Dysfunctional Generation?
This incident occurred last week Saturday and somehow it is bothering me still. Not because I was a victim, but because I can’t stand social injustice. Or any injustice for that matter. In this country, where race and religion are nearly always on the boil, many people fail to see beyond colours. Even worse, race and religion are used as a political weapon. But I will not delve into this subject matter as it is sufficiently covered by bloggers and politics watchers and with more depth than I could ever pretend to offer. Instead, I will write about something that would not make front-page news, a story about discrimination that has been heard of by so many, yet has sadly not gotten the public exposure it deserves. Saturday, around 7 PM, Jalan Raja Chulan, Bukit Bintang
I was walking on the street with some friends. We were heading to a restaurant just opposite Pavillion Mall to get some nice steamboat dinner. A group of about twenty school kids, each between 14 to 16 years, was strolling behind us. I was not aware of their presence until one boy came running past us onto two guys who were walking towards us from the opposite direction and punched one of the guys right in the middle of his face with a balled fist. Out of the blue and for no reason whatsoever. I was stunned and my friends who were too busy in their conversations with one another didn’t witness what just happened. The guy fell onto the street, cars passing by, the boy kicked him, the other boys approached, all looking for provocation to set them off, the other guy fled the scene, leaving his buddy behind, who luckily soon got on his feet and ran off as fast as he could. Under these circumstances, escape was the best method of protection for surrender would mean voluntary subjection to unlimited mass abuse.
A thousand emotions welled up inside me, from anger to disbelief to fear for life. But then I realized that I was in a group with Caucasian people and that was my safety net (I will explain this shortly). A few meters further down the road and closer to our destination, with the young vandals still tailing us from a distance, two other unsuspecting guys walked towards us, fully unaware that they were just about to become victims of youth violence purely because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Again the same boy ran in full sprint like a hyena chasing a prey and one of the guys had a full frontal smack in the face. He dropped the plastic bag that he was carrying as he fell. The assailant got distracted and searched the bag for valuables, inadvertently giving the victims a small window of opportunity to run off past me with shock written all over their faces. What could I do? I wanted to scream but I couldn’t utter a single word that could undo the damage. We were outnumbered four to one and the bastards knew that they were untouchable.
What disturbed me the most was the fact that these boys think that it’s alright to cause pain to another human being just for the fun of it. Please allow me to get into the "race thing" for one minute to give a clearer picture. The group consisted entirely of Malay school kids. The victims could be Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Ceylonese or Indians. Forgive me my inability to distinguish the difference. These foreigners, together with Indonesians and Burmese, are generally immigrants that make up the low labour force in this country and that ignorant Malaysians look down upon. This is a fact, however shameful it might be.
What does all this tell you? The fact that a bored or angry teenage boy can attack another person without any provocation just because he had back-up from his gang mates. The fact that totally innocent people have to endure such unjustified cruelty because of their skin colour. The fact that this boy can get away with murder and can thus continue spreading violence and hate. The fact that nobody seems to care because the victims are “not one of us anyway”. What does all this tell you?
Of course everyone knows that violence exists in every nation in the world as long as there are idiots roaming around the globe. But this particular incident occurred purely because of racial discrimination and it was so apparent that one could not feign denial or claim benefit of the doubt. The safety net that I referred to earlier is formed by the virtue of my friends being white. An out of the blue attack on Caucasians might have far-reaching national and international ramifications of all sorts, giving the country a bad image and chasing away tourists. Not to mention the publicity and pressure that might be exerted on the national government by the embassies to provide more protection to their citizens residing in the country, with possible implications on trade relations and foreign investment. But for those foreign labourers that stand several rungs down the social ladder, the public perceives them as a dispensable commodity without a mouthpiece. Surely they could march down their respective embassies and scream their lungs out at the officers demanding for better rights, but it just would not happen. So they mourn in silence and pray for happier days, because even though life is full of crap here, it might still be crappier in their own country.
Nevertheless, I feel disgusted by this observation. There is no justice. How can one live in such a dysfunctional society where it is alright to treat some people with utter disrespect just because you think they are less worthy than you? Where children are taught how to segregate people based on their race? Where these same kids grow up with a distorted perspective, a lack of fundamental norms and values, and are supposed to be the next generation that will lead the nation in the future?
To me this incident paints a horrifying picture of the social ills that undermine justice based on equality of all human beings, irrespective of race or religion. These things do happen but why should you allow them to happen again and again for the years to come? Just when is your breaking point?
A thousand emotions welled up inside me, from anger to disbelief to fear for life. But then I realized that I was in a group with Caucasian people and that was my safety net (I will explain this shortly). A few meters further down the road and closer to our destination, with the young vandals still tailing us from a distance, two other unsuspecting guys walked towards us, fully unaware that they were just about to become victims of youth violence purely because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Again the same boy ran in full sprint like a hyena chasing a prey and one of the guys had a full frontal smack in the face. He dropped the plastic bag that he was carrying as he fell. The assailant got distracted and searched the bag for valuables, inadvertently giving the victims a small window of opportunity to run off past me with shock written all over their faces. What could I do? I wanted to scream but I couldn’t utter a single word that could undo the damage. We were outnumbered four to one and the bastards knew that they were untouchable.
What disturbed me the most was the fact that these boys think that it’s alright to cause pain to another human being just for the fun of it. Please allow me to get into the "race thing" for one minute to give a clearer picture. The group consisted entirely of Malay school kids. The victims could be Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Ceylonese or Indians. Forgive me my inability to distinguish the difference. These foreigners, together with Indonesians and Burmese, are generally immigrants that make up the low labour force in this country and that ignorant Malaysians look down upon. This is a fact, however shameful it might be.
What does all this tell you? The fact that a bored or angry teenage boy can attack another person without any provocation just because he had back-up from his gang mates. The fact that totally innocent people have to endure such unjustified cruelty because of their skin colour. The fact that this boy can get away with murder and can thus continue spreading violence and hate. The fact that nobody seems to care because the victims are “not one of us anyway”. What does all this tell you?
Of course everyone knows that violence exists in every nation in the world as long as there are idiots roaming around the globe. But this particular incident occurred purely because of racial discrimination and it was so apparent that one could not feign denial or claim benefit of the doubt. The safety net that I referred to earlier is formed by the virtue of my friends being white. An out of the blue attack on Caucasians might have far-reaching national and international ramifications of all sorts, giving the country a bad image and chasing away tourists. Not to mention the publicity and pressure that might be exerted on the national government by the embassies to provide more protection to their citizens residing in the country, with possible implications on trade relations and foreign investment. But for those foreign labourers that stand several rungs down the social ladder, the public perceives them as a dispensable commodity without a mouthpiece. Surely they could march down their respective embassies and scream their lungs out at the officers demanding for better rights, but it just would not happen. So they mourn in silence and pray for happier days, because even though life is full of crap here, it might still be crappier in their own country.
Nevertheless, I feel disgusted by this observation. There is no justice. How can one live in such a dysfunctional society where it is alright to treat some people with utter disrespect just because you think they are less worthy than you? Where children are taught how to segregate people based on their race? Where these same kids grow up with a distorted perspective, a lack of fundamental norms and values, and are supposed to be the next generation that will lead the nation in the future?
To me this incident paints a horrifying picture of the social ills that undermine justice based on equality of all human beings, irrespective of race or religion. These things do happen but why should you allow them to happen again and again for the years to come? Just when is your breaking point?
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2 comments:
Thanks for sharing this bad experience and your opinions behind it. You made me think. I hope the victims are allright though.
Hi Manu, thanks for reading! You're one of my most favourite readers. :)
I'm not sure how the victims are doing, they'll survive. I guess you toughen up if you have to deal with that kind of shit on a regular basis - and I do think that they have been in that situation many times before or will be after. It just makes me sad to see this happen. And remember my other blog posting once, when my mom and me were the victim of racial discrimination?
So sad.
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