By Natalie Shobana Ambrose
theSun, Malaysia (page 14)
July 14th, 2011
http://www.thesundaily.my/news/78464
In Harper Lee’s famous book To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the main storylines is of Atticus, a lawyer defending Tom Robinson, an innocent black man falsely accused of raping Mayella, a white woman during the Great Depression. Having fought the case with substantial evidence for Tom’s acquittal, they lost because societal norms came before legal obligation. Even though Atticus had convinced a court of law of Tom’s innocence, in reality he had failed to win his case “in the secret courts of men’s hearts”.
It’s amazing how at the end of the day, our personal judgments and convictions are what we hold true to – not what we are told to believe. With everything going on in the past few weeks alone, I wonder what the secret courts of our hearts have decided.
The thing with justice is there’s a benchmark and it doesn’t move. We can tug at it, we can twist and package facts whichever way we want to get the desired verdict, but the bar never moves and the scales of our hearts magnetise towards an accurate equilibrium – it is never neutral because innate human nature causes us to try and put things right – to find justice. We tend to be uncomfortable otherwise. No matter what the popular trend is, ultimately we have to be at peace with the decisions and stand we take. In the words of Atticus, “the one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience”.
That is why it so important that we do our duty. That we live up to the agreements we have made and measure ourselves not by what we do well but what we have failed to do. Only then will we become better. As a country, we share the responsibility of being part of the 47 states that make up the United Nations Human Rights Council. Part of our duty is to strengthen the promotion and protection of human rights around the world – which includes our country.
That bar does not move. Out of the 192 UN member states, Malaysia was chosen as the forerunner in upholding the tenets of human rights. Our duty? To not just be a good example but an outstanding one. But what does our report card have to say? In 2013 when we are up for re-election, how will we fare? Will we be humiliated by our score sheet and give excuses as to why we were not re-elected?
Personally, Malaysia seems caught in a different generational thinking. On one hand, we want to be a traditional society, respectful, obedient, peaceable. On the other hand, these traits have created a social layer of powerful, deaf opportunists who’s skewed perception holds the rest of the nation to ransom.
The problem is that a huge chunk of society has been exposed to something different, another option, and so the traditional traits are traded for what is deemed ungrateful, disrespectful and argumentative – all needing to be taught a lesson. In other words problematic.
However for those who dare to dream for a better country, that burden for change is heavy and cannot be dimmed. It’s not about which party wins – let’s face it, our options are limited. As clichéd as it sounds, it really is about change – positive change, real change, necessary change – and it doesn’t matter who does it, it just needs to be done.
If we have transitioned from a guided democracy to a full-fledged democracy, upholding all fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights along with the absence of intimidation is crucial.
This is what will win points in the court of public opinion – not machinery that on paper raves of improved living standards, but which shows a stark difference in reality. We can close our eyes, put our hands to our ears and scream at the top of our lungs to drown out the noise, but it will only grow louder. Our heads need to come out of the sand to face reality. It’s time to listen and change.
The conflicting reports, heart-tugging photos and strong statements that have followed from either side of the divide continue to fill our newsfeeds and will do so for a long time to come. No matter how much convincing either cause red, blue, yellow, government, opposition, print media or online media has done, in the privacy of our consciousness and the quietness of our convictions, each one of us has decided what happened, what the truth is, who the guilty verdict falls on and where to cast our votes – all in the secret court of our hearts.
Natalie thinks that if you have an opinion and a conscience, you don’t just register to vote, you exercise your right to vote.
Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
