I was recently driving down a one-way road when I saw a car barrelling up in my direction. With nowhere to go and given that I was going the right way, anyway, I put up my hand in the universal stop gesture so that we wouldn’t collide. Not only was there no remorse on the part of the middle-aged driver who was clearly in the wrong but he got out of his car and proceeded to scream at me for apparently disrespecting him with my panickedly raised hand, all while his wife and children looked on. He ranted and raved and when I gave him no reaction he eventually got back into his car.
I was talking about what had happened to a close friend who, instead of being surprised, actually told me: “You do realise that people have been acting worse because they feel like they can get away with more, right?” I was stopped in my tracks by the matter-of-fact way he said it. I kept thinking about it.
I remembered it again this week when the allegation surfaced that a number of our country’s powerful were having their parking tickets quietly erased, doing whatever was most convenient for them, while the rest of us spend hours circling looking for parking just to be able to get into bed. I pondered whether this was the real reason why politicians never attacked parking problems or called things “a perception” – if something is not a problem to you then it doesn’t exist.
Some of the world’s greatest thinkers have often commented on how a lack of rules and the people in power abusing of their privilege end up polluting everything. People need order. They also need to be able to respect the people overseeing that order. If you can’t even rely on those who are meant to be working for the best of the country, who are you meant to rely on? We pay taxes and vote for the people who we think will best administer our money for the good of the country. At least, that’s what we are meant to be doing.
No one likes feeling like the underdog all the time- Anna Marie Galea
What does it do to the country’s psyche when we see people getting away with murder? We start to think that we too can get away with it. If he can do it, why shouldn’t I? And this remains one of the most puerile and saddest arguments you see party fanatics attack each other with. When laws are repeatedly disregarded, , broken or bypassed to serve individuals’ personal gain you make people feel that they too need not adhere to them. When people can act with impunity while our watchdogs sleep, you create a lot of anger among those who genuinely do their best to be upstanding citizens.
No one likes feeling like the underdog all the time. It’s the same feeling you get when you see people jumping queues and getting served because they know someone. It creates a country based on selfishness and people only doing things to serve their own interests. It takes strong moral convictions to not go down that road. No one likes to feel like they’re missing out.
At least, for once, many seemed to be outraged by the latest allegations, though I doubt it was for the right reasons, with many bringing up their own contraventions and how they didn’t deserve the ticket they got. Here’s to always being outraged in the face of injustice. Whether it affects us or not.