http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/109cnf/im_not_sure_what_to_conclude_from_this/c6bqtpd
The link above is about a young Sikh woman , Balpreet Kaur, in USA and how she responded to a photo of her, taken without her knowledge and posted online and people made fun of her appearance. I came across news about this on Yahoo!, and it led me to this thread in Reddit.com.
This is not something that happened in Malaysia, but because the story all started with a photo of a young Sikh woman, and we have Sikhs in Malaysia too, so it made me wonder how it will turn out if we ever got a similar situation.
It the link above, Balpreet Kaur replied calmly to those who made fun of her. This is not shocking, as it shows she had a lot of inner strength to response to those people calmly, she replied wihtout fear. She actually stared down those cyberbullies without being angry.
After her reply, those who made fun of her actually read-up about Sikh, tried to understand what she had stated in her reply. Then they actually apologize, and said they all had learned something from her.
How will it turn out in Malaysia? We see people attack people on the ground of races, religions daily (the true motivation is political gain, so they can stay in power forever); those big guns from UMNO calling Malaysian Chinese, especially MCA to go back to Tang Shang (the old local name for China). In Penang, ever since 2008, when Lim took the office of Chief Minister of Penang, those people from UMNO have been throwing racial insults at him daily. Do we see anyone being charged under Sedition Act because of these? No.
And about Sikh in Malaysia, while I know there is such a group in Malaysia, I actually know very little about them, in the media, or daily life. Actually the only memory I have about them is the guards in front of banks or hotels, and that's way back in like 1970's. It is clearly they are ignored in the mainstream politics in Malaysia. So if someone from Chinese/Malay or other races, publicly made fun of a Sikh woman like this, would anyone actually care to read what she had to say? Actually, would we see any newspaper actually run a story that praise her for her eloquent, calm reply? I do not think so; it will more likely be met with more cyberbullies, and real world bullies, both in physcial from (if her location is known), and the public media. Any politician will come out to speak for her? No! Sikh votes are not sufficient to sway anything.
From the post in Reddit, to Balpreet Kaur's reply to it, and the responses followed, whatever we may think or say about those people in USA, they still have a lot of people with genuine empathy, ready to learn something new with open mind, exercise real social tolerance, and actually believe all human are created equal. From all the noises in newspaper, TV, radio, and internet, I do not see we have anything close in Malaysia. Cases in point:
1. http://www.20minutes.fr/web/1011113-femme-barbe-moquee-repond-reddit#xtor=RSS-145
(a French newspaper website posted her reply)
2. http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8539610/reddit-users-rebuked-by-sikh-woman
(Australia television news website posted her reply)
3. http://shine.yahoo.com/women-who-shine/sikh-woman-balpreet-kaur-turns-cyber-bullying-incident-203500244.html
(Yahoo!, the story that led me to the thread in Reddit.com)
I do not see her story in newspaper or TV or hear about it on Radio in Malaysia.
Her story makes me ashame to be a Malaysian.
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