Truth Governs in Our Heart

Kompas/Fabio M Lopes Costa

Youths in Gewerpe village, Fakfak regency, West Papua, arrange used mineral water bottles to make a Christmas tree on Wednesday (20/12).

As Indonesia and the world community witnessed the political tricks used to win elections in voting booths, the idea of  post-truth became real. Following the many conversations and the crowded situation of the post-truth, an expert team at Oxford Dictionaries decided post-truth to be the Word of the Year in 2016, which filled public conversation in 2017.

As an adjective, post-truth means “a condition where objective facts have less effect in the formation of public opinion compared with private emotion and belief”.

Because of the condition, social media activists have warned that hoaxes have penetrated our day conversation in such a way. Even, people can defend themselves fiercely if they think a false witness as a truth. Therefore, now many people talk simply to defend their opinion, not describing facts. If there is a fact which seems to undermine their opinion, they will immediately search for alternative facts that are later claimed to be truth.

Vaclav Havel

At the start of the Reform Era in 1998, we hailed freedom from the airless room of political lies. In 1989, the same thing was also celebrated by Czechs and their  leader, Vaclav Havel. We in Indonesia used to be enthusiastic and optimistic like Havel. His book was translated into Indonesian: Arranging Nation from Destruction: Thoughts about Democracy, Power, and Culture (1992).

Havel told a story about a fruit and vegetable trader, who was under pressure from a totalitarian government, routinely put a banner containing a slogan “Labor throughout the world, be united!” among his onions and carrots. Of course he never thought about the meaning of the slogan even though he did it every morning for years. And when asked why he did it, its answer is, “I am afraid and therefore obedient not to be asked.”

One day, according to Havel’s record, the trader was angry and did not display the slogan again. Even, he started to have different opinion from the atmosphere where all were subdued. He decided to speak from his conscience; according to Havel, this was his effort to live in truth. Therefore, he had opened the secret of lies that circulated in politics and the public, and we know the follow-up effect of his stance: the communist power system was in limbo and fell.

For Havel, the Velvet revolution in Prague could not be separated from the longing for a life in truth to be free from the hoaxes of the totalitarian regime. This did not only make the citizens to experience an authentic moment when their shout echoed into their own ears, but for Havel in such a way we know that the things which underlie any struggle for truth, even though it is not fully understood, is the Transcendent itself.

The governing truth

The free democracy  has indeed allowed us to live in truth, even though we have lost our way recently. If before 1998 Reform, we immediately uncovered falseness, which flowed from the source of the power, now we are crowded by false news and false witnesses from various directions that seem to be too noisy. A situation to be easily connection has made us be continuously everywhere by hoax news.

Christmas may also be surrounded by fake news. Then Christians will be worried that they will have to spend Christmas on the defense or take a position that is different from others.

The Christmas Message this year, which is issued by PGI and KWI is ”Christ’s Peace Governs in your Hearts!” Such a peace can indeed come in the hearts of humans Allah is with us, and therefore we are asked to open up to that the peace also governs in our hearts. Peace presented to us cannot only happen simply in one community, but must be among communities and among religions.

The Christmas message of PGI/KWI continuously records that peace that governs the heart is a kind of mission. There are parties that want to discriminate against certain citizens, which would also damage the unity of the nation. In other words, the Christmas situation needs to be more authentically realized so that its real and viral impact can be joyfully hailed by the community. If Christmas excessively exposes its expansiveness, or brightens its prestige, people will consider it as a false new on Christmas. Or, even respond by saying how Christmas celebration is not in line with the teaching of the Bible and has become a false witness of the interest of the market.

Christmas should become the way of the people, as Havel said, live in truth. Possibly if there is a Christmas banner which no longer gives any message to be distributed, we need to pull it down and throw it away, then replace with a new sign. Our hearts want to be governed by a divine truth that embraces fellow beings, and participation of God, who does not differentiate because His welfare is given to all citizens of the earth. Merry Christmas!

MARTIN LUKITO SINAGA

GKPS Reverend and Extraordinary Lecturer of STFT Jakarta; An Expert Staff of the Presidential Working Unit of Pancasila Ideology Development