, and good climatic conditions. If it were only properly governed, Indonesia would have no reason to be poor. But the responsibility of proper governance does not belong only to its leadership, but also to its people. It has been said that evil thrives when good people don't act. In many situations, some of us know that there is evil lurking within our midst but we don't want to get involved for fear of being insulted, publicly humiliated, imprisoned, kidnapped or even tortured.
Many of us pray five times a day, yet do not have the courage to fight the devil, even though we know that a certain deal or situation we are involved in is an evil thing. We like to talk and comment, blame and finger-point to others, yet we are afraid to act. Instead of doing what we are responsible for, or what is expected of us, we blame others by discriminating against them because of their race, material status, origins and religion, forgetting the fact that we are all the children of God. It's human nature that we are all here to do good things and avoid evil, and receive the reward later, not here on Earth, but somewhere only God knows where.
Unfortunately, maybe by evil design, many of us prefer to do the opposite of this. We wrongly equate success as the accumulation of material wealth regardless of whatever means it takes. We want to get power so that we can dictate to others and do whatever we please. It has been proven time and again that no person can take material wealth or power beyond the grave. We wrongly define freedom as the right to do whatever we want, instead of doing what we ought to do.
To attain goodness as a goal of human life is not an easy undertaking. It is so easy to be bad, with just a bit of selfishness, greediness, egoistic tendencies, laziness, without empathy and boredom; while it is so difficult to be good, but not impossible. It surely requires tremendous courage, discipline, daily reflection and prayer, vigilance and strong faith in God.
It is not wrong to be rich or to be poor, but it is in how you go about what you get. It's the method of attaining something that will make it right or wrong. I think the Ten Commandments, the hadiths (teachings of Prophet Muhammad) and many other religious teachings are all good references.
I.G. ANACTA
Jakarta