from: Leroy Luar, via email
I am troubled by what I believe to be a grave act of injustice done upon Siti Kasim (Arrested for obstruction, criminal intimidation – FMT, April 8) but I lack the vocabulary and technical know-how to dissect this act from a legal standpoint. There are moral arguments aplenty but I’m of the opinion that these arguments are neither here nor there.
And so, I’ve struggled, as I have for the past week to process exactly how I am to make sense of all of this, how I am to react. Maybe it shouldn’t be on Siti’s behalf that I speak up, it’s for all of us.
From the demagoguery of Donald Trump to the atrocities committed by the so-called Islamic State in the name of religious piety, we live now, more than even before, in a world where hate in all its guises runs rampant. But, naive as it may sound, I am thoroughly convinced that hate’s kin, compassion, lives on still in all of us.
I see compassion in the outpouring of support for civilians caught in the crossfire of political conflicts in Syria and Palestine, there when we rose in unison to help our fellow citizens whose lives were swept away in the great East Coast floods of 2015, through ordinary people trying to give our children a fighting chance of thriving in a future that has never looked bleaker.
When you drop a coin in the hands of a destitute person or when you mobilize with your community to make sure the homeless have at least a complete meal in their bellies before turning in for the night, she’s there. When you stop traffic to lift an injured animal out of harm’s way, when you look past a the actions of a petty thief and offer him a second chance in life, she’s there. Compassion lives in all of us. I believe in us. I have no other choice.
My plea is a simple one. Give compassion a chance to right the wrongs of hatred. Dig deep if you have to, but dig. Marginalised communities like the one Siti represents, disadvantaged by systemic and institutionalised hatred, need compassion now.
This is not a fight for Siti’s rights or for the inalienable rights of citizens born in Malaysia and equal in every way as provided for by the Federal Constitution, transgendered or otherwise. This is a fight for our soul as a nation. I beg of all of you, let compassion win.
Leroy Luar is an FMT reader
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