Nathanael Gratias Sumaktoyo's Blog

The ironic thing is, violence towards Ahmadiyah and resistance towards particular worship house are easily visible, felt, and found. Even the organizations involved in the actions can be mentioned easily. They are not ghost. We can touch them, and they do not work in underground. But for most of us, what is easily seen is less interesting than intangible ghost called NII. We care less about religious violence than talking about NII.

Instead of supporting secular democrats, we must support the democracy itself, regardless who participate in it. Democratization is, in a sense, secularization. If we do the democracy rightly, it will moderate any group participating in it and make violent mobilization less attractive. The end does not justify the means and a good end needs a lot of hard works. We just need to work harder and ignore the temptation of the easy way –political restriction.

We are too God-oriented that sometimes we forget that we live in the world of human that needs real empathy and real love, instead of mere praying. Encouraging this country to deal with disasters only by praying and asking for repentance just makes vicious cycle of self-pity and self-blaming. We already did the praying. We already asked for the repentance. It is now time to speak with fellow mankind as much as we speak with God, not for saving us from disasters but to build the best world we could have.

Angry at people whom we believe God is also angry at.