Natalie Shobana Ambrose (14th January, 2010 – theSun)
“The adults are talking now” is a common sentence out of a parent’s mouth. I remember being sent upstairs because the adults were talking downstairs and rightfully so. Children are to be protected from all ‘adult’ talk which most of the time is about politics. That’s because children are not supposed to be burdened with adult shenanigans.
So I want to know what do you tell the children who went to the church which was damaged in last Friday’s fire bombings. When the parents woke up on Sunday morning to take their kids to Sunday school what went through their minds. How will they explain the hate crime to their little ones?
The same question went through my mind when I saw the cow head protesters. I’d really like to know what the parents of Section 23, Shah Alam told their children when they went out to protest or when they had to go and petition for a new place of worship.
How would they have kept the children away from all the adult talk? It must have been hard or perhaps, no one was even trying, because there was a sense of justification in the whole occasion. It was almost a celebration.
I can only imagine that it would have been a really difficult situation if the children of these warring factions were friends at school while at home they saw how angry their parents were at each other.
How would both sides of the argument have spared their children at the dinner table? Surely, it would have been difficult, and surely the children would have known something was not right. Children always seem to know when something’s not right.
Last Friday, I felt as if someone had died and spent the day in mourning. The next day I woke up with an awful feeling – the kind when you know something terrible has happened and this question kept repeating in my mind “What have we become? What have we become?”
The fire bombings didn’t kill anyone, but it killed my hope that 2010 would be a better year for Malaysia. What’s really sad is the reality that it wasn’t something that happened last Friday which caused everything to come crashing down nor was it the court ruling.
We all knew how bad the situation was, we just didn’t think hate crimes would now be written down in our history.
But what about the children?
What are we telling them or not telling them?
If only we can look at what we have destroyed and what we’ve left the next generation to rebuild, we ought to be ashamed at the devastation we have caused by our ignorance and prejudices.
The saddest thing though is that deep seated narrow-mindedness does not change overnight or in days, weeks, months or years. It actually takes generations of people to collectively and repeatedly say enough, I don’t want to think like this anymore.
If we can mobilise people who believe that now is the time to say enough and stop the hate, maybe we have a chance because right now we look like the little child who wont stop kicking and screaming with no idea what he’s upset about in the first place.
Our focus has been so much on protecting ourselves that we’ve let our country go.
Right now, today, I don’t recognise Malaysia anymore and I’m not sure how to defend the Malaysia that is and the Malaysia that keeps making headlines in world news for totally backward mentality.
Maybe it’s because I’m still in mourning. I’m not sure how long it takes to heal the wounds of intolerance and injustice but I want to try.
Perhaps it’s time to change the way we speak to the children, and instead of including our prejudices, we should start burying them and start actually living in harmony and not pretending to live in harmony.
Natalie would like to recognise the Malaysia she loves once again – even if it’s for the sake of the children.
Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
So I want to know what do you tell the children who went to the church which was damaged in last Friday’s fire bombings. When the parents woke up on Sunday morning to take their kids to Sunday school what went through their minds. How will they explain the hate crime to their little ones?
The same question went through my mind when I saw the cow head protesters. I’d really like to know what the parents of Section 23, Shah Alam told their children when they went out to protest or when they had to go and petition for a new place of worship.
How would they have kept the children away from all the adult talk? It must have been hard or perhaps, no one was even trying, because there was a sense of justification in the whole occasion. It was almost a celebration.
I can only imagine that it would have been a really difficult situation if the children of these warring factions were friends at school while at home they saw how angry their parents were at each other.
How would both sides of the argument have spared their children at the dinner table? Surely, it would have been difficult, and surely the children would have known something was not right. Children always seem to know when something’s not right.
Last Friday, I felt as if someone had died and spent the day in mourning. The next day I woke up with an awful feeling – the kind when you know something terrible has happened and this question kept repeating in my mind “What have we become? What have we become?”
The fire bombings didn’t kill anyone, but it killed my hope that 2010 would be a better year for Malaysia. What’s really sad is the reality that it wasn’t something that happened last Friday which caused everything to come crashing down nor was it the court ruling.
We all knew how bad the situation was, we just didn’t think hate crimes would now be written down in our history.
But what about the children?
What are we telling them or not telling them?
If only we can look at what we have destroyed and what we’ve left the next generation to rebuild, we ought to be ashamed at the devastation we have caused by our ignorance and prejudices.
The saddest thing though is that deep seated narrow-mindedness does not change overnight or in days, weeks, months or years. It actually takes generations of people to collectively and repeatedly say enough, I don’t want to think like this anymore.
If we can mobilise people who believe that now is the time to say enough and stop the hate, maybe we have a chance because right now we look like the little child who wont stop kicking and screaming with no idea what he’s upset about in the first place.
Our focus has been so much on protecting ourselves that we’ve let our country go.
Right now, today, I don’t recognise Malaysia anymore and I’m not sure how to defend the Malaysia that is and the Malaysia that keeps making headlines in world news for totally backward mentality.
Maybe it’s because I’m still in mourning. I’m not sure how long it takes to heal the wounds of intolerance and injustice but I want to try.
Perhaps it’s time to change the way we speak to the children, and instead of including our prejudices, we should start burying them and start actually living in harmony and not pretending to live in harmony.
Natalie would like to recognise the Malaysia she loves once again – even if it’s for the sake of the children.
Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
