Charity is opening up the heart The Malaysian response to the Great Tsunami and Aceh warmed my heart. Often though, we are so busy and self-centred that we ignore the plight of the poor. Even politicians, who depend on public support, fall short in their concern and compassion, as in the recent proposal to ban soup kitchens in central Kuala Lumpur. In many cases, people only need a helping hand. 8 May 2005 It was a chilly spring morning in New York, Monday. After breakfast, my friend and I took a walk in Central Park, across from the hotel we were staying in. There were the usual joggers, the lovers, and the peddlers setting up their stalls and well-heeled men and women walking their dogs. We passed on the other side of an Afro-American woman, probably in her early to mid-fifties, standing alone. She had tried to groom herself but looked a little dishevelled and one could not help thinking she might have spent the night on the park bench. With alert eye, she just observed people walking past. On our way back, she walked towards us and asked if I had cigarettes. “The Financial Times…,” she said, looking at the salmon-coloured newspaper in my hand, as I gave her my whole pack of cigarettes. “I have not read that in a long time.” My friend spoke to me in Bahasa Malaysia, telling me to walk on. This was, after all, Central Park, New York, and if television dramas and James Patterson novels were to be believed, life was cheap here. But she seemed more interested in the Financial Times and the New York Times and looked almost longingly at the journals. I gave her the papers and she thanked me. Further away, we turned back and could see her engrossed in reading the papers, the cigarette unlit. Not everyone knows that the Financial Times comes in that distinctive coloured newsprint and obviously, the elderly woman had, at some time in her life, been an avid reader of financial publications. Maybe I am reading too much into this but I could not help but think that here is a woman who has fallen on hard times. She talks and acts dignified and yet it must have taken her some nerve to approach a total stranger to ask for a cigarette and a newspaper. For much of my stay in the city, I kept thinking about her. When evening fell in the park and the chill and darkness swallowed the cheery spring day, was she still sitting on that bench? Did she eat? Does she have a home to go to, children to hug? A few days later, near Madison Avenue, I saw a man, who looked like he had given up on life, sitting with his legs spread apart on the pavement, a cardboard sign saying “Homeless AIDS victim” in front of him. A callous tourist, a young attractive woman, took out her digital camera and snapped a picture of him and walked away, ignoring the almost empty tin can in front of him. The two scenes are not reflective of the New York that I saw. It is a city unlike any other. Just a few days earlier, we were in London and there are certainly more homeless and poor in the streets of the British capital. New York, like my friend said, exudes wealth and power and one can understand why Americans refer to it as the greatest city in the world. No. My mind was distracted by the fact that both the Afro-American woman and the AIDS-stricken white man were people who needed a leg up in life. They had seen better days, but they had fallen. Who holds out their hands to the fallen, pulling them up and giving them a second chance? That was what occupied me, not the fact that there are poor people in the richest country in the world, or that there are poor in any country in the world. Callousness, unfortunately, is an iniquity prevalent in most societies. One does not have to go to New York or London to see it. In Malaysia, we have seen how a legless girl who only wanted a chance to be able to go to school was given hope when her story was publicised in the newspapers. People came and promised her family many things, but after the publicity blitz ended, few delivered. It was a sad day for Malaysian society when this young girl was forced to drop out of school because she could not cope anymore. Once again, the promises came. This time, thankfully, it was a happier ending. Offhand, one can recall the case of an errant father who, every year, seeking forgiveness from his children, cooks a Chinese New Year eve meal, hoping they will come back. They never do. Charity is missing in many hearts. There is the story of two orphaned children in Perlis where the elder brother dropped out of school to sell fruits so his younger brother could get an education. Again, promises were made, some kept, some not. A year later, the elder brother is still selling fruits and the money the two children received earlier had run out. What does the future hold for them? What about the young mother in Kedah, deserted by her husband, and left to fend for her children on her own? Unschooled, unskilled and unquestionably poor, she continues to live in a shack without water, without electricity, living on the generosity of neighbours, who are maybe just slightly less poor than her. What future does she have? What future do her children have? We take pride that we are a rich country and we are, fortunately, a God-blessed country. Over the years, we have done well. Today, we are so much better off than we were upon Independence. Yet, there are still people who need that helping hand, for that second chance and go through life never getting it. It is so easy to pass the buck to the town council, the local politician, the government. We have all heard it so many times. The question that we seldom hear being asked is what have we done about it? Oh, there are so many good people in Malaysia. They give, and they give. Yet there are also many more who see but pretend not to see. Songs and stories have been written about us who forget that in life, there can be little which gives greater satisfaction than stretching out our hands, saying a soothing word, pulling up the less fortunate and seeing them make something of their lives. In one of those cry-in-your-beer songs, titled A Helping Hand, the singers sing: By day, he is always on the run So much to do, so much to get done Shaking hands and making deals Going in circles with all the big wheels By night he’s where the bright lights shine Spending his money, spending all of his time But if one in need should come his way He just looks the other way A helping hand He’s never one to give A helping hand. He has his own life to live Brotherhood and charity Are not parts of his plan He can’t see there’s a need for A helping hand. The homeless of the city street Lie trampled underneath his feet Their lot in life is not his own They’ve got their street he’s got his home He seems to think he matters more Than the weak and the sick and the old and the poor He proclaims with self-important pride That the strongest should alone survive A helping hand He’s never one to give. It’s not such a long fall from the top But once you hit rock bottom the falling doesn’t stop The years went by, the tables turned And both ends of his candle burned Now he’s weak and he’s sick, he’s old and he’s poor He’s not feeling so proud any more By day he walks the streets alone By night a park bench is his home He finds himself without a friend He wishes that someone would lend A helping hand. He was never one to give A helping hand Had his own life to live Brotherhood and charity Were not part of his plan Now even he can see the need for A helping hand. We must all have had that one period in our life when we needed a helping hand and for many of us, there was that hand, by friends, by relatives and, often, by complete strangers. Yet, the culture of giving back to society has not taken firm root yet in our country although it cannot be denied that there are many generous people among us. In the developed societies, those who have benefited bequeath universities, hospitals, schools and foundations to help the poor and their society. The greatest universities are funded through donations, and society is all the better for it. Charity is not only about money. It is about helping someone in need with a kind word, with a shoulder to cry on. A phrase from a television show I saw many years ago has stuck in my mind. In one scene, a woman complains that someone she helped was not thankful. Her father, a wiser man, told her, “We help people because they need help; not because we want them to thank us for it.” If more of us thought that way, we would become an even greater people and the legless girl, the two orphans, the errant father and the abandoned housewife would have a chance.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 01:40:25 +0000
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