The Young Man And The Sea

It was early Monday morning, and whilst all of Singapore slept soundly, a team of four men waited patiently inside a small pilot boat, off the west coast of the country.
Armed and ready, we watched the faint lights on the dark horizon, speculating which one might be our ship.

I walked out of the cabin and onto the rear deck to take a seat, and for a while, contemplated how ridiculous it was for a national serviceman to be where I was.
Some hold rifles and run up hills. Some fight the battles with pens, paper and photocopy machines. Others get bars on their shoulders, swords in their hands and peak caps on their heads, and with all their extensive training, proceed to spend the rest of their service time shaking their legs within air-conditioned offices.
For me, it was different. It was real. And if at any time I began to think it wasn't real, the crushing weight of the bulletproof vest would hold me firmly down to Earth. The sixty bullets we each held was a constant reminder that my life was not only in my own hands.

I was joined at the back by the boat's seaman, the man on board who does all the work except the steering. Reaching into the front pocket of his worn out, faded, and slightly tattered zip-up coveralls, he took out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. I thought about it for a while. I thought not of the risks of cancer or of being branded a smoker by the ignorant and childish out there, but of how hard he had to work just to be able to afford that temporary relief from the stresses of life. I refused once, twice, but when he insisted, I took one from the pack.

Lighting up, he started a conversation about our operations for the day. Eventually we started talking about home.
He wasn't a Singaporean. He had come from central Java, as he described, "a ten hour bus ride from Jakarta". And he had come in search of a better life.
It struck me how he could speak so well and had the ability to comprehend every word I spoke (which is far beyond what I can say for many of my Singaporean associates). I discovered that he actually held a qualification which would be the equivalent of a polytechnic diploma.

Such an Imperialistic pig I have become. Living in Singapore has made me think that we are the elite ones. The Big Timers, The Chosen People, The only ones truly civilised and well off in this region. The way that we have been educated here has created the automatic response of looking down upon anyone who is reportedly "worse off" than us. I altered my level of language to one which was broken and basic, but he gave me responses in almost perfect English.

He was a very simple person. Coming from a family of 10, he liked to play badminton, he believed that Brazil's football team was over rated, he thought Angelina Jolie was the ideal woman, but then again had no preference between Singaporean and Indonesian girls. He had spent most of his life out at sea before coming to Singapore, working on board a chemical tanker plying the Singapore-India route.
He was twenty-seven years old, but the sea and the salt had turned some strands of hair grey, and had aged his face prematurely.

Finishing his second stick, he got up to go back inside, and I realised I didn't even know his name. Tapping him on the shoulder I said "By the way, I'm Kurt."
He smiled and said, "Pedruz, Simon Pedruz."
Surprised by the unusual name, I asked if he was a Catholic.
He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Christian" and proceeded to describe to me the details of the church he went to, which was in fact a Roman Catholic church.

It was only then that I came to the awful realisation that I had become like they are. I was no better than those monsters who hijack religion to further their own causes. Gone was my philosophy of "Catholics, Christians, we're all the same." Suddenly I had begun to draw boundaries and create separations, just like they do. Standing before me was this honest person without complexity who did not bother about all the unnecessary man-made specifics of religion.

He didn't care if the church had statues and images of Jesus Christ, or whether there was a stage with a ten piece band. It didn't matter to him whether we called our leaders Pastors or Priests, whether we went to mass or service, whether we sat down in church, or rolled around on the floor, salivating and speaking in tongues. It meant nothing whether we believed in saints, or the Virgin Mary, or whether the Da Vinci Code is fact or fiction. All that was important, and all that he knew was he held with him a basic belief that was good and pure. It is something that does not exist in Singapore.

Here our faith is tainted. We are told what to believe. What is right, what is wrong. Who can go to Heaven, and who will be damned to Hell. We are scared and blackmailed into giving money, with a warning that we should not question how the church spends it. We are taught to judge, without knowledge of the truth. We are led by people who were expelled from their own previous churches because their beliefs were radical and destructive. We become so blinded by the charisma of these characters that we can no longer tell the truth from the lies, the fact from the fiction. Reality to us, is every word that comes out from their mouths.

If only life were so simple. With all that there is to worry about in this world, why add something more.

As we finally set our sights on the ship, after an hour of floating about in the rough sea, I thought to myself that perhaps we should be the ones looked down upon.

It mattered no more, for I knew that before long, I would be at ease once again. I am a simple man, and I will find what I seek beyond the last blue mountain.

We came alongside the ship, and as I waited to climb up the ladder, the command came through my headset.

"Let's Roll."

Kurt (...and peace to this young warrior without the sound of guns.)