IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT. – PART II:
…MALAYSIA EXPERIENCES WHAT THE AMERICANS EXPERIENCED IN THE SIXTIES WHEN THEIR YOUTH TOOK THE FLIGHT OF FANCY WHICH CAUSED THEIR SOCIAL AND CULTURAL VALUES TO BE RE-DEFINED AND DOWNGRADED.
By Mansor Puteh
BLAME IT ON POOR QUALITY VISIONARIES, THINK TANKS, NGOs, SOCIOLOISTS, PSYCHOLOGISTS AND ECONOMISTS AND THE CYCLE OF EVENTS THEY HAD CREATED DUE TO THEIR LACKING IN FORESIGHT AND INTELLIGENCE.
THE REAL-LIFE DRAMAS IN AMERICA OF THE SIXTIES INVOLVE ELEMENTS WHICH ARE THE SAME AS THOSE WHICH APPEAR IN THE REAL-LIFE DRAMAS OF MALAYSIA TODAY – THE RECKLESS YOUTHS, TARDY LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS, FAST CARS, PUBLICITY CRAZY LAWYERS AND THE BEFUDDLED MEDIA.
BUT GENERALLY, THE REST OF THE COUNTRY LOOKS ELSEWHERE AT THE PERSONAL PROBLEMS EXPERIENCED BY THOSE WHO ARE SO RECKLESS WHO DON’T CARE FOR THEIR PERSONAL WELL-BEING.
Only the media do. They have to, to preserve their ‘dignity’ and report redundant and repetitive news which still have not taught many, like it is a long soap opera that will be created and reported again and again.
These are the elements that are present in many a drama – a potent mixture that can often-times bring in a lot of fanciful reaction from those parties concerned, not that they are aware of it.
Maybe, all these parties in Malaysia ought to take the Screenwriting One course, which will be very good for them to have a good idea of what drama is, so they know how to create better ones in the future, so they know how to avoid themselves from being in the middle of an unnecessary drama themselves in the future.
For some, its too late; they are already characters in such real-life dramas, so they have to go along with the plot however tired it may be, to go on playing the plot of the ‘vanquished’ and those who suffer; these ‘heroes’ who are trying to maintain the ‘good name and good reputation’ of those who had died.
Did they ever try to do all these when their children were still live?
A criminal is created; he is encouraged to be created, because he has to be ‘trained’ to be one in one way or another.
His first criminal activity is first to cheat himself. The second is to cheat his close relatives, by stealing their vehicles and lying on his nocturnal movements and activities.
Then he finds accomplice from amongst his cousins, relatives and other friends, so they can form a formidable group.
Criminals do not just happen; they have to be put in a certain background to allow them to venture into crime. And they have to be ‘told’ that a criminal is also a good option. If they know how to cheat themselves and their families, then it will be much easier to cheat the authorities.
So all the parties concerned, the parents of the dead, their lawyers, the lawmakers, the police and media know what part they are playing in the particular episode – that of real characters or just the clowns!
If the central issue is the loss of human life, of human values; then the other parties are just the clowns or jokers whose existence in it, is for distraction!
Here is where my training in screenwriting has come in handy, because you learn about causes and effect in screenwriting which forms the backbone of any story for without which it cannot develop.
So when a tragedy happens, those youths who were involved in it can expect those whom they had left behind to find ways to say they were angels, even when the facts are so clear that they were not so angelic.
Parents of those youths and those who support them, suffer from self-denial. They do not accept the fact that the ends have proven that their children did not care for their feelings.
If one does not wish to get certain effects, whatever possible causes that could lead to one getting the final effects must be thought of before hand, as any mistake can prove to be fatal.
Or, do they want to ignore it and allow more underage kids to be involved in similar incidents so they can benefit from them?
Will they all ignore the experience and treat it just like an episode and move on before a similar one is repeated which involves another juvenile delinquent, his parents, the same lawyers and the police?
So a corporal has been charged in court on 10 May, over the shooting of an underage automobile night-rider. If the driver had been the most wanted criminal, the corporal would have been feted as a national hero. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen.
And unfortunately, too, the corporal’s employers had not come to his support. This is unlike the express bus drivers who were known to have driven while on the phone and in the influence of drugs, yet who are given legal support by their employers.
Even newspaper organizations take it as their responsibility to support and back their reporters and editors who have been sued for defamation.
The American government goes out of their way to protect their soldiers even if they had bombed entire families in Iraq and Afghanistan by mistake without even admitting it as a mistake.
It’s unlike the case which involved Rodney King, the African-American who was pulled to the curb by the police in California and who was assault by some police officers.
The incident was recorded by video and it was clearly a racially-motivated one, with the victim who was totally helpless and at the mercy of the officers who knew he was harmless and also African-American.
There was an almost similar case when a trigger happy Chinese businessman admitted to firing his pistol at an Indonesian man whom he alleged or assumed had wanted to rob him at his house in Petaling Jaya.
The matter ended there, without the business being charged for murder, simply because the person who was shot was a foreigner and the person shooting him was not a policeman but a Chinese man! How could everybody take his word for it?
Where are the well-meaning NGO leaders and UMNO Youth members who would transverse distant lands to try and save Malaysians who had been convicted for drug smuggling?
Are they trying to say it’s better for Malaysians to commit crimes abroad where they can expect to be given preferential treatment by the government and the other organizations but not for those who do them in the country, even if they are in uniform?
Will this make police officers more cautious in the future so much so they will allow any getaway car to move on just so they do not make any mistake and shoot at another juvenile delinquent?
This can happen. If it does and notorious criminal gets away, blame it on the well-meaning activist-lawyers who are only to serve the cause of justice on one side but on the other.
They have been casting aspersions on the police and also try to assume the role of the judges by making their own pronouncements on who is guilty and who is not even before the corporal was charged in court. How could they be so brash for insisting that they are right?
But why do the same lawyers and the many others who would habitually flock and march to the nearest police station to lodge police reports every instant they can get, to get the police to use their judgment and the bidding for them, when most of the times they despise them?
Malaysia does not seem to have laws which punish underage drivers who steal vehicles even from close family members and those who accompany them on rides in the car.
Maybe it’s time we did, so we can also punish those who allow those juvenile drivers for abetting in the crime they commit along the way, wherever they drive at.
Could it be that the police offer had by acting in the way he did, to stop much more eerie future crimes to be committed by the juvenile driver if he was not stopped and is still being allowed to go on the road?
How many times can a juvenile driver be ‘allowed’ by their close family members from ‘stealing’ their vehicles, without them realizing it?
Let the new laws be very severe, so that they act as a deterrent to would-be criminals at the wheels who do not know traffic laws and how to behave while driving, especially when asked to pull by the police on patrol.
By Mansor Puteh
BLAME IT ON POOR QUALITY VISIONARIES, THINK TANKS, NGOs, SOCIOLOISTS, PSYCHOLOGISTS AND ECONOMISTS AND THE CYCLE OF EVENTS THEY HAD CREATED DUE TO THEIR LACKING IN FORESIGHT AND INTELLIGENCE.
THE REAL-LIFE DRAMAS IN AMERICA OF THE SIXTIES INVOLVE ELEMENTS WHICH ARE THE SAME AS THOSE WHICH APPEAR IN THE REAL-LIFE DRAMAS OF MALAYSIA TODAY – THE RECKLESS YOUTHS, TARDY LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS, FAST CARS, PUBLICITY CRAZY LAWYERS AND THE BEFUDDLED MEDIA.
BUT GENERALLY, THE REST OF THE COUNTRY LOOKS ELSEWHERE AT THE PERSONAL PROBLEMS EXPERIENCED BY THOSE WHO ARE SO RECKLESS WHO DON’T CARE FOR THEIR PERSONAL WELL-BEING.
Only the media do. They have to, to preserve their ‘dignity’ and report redundant and repetitive news which still have not taught many, like it is a long soap opera that will be created and reported again and again.
These are the elements that are present in many a drama – a potent mixture that can often-times bring in a lot of fanciful reaction from those parties concerned, not that they are aware of it.
Maybe, all these parties in Malaysia ought to take the Screenwriting One course, which will be very good for them to have a good idea of what drama is, so they know how to create better ones in the future, so they know how to avoid themselves from being in the middle of an unnecessary drama themselves in the future.
For some, its too late; they are already characters in such real-life dramas, so they have to go along with the plot however tired it may be, to go on playing the plot of the ‘vanquished’ and those who suffer; these ‘heroes’ who are trying to maintain the ‘good name and good reputation’ of those who had died.
Did they ever try to do all these when their children were still live?
A criminal is created; he is encouraged to be created, because he has to be ‘trained’ to be one in one way or another.
His first criminal activity is first to cheat himself. The second is to cheat his close relatives, by stealing their vehicles and lying on his nocturnal movements and activities.
Then he finds accomplice from amongst his cousins, relatives and other friends, so they can form a formidable group.
Criminals do not just happen; they have to be put in a certain background to allow them to venture into crime. And they have to be ‘told’ that a criminal is also a good option. If they know how to cheat themselves and their families, then it will be much easier to cheat the authorities.
So all the parties concerned, the parents of the dead, their lawyers, the lawmakers, the police and media know what part they are playing in the particular episode – that of real characters or just the clowns!
If the central issue is the loss of human life, of human values; then the other parties are just the clowns or jokers whose existence in it, is for distraction!
Here is where my training in screenwriting has come in handy, because you learn about causes and effect in screenwriting which forms the backbone of any story for without which it cannot develop.
So when a tragedy happens, those youths who were involved in it can expect those whom they had left behind to find ways to say they were angels, even when the facts are so clear that they were not so angelic.
Parents of those youths and those who support them, suffer from self-denial. They do not accept the fact that the ends have proven that their children did not care for their feelings.
If one does not wish to get certain effects, whatever possible causes that could lead to one getting the final effects must be thought of before hand, as any mistake can prove to be fatal.
Or, do they want to ignore it and allow more underage kids to be involved in similar incidents so they can benefit from them?
Will they all ignore the experience and treat it just like an episode and move on before a similar one is repeated which involves another juvenile delinquent, his parents, the same lawyers and the police?
So a corporal has been charged in court on 10 May, over the shooting of an underage automobile night-rider. If the driver had been the most wanted criminal, the corporal would have been feted as a national hero. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen.
And unfortunately, too, the corporal’s employers had not come to his support. This is unlike the express bus drivers who were known to have driven while on the phone and in the influence of drugs, yet who are given legal support by their employers.
Even newspaper organizations take it as their responsibility to support and back their reporters and editors who have been sued for defamation.
The American government goes out of their way to protect their soldiers even if they had bombed entire families in Iraq and Afghanistan by mistake without even admitting it as a mistake.
It’s unlike the case which involved Rodney King, the African-American who was pulled to the curb by the police in California and who was assault by some police officers.
The incident was recorded by video and it was clearly a racially-motivated one, with the victim who was totally helpless and at the mercy of the officers who knew he was harmless and also African-American.
There was an almost similar case when a trigger happy Chinese businessman admitted to firing his pistol at an Indonesian man whom he alleged or assumed had wanted to rob him at his house in Petaling Jaya.
The matter ended there, without the business being charged for murder, simply because the person who was shot was a foreigner and the person shooting him was not a policeman but a Chinese man! How could everybody take his word for it?
Where are the well-meaning NGO leaders and UMNO Youth members who would transverse distant lands to try and save Malaysians who had been convicted for drug smuggling?
Are they trying to say it’s better for Malaysians to commit crimes abroad where they can expect to be given preferential treatment by the government and the other organizations but not for those who do them in the country, even if they are in uniform?
Will this make police officers more cautious in the future so much so they will allow any getaway car to move on just so they do not make any mistake and shoot at another juvenile delinquent?
This can happen. If it does and notorious criminal gets away, blame it on the well-meaning activist-lawyers who are only to serve the cause of justice on one side but on the other.
They have been casting aspersions on the police and also try to assume the role of the judges by making their own pronouncements on who is guilty and who is not even before the corporal was charged in court. How could they be so brash for insisting that they are right?
But why do the same lawyers and the many others who would habitually flock and march to the nearest police station to lodge police reports every instant they can get, to get the police to use their judgment and the bidding for them, when most of the times they despise them?
Malaysia does not seem to have laws which punish underage drivers who steal vehicles even from close family members and those who accompany them on rides in the car.
Maybe it’s time we did, so we can also punish those who allow those juvenile drivers for abetting in the crime they commit along the way, wherever they drive at.
Could it be that the police offer had by acting in the way he did, to stop much more eerie future crimes to be committed by the juvenile driver if he was not stopped and is still being allowed to go on the road?
How many times can a juvenile driver be ‘allowed’ by their close family members from ‘stealing’ their vehicles, without them realizing it?
Let the new laws be very severe, so that they act as a deterrent to would-be criminals at the wheels who do not know traffic laws and how to behave while driving, especially when asked to pull by the police on patrol.
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