By: Koh Buck Song
First published: 7June 04, TODAY

Yet another Miss Universe has just been crowned. And no doubt, there would have been another round of chuckling and sniggering among TV viewers about air-head beauty pageant contestants wishing for "world peace".

Indeed, according to a report in The Australian, the new Miss Universe herself, Ms Jennifer Hawkins, had joked about wanting world peace when she was watching the contest on TV last year.

But the wish is no joke at all: The saddest irony about beauty pageants is that world peace is precisely the most pressing issue the world faces today.

As the fallout from the Iraq war continues to make headlines and skirmishes and terrorist attacks flare up in other trouble spots, the world wonders when the next major conflict will surface.

I recall one day in Singapore in 2001, when I was sitting-in on a meeting between a very senior official and a few newspaper editors. One editor in particular, sniffing a news angle in the air, was praising the official for expressing the view that with the end of the Cold War, the world would never, ever again see conflict on a large scale.

The editor, visibly impressed, even suggested running a story to make this point to "educate" the public on this "illuminating insight". Needless to say, this happened in that glorious age before 911. What a wonderful time it was, filled with hope and optimism!

It is now nearly three years since the World Trade Center attack, but the sober sense of reality still prevails.

The official's sense of finality was misguided. The enduring reality is that some level of conflict will always be with us. These continuing shock waves are actually coming out from the epicentres of global instability such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

And these disputes will never go away, because they are founded on absolute beliefs, which can never be settled except by divine intervention.

Why God continues to allow bad things to happen to good people and why He does not show Himself to settle things once and for all are questions no one has answers to.

Meanwhile, we are left with other questions such as: What can we, as helpless mortals, do to promote and preserve world peace?

It is unfortunate that our fates are in the hands of a few individuals. They are the ones with their fingers hovering over the "push" button on the weapons at hand, whether these are massive military forces or just homemade explosives.

But the opposite is also true: People have a power they are sometimes not fully aware of.

A good reflection of this is the drifting leadership in Latin America. Ecuador, for example, has had four different presidents in six years - with the democratic process throwing out anyone who is not seen to meet the people's expectations, which are demanding, impatient and unrealistic.

What kind of leadership should we, as voters and concerned citizens, support to give us all the best bet for world peace?

Do we need the "tough guy" who is patriotic and will not budge from an entrenched position on an issue and is ever-ready to pull the trigger to defend the status quo?

Or, are we better off with a leader who is willing to work towards compromise and consensus?

Someone who can and will be firm when needed, but who at least starts off thinking that the way to harmony is to win allies and expand the common ground?

Someone who seeks to settle differences not through the barrel of a gun or fist-thumping at the table, but through sincere negotiation - even if this has to be done over canapes and cocktails, or closer to home in South-east Asia, over satay and bandung?

Conflict is reduced each time someone gains a little more insight into another culture and, so, increases his own sense of empathy. This is something all of us, as individuals, can work on.

On a larger scale, the quality of empathy is something voters might want to look more closely at in their leaders. US voters will have to make this choice when they elect their president later this year.

Deciding which approach to back is a choice that each and every one of us always has a responsibility to make.

Commercial motivations aside, the Miss Universe will be doing her bit to make this world a better place, with her drawing power to pull people to give to charity and focus on the needy and disadvantaged.

She is at least doing more than the people who laugh at her from their plush armchairs. It's time more of us did our bit for world peace.