When the going gets tough, the tough stays calm. This is the message by WP who have called for unity, empathy in Covid-19 video. It’s what we need at such time.
Dennis Tan said: “We must pull together to plug the gaps and address any deficiency. We must work together to combat this difficult enemy. We have no room for complacency.”
Raeesah and Nicole call for an end to spousal and domestic abuse. “So, be considerate to your wives, mothers and sisters. They need all the support and help they can get,” Nicole said.
I guess when it comes to being considerate at such uncertain times, sparing a thought for unity, empathy and charity, the recent TOC video posted on its Facebook is a most unfortunate deviation.
It was uploaded online by Instagram user @nichology, and it showed the police officer reprimanding the woman (who has dementia) for not wearing a mask. Whatever the person’s intention was when he took the video, law minister Shanmugam has called it ”a cynical, unethical and malicious attack on the police, adding that TOC took advantage of an old woman with dementia.”
Not one to back down from a challenge, he said: “TOC attacks the Government with its team of Malaysian writers. That’s regular, but I would say keep your malice and venom to politics.” (now that’s what I call a preemptive strike from the media’s backdoor).
“We can deal with it. Don’t bring that toxicity to attack police officers, spare them. They’re just doing their jobs.”
The SPF had their own body-worn camera footage, probably installed as a precaution against stirrer of public shit, and it showed them “engaging an elderly woman who was not wearing a mask in public.” The footage also showed one officer buying a packet of food from a nearby stall for her, and not taunting or reprimanding her.
The daughter of the woman, who declined being interviewed, said that she was “disappointed that TOC interviewed her mother and posted the video online without attempting to understand her condition.”
Mind you, negative news sell. Sensational ones go viral. And when it involves the arm of government, or the government itself, the perceived elitist establishment, such news have the Midas’ touch of turning even the most pedestrian events caught on camera to pure viral gold.
Not surprisingly, the bandwagon of truth sets the bar high because seeking it requires patience, context and critical thinking. But the bandwagon of fake news is a hippie joy ride for the unthinking, unwitting and unsuspecting. It mindlessly takes the broad road, that is, one that glitters with juicy gossips, loose associations and half-baked truths.
Its bar is therefore deliberately set low to readily welcome all and sundry who have an axe to grind against the object of their ire; even if such seething hatred has shallow roots. That is why it is said that “a lie travels around the globe while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
Like it or not, we are living in a world of compromised truth, where there is not just a pandemic that we are fighting against, but there is also an “epidemic of alternative facts” to guard against.
It is a flighty reality supported by an echo chamber, blindly endorsed by a crowd whose mind has already made up. And we all know that to uproot one from his or her entrenched opinions would require a strong regular dose of self-awareness, self-checking, and at times, self-reproach.
The truth is, many of us are pretending to look for objective evidence, when what we are really looking for is none other than corroboration - the more, the merrier. And the numbers often justify the cause, not its content or its objectivity.
In a world where the endless repetition of something unfounded can reach some form of truth status with an inflammatory crowd, we must be wary of such repetition without cause or sound basis. We must, like WP said, come together to fight that which threatens our hard fought unity and diversity.
I know it takes all kinds to make the world. But to destroy it, to divide it, it only takes one kind, the unthinking kind.
No comments:
Post a Comment