Wednesday, September 9, 2009

The WRONGs and RIGHTs of parading the head of a dead animal .....and the subsequent public dialogue


A group of disgruntled people supposedly representing the residents of a housing area (are they really???) recently paraded a cow’s head as a sign of protest against the plan to relocate a Hindu temple to their area. Then the ensuing dialogue between the disgruntled people and the state authority turned rowdy, abusive and out of control. I watched online the video of the demonstration, and the eventual dialogue (if you can call it that) between the enraged people and the state authority.

I am neither well-versed in the game of politics nor bothered which political party each of the involved quarters supposedly represent, but I do believe there were so many WRONGs in the way this whole deal turned out.

-To march a dead animal ‘s head in the manner they did….WRONG.
-To step on and kick the dead animal’s head to demonstrate their feeling….WRONG.
-To claim the head was used to represent “stupidity” ….WRONG. Please....lah
-To use abusive language and to shout profanity….WRONG.
-To use abusive language and to “shout” profanity (virtual shouting I’d call it) when commenting online about both the demo and the dialogue….WRONG. Very wrong….uncivilised response to uncivilised act.
-To scream and shout and think that people will take you seriously….WRONG.
-To carry a banner saying “Take Beer” (Takbir??) during the demonstration….WRONG. What does the sale of beer in Selangor have anything to do with the relocation of the temple?
-To think that people support their actions….WRONG.
-To pull a chair from under somebody as he was trying to sit down….WRONG and very immature.
-To say they are championing Islamic cause….WRONG.
-To think that they are patriotic (one of the very loud and abusive guys was actually wearing 1Malaysia ball cap) ….WRONG.
-To incite racism….WRONG.
-To spur religious tension....WRONG.
-To say that they are “biadap” because the state authority (through actions or lack of) taught them to do so….WRONG.
-To make this a political issue….WRONG.
-To make this a racial issue….WRONG.
-To say their issue is about loud noise??? ….WRONG.
-To say their issue is about smell??? ….WRONG.
-To say their issue is about increase in crime rate??? ….WRONG.
-That nothing was done to stop the procession when it happened….WRONG.
-That the culprits are still at large….WRONG.
-That there are people who have the cheek to defend the march and the way people behaved at the dialogue….WRONG.
-That there are people using these shameful incidents for personal and political mileage….WRONG.

Don’t get me WRONG. The people have the RIGHT not to feel RIGHT about the relocation plan. They are RIGHfully RIGHT to have an opinion about it but they are not using the RIGHT approach in order to get the RIGHT response from the authority. I don’t think I’m in the RIGHT position to say whether the state government is RIGHT or the disgruntled people are RIGHT... .being apolitical and all...but RIGHT now I just feel that they should not feel alRIGHT about what they did and said....And after the many WRONGs that were witnessed during those sad occasions, I think we Malaysians still have a long way to go achieve racial harmony. And similar issues will surely crop up in the future and continue to burden our conscience.
Shame on us Malaysians....and I pretty certain I’m RIGHT about this.

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