Something I saw the other day made me count my blessings to be living in a place like Singapore.
Something quite ordinary, maybe irrelevant. But it made me put things in perspective.
Happened to be on a bus and a party of 4 youths came on board, 3 girls and a guy. It didn't matter if the guy looked and behaved a little on the effeminate side.
What mattered was what 2 of the girls were.
And perhaps what the guy was.
He was just your average Chinese guy while 2 of the girls were Malays decked in tudungs, those head-scarves that was a subject of contention a couple of years back between a Malay-Muslim parent and the authorities of a primary school.
There was a lot of boisterous banter going on between the guy and the 2 girls, with one of the girls even playfully touching and slapping the guy on the arm from time to time whenever the guy made a funny or cheeky comment.
If the setting had been a traditional society, one wonders what others would have done or reacted on seeing something like that. Such behaviour perhaps might have been frowned upon or even condemned in those places.
The situation that day was one whereby no one else even batted an eyelid or cared less.
It made me think about racial tolerance and harmony.
How many of us have actually counted our blessings to be in a society where tolerance of other races or religions, barring exceptions, was the norm and practised ever so widely rather than a one-off occurrence?
How many of us have taken that for granted?
I confess to not having that many friends in other ethnic groups but I certainly try my best to know more about Malays and Indians.
Even about people from other cultures.
We hear of racial riots, hate crimes against certain ethnic groups taking place in other countries and perhaps we do not identify with that but have you ever entertained the prospect of that happening in our country one day?
I certainly hope something like that does not happen.
The price to pay is too high.
I am counting my blessings to be in a tolerant and pluralistic society.
Something quite ordinary, maybe irrelevant. But it made me put things in perspective.
Happened to be on a bus and a party of 4 youths came on board, 3 girls and a guy. It didn't matter if the guy looked and behaved a little on the effeminate side.
What mattered was what 2 of the girls were.
And perhaps what the guy was.
He was just your average Chinese guy while 2 of the girls were Malays decked in tudungs, those head-scarves that was a subject of contention a couple of years back between a Malay-Muslim parent and the authorities of a primary school.
There was a lot of boisterous banter going on between the guy and the 2 girls, with one of the girls even playfully touching and slapping the guy on the arm from time to time whenever the guy made a funny or cheeky comment.
If the setting had been a traditional society, one wonders what others would have done or reacted on seeing something like that. Such behaviour perhaps might have been frowned upon or even condemned in those places.
The situation that day was one whereby no one else even batted an eyelid or cared less.
It made me think about racial tolerance and harmony.
How many of us have actually counted our blessings to be in a society where tolerance of other races or religions, barring exceptions, was the norm and practised ever so widely rather than a one-off occurrence?
How many of us have taken that for granted?
I confess to not having that many friends in other ethnic groups but I certainly try my best to know more about Malays and Indians.
Even about people from other cultures.
We hear of racial riots, hate crimes against certain ethnic groups taking place in other countries and perhaps we do not identify with that but have you ever entertained the prospect of that happening in our country one day?
I certainly hope something like that does not happen.
The price to pay is too high.
I am counting my blessings to be in a tolerant and pluralistic society.
posted by morningcalm @ 11:50 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home