Malaysians need to be nosy
We need to be a caring society, discard our ‘jangan jaga tepi kain orang’ attitude
THE digital age has certainly captured the hearts and minds of those with voyeuristic tendencies. Every day we are bombarded with pictures and videos of various things that are out of the ordinary, heart-wrenching, warm-fuzzy-feeling-inducing or just plain macabre. These pictures and videos go viral easily and Malaysians are no less likely than anyone else in the rest of the world to look at them or watch them, if not more so.
Many of these have to do with crime or death, or both, and one such video which went viral just a week ago was just one example of the many that have crossed our paths.
The video clip in question was taken from footage recorded from a closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera in Taman Limau Manis in Kota Baru. In it, we see a man approaching a woman from behind and snatching her bag, sending her “flying” to the ground. The man then jumps into a car driven by an accomplice. An hour after the incident, two brothers were arrested for the crime and the 72-year-old victim’s handbag recovered.
Incidents of snatch thefts are not uncommon in Malaysia, as we all know, though the vast majority are done by those on motorcycles. The fact that these men used a car, however, was not the reason why the video went viral so quickly.
To be sure, Netizens expressed outrage at the men’s brazenness, committing such a crime in broad daylight. But the real reason the video clip went viral was mostly because it showed several people passing by without helping the poor woman, who was obviously in pain as she rolled around on the ground, so much so that she eventually ended up rolling herself into a drain.
Perhaps most of these people did not notice what happened, but some definitely did and at least one motorcyclist witnessed the entire thing. The clip showed the man slowing done and stopping, but we do not know whether he eventually helped the victim as the clip ended abruptly, shortly after that.
That short clip leads us to the question of whether Malaysia, known by many in the world as being a caring society, has lost its way in this particular department.