Let's try to keep the beast within us at bay

Oh, the merry month of May. I imagined that this month would proceed serenely, a time to get on with our lives and hope for a fresh start after April's elections.

How wrong I was.

At the end of the month, I am fed up, my indignation reaching exasperation level. It does not help that as a journalist, I get the information and insight behind the dry facts of the news.

The month opened with the shocking beating of students at the Islamic University in Makassar. Prime-time TV news shows ran images of policemen, in uniform or plainclothes, storming the campus. It was like a gangster movie, the soundtrack filled with the screams and appeals for mercy from the students, and the hateful, scornful yelling of the "authorities".

What's up with the men in uniform? The notoriously harsh training they go through seems to have made police and army personnel disdainful of ordinary civilians, believing that they are free to use the power of the fist to put things right. Well, they just couldn't deal with their emosi (emotions) is the usual excuse.

But the guys in uniform have company.

I've come to think that violence and violent means to solve problems are a part of life for us, whether it's in the conflict zones of Ambon or Poso, or when somebody does us wrong on the street.

We seem to be resigned to the fact that it's tough getting by in modern Indonesia, and that some of us -- hopefully not us, mind you -- must have our rights and well-being trodden upon.

Now there are the cops n' robbers TV crime reports, almost as common today as the celebrity TV shows. A colleague offered some good advice about my disgust at the overacting of the police: "If you don't like them, turn the TV off. Problem solved."

I thought the Makassar bloodshed was particularly ironic as we prepared to mark the May 1998 riots, which were sparked by the killing of four university students during a protest.

I guess we haven't learned much after all.

"Come on, it's not only here," a friend said consolingly. "It happens in other parts of the world, too. What happened at Abu Ghraib prison and the beheading of Nicholas Berg show that we're not the only barbaric people. Calm down and have some coffee."

Then came that fine Friday, with the shocking pictures of migrant worker Nirmala Bonet, allegedly beaten black and blue by her Malaysian employer.

They reportedly worked their "magic touch" on her, scarring her physically and leaving her an emotional wreck. It's nothing new, though, because so many migrant workers come home traumatized from their harrowing experiences. We have become so used to it that we soon forget about it once the initial furor has died down.

Thankfully, it was Malaysians -- from the security guard who called the police at her employer's apartment to the newspapers which decried the abuse -- who stood up for Nirmala.

Honestly, deep down, I am not crying for Nirmala, I am crying with her, for I think I also know how hard it has been for her.

On my way to the office, listening to a local radio program, the host suddenly announced "new evidence" that Nirmala was actually mentally ill, according to the young woman's cousin who also works in Kuala Lumpur.

The host did not stop at reporting this hearsay, but attempted to get comments from various people about the "fact".

I got his unstated message; it's actually OK to slap around those who are mentally ill because they are not like the rest of us normal folk.

Perhaps his message should have been that we need to control our "animal side" when we face an irritating, frustrating situation, instead of resorting to a smack, a kick or even a disparaging rebuke.

Whether it's Nirmala, university students or the pickpocket caught red-handed on the street, other people are not our property to do with as we wish. That violent streak is in all of us, but we have to learn to keep that beast at bay if we truly wish to be civilized people. So keep your hands to yourself.

-- Emmy Fitri