AsianPersuasion
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Culture vs. Ignorance...does one support the other?
I really miss having a pet. Giving Sam and Chelsea (my mom’s doggies) to her friend was a pretty heart wrenching experience for me. Until this day, I can’t quite bring myself to go and visit. First of all because I don’t like my mom’s friend Ms. K… she’s the kind of person who will take advantage of people to get what she wants…that kind of thing…plus she took my mom’s curtains from our house without asking me if she could have them. Whatever! So seeing the dogs would not be a nice experience….
My bf wants a dog and he really wants a cocker spaniel. I can’t even begin to imagine the scene a little doggie would create, in the event that his parents came over to his house!
Speaking of dogs and Malays…why the hell are they so disgusted by dogs? I never cease to be amazed at the amount of ignorance some Malay parents instill in their offspring when it comes to the subject of canines. What’s the BIG barking deal anyways??! I know a few Malays who are dog lovers who can’t figure this mystery out either. I walk around KDE every week with my cousin and her pooch. The varied responses we get from Malays range from subdued glares of hatred to shrieks of horror… “Mak!! ANJING!!!” My cousin and I laugh it off every time but deep down we resent it. I really don’t think it says in the Koran, hate and fear every dog in the world…that can’t be. I believe even Arab people have dogs…and I was told that in the 60s and 70s, Malays had dogs in Malaysia. What happened?
When the incident of the little boy getting mauled by a Rottweiller came out in the newspaper, to be honest, one of the first things I thought was…oh no…that poor dog is going to be tortured and shot by the government’s Veterinary Services personnel. I felt badly for the boy after seeing the pictures, but he has parents to comfort him and heal him…who is by the dog’s side now? Knowing the Veterinary Services people, they are probably just as ignorant as the rest of the dog haters in Malaysia. There wasn’t even any follow up as to how the whole case was settled. I bet they put the dog down. The tragedy here is, dogs already are treated badly in Malaysia and after this story came out… Malays probably fear dogs even more than ever. It’s not a dog problem, it’s a PEOPLE problem. Ignorance is a problem.
It’s totally the owners fault that he created a child-munching dog. The dog probably thought the little boy was trespassing on his territory, so he was just doing his job. And I KNOW what some little Malay boys do when they see dogs…they taunt dogs and throw things at them…especially when they think dogs can’t get out of a gate…I’ve seen this happen a few times, even to my own dogs. It makes me wonder what that little boy really did…was he just walking past the dog? …or did he provoke it?… we’ll never know… just like so many other issues in Malaysia. We are kept in the dark…information is withheld from us…we have little freedom to express ourselves or ask questions. When will we live in a more open society?
Until a change of mindset is realized, the “1st world” will never be in our grasp.
