For Burma

Not Myanmar.

Burma.

From Wikipedia: In 1989, the military junta officially changed the English version of the country’s name from Burma to Myanmar, along with changes to the English versions of many place names in the country, such as its former capital city from Rangoon to Yangon. This decision has, however, not received legislative approval in Burma.

The Nurin tragedy: is this what we have become?

The Nurin tragedy left many stunned and outraged at the brutality and heartlessness of the way an innocent child was killed.

Sadly, what happened to Nurin just serves to illustrate to us just what kind of a society we have become.

Firstly, the sight of young children wandering alone in malls and public places is so common an occurence that we as the public couldn’t be less concerned. Why must it take something as shocking as this for us to wake up?

Secondly, if it wasn’t enough for Nurin’s parents to go through the grief and anguish of losing their child and to find out later that she was murdered and abused, they had to face accusations of the public that it was their fault for not watching her - with some even saying that they should be charged for negligence. How much more heartless can we get?

Thirdly, some people even take advantage of the situation for their own selfish gains. Today in class my lecturer mentioned that a caller phoned Nurin’s father saying he had information on his daughter, but that he didn’t have enough credit, and asked Nurin’s father to top up his credit. Imagine yourself in the shoes of a desperate father, and you would have done what he did without hesitation - top up the caller’s credit. The caller then vanished, leaving no information about the girl. How cruel and insensitive can people get?

Finally, the media. It is necessary to sensationalize the whole story and dramatize it for further effect? As Marina Mahathir put it in her weekly column ‘Musings‘:

“If a child is sexually abused and killed, does it really matter how? Is there really a need to report the more abhorrent details of her suffering? Is there really a need to print photos of the dead child, even if the initial intention was to find out her identity? Don’t little children deserve some respect too?”

This is the kind of society we have become. And before long, Malaysia will have forgotten little Nurin’s name until another tragedy like this happens.

Davin Arul wrote in his blog Rules of Unreality:

“The unidentified murder victim, whose young body was violated in ways that makes you lose so much faith in humanity, screams a silent but deafening cry for justice whenever the horrifying photograph of her brutalized face is seen.

It seems to be an unbreakable cycle. A child is raped and murdered. We scream for blood and more stringent measures to monitor sexual offenders. A child loses his or her life in a senseless incident, and we mourn with the parents. It happens and it happens and it happens.

The question is, why can’t we - society, parents, the authorities - learn fast enough? Do we do future victims a disservice by forgetting, by letting the outrage die after a few weeks? Do we doom another child when we don’t agitate for sex offenders to be catalogued and monitored? Do we allow kidnappers to flourish in our midst when we ignore the sight of a child wandering alone and lost in the streets or shopping malls?

How much is too much?”

Just thinking about it makes me cry. But sitting in class today as my Media & Society lecturer, Ms. Jessie, talked about the Nurin case opened my eyes to just how apathetic we can be. Nobody in class seemed particularly shocked at the details - or maybe they, we, have just become too desensitized to be shocked anymore. A few even had a good laugh over the credit reload scam, commenting on what a ’smart’ idea that was. I was so incredibly, incredibly disappointed when I heard that.

They say the younger generation, the youth of today, bring about fresh change and hope for a better future. Look around. These ARE the youth of today. Nothing’s going to change if we don’t do something about our attitudes and mindsets.

Open your eyes, Malaysia. Is this what we have become?

************************

Related articles:

Nurin’s murder - chronology of events

DNA tests - body found in bag is Nurin

Parents accept fate, bury Nurin

Related commentaries/opinions:

A reflection of society?

Be sympathetic, don’t speculate

Other weblinks:

In memory of Nurin Jazlin (a blog originally dedicated to the search for Nurin, which now acts as a channel for the parents to speak out on issues concerning their child’s murder)

The Minister of Misinformation on The "Walk of Justice"

Our dear Datuk Zam (our esteemed Information Minister) has voiced out on the "Walk of Justice", held by the Malaysian Bar Council, involving lots of people walking (most of them lawyers) for a certain cause, that clearly seems to have annoyed him.

Now, I usually wait in nervous anticipation at what our dear Zam says, since he suffers from a particularly nasty case of chronic foot in mouth disease. Here are his own words:

“It’s about time the Government find out if the lawyers were allowing themselves to be used.

“It’s clear they were being directed by a certain individual or political party out to discredit the Barisan government,” Zainuddin told reporters after presenting Ramadan aid to pensioners at the Kuala Muda district welfare department.

Source.

Apparently, lawyers are dumb enough to allow themselves to be used (says the all knowing and infinitely wiser Zam) by a certain political party out to discredit the government.

Woe be the Malaysian legal system then. But in the end, one wonders who is being used by which political party: our dear Zam or our dear lawyers.

That, my friends, is for you to find out.

Preaching to the Choir

So, when one tells a group of people about something that they already know...

Hey, did you know that velcro works because of millions of little hooks that stick to little loops!? Isn't that faaaascinating? Or or or did you know that Blogger is owned by Google!? Woooow!!!

...that's preaching to the choir.

Oh wait. That's what this blog is doing! My my my. We're talking about problems in Malaysia that bug us and that also bug people who come to read this blog (this is a generalization). But wait! You didn't know that velcro works that way!? Or that Blogger is owned by Google!?

What I wanted to say was that even the choir might not know everything about so-and-so. I might not know everything about the lawyers march this morning. But even if this blog might not reach millions of people, it reaches me. And that's what counts. I can learn something from this, and use it to make myself a better and wiser person.

I consider this blog as a place for me to learn more about Malaysia, and also a place where I can share my own thoughts - as one of the "choir".

Astronaught

The news has been making its way around local blogs: our glorious Malaysian astronaut to-be is a spaceflight participant. Check out NASA's International Space Station Expedition 16 crew profile here. While the rest of the crew sports profiles sprinkled with words such as "flight engineer," "commander," "specialist," and "NEEMO," our local hero Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor "will launch with Expedition 16 and land with Expedition 15."

Period.

Participate away, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor. Make us proud.

Heartless ppl

What on earth is happening to Malaysia? Recently, the Nurin Jazimin case struck many in my school. Her brutal murder actually made a friend of mine cry (yes, she really cried until I got creeped) reading the papers. My Science teacher stopped the lesson when she found newspapers in my class, started reading about the case and decided to teach about DNA instead of her energy change lesson. My Sivik teacher spent more than half the lesson talking about the brutality of human beings nowadays. And I, for one, didn't read the headlines during first few days of the gym-bag episode (it was too gruesome).

So if so many in the society actually care about human existence, why did this person actually proceed to murder a little kid who only wanted to buy hairclips from the pasar malam? And about the cucumber and brinjal, let's not even broach that topic. Whoever did that, man he's REALLY cruel.

So how did Malaysia morph into this state, with serial killers who prey on little kids at the pasar malam? I don't know. The world ain't a safe place no more. I just hope that maybe... someday... Malaysia's condition won't be anything like this anymore.

Freedom of speech?

Sure, we Malaysians have freedom of speech. Who says we don't? If anything, we're in danger of having too much freedom of speech. Look at the fellow who came up with Negarakuku. There's a fine example of freedom of speech for you. He's just one of a thousand voices screaming to be heard. Freedom of speech ensures a cacophony of opinions in all their inane, nonsensical glory.

I have freedom of speech, every moron with an opinion thinks, and so I can say whatever I want. It's not true. Freedom of speech is shackled to social responsibility. It's another way of saying there are boundaries. Yes, each and every one of us have opinions. But the only opinion that matters is of a supreme authority: that of our government. What they say goes. They draw the boundaries, no questions asked. There are consequences for crossing those lines in the sand. It could be anything from death threats to actual death. The truth is that nobody really cares about your opinion. They do care, however, about how you say it. Keep that in mind and you can say whatever you want.

Some might protest that this defeats the purpose of freedom of speech itself. But if you drank deeply from the wisdom of our government you'd see it isn't an issue at all. Mind the rules and it won't be May 13 all over again. Remember, in Malaysia freedom is not something you do, it's something that is given to you. We have only what our government sees fit to give us. We can say only what they allow us to say.

Don't worry. Try to be positive. Give thanks for what you have. Come now, be fair, they've already handed us freedom of speech on a platter, never mind how small that platter is. Just because there might not be freedom after speech doesn't mean you have to bite the hand that feeds you. I for one am going to go with the path of least resistance. Opinions are better left where they came from, in the deep, dark corner of the mind.

But that's just what I think.