The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion
The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion |
| I (don’t) see bad things, it’s just my imagination Posted: 10 Oct 2012 04:39 PM PDT OCT 11 — A group hallucinates... you get them off the drugs and treat them [N1]. A nation hallucinates? Time to build a fence around the federation and nail the sign "patient recovering". How long? Well, till the well-thinking, and hopefully well-minded [N2], folks in Putrajaya led by Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein can scoop out — like a lobotomy — all the putrid thoughts of crime in our collective head. Till crime does not exist in our minds anymore. Mind over matter on morphine, if you ask me. I like you asking me, since those in government are not. While we take turns asking each other, Hisham and the boys are in the other room tinkering with the crime perception index [N3]. It's the start of the Oscar season, so you'll have to forgive me for any complexities or need for drama. Not that Malaysia is short of complexities or drama. [N4] But I've decided to adopt the government's world view for a change. Let's try to walk a mile in their "Auditor-General scorned" shoes. So crush the red pill with your heel, pop in the blue pill and start to be well. Here's why the government's spot-on prioritising its perception of crime index [N5]. By altering your "feel" about criminal acts around you and upon you, things get better, somehow. Psychology bro: "There is no spoon." Muggings are just mistaken hugs The garden variety sort is fairly transactional when you look at its anatomy. The mugger seeks objects expected to be on the intended victim, say a purse filled with currency. There is too much focus on the perpetrator, and absolutely none on the victims. Victims gain too. In a lonely and bitter world where no one talks to anyone anymore past "hello" and "goodbye", a complete stranger is willing to grab you firmly from your personal oblivion and interact. Words like "give me or die" [N6] poetically drip from them while they ensure the blade only scratches. Kudos, stranger! And in almost all the cases they ask for nothing more than your wallet. The only crime here is you rarely meet the same mugger twice. Wish as you may, it's always the wrong mugger from here on. Break-ins are opportunities for do-overs Your home is your castle, but is it your castle still if you are away? Technically no one is in, where's the harm in having a few unexpected guests when you are away? There is implicit acceptance of possible home intrusions when you did not bother to sign up for a gated community or hire underpaid and undertrained guards. [N7] Plus, where is your sense of hospitality? So much effort has been exhausted to enjoy the interiors of your home, it's kind of an honour. Not everyone gets the privilege daily, I think the national average is a home robbery every other year. My uncle's unit in one the abandoned projects in Tanjung Malim was cleaned up systematically by very professional crews. They separated the metal from glass, and rather that let my uncle be blacklisted by a bank for an unused unit, they put all the fittings and fixtures to good use. But for those already living in that broken-into home, any item removed only encourages you to replace them, like TV sets. It's like an unplanned Christmas even if there may be longer credit card bills. The media circus has no clue The only thing mainstream and alternative media report without wildly different spins is crime. This in itself should raise suspicion levels. Two sworn enemies agreeing, surely alarms should be rung. Even today, a venerated ex-minister with exquisite taste in handbags (and never experiencing snatch thefts) spoke out that her misery is the doing of the media. Trust a cabbie in Bukit Bintang [N8] before you trust a newsman, I tell you! The media are ambulance chasers. The fact they are convinced they cover crime because their readers want to read about crime shows how exploitive they are. How does a headline like "ATMs go missing, money too" factor as news? Two quick spots, this is not the first nor the last ATM to go missing, if they went for the cheque deposit machine, now that... that's news. Second, if you find the ATM you went to visit missing, go to the next one. They all issue cash, dude. Which is exactly what a minister explained yesterday. There are 11,000 ATMs nationwide, 17 in a year is like less than a per cent, lower than the possibility of your home being broken into. Move on, let bygones be bygones So you are a victim of crime, shake off that feeling, stop being a victim. Even without the help of hypnosis you can alter your mindset and carry on. A police report will only remind you of events that do you no good remembering. What matters is the future, not the past [N9]. Stay in the past and you will keep finding reasons to fault it. OK, you now have a physical disability. Was the fall from running too fast from a biker gang in an empty petrol station really someone else's fault? You could have stayed fit, you could have gone to another kiosk. But no, you just had to go there and tempt these bikers. Letting go is easier when you are perpetually in fear. Since there is another criminal incident around the corner, focusing on the next incident rather than confusing your episodes would be substantially better. So you are dead. At least you can't perceive anymore. Rumour has it Since even before the time of swordfishes attacking humour-free islands [N10], rumours have ruined nations and TV sitcoms. We simpletons tend to count the same rumour over and over. Like a routine side-street stabbing [N11]. Perhaps it is the single stabbing recounted over and over at parties, PTA meetings, Turkish baths and candlelight vigils for arrested political dissidents. So in truth, a hundred accounts of a stabbing might mean actually a single stabbing. Let me prove it. Years ago, a boy in my neighbourhood fell on a fence with his legs apart. He landed on the spike and so his testicles got hurt, well the left one I am told by very reliable witnesses. For years, people in my taman (residential area) have repeated this yarn to death. All right, it never gets stale, especially the stitching bits. But it involved but one man, one testicle and several spikes. It may have seemed to most visitors to my parts that everyone has fallen on a fence, but I can assure you he was the only one. And even after the chum moved to Australia, the vicious rumour mill did not cease. That's exactly how crime tales in Malaysia are overplayed. Like how guys play up their "scorecard" with girls. So to be fair, all the counting should be left to the real professionals. And they are telling you crime is down, and all you are sensing is a result of silly irresponsible chitty-chatter. So sleep tight now Now you know [N12]: Not all incidents are crimes, the media is bipolar, letting go is better and rumours must be stopped — imagine, some people are claiming there will be a government change at the next general election, seriously? Crime is too complex for the general public to decide, just like free speech and civil liberties. The home minister has experience in all those issues. And so did every home minister before him, I'm informed by even more studious professionals. I have to now throw up now, but I'll leave you with Puck. "If we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended, that you have but slumber'd here, while these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream." — Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare [N1] In that order, preferably. Treating them with more drugs and getting them off might send the wrong message. [N2] While we are at it, well-off blokes. There is no civil service wage cap for Pemandu — the special unit to remote control three million civil servants and the economy — chaps I'm told, not when you can be so adept with PowerPoint presentations. [N3] The powers-that-be in their infinite wisdom have decided that the real problem is not crime, but the puzzling gap between actual, significant, recurring crime and the public's estimate of the crime situation. Apparently, massive numbers of Malaysians are clueless that crime is dramatically dropping by the day, about the same rate as pants in prisons after lights-out. [N4] Neither is it short of traditional healers willing to sacrifice themselves sexually to save clients. [N5] There is a crime perception index, a collection of data on how people feel about crime. No, seriously. This is what they rely on to reduce crime. [N6] To break the monotony, and boredom at the office, they may use other phrases like "You can keep half the money, if you do it fast", "Inflation is really hurting small business, you know what I mean?" and "Blame this on Scorsese films." [N7] Who while away pining for the minimum wage for security guards which was promised but never arrived. Luckily their long shifts allow them time to practise baton drills and whistling techniques on the passing foreign maids. [N8] Setting the record straight, in the city centre pimps are more reliable than cabbies. It's the pimp newsman you really have to watch out for. [N9] And the "present" is a gift. Not like this column has been short of cheese so far. [N10] To be fair I can't prove conclusively the island has been completely humourless since 1994. [N11] Tamil movies have been challenged by decades of uncalled for violence in box-office movies to come up with more graphic and better choreographed scenes. Real life is a real downer, in comparison. [N12] No part of this column was paid for by Pemandu or any other government agency. I've just seen the light, or seen too much sun. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. |
| That contrast between private and public space Posted: 10 Oct 2012 04:14 PM PDT OCT 11 — Walking out of a nice little restaurant in Kuala Lumpur is very much like traversing between two worlds... in fact, the whole experience almost qualifies as a dystopian science fiction. There are plenty of nice restaurants in the city which are not necessarily posh... they target the relatively well-off middle class, especially the relatively well-paid young adults who are generally well-educated and armed with proper etiquette. Not too many speak loudly on their cell phones, or leave their kids to run around unleashed. Everything accommodates for low-decibel conversations. Being inside one of these restaurants makes me expect to come out to a grand boulevard like those found in some of the great cities in the world. Yet the truth is that these restaurants are more like an oasis in the middle of an ugly suburb. The walls of the restaurant isolate patrons from the harsh reality of many parts of Kuala Lumpur. Inside, it is just nice. Outside, it is hot, humid, chaotic and dirty. Sometimes the road barriers put up by the communities in these neighbourhoods remind you that it can be unsafe as well. Then news reports of snatch thefts suddenly flash through your mind. The effect of the blue pill you had as an entrée earlier is now gone after the goodbyes, hugs and kisses. You just had the red pill as dessert and now you instinctively walk faster, hand clutching your bag, all alone and scared about something that might or might not happen. That reminds me of Robocop's Detroit. That picture of Detroit may not be hot and humid but it is still chaotic, dirty and unsafe. It is an almost believable dystopia — minus the cyborg of course — and it almost describes the commercial centres of Damansara, Bangsar, Hartamas, Subang Jaya, Petaling Jaya and who knows where else. It is one that many live in and others frequent. Drawing parallels between the dystopian Detroit with these commercial centres is an exaggeration. Admittedly, it is a rhetorical device. Nevertheless, even without the concerns for crime, there is a contrast between public and private spaces. If money can really buy the good things in life, then surely these neighbourhoods can afford and should have a better environment for themselves beyond the restrictive four walls of their homes or some restaurants. The contrast between the world inside and the world outside — between private and public spaces — should not be too great. But it is. Perhaps this is a reflection of an overly individualistic community in the city. Most of us are so concerned about our small private space that most of us ignore the common ones that we share. We jealously maintain our private space against nature but leave the public space just beyond our private boundary at the mercy of nature. We use the commons almost daily, so we do care for the commons but none of us have enough initiative to take it upon ourselves to make the commons orderly, clean and safe as our private space. Although I hold that the individual is the most basic unit of any society, I do find the individualism that I see proliferating in our society too much for my liking. Besides, seeing a fat rat or two tip-toeing across the pavement in the evening in Bangsar and Damansara does not paint a great picture of a community that enjoys a kind of welfare that is well above the median. I think it is a damning symptom of the excessive individualistic attitude that we have. I think excessive individualism is adversely affecting the viability of public space. Individualism can be a force of good. A healthy dose of individualistic culture provides a bulwark to tyranny. It is also a fertile ground for creative thinking among others. A society cannot really progress far with a hive mind which will never challenge the status quo. That, however, does not negate the fact that there are costs to excessive individualism. One of the costs can be the unviability of the commons. Thankfully, the set-up of our society and institutions is designed partly to address problems arising from individualism. We have our local authority funded by public resources to take care of the commons. The establishment of the local authority is in line with the liberal rationale for the establishment of the state: we establish the state to provide crucial services for us all which we cannot individually provide for ourselves. And the local authority is part of the state. Yet, there is significant contrast between private and public space. The private space is well taken care of by private individuals and firms while the commons — the commercial centres of Kuala Lumpur's suburbs — are a dump. I take this as a sign that the local authority is not doing its job well. If the viability of the commons is a benchmark to a working local authority, then the local authority is broken. It is possible that the local authority is failing its job as the janitor of our commons because it is not responsive to the community it is supposed to serve. By that I mean to refer to a fact that most of us already know. Our local authority is unelected and so it is unaccountable to the beneficiaries of the commons, which is us. The unelected and unaccountable local authority can afford to fail at its job without suffering any real repercussion. That the commons are chaotic, dirty and arguably unsafe is linked directly to the unelected and the unaccountable nature of our local authority. The beneficiaries of the commons can complain but the local authority really has no incentive to take it seriously. If we do care about the stark contrast between private and public space, if we do care for our commons, then we need to make local authority responsible. We need local elections back. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. |
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