Justice and Competition

France has 1789 national revolution, Saudi Arabia has 1908 religious revolution, Russia has 1917 October Revolution, Japanese has 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bomb, Korean has 1953 separation conflict, Indonesia has 1965 côup d’état, Chile has 1974 bloody militarization, Iran has 1979 secular revolution, China has 1989 Tianamen Square huge mass-killing, South Africa had 40 years of Apartheid, Balkans have 1995 Sebrenica War, United States has 2001 World Trade Center tragedy, Georgia has 2008 conflict, Egypt has 2014 constitution’s revolution, and recently, Ukraine has 2015 war.

This still continues, including the forever-conflicts, such as Palestinian-Israeli nationalism identity, India-Pakistan border conflict, Belfast economic conflict, and Rohingya immigration discrimination. Those are might be connected historically to one and another, but we can not analyze each country’s justice and competition concept, without knowing its wounded history.

By reading once more Judge Bao Zheng story, those wounded history contains of two issues: Justice and Competition. At least for ourselves, we want to study in the best university, marry the best couple, have the best family, gain the best luck in work and if we see other people who do different from our standard, sometimes what we can do is judging.

Well, nobody is perfect, while no country is no perfect, neither, but we can be the next “Judge Bao Zheng” version of ourselves to serve our own country by respecting the dignity of human rights. If Judge Bao Zheng was an active politician now, he should had balanced international politic constellation and international human rights condition.

The desire to be the best people to serve our country is always being head to head with general humanitarian problems. So, which one is important, your country or humanity? This is a forever dillematic question that contains Justice and Competition deep reflection. Please answering it with dignity: What is more important, your country or humanity?

Written by Jeanne Francoise, Researcher in Indonesia Peace and Conflict Resolution Association, Indonesia Defense University, holding Bachelor of Humanities and Master of Defense. This story reflects her own argument.