It’s best to remain cool at all times as anger will beget a violent reaction. And it will be a lose-lose situation.
IT was a moment I have mentally prepared for.
There I was driving from Port Dickson to Lukut town after observing Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim campaigning in the coastal parliamentary constituency that is seeing a by-election.
I was – I admit – doing something illegal while driving that afternoon.
Honk! Honk! Honk!
They were angry honks. Someone was honking furiously behind me.
What’s the problem? I thought.
I slowed down – while continuing my illegal behaviour – to allow the vehicle to pass me on the single-lane road hugging the coast along the Straits of Malacca.
The vehicle passed mine. I saw a male driver and his wife/girlfriend/sister/friend on the front passenger seat. The driver slowed down his vehicle and stopped, forcing me to stop driving.
He marched menacingly towards my car. I sat, waiting to see what will happen next.
It was a moment that I have mentally prepared for.
I told myself: be cool. The very fact that he stopped my vehicle showed that he was an unreasonable driver. And he was not worth reasoning with.
“#*&^%$#! #@&%$#N,” he said angrily.
“Okay, okay, okay,” I said smiling.
“#*&^%$#! #@&%$#N,” he said.
“Okay, okay, okay,” I said.
As I did not fuel his anger, he walked back to his car and drove off, cursing.
And I went back to my earlier happy thoughts which were how to write a compelling Port Dickson by-election analysis piece, the gigantic Curry Bun I was planning to buy in Lukut town and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) issues.
I gave myself an A for following what I had mentally prepared for in case I experience such road rage/bullying. I had told myself to remain cool. If I allowed anger to get the better of me, it will beget a violent and angry reaction. It would be a lose-lose situation.
Or it could escalate to something worse.
For example, a 40-year-old marketing officer was stabbed several times by two men for honking his car horn at 4am last month in Johor Baru.
A Mercedes-Benz car with two men inside suddenly appeared and entered his path, forcing the man to sound the horn. Angered by the action, the two men stopped the Mercedes-Benz and approached the victim’s car.
They forced the marketing officer to get out of the car and one of them then stabbed the victim on the abdomen, arms and other parts of the body while the other man punched him three times on the face.
Probably getting stabbed for honking is an extreme example.
But my point is it is a weird world where at a snap of a finger your life can change from thinking about the LGBT issue to getting stabbed. It is better to be cool in an angry situation which can potentially become a life-threatening situation.
“Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry,” David Banner would warn before he turns into the Hulk when he gets angry.
An unknown Melaka exco member and DAP assemblyman became angry in public and many members of the public did not like him when he got angry.
There’s a viral video clip of Melaka Agriculture, Entrepreneur Development and Agro-based Committee chairman Norhizam Hassan Baktee locked in an argument with villagers in Bukit Beruang.
It is easy to judge him from the armchair where we watched the video clip of his Hulk moment.
But, it can be a thankless job being a politician. As an assemblyman, he probably faces many tense situations when facing with his constituents.
But, he should learn to manage his temper (he has admitted that he was short-tempered) as he looked uncouth in the clip.
Norhizam said the motive for disseminating the video of him and putting him in a bad light was purely political.
“Anyway, I am not going to be cowed and I will continue to be a Hulk if my constituents are bullied,” he said.
He is now nicknamed YB Hulk.
Before the incident, nationally, he was an unknown that even a DAP leader thought he was from PKR.
The other reason why I was calm when I was confronted by the angry driver in Port Dickson is that in the age of YouTube and WhatsApp, I have to be quite well-behaved. If not, I could be an Internet sensation like YB Hulk or the Datuk who hit the carpark attendant.
The video of the Datuk berating and hitting an attendant at a car park booth somewhere in Kuala Lumpur became viral on social media.
The 1.18-minute video came with a message: “This incident happened on 18-9-2018 at a car park office in a 5-star hotel in Kuala Lumpur. The poor staff had to undergo this treatment from this guy just because he thinks he is a Datuk. Please viral this so this mad culprit is brought to justice.”
I wonder what the Datuk or his friends or family think when they see that video. If it was me who was caught berating a parking attendant or a honking driver, I wouldn’t know where to put my face for the next decade.
Now, a video of an uncouth YB has resurfaced. It shows him acting arrogantly towards policemen in a building that looks like the airport in Kuching.
His uncouth behaviour has been immortalised by the video recording taken two years ago.
To paraphrase Banner, don’t get angry in public, the public wouldn’t like you when you are angry.
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