Anyone is guilty who watches this and does nothing

A boy, crouching in a corner in an alley, while three Malay boys surround him, kicking him in turns, cigarettes in their mouths.

"Kenapa tak bayar wang? Mahu mati yakah? Bos kami tidak gembira dengan kamu tahu? Tidak beri wang, tidak ada hari yang baik!"One of the taller boys said in Malay. Translated, it meant "Why did you not pay up? Want to die? Our boss is not happy with you you know? Never pay money, never have a good day!". The boy then jammed his cigarette onto the hand of the poor boy, who let loose a cry of pain. The three Malays then walked away arrogantly.

This was a real thing that happened when I studied in primary school. We had a neighbourhood secondary school next to our school when I was studying there. There was an alley near it that was dark, so dark it could contain the existence of the triads and gangs in that school. Unfortunately, everyday I had to walk past the alley to get home. Many times had I witnessed such incidents happening, and I had reported it many times to my teachers. What they said only was "Leave them alone. It's not our school anyway."

This time I could not tolerate it anymore. Something had to be done about this bullying. So I went to the teachers again. As expected, the teachers called me to stay out of their affairs.

"But almost everyday someone is hurt being bullied in that particular alley! How can I just stand there and watch it happen?"I exclaimed.

"Guan Hong, some day you will understand this,"my form teacher said, "For the moment, I'll teach you something. This is called racism and it exists throughout Malaysia. We cannot stop it, because it exists in the whole Malaysia. If I reported this, this would surely fall to the principal of their secondary school. We have reported such cases. But what ended up was the Chinese students were punished because they 'wanted to find trouble with the gangs'. Maybe when you grow up, you'll be able to solve this issue along with others. But for now, let things be the way they are. Now forget about this and go home."

It was not until recently that this incident came back to my mind. It returned when our teacher taught about racism and the concept of tolerance and acceptance. Maybe this is the so-called tolerance. But, the racism in Malaysia must be stopped. More and more Malays are getting into local universities although others have better results. Even though the slogan of "1 Malaysia" is spreading, encouraging equal treatment, no real action has been done. And more and more teenagers are running out of tolerance nowadays. Maybe when my generation comes, in the near future, they will have run our of tolerance. What happens then? No one knows.

Mississippi Burning

Today, our teacher let us view a movie called Mississippi Burning. The movie was about FBI agents investigating the deaths of 3 civil right workers in Mississippi. The movie mainly dealt with the issues of racism in South America. Honestly, I did not enjoy the movie while I was viewing it. The movie seemed kind of dull when it first started, except for a few scenes where the action took place. Also, the FBI agents seemed kind of unreasonable in the movie: at last the resorted to underhand means to force the whites in the movie to confess to their actions. This made the movie, although altogether improving the attractiveness, less realistic. Also, the blacks were too "fake", they were portrayed as some kind of "angel" who would never commit even the smallest crime. The plot was nice to enjoy, though.