THERE is this myth most of us buy into that what really distinguishes humans from animals is our ability to feel kindness and compassion for the marginalised, the less fortunate, the disadvantaged. Indeed, this myth is central to much of popular culture, found amid acres of popular literature.
However, time and again, events in Malaysia over the past three years or so, have clearly managed to blow this myth to bits. In a country that prides itself in being guided by religious values, we’ve had the majority blatantly insulting and threatening minorities by desecrating their places of worship and defiling their objects of worship.
We have seen how this bullying has been condoned by those in authority who really should know better.
And it looks as though this pattern of bullying, this series of unprovoked aggression against a collective minority incapable of defending itself, continues to this present day.
Its most recent manifestation has been in the aggression aimed – the vitriol hurled – at the people who organised Seksualiti Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur, the people who openly supported it, and the community which the festival is supposed to serve.
Contrary to the stupid, homophobic comments published in some of Malaysia’s more trashy newspapers, Seksualiti Merdeka is not a festival consisting of one sexual activity after another, one orgy after another. No, this isn’t the Obedient Wives’ Club. Seksualiti Merdeka is an annual festival to highlight the problems, discrimination and marginalisation faced by a group of people of diverse sexual orientation and gender identity, and to uphold their human rights.
It is evident that Seksualiti Merdeka is a platform for educating the public on human rights, not a stage to promote what many of the ignorant consider to be deviant tendencies. It has been running annually in Malaysia since 2008, without any untoward incidents.
Until this year, that is.
Suddenly, all manner of accusations have been hurled at this small community, by politicians, religious groups and, not surprisingly, right-wing fascists, like the members of Perkasa.
All evidently united by their homophobia, their unyielding belief that behaviour that is non-heterosexual is not only ‘deviant’ but also abhorrent and should be condemned.
This larger majority fails – or worse, refuses – to understand that the members of this community often face social, emotional, legal and even political problems because of their gender identity and sexual orientation, labelled by the hard-liners as ‘deviant’.
Indeed, it would seem that by acting in this high-handed manner, the majority refuses to recognise the very real possibility that it is their very actions that lead to the isolation, alienation and despair faced by this marginalised community of Malaysian brothers and sisters.
They are so marginalised and relatively minute in numbers that I find it inconceivable that they should pose any danger or threat to the wider Malaysian public.
All this is, thus, sad and doesn’t say much about us as a people. We boast about being a caring society, as stipulated in the challenges of Wawasan 2020, yet do not wish to know about this small community, let alone engage with them.
Instead, some of us, including those having political and religious clout, take the moral high ground, condemning them for what they are and what they want to be, without any regard for their rights and feelings as citizens and fellow human beings.
That, I feel, is the sorry tale of contemporary Malaysian society. A society where bullies seem to freely roam the streets, a society where they blatantly deliver their hate messages in certain newspapers or on some television programmes.
And these media, in turn, celebrate them, unreservedly, uncritically.
Of course there is a wider political agenda, given that these media organisations are very much owned and controlled by political benefactors.
Which makes it even more despicable. Because in this pursuit of political mileage, in this obsession for political gain, innocent groups and individuals – the minority – become the sacrificial lambs. They are victimised, picked upon, demonised.
And, as one columnist recently put it: “It is interesting how these persons and groups, without fail, drag God into the argument to provide the ultimate rationale. They say that the existence of lesbians, gays and bisexuals are against God’s will and law. Yet, it could be said that if God didn’t want there to be such diversity, then He wouldn’t have made it possible for them to be in existence to begin with.” For the writer, religion is “used to marginalise, ostracise and shame instead of including and embracing others”.
But, in doing all this, we forget one very simple thing: no matter how much hateful people may wish to deny it, these groups and individuals essentially are part of us all.