(Disclaimer -- this post is in no way a disrespect to the people directly and indirectly affected by the incident. This is just my own personal opinion about the reactions of those online who are not directly affected in anyway by the incident at all) There were 137 natural disasters in the region in 2013. A recorded total of 18,375 people killed and 82 million affected by these disasters. Super Typhoon Haiyan (called Yolanda in the Philippines) killed more than 6,000 people and leaving 14 million affected. The South-East Asia floods from June to October 2013 affected more than 3.9 million people in four countries (Cambodia, Viet Nam, Lao PDR and Thailand). China and India were also heavily affected by floods. There was also the Bohol Earthquake (the Philippines), Super Typhoon Utor (China and the Philippines), Tropical Storm Trami (China and the Philippines), Typhoon Nari (the Philippines and Viet Nam) and Typhoon Mahasen (Bangladesh and Sri Lanka). Yet all these pales in comparison to the 239 people who disappeared on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Cause the aircraft disappeared? Cause its from Malaysia, a country so close to ours? Or is all this a clever political distraction from the news that Mr TT lost a lot of our money (although this news still came out anyway)?? Again, taking nothing away from the severity of the tragedy, i have no doubt about how much anguish the families, friends and relatives involved must feel. I can only imagine the mental torture they are undergoing especially when the outbreak of the news and the resulting situation was handled very poorly by airline involved. But i am truly befuddled by the tsunami of emotions this incident has caused within our Singaporean online community. EVERYONE is talking about how shocked, saddened, surprised, stupefied and sickened by this tragedy and how their prayers are going out to the families involved, about how much tears they are shedding for them, how they cant eat cant sleep cant fornicate because they are preoccupied with getting all the latest bits of information that comes out -- whether true or not, irrelevant -- and how they are spending sleepless nights refreshing Facebook (the new frontier of cutting edge journalism) to keep themselves up to date. Seriously? Russia attacking Ukraine got about one day of interest from the the online community (most of which were snide jokes). Children continuing to die of malnutrition in Africa, zero interest. Singapore suffering its longest dry spell on record between Jan 13 and Feb 8 and has had little rain since, and has to now ramp up supplies of recycled water while its neighbour rations reserves amid disruptions to farming and fisheries -- no one gives a hoot. TT loses almost $42 billion of our hard earned money during his time at GIC and there is barely a whimper online. Question comes to my mind -- Where, really does our priorities lie? Are we so preoccupied with finding a distraction to fuss over as a nation that we procrastinate on the things that really matters and affect us? Have we truly lost track about the issues that we can actually all collectively do something about, that we rather devote our time on an incident that is beyond our control? I am no activist. But certain issues that are close to my heart i fight to create awareness with what little influence i have. Matters i know i cannot do anything about, i pray for them silently in my heart and hope for the best for them. Flooding the online community with continuous and excessive showing of grief and sadness when the issue does not directly or indirectly affect you at all, IMO, just reflects on how hypocritical and shallow you really are. But, of course, as a lot of indignant people would cry out, this is your facebook account and you can post whatever the hell you want. True. You can say anything you want, post anything you want, destroy a young girls life online if you want to (im sure everyone knows what issues this line is referring to), all i am saying is take a step back, see the issues you are really passionate about and which really tugs at your heart, and fight for it, again and again. Stop following the masses and just regurgitate the latest news fad. There are tons of issues right around you that could do with the time you take to continuously click on the refresh button or to re-post the latest rumor. ok..rant over. Now about that $42 billion dollars....
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 10:47:07 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015