Monday, July 21, 2014

Unfortunate Victims Of Unforeseen Circumstances

Misfortune is when something bad happens to us when we least expected it. Death in itself is not wholly unexpected. All humans are mortal. When when death arrives at a moment when we thought there is the next moment, that is tragic. When death is unexpected and sudden, those who died might have felt it for a moment and it is gone. Their last thoughts may not be death, but something pleasant - like looking forward to a holiday in the tropics or meeting up with loved ones. Or, it could also equally be the thought of trying to cheat death, but scurrying along alleyways ducking bullets and bombs which are being indiscriminately rained on an area which the other side is trying to remove a perceived threat or danger.

But to the loved ones who know of the death, their pain and sorrow will stay with them for the rest of their lives. The living mourns for the dead - never the dead for the living. Suddenly, life is not about the material luxury of life, but life itself - the absence of which deprives the living the company of those who are no more with them in this world. The pains or sorrows of mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, daughters and sons, wives and husbands, grandmothers and grandfathers - images we now unfortunately have to witness on prime time TV nowadays - is a constant daily assault on our inner peace and quiet, on our perception and understanding of what reality is all about, on our faith in the humanness of human beings, on the need for the good to fight evil, on the vulnerability of the good to turn into evil, on the great risk that we all suffer when we do not watch ourselves lest we unwittingly becomes the very monsters that we would have condemned at leisure.

The reality of the world is that it is both good and evil, it be both light and dark in this world of duality where the two poles can switch from one to the other before our very eyes without us ever knowing it when that switch is taking place. Everybody deludes himself or herself to be good, no matter how evil he or she may have become. Good and evil is a value that arise when we are dealing with fellow human beings or fellow living things. Life goes on by the very force of survival, the constant craving for existence, that the very thought of death is appalling - even when one personally wills death because of the unbearable bodily pain one may unfortunately have to suffer. Death is often a respite to life. Some wise man has said the only way to fight pain and suffering is to deny life raising its head in the first place. To banish the thought of life. To focus on the present. Life until there is no more. But for those who are alive, fight pain and suffering through wisdom, wisdom of the truth of realty, and accept reality for what it is - both the fortunate and unfortunate things.

Monday, July 14, 2014

Urban Poor: Homeless, Jobless & Loveless

The homeless is a problem for the Federal Government as they try to bring Malaysia up to the First World level while being irked by the presence of dirty hungry men and women in the streets of the Golden Triangle in Kuala Lumpur.

Economists are fully aware that the economic model of growth they build are rest squarely on the energies and ingenuity of the clever and able-bodied people. The rest falls by the wayside of mainstream economic development - the disadvantaged, the very young, the very old, the very sick, the uneducated, single parents, the physically handicapped, the mentally handicapped. While the best solution is to help as many of these people to find stable jobs, it is most likely that they may have already failed the conventional social system and hence are being left out in the cold and therefore are difficult to rehabilitate back into the mainstream. There is therefore a need for society to act to help these people, at least, as a means for society to save its own soul so that it can think of itself as a caring society.

This moral obligation of society to itself could have been easier in the good old days of monoculturalism - whatever that may mean, but surely it exists when the whole society sees itself as one. This sense of monoculturism seems to break down when a section of society is seen as alien, and it is mostly likely to be recent immigrants whom the so-called locals feel uncomfortable with because they are unfamiliar with them. It means that the moral obligation of society is unlikely to be stretched to include foreigners in the country.

The response of the government of the day to the homeless is to provide a home for these people to stay, and to keep them off the streets. This follows logically from the idea that all that the homeless needs is a home, so the government provides a shelter and nothing else. We have the welfare minister saying that they provide shelter but no food. This is being typically government servant mentally - they do the barest minimum and justify that they have done their job.

The response of the NGOs is to provide first food and then shelter, in that order of priority. The biggest curse for human beings and all living creatures is that the ingestion of nutrient is a daily requirement, failing which we die. I am always amazed by the persistence of life to cling on to life - this must be a tautology, for without the clinging on to life, there is no life, by definition. (It is only politics and religions that make heroes of death, for it is so counter-intuitive.)

The most stupid argument I have read so far is for the minister to suggest the NGOs go and feed their people in the welfare homes, and not in the streets.

The now more acceptable approach to solve social problems is for the government to consult the affected people and communities to find out what their problems are and to listen to what these people have to say about how they would like to have their problems solved. It is most likely that well-fed politicians will have a different perspective from those who unwillingly have to go hungry when their circumstances are outside their control. These people may want to have a sense of dignity and self-respect and that can only be got from a sense of control of their situation rather than be caught in bureaucracy.