The experience of writing a blog is probably more personal than writing an article for a newspaper or for a magazine. I have written articles before and I have noticed that there are opportunities in blogs to be more meteoric, more personal, more punchy. Why? Is it because people want other people to read them and create some discussion? Or is it because they do not want to come across as boring and repetitive? Nevertheless, this is my experience reading other blogs so let me start with a couple of points I want to consider.
The first one is the question of gated residences. Twenty years ago we were living in terrace houses, bungalows and Semi-Ds in quiet streets in the country and we used to go past the jail in Pudu which we realized was an incarceration of criminals. The Pudu jail is a small microcosm of the original British jails in the U.K., perhaps dating back to 500 years ago to the Tower of London or the Bastille in Paris. But we understood at that time that the criminals were behind bars and we were free to walk around the streets.
Today, we are seen to be living in barbed-wire and gated enclosures while the criminals are walking the streets and occupying the open public spaces that were ours. So the question that arises here is, who is the prisoner here? Well, I certainly do not have the answer for that question. So people who own those homes who are now behind makeshift barriers, desperately trying to keep their families safe, are victims from the perceived breakdown of law and order.
On the other hand, anybody who travels to countries like Yemen will realize that in those countries everybody lives behind walls and have bodyguards and carry guns and knives. I do not believe there is random violence on the streets. We will not ever come to that stage. Malaysia is often portrayed as a role model and free economy and to a certain extent that is true as Malaysians are heavily invested in their own country.
Today, we are seen to be living in barbed-wire and gated enclosures while the criminals are walking the streets and occupying the open public spaces that were ours. So the question that arises here is, who is the prisoner here? Well, I certainly do not have the answer for that question. So people who own those homes who are now behind makeshift barriers, desperately trying to keep their families safe, are victims from the perceived breakdown of law and order.
On the other hand, anybody who travels to countries like Yemen will realize that in those countries everybody lives behind walls and have bodyguards and carry guns and knives. I do not believe there is random violence on the streets. We will not ever come to that stage. Malaysia is often portrayed as a role model and free economy and to a certain extent that is true as Malaysians are heavily invested in their own country.
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