By C C Pung
Justice of Peace
Handout with tax money, get widespread publicity.
Those done through donations by little people with big hearts, mostly don’t get noticed.
CIVIL servants are getting a cash handout for the Raya festival.
Soldiers protecting our borders get, as they do yearly, special delivery of festive goodies.
Recently some government big shot talked about extending help to retired journalists.
The spirit of giving is widespread everywhere as folks at different levels of our society extend their love and kindness.
The first groups of activities, carried out with tax money, get widespread publicity.
The second group, done through little donations by little people with big hearts, mostly don’t get noticed.
You see the same played out in conjunction of most major festivals.
The egalitarian stomach in me turned everything I see a government VIP hosting a community gathering which I believe is paid for by public funds or sponsored by ‘generous’ corporations bidding for govt projects.
A usual part of such events will include children lining up (till some peeed in their pants) up a little token to be handed out by the VIP.
I understand the VIP’s need for photos for optics purposes.
But surely it could be arranged that the VIP’s hangeron hand out the tokens, leaving a few kids for the photo-op.
At flood scenes. NGOs of little people risked life and limb, drive in their own 4WDs through unfamiliar roads, give away relief items, take a few photos, leave.
At the same place, villagers were told of a VIP coming.
Even with their lives turned upside down, they have to be bothered if the VIP and his unecessarily big entourage will arrive on time, if there’s unflooded road for them to tread, which house compound is dry enough for the spread of snacks and beverages for the visitors.
Then they arrive. Cameras flash. The VIP and other pseudo VIPs line up for photos.
Some villagers had earlier been called away from house cleaning to line up to receive relief items, the same things as those by other volunteers.
More photos. Off they go.
My years in the newspapers and volunteering in the Lions Club have numbed me to the hypocritical theatrics when responding to disasters.
We in Lions put up our own money, appeal to our members’ network of likeminded friends, drive our cars, and off we go to hand out what the people need.
Our only reward is the needy people relieved by our help, and a chance to talk about it.
Authentic altruism is fading.
Giving is always done with some motivation, and the people selected to receive often revealed the motivation.
For example, what made a certain minister think of helping retired journalists during Ramadan?
There are retired people everywhere.
On closer examination, every worker from the grass cutter to the garbage collector to the roti canai flipper is a part of the workforce that enable our lives.
But they don’t seem to be remembered. Do they?
At a personal level, I always tipped, smile and thanked the hourly maid who clean my house, the gourmet who washed my car; and people whose little hand here and there make live livable for a person my age.
Civil servants, soldiers and journalists do their thing because it is their chosen vocation.
But then so does everybody else.
No?
Selamat Berpuasa.
