Your own backyard

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