I was told by a swiss boyfriend of a friend that in switzerland,
a little old lady can walk around at 2am at night with her pension
in a clear plastic bag and be perfectly safe. In Singapore everyone
padlock their doors, spike their fences with broken glass, and live
behind the grill, in seattle chaps like MG would pack a gun. He was
most likely stretching it of course, must have been heavily laced
with salt.
But the distinction is there, cos the swiss made a decision
about what sort of society they wanted. We as a society can simply
write it off as "these things happen", and watch our society's safe
spaces disappear, or we can draw a line somewhere. I want my female
loved ones to be able to go out and have a bit of fun and let loose
a bit without having to worry about her personal vulnerabilities,
or suffer dire consequences for a temporary laspe of judgement or
vigilance. This is not the banglas' home, but ours, isn't it
ridiculous that we are drawing boundaries against them in our own
societal space ?
We have to take a stand, and bite down on such things, hard,
instead of simply writing it off as the girl's own fault. We all
have ladies we love and cherish too, don't we ? Now imagine one of
them was that girl, up there. As a man, would you just roll your
eyes and say "stupid cow, it's basically your own fault" ?
I’m not a
man. I’m a woman, and as a woman, I believe in some form of
personal responsibility and as a woman I think she should bear some
of responsibility of what happened due to a result of her own
action.
Well, you
can also not padlock your door, spike your fences with broken glass
and live behind the grill if you want.
How many
years ago was that in Switzerland when he said that?
5 years
ago, I can tell you I don’t think twice about walking around in KL
at past midnight and would think nothing about flagging for a cab.
I won’t do that now.
The world
is getting smaller and everywhere are getting huge influx of new
immigrants who do not share the same beliefs as you.
Now, you
can either send all of them home packing which isn’t going to
happen, or you can wait for them to commit a crime before doing
something.
You can
call it drawing boundaries or protecting yourself but expect this
to be a worldwide problem as borders start to blur
