Bulldogs Inside

"Duty is a sublime word. You should do your duty in all things. You can never do more, you should never wish to do less." Robert E. Lee.

“Shame is like everything else. Live with it long enough and it becomes part of the furniture” Salman Rushdie.

Sometime ago, an award was bestowed upon a boy for gallantly rescuing a girl from drowning. A politician said the effort of the teenager be glossed over but the apathy of the throng that stood by the pool witnessing two lives at risk, be highlighted instead. He said it was not a rash but an innate human impulse that moved the boy to save a life and nothing less should be expected of a human being.

Reading the lowest common denominator, the non-governmental organization that held the ‘Conversion Forum’ on Saturday August 9^th, is no different from the boy. Rights of some were perceived challenged and it stepped in on their behalf. It was a call of duty and nothing less should be expected of it.

In allowing the pedestal to those affected, the front-line organization previewed the threat an ideology thrust in the public domain would pose. It showed the overt resistances of the detractors, to preserve some basic common sense and treat those who hold different views honorably rather than subserviently or even lethally, have become more insidious.

Paraphrasing the novelist, the organization had shamed its detractors by exposing their capacity to silence, subdue, blackmail and display in the name of their ‘cause’ a primordial behavior typical of the fanatic.

Paraphrasing the politician, the recent position of the organization to take a long-standing and sensitive issue to its logical conclusion is commendable but nonetheless does not warrant applause.

Notwithstanding the personal risk to safety and freedom such a position would attract, the ‘bulldogs inside’ this organization would agree that the proverbial ‘pat on the back’ would suffice but, while Malaysians expect nothing less than tenacity and perseverance, they must be prepared to stand foursquare with it, to resist any agenda in the name of ideology that goes beyond reason.

Paraphrasing the soldier, the organization is expected by free people of Malaysia to do its duty in all things. It can never do more; it should never wish to do less.