Some weeks ago, I woke up one morning only to be greeted by the news of another terror attack in London. It was the fourth incident in a short span of three months. It has come to the point where people are going to bed at night wondering what news awaits them when they wake up in the morning. It is surely an uneasy feeling to go to bed with such anxiety. In some ways, this has brought on an amount of paranoia in many people. Just last week as I was walking on the streets of London, I couldn’t get it out of my head to be extra vigilant when walking on the pavements and it was as if my defence mechanism was on high alert all the time. No matter how much I tried to reassure myself that all will be ok, it was almost impossible to overcome this feeling. What has become of our world today?
We call ourselves a progressive society but we now live in fear of violence and viciousness. What makes me even more sick in the stomach is that all this violence and killing is done in the name of religion. Is this what religion is all about? Can any religion condone or even encourage the killing of innocent lives? I can’t help but think about the people who lost their lives in many of these senseless acts of violence and how distressing it must be for those who are left to mourn their loss.
Many of us living in Malaysia would think that we are “blessed” because we don’t hear of anything similar happening on our streets. All we seem to have is some illogical people saying some senseless things and pitting one community against another. But what is worrying is the nagging thought… are we on a slippery slope with no hope of return? What is alarming is that there are people who get away with saying things that borders incitement while there are those who get persecuted for just pointing out the obvious. This really can’t be good for the purpose of nation building. Our leaders project Malaysia as a moderate society to the rest of the world but those who live here know deep down we are becoming more polarised with every passing day.
This senseless rhetoric and double-talk is probably just a step away from taking its own direction and those involved may just decide to take matters into their own hands. Only then will we begin to realise all is too late. Do we need to lose innocents lives to realise that the world must rid itself of violence? But how can we achieve this when those that govern us don’t seem to care about making our home a better place. Almost every day in the media we read how one politician is trying to discredit the other politician, and so much of energy is wasted in doing so. Why can’t they just let those who have been elected by the people to do their work and if people aren’t happy when the next general elections come around, then as a mature society, we can correct the situation. When leaders and communities spend their time and energy in just bickering and instilling sentiments of hate and mistrust, one begins to wonder what example do they provide to the next generation?
What kind of society are we giving birth to? If we are going to overcome the violence that we are experiencing now, we need leaders with courage to stand up and do the right thing and not just for the sake of votes and staying in power. Will we truly find them in Malaysia? I wonder… As I finish writing this, another breaking news… a man rams his car into a police van! When is all this going to end?