Bullies, boors and needless deaths

It wasn’t a year to remember fondly, with many cases of bullying and rage, physically, online and on our roads. Let’s hope the new year will be a better one.

THE new year is almost upon us, and it’s a welcome new year. After all, the one that is just ending gave us little reason to celebrate.

There were many things that went wrong: the cost of living spiralled; the government withdrew subsidies, hurting many a wallet, and many states announced that they are raising assessment rates, driving the dagger deeper.

Early in the year, the ringgit was down in the doldrums as one of the worst performing currencies in the world, hitting 26-year lows, of about RM4.80 to the US dollar.

But things are easing up and slowly getting better. So, yes, 2025 could be the year when we can breathe a little easier.

For me, though, the worst part of this year in so many ways was the bullying. And let’s not even talk about the racist, religious bigots. It was like Malaysians had lost their compassion and had no care for others.

Even our universities and schools have become scary places. In November, a 19-year-old cadet at Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia (UPNM) was allegedly stomped on by his third-year senior, fracturing the younger lad’s ribs and spine.But he was far from the first.

Just weeks earlier, a 22-year-old UPNM cadet officer, Amirul Iskandar Norhanizan, was charged with causing hurt to his junior by using a steam iron. And in July, six former UPNM students were sentenced to death for the murder of navy cadet Zulfarhan Osman Zulkarnain, 21, in 2017.

That dominated national headlines, and someone even came up with another name for the university: “National Bullying University of Malaysia”.

It wasn’t the only university with that problem. Just 10 days ago, 12 students of Universiti Malaysia Terengganu were arrested for assaulting a fellow student.

There is no excuse for such assaults, no matter what the victim may have done. The attackers should have reported any infraction to the authorities instead of taking matters into their own hands.

An expert has suggested that a hotline be set up for such attacks, but no one knows how effective that would be. Common sense tells us that education is the best solution. But not in Malaysia – not when much of the bullying is happening in institutions that are supposed to be educating youth.

Our education system isn’t quite working. Even a PhD degree is of little help; ask PAS’ Dr Siti Mastura Muhammad, who did research using fictional campaign pamphlets.

And it’s not just the grown-ups. There have been so many viral videos of bullying happening among kids in schools, even among girls.

The Malaysia Crime Prevention Foundation says bullying affects 84% of children under 18 in some way or form. There is outrage each time it happens, but little has been done so far.

Then there is cyberbullying, which has grown into a major problem.

According to some reports, Malaysia ranks fifth in the world for cyberbullying. Only Peru, Argentina, Mexico and Brazil are worse than us.

Malaysia also came in second in Asia for cyberbullying, according to Unicef (United Nations Children’s Fund), just behind China. Surprisingly, Singapore was third with India and Pakistan coming up next.

It’s so bad that we have had to add an “Esha Clause” to the Online Safety Bill, a law that criminalises any words or actions used to threaten, insult, or defame with the intent to provoke self-harm or harm to others.

In July, 19-year-old Esha (real name Rajeswary Appahu) committed suicide due to the cyberbullying she had endured. She was said to have suffered severe “depression and mental stress” due to the online bullying.

Oddly enough, a woman charged over the bullying walked away with just a RM100 fine. That’s far from enough to deter anyone. A man involved, though, is serving a two-year prison sentence.

If that is not enough, there are road bullies.

A Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research survey has estimated that 2.4 million of the 13.3 million registered motorists in the country exhibit “furious anger” while driving.

Road rage-related offences accounted for some 15% of traffic violations last year, while 63% of drivers said they experienced road rage or displayed aggressive behaviour on the road, with women particularly intimidated by such bullies.

Imagine that. There are 2.4 million people – or one out of every 15 persons – who could turn out to be a road rage assailant. These people smash car windows, bang on the sides of cars, or worse, get out and brawl in the middle of the road.

In one case, a man drove his MPV over the legs of his victim just because he thought his path was blocked at a roundabout. It is scary.

Thank God, though, that most of these road bullies have been nabbed and punished. Road bullying is still scary, though – a menace almost as bad as the mat rempit issue.

This year also seemed to have brought a new road menace: lorries. In just 10 months, 825 lorries were involved in fatal accidents – almost three a day – causing more than 5,000 deaths.

There have been many tragic stories this year. Remember Lee Zi Rou? The 21-year-old called her mum and cried about how painful it was after a container fell onto her car after the lorry driver lost control of his vehicle.

Minutes later, she was dead.

A few days later, a container lorry had a burst tyre and careened over to the other side of a highway in Johor, killing a motorcyclist and injuring several motorists. There was also the case of the runaway lorry that rolled onto a road, killing a passing motorist who got trapped under the wheel.

Just days ago, a lorry driver inexplicably lost his front right wheel and, somehow, managed to drive to the side of the road. But the tyre stayed on the road, almost invisible in the pitch-black conditions and a bus rammed into it.

The result was carnage. Five people in a family were killed, including a two-year-old. Two other children suffered severe injuries while two other adults – the bus driver and a passenger – were also dead.

On Christmas morning, the country woke up to the tragic story in the newspapers. We really don’t need that, do we? The Transport Ministry needs to get tougher, much tougher, with drivers.

So, when someone wishes me Happy New Year, all I can say is that I really hope it will be, because the old one wasn’t.

I really hope we can find our compassion again. Happy New Year, everybody.