Getting Heard

Admittedly, I was quite an ignorant kid back then. I wouldn't care about politic, history or any current issues that most of the grown up people would be discussing in the most emotional manner. In fact, I believed there were many peers out there were like me, had no clues about what's going on.

Why?

Because we are now living in the generation where our voice don't matter and will not get respected.

I had a really bad experience back in my secondary school where I raised my hand (it took A LOT of courage for me to do this) and asked my Pendidikan Moral teacher why should we memorize definitions of 36 moral values. How the heck people who wrote the text book define and categorize moral into 36 terms?

That teacher was extremely upset by my question and began to give us a long rant on why should we study Pendidikan Moral. I remembered students in class apparently were quite unhappy about it and probably blamed me for wasting their time.

We all experience the moment where our voice is belittled. Look at our education system, we don't get to decide in what we learn or how we should learn it. Yet, we are asked to absorb them like a robot. We know nothing and we are expected to face the real world.

We will only feel obligated to participate in making a change in our country, only if our voice matter. That's why we become ignorant. 

You will then ask why do I bring up this.

This is because Dr Carmen talked about May 13 tragedy extensively during last lecture. May 13 tragedy was a traumatic experience that haunted Malaysians especially people among older generation.

It may exert fear and emotion to the older generation. But for people like me, who apparently have lived my life not knowing what's going on during 1969 and even have trouble to remember in which year Malaysia gained independence, will not ever feel like how the way older generation people felt. I was trying really hard to imagine how the people living in fear during the riots.

Then I realized we, the younger generation, often can't really relate ourselves to their anger towards racial riots, racial discrimination, government's incompetency. One of us may occasionally show his or her outstanding personality and maturity by posting rants towards politics on facebook, but when we ask ourselves, do we truly have the ability to empathize with those who became the victim of corruption, unfair policies, and poverty?

We can't. All these while we have been worrying if we are still keeping up with the trend, or how many followers we have in instagram, or which episodes of Running Man you are watching. I had no idea back then why people protested over Teoh Beng Hock's death. Well, you won't walk up to the street and protested over the stranger you read in newspaper who died in the hit and run accident right?

This is all because we never experience what the vulnerable minorities have experienced. People who protested over Teoh Beng Hock's death, probably are the same victims of our corrupted government. They understood how painful Teoh's family was undergoing, that's why they took the risk of getting caught just to stand up for Teoh's family.

This whole May 13 thing made me realized that there's actually another group of people in our country, that eager for a change. 

While you are watching running man, there are people crying for a change. While you are taking photos of the food, there are people hoping for a change. While you are scrolling through instagram, there are people holding the hope that miracle will happen in our country.

I'm not saying we are all not allowed to enjoy doing what we like, but the idea I am spreading now is, let us stop being so ignorant and selfish. Pick up the newspaper and start to read. It's true that we won't understand politics right away and probably fewer and fewer people will stop voting.

But with a loss of vote, we are losing democracy. When this happens, those people who suffer, will remain suffering.

At least, make us valuable to the society alright?