The Ghost Town

I hate how humans are capable to deceive themselves by thinking like this,

"Since the ancient times, the enemy was always the Other, the foreigner. His features did not appear to correspond to our criteria of beauty and if he had different dietary habits then people were struck by his smell... Not to mention the incomprehensible sounds of a foreign tongue." (excerpts from the book, On Ugliness by Umberto Eco; The Devil in the Modern World, The Demonization of Enemy)

And how we could deceive ourselves with those imaginary boundaries, for example; nation and race. That sometimes we consider people who are different from us are no longer human. But actually minus nation, race, and the colour of our skin, we are all human. Sometimes I wonder if we were all made not by flesh and skin, but only spirit, living together in a ghost town, would there be so much hatred?

Let's assume all of you have known the recent news about Philippine and Taiwan. Long story short, due to this issue happen between these two nations, some people have gone mad, really mad, until they didn't give so much respect to humanity. One of my friend told me, how an owner of a restaurant in Taiwan let a Filipino waiting for more than an hour for his lunch, and at the end, the owner refuse to serve the lunch for him, just because he's a Filipino. What's more interesting is that  before the thing happened between Taiwan and Philippine, everything was just fine.

Another story come from a Filipino who was asked to get down from the taxi before they reach the destination. Isn't that cruel, and how I've heard how some Filipinos have been beaten up. My heart bounce really fast, knowing that something is not right with this behaviour!

Unlike these people, today my indonesian friend asked my taiwanese friend, "Do you hate Filipinos?" and she answered, "I don't like how they solve this problem between Taiwan and Philippine, but I won't hate people here who came from Philippine. I think the things some Taiwanese do to them because of this issue is ridiculous." ~such thing should not happen.

People, I really don't understand how human could deceive themselves into this kind of thinking.

I remember the conversation between me and my friends during dinner time, "Some people are racist, taking me as an example, I don't know why, I hate Malaysia, I would never come to that country again, but I never really hate people from Malaysia." And again from this example, I was witness to some ignorant Indonesian people on internet, how they hate Malaysian people.

Although I'm not Taiwanese, by showing this I mean, I didn't blame all the Taiwanese people for behaving like this. But more particularly to people, who using and hiding behind this imaginary boundary, Nation. I used to think that it's good to love the country where you come from. But now, Nationalism could be tricky, and those who taking this belief for granted, didn't realize how they have become so ignorant and cruel.

As an Indonesian, it'd not be fair to justify how Taiwanese should behave. So I write this on behalf of all human.

People were born in different colour and race, and people are smart enough to create those so-called nation. We are meant to be different but we are never ready to accept it. No matter how I imagine living in a world where we were not made of flesh and skin, living together in harmony in a ghost town, but I prefer a colourful world, without those ignorant people.

So please stop this cruelty!