By J. D. Lovrenciear
When it crimes to crime reporting, maybe the online media is lying. Maybe the main stream media
is not giving the whole truth. As a former Minister lambasted, crime is not up
in Malaysia; it is all a matter of perception lah. But now that VVIPs and their family members are falling prey
to street crimes and house robberies, wonder what the government and its
mouthpieces have got to reel out.
Ministersā children, royalty and even the
top-copās family members have become victims to robberies and street crimes. Is
this also a matter of mere āperceptionā. It
is all so easy for top civil servants to be pumped with bullets at
close range; it is all so easy for intruders to arrive by the boat loads
and stack up their arms and yet go undetected. Even to say so is wrong
and one will be accused of being anti-national and what nots. But
leaving these serious breaches of security aside, how now that we have
even VVIPs not safe at home or out shopping lah?
All these past decades Malaysian citizens ā largely the
working population, have been raising the alarm over the spates of robberies
and near fatal injuries and loss of lives and properties. The working class
citizens have been living in fear not only out in the streets but also hovelled
in their barricaded homes of grills, gates, locks and chains, investments in security
alarms, watchdogs and what not.
When committed groups stepped forward to raise their concerns to
the attention of the authorities, they got brick bats and reprimands. Some
VVIPs even went the distance to holler, āDo not politicize the matterā. Others said that the opposition politicians are exploiting
the situation. And statistics were published to hoodwink the rakyat that crime
is down in Malaysia and to smear the opposition politicains who dared to speak in the interest of victims.
When we cannot feel safe in our own yard, what security and
safety are we assuring our citizens? When workers and shoppers leave home and
arrive home with daunting fear of getting robbed in the street, at the
hypermarket or even at the front gate of our homes, we lambast the citizens of
being paranoid. But now that very important citizens are also falling
victims to crime, will the same authorities preach to the victims that they
must not highlight the crime otherwise touristsā arrival in Malaysia be
affected lah (?).
We are so good at arresting and re-arresting opposition
politicians. We are so damn good at crucifying young students minds. We are
really damn good at shutting up our citizens when they ask about custodial
deaths, unfair elections, and basic human rights. But when it comes to making our livelihoods safe and free
from street crimes and house break-ins, it is all together a different tune.
Has
the government of 56 years truly failed its citizens?
No? Who will take responsibility for this compromise? Or is it a case of
mere
perception and that crime is really going down as the reports of VVIPs
getting robbed and maimed are merely āisolated incidentsā?
Dear
politicnas and authorities, do you know that the ordinary citizens in
the neighboring countries - Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia,
Vietnam, Laos, and even Myanmar or Sri Lanka, all of them will tell you
that they do not clucth tightly their handbags under their armpits when
out in the streets in broad daylight; that they do not look left, right,
front and back each time before loading groceries in their car booths;
that they do not barricade their homes like
prisons; that they do not go to bed each night with fears of being been ransacked by parang weilding men.
Wonder
what the newly-minted Home Minister and his right-hand Chief of Police
have got to tell us citizens this time around. Even wonder whether the
minority polls Prime Minister will stay silent or excuse himself of any negligence by 'leaving it to the authorities to act accordingly'.
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