World's most powerful force

The ideas of "Moro nation" and "self-determination" have moved so many amongst us that despite of all the setbacks continue to build our future around it. The belief that only through "armed struggle" can we (single-handedly) achieved nationhood or self-determination has mobilized thousands of our own people to forsake the otherwise settled life for life in the jungle. For these words, blood has been shed and life sacrificed.

The idea of "rido" (vendetta) has given the us the excuse to seek revenge for generations. It has become more powerful than the preferred Qur'anic option for forgiveness. It has also misused the Islamic concept of biy'at (blood money) to stop retribution.

The "conspiracy theory" that people other than Muslims are out to destroy our faith and our way of life has hindered us to practice the Islamic teachings of rapproachement, mutual respect and co-existence, tolerance and shared futures; and gave birth to the "siege" and "win-lose" mentality.

The idea that our future is in the past has deter us from moving forward and reason enough to accept change is inevitable. We want to change our present. But our preferred change is to move backward to live a life of our oldies, not the life for our next generation. This idea got us stacked in history and to re-writing our past based on our preferred outcome rather than accepting historical facts.

This is a battle of ideas, not of guns and goons. In the time of the Old Egyptians, Greeks and the Romans, the gods and goddesses reign supreme while the belief in one supreme being was a heresy. The most powerful force in the world is not an advanced or sophisticated army, but an idea that can change how we see things and ought to be.

An idea can only be truly powerful, positive or otherwise, in the hands of someone who have the foresight to see change through this idea, the hindsight to learn from its misuse and the insight that change is inevitable.

Prepare to build

After the fog of rhetoric is gone, our angst simmers out, and our mind begins to understand/accept realpolitiks and the reality of constraints and interdependence, our quest for self-determination re-downs to two things: state- and nation-building.

• state-building - creation and sustaining democratic institutions and structures to deliver basic services, to uphold the rule of law, to promote people's welfare and security.
• nation-building - bringing together diverse peoples, to rally behind common goals, to chart shared futures; recognizing the cultural, linguistic and religious plurality.

Towards this end, state building needs strong political will, not politicking and nepotism; nation-building needs popular engagement (space and opportunity) to promote socialization and cohesion.

The rhetoric of hate (e.g. kuffar, dayyus, bugaan), exclusion (e.g. way lamud nila, paigun man sila, duyun man sila) and division (e.g. leader-follower, maisug-bugaan, tausug-samal) will not augur well towards this twin-goal of state- and nation-building.

Greatness

We can't be great as a people if we can't be great on our own.
We can only be great together if we can be great individually.

More importantly, we can't pursue individual greatness
At the expense and tragedy of our collective aspiration.

True greatness is not what each of us achieved
But on what we gave up individually to achieve our collective aspiration.