Your own backyard

I refer to the article entitled All nations share responsibility for injustice published in The Jakarta Post on Oct. 1, 2001. How right he (J. Soedjati Djiwandono) is when implicitly saying that everyone in Indonesia should focus on their own backyards before even considering to criticize other nations and their ways.

Hypocrisy is almost everywhere, as is lack of justice, and we have almost reached the stage where the telling of lies is becoming commonplace, that the truth is hard to recognize. All of this being justified by those that will benefit from such deceit and meaningless rhetoric.

America is seen by many as being the devil in disguise, a nation that trumpets human rights and morality, and yet behind the scenes adopts double standards. This is easy to say, and surely what has happened since Sept. 11 bears some witness to that. But then, what do you do when you have a gaping big wound in your side, except seek a means to stop bleeding, even if that means biting the bullet.

One must consider that, to do business in this world means you have to "bend" somewhat to achieve your objectives and, believe you me, all nations do that. It has become a web of deceit, a noisy world that silently moves in unseen directions and yet, on the surface, appears to be going the opposite way.

All these so-called necessary deals of today seem to have a habit of backfiring tomorrow, and that is because the original decision was wrong. The lesser of two evils is often referred to when a difficult political decision has to be made, but in those cases there is usually a third option. The third option, unfortunately, is either ignored or not even seen, as the chances are it will not benefit those that are already rich and powerful.

DAVID WALLIS

Medan, North Sumatra