That keg waiting to be lit

Siti Kasim, The Star

OUR unity in diversity is one of the gems that make me love so much this nation we call Malaysia. It is something so dear and precious, and a source of joy that we must all treasure.

For someone who advocates for unity among all Malaysians, the pluralism of our diversity, as well as minority and marginalised groups, the Seafield Temple intrusion and subsequent riot was heartbreaking. Our thoughts and prayers to the victims who were attacked in the temple and the first responder who was injured. I hope they recover well and quick, and back to health soon.

There were, however, some silver linings to take from this incident. While there was indeed a riot, it was very contained. It could have easily been much worse. We should thank our security forces for their restrained but firm action to ensure it did not get out of hand more than it did. I am sure there are others leading in the Indian community at Seafield that played their part to help defuse the situation as well.

In spite of the thugs being completely from another racial group, save for the one responder harmed in the middle of the melee, no retaliatory racial clash ensued.

This is noteworthy, that the people there, even in their anger of having devotees attacked in their place of worship, had enough restraint to know that this was not the act of that race. That their fellow Malay-citizens, by and large abhor the heinous acts of these thugs.

Whilst I do not condone the riot and regret that it happened, I understand mob behaviour on such sensitive incidents. However, we really hope all segments of our society will take this incident as a teaching moment and realise nothing good ever comes out of anger, no matter what or how justified our anger seem to be. Anger usually ends in regret and in this case it did. Two wrongs will never make a right and an eye for an eye will only leave everyone blind without a future.

Here is something I wanted to say from the first time this has happened. As a Malay and those who are like-minded, I express my deepest regret and apology for the actions of these Malay men in desecrating the place of worship of my fellow Hindu countrymen. The criminality of it aside, it shames me to no end that the perpetrators at the temple came from exclusively my side of our society.  It is incumbent upon us to find the root cause as to why for a mere RM150 – RM300 each, or for that matter any amount, a group of supposedly adult human beings could even contemplate much less carry out violent acts on innocents in a house of worship. This can never be allowed to happen again in this peaceful land of ours.

This is truly a teaching moment. For us Malaysians to not talk about its root cause just makes us more vulnerable to it recurring. We have been not talking about it for more than 40 years under the pretext of sensitivity. No marriage survives silence. No family survives ignoring the black sheep in the room intent on tearing it asunder.

We need and we must address these issues. To not do so would be sweeping things under the carpet or more aptly putting the gunpowder back into the keg and shoving it tight and closing the lid. The problems are not confronted; transgressions are not addressed in the hope that it will go away if we do not talk about it. The symptoms become acceptable norms and sooner than later it will blow up in our face again. That keg is just waiting to be lit.

In the run up to GE14, Bersih rallies were held peacefully. Multiracial crowds, tens of thousands of us turned up in joyous spirit to bond and protest against corruption and an incompetent and kleptocratic government. Not a hint of violence, why? Because in the whole scheme of things, these are not fiery emotive issues. They are calculative rational concerns, especially when livelihoods are still relatively decent for everyone.

But a gathering of crowds over race and religion is emotively fiery and irrational. It is singularly partisan gathering over purely emotive concepts. As we have seen, it can easily be sparked with anger and emotion and the result can be devastating. This upcoming so-called anti-ICERD rally will be one such instance. A rally by and for a single racial and religious ideology. The rhetoric we hear in the run-up is equal to nothing short of the incendiary hate speeches made by the the white-supremacist movements in the US.

This is a formula for disaster. We must protect our fragile democracy and peaceful co-existence from racial and religious zealots. The government cannot allow for such rallies to take place anymore especially in light of the recent incident. This is not the time nor the place. It is already clear by the hate speeches emanating from these irrational corners of society certain people are fully intent on exploiting probable unrests as a result of these anti-ICERD rallies, a cause that is meaningless now with the government’s intent of non-ratification.

The nation now needs healing from the latest incident at Seafield. We need to foster more unity among Malaysians. Our leaders must be brave and show the way. We need to have intelligent and civil discourse amongst ourselves on what ails our society that mere ringgits can compel people to perform heinous acts upon others at places of worship.

We are, as a people, much much better than what the Seafield incident had shown. We need to come together as one. None better than the other. None more than the other.

We are Bangsa Malaysia and we are proud of it.