Do not push me...we will both fall!

The web of life, the fabric of society binds each and everyone of us to the other…maybe not overtly, maybe not in the physical sense…maybe not in the manner we would want…but do not push me for we will both fall…we are each other’s keeper. That is why the division within our people today is worrying.

No I am not talking about political divisions. I am not talking about our disagreement about the GST nor the manner by which we choose to be spiritual or not….these are personal and superficial in nature and given time we will understand why one chooses to do this or that.

Our concern should be for the beginning of hate, disgust and contempt for one another because of these choices!

We no longer stand back and make room when someone of another race, of another religion of another persuasion from us comes into our life. The thing to do these days is to not tolerate differences. If you are not with us, if you are different from us and if you dare to think a shade different from us….you cannot be our friend, our acquaintance…. not even our neighbor ….leave this country of ours…. Be gone!

If your love one dies and he or she is not of your religion but of ours then we will take them from you even as you are grieving for them. Have anyone stopped to think how heart breaking it is to have your loved ones taken from you in their final moments on this earth…in your final moments with them? Does not the word compassion, decency and respect for each other ever cross the minds of these ghouls that do these kind of deeds…or worse still…do not those thoughts crosses the minds of those who decides on these matters? Does not their God teach them compassion too?

I am still disturbed thinking of Teoh Beng Hock, Kugan, Aminurasyid, Altantuya and all those killed, murdered, beaten to death not by thugs or brigands but by those who owed them a duty of care! Those villagers in Memali gunned down by law enforcement officers because they dared to think that maybe, just maybe, ALLAH is on their side! The same ALLAH that those law enforcement officers believed in. This is just not intolerance but it borders on the massacre of innocent or at worse of ignorant people who in their ignorance, choose to think different from the powers that be.

We now have the disturbing phenomena where the government dares to interfere with the spiritual beliefs and religious practices of ordinary people – their right to worship! I care not if you want to worship the devil…that is your privilege….but I would care if you choose to interfere with my right to worship whom I please. How soon before people will no longer turn the other cheek and instead hide a stone in their hand ready to do battle, however one sided, with those who seek to prosecute and persecute them for their right to worship as they think fit?

I tell you that we are dangerously at the edge of reason and rationality as politicians seek more irrational ways and means to cling to government. Power invariably numbs one to everything else but the holding of it…as the addict is numb to everything else but the getting of the next hit!

Last month one of our neighbors succumbed to the drug addiction that was consuming her. We have attended resident meetings together and I have seen her passion to make things better for other residents when at these meetings but I have also seen her totally out of her head when drugs totally took over her mind, her body  and her own self. Everything that she had! It took a week before her decomposing body was found in her apartment….and only then did we know that she was out of our life.

Think!

Our beloved country is no different from that girl whose addiction finally consumed her….our addiction is being fueled by politicians drunk with holding on to political power without regard for anything else….and the addiction has been allowed to fester for close to three generations now. We now have two generations of children that have grown up with hate, disgust and contempt for others simply because of race, religion and politics! Imagine this…if this current hoard of politicians are somehow eliminated en masse there is another generation waiting in the wings waiting to do the same things as their predecessor did. Frightening is it not?

It will take at least two more generation before we can even hope for change…..for anything different from what we have now..….two generations away but we must start NOW!

Again I say…WE MUST START NOW! Tomorrow will be too late...and we must do it together.

Do not push me for we will both fall!