APRIL 21 — My daughter showed me a video clip about a group of youths who refused to translate a racist message to a foreigner who got it on his handphone.
It was all a social experiment set-up to ‘test’ people’s reaction.
She found it ‘heart-warming’ that there are people, perfectly ordinary people, who would be so considerate of and to a foreigner.
There was a similar one done earlier which featured a group of Malaysians who steadfastly refused to ‘act’ racist when they were called for (set-up) auditions. Indeed it is good to know there are still people who ‘just know’ it’s not ‘nice’ to be racist, whether in thought, word or action.
But something rankled me inside. It was as if we don’t expect people to be ‘nice’ anymore, so when some do behave ‘nicely’ to others, we find it rather surprising or heart-warming. Something must be terribly wrong with us if we have reached the stage where we are surprised by people who choose to act right, talk decent or behave responsibly.
Aren’t these supposed to be the norm, rather than the exception? Isn’t it a rather sad indictment on Malaysian society that by now I am no longer surprised at what the Auditor-General reports churn out year after year.
Neither am I surprised at the way our politicians behave or don’t behave in Parliament.
My daughter’s comment that she is not surprised anymore about our one-of-a-kind IGP finding nothing wrong with a bunch of folks demanding the removal of a cross from a small church also piqued me.
I agreed with her, even as I wondered how is it we are not surprised anymore by this type of things?
Or are we the only ones who sense something not ‘quite right’ here? Aside from the issue of legality, the point protested was obviously religious in nature. These days in Malaysia, it’s all about the 3 R’s. (No prizes for guessing what they are)
It’s no longer a surprise that I can’t even mention the name of my God in a certain language in some states. Nor is it a surprise to read about some convoluted rules and regulations which would quite obviously send all concert artistes down to our dear neighbour across the causeway.
It doesn’t help that the creators of those rules admit quite honestly they aren’t for enforcement, ‘just’ for guidelines. Why should I be surprised that some people would draw up 100 commandments that other people can absolutely not obey?
So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, as a fellow Christian commented, even if there are actually people who can get so shaken up by a lifeless cross hanging on a window pane.
And before I am accused of highlighting only a certain race or religion, let me add (to my shame) that my own kind can be equally ‘unsurprising’, as evidenced by another video-clip I saw, where a person who was in the wrong, having entered someone’s else right-of-way, had the audacity to berate the innocent chap for nearly knocking into his car.
The wrong-doer was calling the one in the right animal names and referring to ‘your father’s road’ in vernacular, which really is just plain obnoxious rude.
My son also told of an apparent gang attack on a guy at a mall who addressed another of a different race as a certain animal. What is it about animal names that we are so fond of attaching to human beings whose skin pigmentation is different from ours? I wouldn’t be surprised it’s probably because our human brains have all regressed to the stage of animal brains that we find some deep-seated primeval satisfaction in such name-calling. Or maybe it’s because we have become animals ourselves, and it takes one to know one.
What’s there to be surprised anymore? After all my Bible already talks of people just doing what is right in their own eyes, calling evil good and good evil. And that was way back then a long long time ago. For all the progress mankind is supposed to have made, it seems we are still carrying on exactly like our ancestors.
So it comes to a stage where we expect people to behave badly and the surprise is when someone does the right thing instead.
But shouldn’t it be the other way round — that right is right and normal, and wrong is wrong and ab-normal? Whilst it’s perfectly ok to like all those Facebook postings and video-clips about ‘heart-warming’ episodes where humans actually behave like decent reasonable intelligent humans, and not animals (surprise, surprise), regrettably we seem to have forgotten that’s the way it was always meant to be.
In the Bible, God pronounced the world and the first human couple that He had created ‘very good’. I wonder would God say the same thing today, looking at what and how we have become.
I am musing... will there come a day when in addition to having to refrain from using certain words to worship my God, I may have to hide the little cross that hangs at the entrance of my house in case I am accused of being insensitive to my neighbours of different faith.
Although they have never, in so many years we have been neighbours, raised a squeak even though they see it as they walk by everyday. Now isn’t that a surprise?
Still, who knows, one day, I may no longer even have a church to go to. After all, Jesus Himself already warned, “Everyone will hate you because of Me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (Mark 13:13)
It’s a sobering thought, but I take heart, my God is never surprised.
So honestly... I shouldn’t be surprised at anything anymore.
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.
