My brothers,
While we living have been keeping a close and watchful eye on the unfolding of the Teoh Beng Hock saga, you were dying while in police custody.
No, I do not expect any calls to be made for a Royal Commission to investigate your deaths, we are yet to get any answers on Kugan, months after his passing. God knows how many more have died in the meantime.
My question is this, though you can no longer answer them, what has made your lifes’ so cheap that it could be taken away with so little fuss.
Are you not Malaysians? Are you not human? Were your life’s made worth less because you were born an Indian, ergo, you must be a criminal? Were you Gunasegaran, sent to meet Yama because you worked in a toddy shop?
No my brothers. You came from a culture so old, it’s descendents have forgotten most of its history. You spoke a language so ancient, and so rich, that few today can fathom it’s mysteries. But all that means nothing, not in this time, not in this place. Right here and right now, the deaths of anyone that looks and talks like you is a mere statistic, just another number to be written down and forgotten.
And I am to blame for it as much as anyone else. My apathy, my ignorance, my lack of action did not raise the fists that struck you, or the boots that kicked you, but neither did they stop them. My silence accompanied the moans of pain you would have uttered, my eyes sat blind while you begged for mercy.
I am ashamed. And with shame I make you this promise, my brothers. My hands will write, and if the words have no effect, I will drop the pen and curl my fingers into a fist. My feet will walk for you and everyone else that have none to walk for them, and if my steps take me nowhere, I will shod them in boots, and stand firm.
I have lived my life, now I will start dying, and I will die remembering the purpose that was robbed from you. I will die with the dignity that befits my ancestors, and you, my brothers.
REST IN PEACE MY BROTHERS
Jeevindra Kumar
