What Happened To Us?

WARNING : This is an article that is very heavily laden with words. Skip the whole thing if you don't care. I just can't contain my anger and disappointment after following this incident on the newspaper and Internet for almost a week.

Last week, a 14 year old girl had come clean with her story. A story of betrayal, a story of immorality, a story of ignorance, a story of cruelty and last but not least, a story of bravery.

A 14 year old girl went for a karaoke session with her classmates. She was drugged by her male classmates and raped. When she was conscious, she dare not tell anyone about the incident, hoping that it would go away. Unfortunately, those classmates of hers bragged about the incident at school, leaving her no choice but to report. Surprisingly, the school ignored this incident, stating that it didn't happen in the school compound, therefore none of their business. The girl went to the police and the police told her to forget about it and concentrate on her PMR exams. With no choice, she went to the media. And now sympathies are pouring in like rain.

But does it help?

This story made me think. I shuddered at the horror of being betrayed and raped by friends. I sighed at the ignorance of our education system. I am utterly disappointed with our so-called justice system. And I am thoroughly disgusted with the attitude of the society. Imagine if this story wasn't told through the media and was told by the girl herself, her family, or relatives. She will be discriminated and labelled as "unclean" or "slutty" or "stupid". Imagine if the media didn't shine enough light on her unfortunate incident, she will still be bullied and insulted by her classmates and relatives. Imagine if this incident wasn't big enough for the police to take action, she will still be living in darkness, taunted by her rapists everyday in school.

I am also very disappointed in the morality and mentality of the so-called "Eastern culture". Some people actually made her the culprit and said that she did it onto herself by being friends with guys or going to karaoke with guys. Some said that she should be the conservative little girl who should stay at home. I wonder if these people have been living in the Victorian Era or something. This is the 21st century. Like it or not, youngsters nowadays like to play and have fun. And karaoke is just one of the many ways. Instead of properly educating the young about these entertainments, adults forbid the youngsters from having fun which in turn challenged the rebellious side of the teens. Seriously, parents, can't you see that not every kid is the obedient school nerd who stay at home and study, and sometimes your kid isn't very obedient. Your irresponsibility and unwillingness to educate your child is a contributing factor to his/her action because the more you forbid it, the more they want to do it!! Same situation applies here. Why make the victim the evil culprit here by saying that she seduced the guy into having such thoughts when the truth is the adults didn't educate the boys to keep their dicks in their pants? And screw the Eastern Culture if the society only expect the female to be modest and well-groomed.

Besides that, I am utterly disappointed with our education system where some idiots actually took pride on earlier of the millennium. To quote from Sin Chew Daily, "我們的教育培養了一群只會考試的機器、一群不愛考試的孩子，但我們的教育忘記了培養一群有溫暖的心的孩子、忘記教會孩子怎麼用心生活、忘記了塑造他們的人格。" (Our education system produced a group of robots who do well in exams and a group of children who hate exams. But our system forgot to produce caring students, forgot to teach them how to live, forgot to instill morality and ethics in them.) Looking back, what have we produce beside robots who memorise and regurgitate everything? What happen to the compulsory teaching of Pendidikan Moral and Sivik? What happen to dedicated teachers whose jobs are not only to teach things in the textbooks but also instill morality and ethics into the young? This, my dear readers, are the milder consequences of teaching students to memorise 36 "moral" definition instead of actually teaching students MORAL! The school involved in this incident have really irresponsible administrators. How can you lock a girl out of justice just because it doesn't happen in school? Those boys are still students from that very school. The girl still studies in that school. How can the teachers pushed her away, into a world of darkness and loneliness? The stupid Eastern Culture of "Jangan jaga tepi kain" (Don't mingle in other people's business) should really be abolished. Our country fail miserably at producing a caring and responsibility community. Clearly all those bullshit laws like Pelan Integriti Nasional or Wawasan 2020 is not working.

My heart goes all out to this girl. She is very brave indeed, to expose the story and to make sure her perpetrators take responsibilities of their actions. I hope the community really wake up to this distress call from the morality of this society. I hope that this story won't be like the heat of the moment and be swept under the carpet after some time. I hope that law-makers are really doing something about it instead of drawing up another useless bound-to-fail policy. Most of all, I hope that this girl can walk out of darkness with so many support from people around the country.