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Once again, pure evil has reared its ugly head in our midst. The bomb ings at the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott hotels on Friday illustrate how far some will go to carry out acts of hatred. The attacks have already claimed at least nine innocent lives and the toll could rise with dozens more injured .

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has promised to bring the perpetrators of this evil act to justice. The police and intelligence agencies must move swiftly and decisively to arrest the masterminds of th is latest wanton act of violence and our courts must show no mercy.

As the president said, five years of hard work and sweat in repairing the country’s international image is at risk of disappearing in a moment of violence . We will have to start from the bottom again and it will take time to rebuild trust and confidence in our democracy and in ourselves.

Indonesia’s very soul is at stake. Our sense of security and harmony has been punctured. It will take time , but we will recover as a nation and as a people, and rediscover our equilibrium.

But we need to re - evaluate the pillars upon which our society stands . This newspaper has pointed out repeatedly that we must overhaul our education system and re-examine the values that are imparted through religion.

We must be brutally honest with ourselves and admit that our education system has failed us by neglecting to impart a deep sense of morality, sensibility and responsibility in our young people .

The se most recent bomb attacks should a wake us to the violence and inhumanity around us. The number of armed conflicts around the world continue s to rise , but violence and evil also occur in our everyday lives , even in our very homes. Many of these acts do not make it to the front pages of our newspapers , but we cannot deny the presence of so much hatred.

The perpetrators and masterminds of Friday’s abhorrent attack s obviously believe that they were right in taking innocent lives. We as a society must speak out strongly and educate our children about the difference between right and wrong or we will lose our moral compass as a society.

We also must not succumb to fear and allow ourselves to be defeated by the cruelty that was displayed . More than ever, we must keep our faith and work hard to keep the economy on its current growth trajectory. Businesses must continue to invest and create jobs, for the only way we can defeat this vicious enemy is by fighting poverty.

But time is against us and the current economic success is not sustainable if income and wealth gaps are not closed quickly. Education is key , for th is is the only pathway to long-term socio economic progress and to functioning families, schools and safe places of worship.