A friend of mine was talking about this guy who got caught for shoplifting, he is probably going to spend some time in jail. He deserves it. That was my first reaction, then he told me what the guy stole. 2 tins of baby milk powder.
Maybe he is a creep, maybe he is a bum maybe he is just some lazy lousy crook who took what he thought was the easy way out. maybe he deserves it.
But i just keep coming back to the s kids.
Maybe he is a good man at heart, worked for 10yrs for the same firm in a low paying job doing what he can to provide for his wife and children, then one day he looses his job maybe the new supervisor didn't like his face or the company went bust, maybe he got sick and could not work so his boss told him to leave. Maybe he has no education because as a child he didn't think it was important or he had to work to support his family. Maybe he couldn't get another job and his child was crying from hunger every night. Maybe he is a simple man who didn't understand that there are avenues for help, there are agency's for hope, Community Development Centers, Churches, Mosques,Temples and Government bodies that could help him get his life back on tract and maybe he didn't what else to do so he walked into a supermarket and took 2 cans of milk for his baby. And yes maybe he deserves what he has got for what he did.
Now imagine that you are that man, lost and scared your anchor to work and a sense of confidence gone, jobless for 6 months not knowing where to turn. your children are hungry, maybe even sick they cry constantly .What would you do.
For what its worth I hope at least the powers that be get milk to the mans kids cause they don't deserve to go hungry no matter what kind of man their father is and no matter what he has done.
The end does not justify the means. I don't condone what he has done but i do understand it. IT frightens me how easily I can understand it.
My friend ended our little chat by saying "just gotta move on" and yes that's what we do. That's what i do. And that is part of the problem isn't it? We give a bit to charity and we feel better, we don't DO anything. We sit and feel sorry for these people and we change the channel or make promises we are never going to keep or we pledge 20$ and after watching a monk or some TCS starlet prance across a high wire and curse them when we find out that the monk is a man after all.
What has changed? nothing, the man goes to jail and maybe just maybe his children wont go hungry because someone somewhere will tell them where and how to get help. Our expectations are that the government will sort out these social problems or that these people are always lazy or always deserving of what life throws at them. When is it our responsibility to step in and help make a positive difference in the life of someone who needs it but doesn't know us.
Maybe like me you will feel sorry for the guy and his kids, maybe you will give $10 in church this weekend instead of $5. I do not know what i do know is that by next week we would have moved on because that's what we do.
2 comments:
Lack of social workers and living in a city like Singapore have made people hard hearted to the problems of others. We are willing to help from afar but not close up.
You see I don't think Singaporean's are hard hearted and I don't think this is a Singaporean phenomenon. I think the human social condition in the modern world encourages us to look within more so then without and there are limitations to what an individual feels he or she can do. We hand over our responsibility to others and we admire them for it. Its not a governmental issue. its a human issue.
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