“Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.”

- Yehuda Bauer

COMMENT | A couple of months ago, I wrote this about another murdered youth - “I believe that Malaysians regardless of race or religion empathise with the parents of this boy but the hard, uncomfortable truth is that personal responsibility, theirs and ours, means we have to take a hard look at where it went all wrong and not simply blame the system or believe it is god's will.”

Whom was I writing about? I was writing about Mohamad Thaqif Amin Mohd Gaddafi, murdered in his religious school. I may as well have been writing about Zulfarhan Osman Zulkarnain who was murdered in his military school or T Nhaveen, bullied in school and unfortunately never managed to escape the hate he was subjected to in school.

Zan Azlee is right to blame the society that spawned these murderers, just as V Shuman is right to point to the apathy that guarantees that we will witness more cases like these. Just the other day, I got a video on WhatsApp which showed a bunch of schoolkids violently assaulting another kid and they were preening for the camera. There was no shame, just joy in physically hurting another. I think this may have happened on school grounds, which says a lot.

In that particular video, supposing the young student died? What happens then? Another case of outrage that is passed around virally? Another opportunity to attempt to find an easy scapegoat? Another opportunity to mourn collectively before going on in our violent speech against people we disagree with, all the while thinking we are righteous?

Watching that video, I was reminded of what my friend P Uthayakumar said about his stay in prison when I interviewed him - “There was the day-to-day cruel, inhumane, degrading and humiliating treatment of prisoners. At the smallest instance, prisoners are shouted at and beaten with rotan, slapped and kicked.”

We get religious people talking about the dangers of sex, about the immorality of same-sex unions or attempting to dictate how people should use their bodies, but when it comes to violence, it is a different story. Sure, they say that religion teaches us to be compassionate, turn the other cheek and all that “good” stuff. What is conveniently forgotten is the real goal, which is control and subservience. I am not only talking about Islam here.

Then, of course, there is this issue of gender. Whenever there is “public violence”, people tend to blame everything from politics to religion to whatever else they can think of, but more often than not, they miss the fact that the male gender is the commonality in all these public acts of violence.

Look I’m not saying that women are incapable of bullying (or committing violence) - which professionals tell me can be subtle, insidious and have more long-term psychological damage - but really, this idea that violence and maleness should be ignored while we attempt to find a way to lay the blame on more convenient targets is getting ridiculous...