Altruism
By batsman
Altruism is meant only for the goody 2 shoes…. Or is it? It is not easy to be altruistic.
If a person wants to altruistic, he/she has first of all to be relatively independent and free of dragging and weighty commitments or dependants. A simple life is best, one that is relatively free of wants and desires. Wants and desires create complications or commitments that tie one down especially that of debt and the demands for attention from others or from dependants. In this way one can keep oneself relatively free of distracting commitments that are determined or decided by someone else so that one can be more focused on the special commitment of one’s free choice.
Not everyone can meet these standards. Most people have wants or desires and these create monetary debt or human debts or entanglements that drain the energy and distract from one’s free choice. Wants and desires are not free choice especially that of consumerist wants and desires but arise from an incompleteness or emptiness in self while altruism can be said to be the freest choice available in real life.
The strange thing is that both types of persons feel free. The person who has great desires and wants feel free to seek and submit to their wants and desires, while the person who seeks to be free of entanglements also experiences a sense of freedom. Both the glutton and the hermit feel free in their own way.
In normal peace time, most people go their own way and seek or submit to their desires and wants whenever they can. This gives them a sense of independence and a sense that they are exercising their own free will as well as control over their own lives. However during periods of war, people are no longer as free to exercise their will. Except for traitors who betray the people, most are now subject to violence and force and their common need to free themselves from violence and force gives them a sense of common purpose and even a sense of altruism in uniting to rid themselves of injustice, violence and force.
Strangely enough, in war time, a lot more people are able to experience the freedom of altruism. The tragedy and drama of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear contamination in Japan have shown up the greatness and dignity of the Japanese people for mutual help, decency, heroism and altruism. More people are experiencing the freedom of heroism and altruism during troubled and dangerous times and ever possible during normal times.
This brings us to the situation in Malaysia, which is neither really peaceful nor at war. We have bureaucracy that is prone to abuse the law and their power. Instead of being public servants i.e. servants of the people, some powerful bureaucrats now use the power entrusted to them to make decisions that are racist and discriminatory. Perhaps this is to cover up blatant corruption by playing the racist card and distract people from wrong doing, but violence, force and injustice has become a part of life in Malaysia even if not as terrible as in war time conditions.
This situation is so grave that in just one case (as an example), the majority of our parliamentarians now use their power to decide that only civil servants and students who are outside the country are eligible for postal votes. This means that ordinary persons have less fundamental rights than civil servants and students. All this being simply decided by a majority of our parliamentarians who are entrusted to make the laws of our country, laws that are supposed to be fair and just.
So just like freedom and independence, justice and fairness now have different meanings to different people – often to people in opposite camps. This does not make our country a peaceful country but instead heightens tensions and causes instability because people are denied their rights under the law.
So now we seem to be in a situation which is not war and not peace. About half the people are starting to experience the freedoms of altruism while the other half are experiencing the freedom of seeking to satisfy their desires and wants. Tough choices for everyone.
We keep saying that Malaysia Boleh and we are 1 Malaysia, but are we even a small percentage of how great the Japanese people are?
