Politics, War &... Dinner at Sek 7??

everyday is a tiring day. life's never gonna change, is it?

i just returned from dinner with fatma, mj, hadi n ipin at amin thai. the kuey teow tomyam was nice, the soup was really kicking but too kicking that i could not finish it. sad case indeed. we talked about a few stuffs and some of them were quite serious.

we touched on politics. urghh... politics? perhaps the one topic people should avoid most at a dinner table. let's get this straight - one can never be completely true and righteous about one's own thinking of politics. every element of modern politics is already very much corrupted.

pure ideals belonged to the past. aristotle and plato - anyone?

there were five of us during the meal. each one of us with our own inclination - some of us are quite liberals, some conservative, some moderate and some are just not interested in talking about politics at all. if we are to argue about that while eating, then it would be the longest dinner i'd ever have in my entire uitm lifetime.

so we then changed into more personal gossip-related topics. life seems normal again, haha.

i had philosophy today. there were two presentations concerning two very much interrelated topics - eliminationism and ethnocentrism. quite interesting to be sure, how one would commit a morally wrong act just because one feels that his/her race or ethnic is better than others.

this race thingy is seriously draining me out.

difference. the biggest cause of human conflict today.

people kill, people assault, people hate, people avenge - all due to differences.

i am this and therefore, you are that. we belong to different group of people.

so?

why do differences have to matter? can we look beyond that? just because you belong to a certain group of people does not mean i have any right to look up or look down upon you. we are all born humans. none of us were born half animal, half man. let's focus on the common thing that we have - mind.

mind. we can think. we can evaluate. we can act based on our rational mind.

yet we choose to act based on our ancestry and blood.

of course it's easy to justify such actions if you are in the advantaged side. what happens if you are in the inferior minority side of the game? would you think the same?

privilege and right? how can people even argue about those two very different notions.

we have rights. thus, we are entitled to claim it.

but privileges? they are of given nature. they are not ours in the first place. they are given. for a reasoned purpose, of course. but every one seems to forget that now.

why should we be so insistent in not letting it go? are we afraid? cautious, maybe?

some countries resorted to killing those who were from the 'threatening' ethnic group. sad thing, and stupid, too. mass killing thousands of innocent people. they depreciated the value of life.

there are times of when i really thank God for allowing me to be born in a relatively peaceful country where i can learn without any major problems and live a stable life without any life-threatening issues to deal with. with that kind of stability, i am able to have hopes and ambitions and dreams. get my own apartment after i graduate, get a Honda or Toyota car, take umi and kakak travelling, becoming a writer and perhaps change the mindset of the malaysian community. there is a long list of Ruby Jusoh's dreams  in my journal right now.

therefore, looking at the articles concerning the Bosnian war and Rwandan genocide, i couldn't help but wonder - those girls who were about my age when the atrocities happened in their countries - did they have the chance to hope? to have dreams? they were raped, their family members murdered and their homes destroyed.

if i was to be place in their position, would i still have the list of dreams i want to achieve? all those studying, all those DLs - would it matter? would life matter?

that is why i hate all these atrocities happening around the world today and in the past. such horrific action deprives one of one's own life. it takes away all the gist and value in it.

in the name of differences and belief from a certain fraction of people that they are entitled to commit such things to other people.

p/s: whoah, quite a serious post. but then, i always tend to be so philosophically serious after each of my philosophy class... haha, my most favourite subject this semester!! call me a crazy psychopath bitch - i don't give a damn...