The recent tragedy of Nurin Jazlin Jazimin, 8 years old (al-fatihah) gave me cause to think about the society we are becoming today.
Being a self-analyst deep down, i pondered long about the tragedy: how can somebody commit such a heinous crime on such innocent children? what motivates them? what are the external factors? has the police profiled such crimesters? why do they become the monsters today?
I would like to live in a place where my children are safe to go play in the playground or ride their bicycles around our neighbourhood. but cases such as these would only cause the undesired reaction of more people locking themselves out in the home and minimise exposures outside… which only leads to a more insular and silo society: it is a vicious cycle which needs to be broken. getting people to fight a common cause is going to be more difficult which the ever increasing “every man for themselves” attitude of our society.
So why do these crimes happen? seriously i do not know, nor pretend to be an expert. but being a self analyst, i believe that we all have to look deep down within ourselves. no, i do not blame nurin’s parents… i would like all of us to see the faults we have and how it manifests itself in our society.
Why do people want to inflict pain on others? i believe that every person fundamentally is compelled to do this. We scold others, because we have been scolded. We put pressure on others, because we are being pressured ourselves. And we hurt others, because we are hurt. The difference between us is the level of pain.
Make no mistake, i hope and desire to see nurin’s murderer and others like them to be severely punished and with pain here in the hereafter. Yes, i want them to suffer, because i share some fraction of the pain felt by nurin’s parents… as i am a parent myself.
It is a vicious cycle. But sometimes i feel that we have ourselves to blame. The first thing we should do is to stop hurting others. Except for very few circumstances, it (hurting others) is not warranted.