Ain, I salute you

 

Every girl, woman, mother, grandmother has a tale to tell. About how she was violated as a female. Some of us are “luckier” than others. We got away with mild teasing about our big bottom or have had our booty brushed against. We exchanged these “stories” with girlfriends, said how disgusting so-and-so was, and moved on.

At 18, I was invited to a family friend’s home in Singapore where I was studying to sit for my ‘A’ level exams as a foreign student. On arrival at their home, I discovered that the wife was not in the country and the randy husband had nefarious desires over me. 

I was trapped alone in the apartment with him for an hour; seemed like an eternity. I could have been raped, but I wasn’t; purely by the grace of the divine. More important was how I reacted when I was safely back in my dormitory at the YWCA.

I took a bath, sat on my bed, shivering. I told my best friend and we decided together not to tell anyone else because no one would believe an 18-year-old schoolgirl over a 38-year-old well-established engineer. My future mustn’t be tarnished. My family name cannot be soiled.

So Ain, I salute you.

It takes an immense amount of courage to speak out against the establishment, whether it is against a school, a teacher, parents, boss or government. Ain Husniza Saiful Nizam does not just have courage, she has peaceful courage and a truckload of it. 

She didn’t get hysterical, rant and rave about how unfair and abusive the world is. She was focused on the particular injustice, the precise wrong - how and why it violated her. 

She acted in accordance with her rights - to speak, to lodge police reports. She did more. She calmly educated us all. She articulated with conviction, with measured and meaningful language, her quest to ensure schools were safer for everyone else. She was doing it for others who could not do it for themselves.

So Ain, I salute you.

What is the difference between my teenage years 40 years ago and now? There was conditioning then, as there is now. There was underlying social and community pressure to conform then, as there is now.

But the “space” has opened tremendously now for the young to think and speak. And by young, I mean anyone under 60! The experience of all of the world is in the palm of our hand, with a click of our phone. 

What behaviour is acceptable or not, can be measured by multiple standards, set by community norms, by principles of faith, by international rules, by cultural dictates, and by our innate moral compass. 

The present-day exposure is vast. The choice is abundant. I can choose to believe what is right for me. I do not have to blindly accept the “right” of someone else. Even if that be the ‘right’ of people I utterly respect. For their values may not always be in alignment with my inner voice of right and wrong; or with common sense discernment of what is fair; or with what the law decrees as unlawful.

Independence of informed thought is now readily available. And from thought, flows action. But many choose not to exercise this prized gift of independent thinking. They turn over their power and rights to peers and superiors, as I did all those years ago, believing that I was less than I really was. But not Ain, she took charge of her power of thought and action, blessed to be backed by her family.

So Ain, I salute you.

Is independent thinking a recipe for anarchy, for a breakdown in social and cultural order? Most definitely not. We are a collective culture. We must acknowledge that we have been taught the goodness of acting for the higher good of a wider community, even if it means subordinating our individual freedom or comfort. 

But the virtue of placing community over self does not license the community to abuse, violate or demean. Nor to rob one of independent thinking, of individual identity, or the dignity of being. The community cannot demand compliance with the offensive.

The community is stronger when its norms are questioned, for it is by questioning that norms are understood and embraced for their true value and the wellbeing they nurture. The inability to defend norms against questioning, begs the question. Rightly asked.

An attack is often said to be the best form of defence. Attacking the inquirer forces compliance out of fear; not out of love or acceptance. 

Fear leads to resentment, anger and the emotional pressure cooker that will have to find a release valve that is often expressed as rebellious behaviour, addiction, or some form of dysfunctional conduct which really is a cry to be heard and understood. The community suffers a long term fracture.

To question, peacefully and calmly with the genuine motive of wanting to know and understand, rather than to judge or deride, is to offer the community the gift of independent thinking that strengthens the community. 

Ain with her parents

Seeking for the community to conduct itself in line with accepted values of what is fair and decent, is to strengthen the community by independent thought, manifested into action.

By calling on agencies of the law (and not thugs) to investigate conduct that threatens the safety of lives, is to allow for action to demarcate proper boundaries of behaviour in a civil society. It strengthens society.

To injure another human being for questioning a norm, weakens the community and that very norm far more than questioning does, for it reveals the tenuous fabric on which the norm now rests, serving no useful purpose in the evolution of that society.

We outgrow old ways. We progress. What seemed funny when we were 10, no longer is funny at 35. We advance. We know more, and we know better. There really is no need to cling to jokes that don’t serve us anymore. 

And some things should never have been accepted as jokes at any point in time. Not when they make another feel unsafe or unworthy.

To question is to love your society. To want the law to demarcate true love that protects and preserves.

So Ain, I salute you. - Mkini

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SITPAH SELVARATNAM is an advocate and solicitor, an international arbitrator and the author of the newly released book The Arrest of the Superyacht Equanimity – How Malaysia reclaimed what was hers’'. You can read more about her here.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.