People Have Dreams

I opened my Facebook one time. A notification popped up. My friend tagged me to a video: A short remarks from Nurcholish Madjid (1939 – 2005) about civil society. I opened it.

I found Madjid clearly said that civil society is a dream of Indonesia in the future. It struck me when he mentioned civil society is there when people obey the laws, so that the people are civilized! It struck me because when I reflected what he mentioned to what is going on around me, it even hurts!

Our media is full of news about endless corruption and stuff. The government, the ones who are meant to shine the people to get their bright future, just gets their people thrown away out of the windows. While they are proud of stuffing their mouths with full of fancy foods, people are starving to death.

People here are even lack of education. That means people are failing to see their bright futures. People fail to see what they are up against: poverty, hunger, unemployment, injustice, human right violation and so forth. These situations could even end up with some other painful situations: crimes and even murders. I bet life has driven people nuts. No times to think of the future.

But, Madjid’s idea about nur’any or our deepest heart finally tickles me when I am overwhelmed by all these problems. He came up with a small but very important thing: listening to and obeying what our nur’any says.

He believes that all human being are meant to be good. All the goodness comes from the deepest heart that will always be talking about goodness. This is the smallest law we could obey to start solving other problems. This could be such guidance of what we should and should not do regarding how make life better.

It is only our consciousness that differs us from animals, said my friend. Regarding Madjid’s nur’any, the idea leads us to be aware of our surroundings, to be conscious as a real human. It emphasizes on any goodness and “lights” we might have and be aware of.

Then, speaking of creating a better future, individuals should understand that they have the lights, the goodness to shine. But, “It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us,” says Marianne Williamson’s poem. We tend to be afraid of blowing up anything while not knowing that we can do any goodness for people. In a better future, we don’t want to see any of us still live under any darkness—poverty, injustice, and so on, don’t we?

The future we dream of is all about modernity. As it is people’s futures, everybody deserves good things no matter what. So, we might as well believe what Anies Baswedan said that today, “In the same time, we’re not only a nation citizens, but also the global ones.” Being global citizens means that we’re all the same. We are all human beings having the same rights on everything.

Modernity in our future means that everybody is done with at least their both education and economy. People should be well educated so that they know how to harness any goodness they could do. People know what the best they can do for the sake of others, so that there won’t be anybody feeling insecure around.

Additionally, being economically done means we can stand on our own feet to meet daily needs. There won’t be anybody say I am starving or even I am dying.

Marthin Luther King Jr.
(Wikipedia)

Pramudya Ananta Toer said about three requirements to live within modernity: modern sciences, modern organizations, and modern devices. We’ve got a whole bunch of books in libraries and research works in laboratories. We’ve got many kinds of local and global organizations.

And we’ve got very sophisticated technologies on computers, telecommunications, and so forth. It is in line with what Madjid said: an outstanding civilization must be supported by strong technology and economy. We’ve got all of them. So should we still be pessimistic and even doubtful about our future?

Yet obeying laws is just very important still. We want a peaceful world so when one smiles, the others too. We want to live in a civil society, to become civilized people who are powerful and united. We want to love each other and know that we always have friends and family to wrap our arms around. We want this world to become our real home.

Martin Luther King Jr. ever gave a powerful speech titled “I have a dream”. Yet now, it is not only one person can dream. We people have dreams, we dream about a better life in the future.

So, when it all comes true? Even though it is hard to see, my best friend said, “Just time will tell, buddy!”