I was born on November, 1993, in a conservative small town called Palu; the capital city of Central Sulawesi Province, Indonesia. 

It was a peaceful place. In the dawn, adzan and cocks chanted their melodies signing the Muslims to take a Subuh prayer; it also became a bell for the mothers to prepare their kids’ and husbands’ uniforms; and for the others, they noted it as a brand new day to begin with. 

These acts did not only happen in a fairy-tale, but it was there. The assuaging days of Palu.

THE CASE

In 1998, everything changed without a significant warning. The name of Kerusuhan Poso or Poso Berdarah released. Poso—one of the districts of Central Sulawesi located 220 km away from Palu—shocked us. 

The voices of grenades and guns were the gratis ‘lullabies’ for the society in Poso. I witnessed throngs of refugees kept coming to the town by trucks and by vans with blood stained on their bodies. Some were unfortunate; they could not stop the trucks or the other wheels. 

They ran and hid oftentimes on their way to Palu to avoid getting caught by the rebels; and some needed to go hiding in mountains and rivers.

This civilization war preceded its effect to the people of Palu. ‘The beautiful days’ perished and faded away. The chirping of sparrows did not feel the same anymore. It was even defined as a warning to be cautious.

Screams of fear in midnight, sounds of footsteps from people running, and guns’ explosions were our oxygen. That tranquil morning to start a day evaporated to nowhere. 

People were not as kind as they used to be. Kids were not allowed to climb trees and to do stuff outside with their friends.

The reason was simple; some said it was because the Christians outnumbered the Muslims, and some cited the Kailinese—the locals—were economically defeated by the foreigners. Those were true, but never became a problem before. What really happened, there was a political intervention beclouded them. 

The fact was the terrorists sneaked in and played around the society’s minds by injecting their strong stigma about the jeopardy of living in apparent dissimilarities, especially different races and religions. 

The terrorists easily made them to be up against each other. At first, the so-called natives inclined the existence of the foreigners by conducting impolite acts; and they have gone crazier by firing the foreigners’ houses, devastating their farms, and killing their family members. 

They raped many pregnant women, forced them to give a birth when the pregnancy was not even mature, and assassinated the innocent children and babies.

THE DREAMS

Having Poso Berdarah had coloured our lives here, I now understand why the shouldn’t-happen-tragedy emerged. It is the lack of education. A fracas exploding between ‘A’ and ‘B’ is most likely because either ‘A’ is hard to get in a track of ‘B’’s way of thinking or vice versa. 

We, the Indonesians, have been struggled to face the reality that we live in an exquisite place with tons of diversities. Religions, cultures, and languages become the Indonesian’s worth heritage. It shall never be the barriers to unite and to come together creating love and fondness amongst us. 

We should have had this understanding. We should have recognized everyone in this planet has an absolute right to hold to his or her faith in different gods and rituals, but still s/he would perceive interdependent. Thus, the dogma and the paradigm coming from the irresponsible person or community would have been strictly refused.

The inevitable existence of asymmetry information and of misunderstandings amongst mankind at large frequently ensues, for the language they exert to communicate is not in the same line of perspective. They speak the same language, but reject listening. 

Living in a world where notions and feelings are expressively conveyed makes people speak their unequivocal languages towards every thing. 

Feminists speak the language of equality and justice for the sake of women’s dignity; environmentalists speak their language in a term of attaining clean air for all the inhabitants to breathe in; and nonconformists undeniably speak the language of gender equality and human rights for the LGBTQ.  

Yet, the languages we will learn are the languages most likely manifesting the terminology of humanity; the ones which laughter, sadness, and sincerity are shared; the languages feeling the agony of mankind; and the languages determining we are diversified, yet being so is not even a faux-pas—because the world still needs a balance.

We would not be friends with ethnicity, different sex-oriented, race, gender, religion, and all classes of words linking to block us up. These walls would not be engaged in lexicons of any tongue. Our young generations will fathom with the ‘Phonology’ of equality and with the ‘Morphology’ of justice. 

Hatred and wars would safely be put in books as a literature, read by people and are as a reminder about the nightmares which shall never be repeated. 

Multilingualism is a form of social contract leading us to make the world a better place. The six official languages and sure the others are the means that should become the bridge for mankind to gather around and to see the world wider and wiser. 

Another, education is no longer valued as an expensive jargon. Illiteracy, apathy, and other blocks will be overcome by the existence of the sub-divisions of education, i.e. globalization and technology—where both have been propelling the global civil society to be stronger than ever. 

States’ dominance will be replaced by the partnerships and by the sustainable cities and communities. Thus, we might revolutionize the foundation and current system of this planet.