bobjots : redux

Not everyone is called to take up the role of an activist or a politician. The mantle of the prophet is given to few. But one thing we can all do is to intercede and pray for the nation in this uncertain and troubled time. Many of us, irregardless of our faith traditions or lack thereof, are used to praying or at least hoping for peace. I remember that as a kid, before making the choice to embrace the Christian faith, I used to be taught to pray for 平安 (peace and tranquility).

As a Christian today, my posit is that peace requires justice. In the chaotic geo-politics of today, a lot of people are clamouring for a just peace. It is not enough to merely impose peace but also to bring it about justly. Martin Shaw of the University of Sussex suggests:

Peace entails justice, indeed, not merely in this sense of criminal responsibility, but in the larger sense of a just political and economic settlement for the people

I don't disagree. Peace is more than simply the absence of conflict; it is a way of life in which each person has the essentials such as food, water, and shelter, in which sins such as sexism and racism are negated, in which love is the crucial factor in human relations.

In order to faithfully live in community, the Church must prayerfully support the elimination of poverty, war, racism, sexism, hate, and the like. True peace is intimately entwined to real justice and our own scriptures testify to it very strongly :

The recent developments of the sodomy allegations against Anwar with the spin and the counter spin goes to prove one thing. We Malaysians are generally still victims of misinformation with no way of actually being able to trust any source of information, whether it originates from the mainstream media (read as Ministry of Information) or from the Opposition media (due to the fact that they are openly and unabashedly biased in favour of the political parties that run them).