Nobody wants to hear the story of death of millions

Stalin was alleged to have said, “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.”

Not sure if he really said that. After all, Lincoln did remind us, “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.” But the message is very true. The viral issues all has emotional connections. A story of a groom-to-be who died in a car accident is far more compelling than saying, “Driving is 750 times more likely to be fatal than flying”.

The Indonesian maid who died of abuse. The maid who was kicked who is not the one who died. The family who became homeless and lived in a car. The pothole which was miraculously repaired after an MP prayed over it.

When the story of the Indonesian maid broke (or the 46-day old baby who was abused and murdered, or the 9-year old girl who was also abused and murdered), the public raged. Calls for death penalties. The thing is, I believe whatever that made it into the news is only the tip of the iceberg. For one domestic helper who was abused and made it to the news (which she had to pay with her life so people know her plight), there must be many more out there. And so does kids who are abused and tortured by their own parents in the name of ‘educating’ or ‘disciplining’. Imagine, as you read this, right now, there might be kids who are being assaulted but ‘lucky’ enough to not die, or they might die but never underwent autopsy so nobody knew what they went through.

There might also be a lot of abused domestic helpers, probably physically beaten, or ‘just’ being denied their pay, or ‘just’ being denied communication with their families, or ‘just’ had their passports withheld. Imagine if our employers do that to us.

The family who became homeless got a lot of offers of help. I hope they get to get back on their feet. But there are many more just like them. They are people who are born in poverty and never know what it is like to live ‘normally’. And there are people who had their normal lives, but then calamity struck and they fell into a pit they cannot get out by themselves.

The people responsible to fix potholes have their hands full. There are a lot of potholes. And not all are reported to them. I would guess most are ‘reported’ on social media. They would probably have to search daily for the word ‘pothole’ on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. But not everyone tags potholes as potholes. Some might talk about, “Look what happened to my car” when they are actually talking about going over a pothole.

The problem isn’t about fixing potholes. The problem is the road construction. Or heavy vehicles not given assigned routes. The road probably had no specification. Or it had specification but was not met. Or it was probably not meant for lorries and trucks. Or probably most lorries and trucks were overweight.

The problem of the abused maid is not that particular employer. It is the system. During the slavery times, people might say, “That master is too cruel to his slaves, we never do that to our slaves.” The problem is not the master, the problem is the institution of slavery that enables masters to be cruel. I’m worried that the domestic helper system today might be modern slavery. If you’re a domestic helper, pray to God that you get a kind and compassionate employer. Otherwise, you might need to expect that you will not be talking to your kids back home for months, not coming home during festive season, or anything worse.

We can try to solve problems as they come. Or we can prevent them. Instead of treating every patient with hepatitis B, why don’t we give everyone vaccines? Instead of helping every homeless person or family, why don’t we prevent homelessness or poverty? Instead of hanging every abuser/murderer to death, why don’t we make it more difficult for abuse to happen?

I don’t have the solutions, but here is where lawmakers come. Their have access to taxpayers money. They can make policies that can improve lives of millions. We don’t need them to supply us with free T-shirts or chickens or paid travel expenses to vote. We need them to make policies that can improve lives.

My ‘Difficult’ Life

My wife and I just got our third child. In her first eighteen (18) days, I went back and forth to the hospital in fourteen (14) of those days. Two (2) of those days that I had to commute to hospital and work, our car broke down. So we had to use Grab.

It’s tiring. Even for me, who is not doing anything. I don’t nurse the baby, I did help to make some warm infant formula when the baby could not latch, but now my wife will do that as well, so that I can sleep through the night and not be sleepy at work.

But even when I’m not sleepy at work, I’m very demotivated. I’ve been doing things that I don’t enjoy for eight years and counting (bar nine months that I did get to do what I wanted, until it was taken away from me).

But I can’t ignore the fact that I’m utterly blessed.

In those days that we could not use our car, I used Grab. That means I have money, both cash and in the bank. That also means I have a phone and internet. That also means I live in a city big enough to have this car-sharing service. But there are people who don’t have cars or motorcycles, who lives in places that might not have very reliable or user-friendly public transports. Who might not have personal phones or not afford mobile data.

I complain about my sleepless nights, about being tired handling the two elder brothers. But there are couples out there who longed for a child, who have tried everything to have what I have. There are people who had children but then lost them in tragedies, deaths or custody battles.

There are so many blessings that I enjoy, often I don’t even realize it’s a blessing.

I’m healthy, and so are my family. Even if we occasionally get sick or warded, it is not prolonged. But there are people who are suffering of illnesses or conditions, bed-ridden, and family members whose life become restricted to take care of their loved ones.

I used to feel tired, traveling back and forth to my parents’ house almost every weekend, spending four to ten hours on the road, but I still have all my four parents. I still have opportunity to serve them. Most don’t.

Sometimes I wished my wife understands me more, but my wife and I still have a healthy relationship. But there are people who have lost their other half forever, or have experienced bitter divorces, or live in abusive relationships.

When I’m stressed, I listen to my favourite music. But there are people who cannot use their hearing, or not privileged enough to listen what they want.

I am shortsighted. I need glasses or contact lens to see sharply. But there are people who cannot use their eyesight. Some born blind, some lost their eyesight after knowing how it is to see.

I’m bothered when my ceiling leaks during extremely heavy rain. But there are people who don’t even have a roof over their head, who had to sleep on boxes at pavements or under the bridge. Some with their kids, and they have to always worry about their next meal, and can’t afford a proper education for their kids to break the cycle.

I don’t enjoy my job. I’ve never been promoted in eight years. But there are people who have applied every job there is, they can’t afford to choose what they like, because they’ve been jobless for years. There are people who works six or seven days a week, ten to twelve to even sixteen hours a day, who cannot even apply leaves to attend important family events like weddings or funerals. There are people who had to be separated from their family, some don’t even get the chance to talk to their other half or their children for years because their employers don’t let them have phones. There are people who are not even paid, working in slavery and abused.

I wish my wife could work again, so she could feel the happiness of earning her own money, the sense of achievement outside of the routine houseworks, so she could have a social circle outside of her family and school friends. But there are people who wished they could quit their job and stay home, become a fulltime caretaker of their own children.

I’m bad at socializing, at having small conversations. But there are people who longed for small conversations, who are so old or disabled that they are confined at their own homes. There are people who are born deaf and have no one around them who knows sign language, and so never had any conversation in their life.

I’m free, I get to do what I want. But there are people who are enslaved, duped to promises of a better life, then their movements are cut off by their ’employers’ by withholding their documents, or prevent them access to transportation. Some even born in slavery. Some imprisoned, some rightfully, but many aren’t, some never had a fair trial, some being convicted of ‘crimes’ that are not even crimes, some just arrested without reason.

My family is free as well. But there are people who are being kidnapped and never saw their family again. Many are kids, who will never see their parents again, who might wonder if their parents still love them because their parents never rescued them, despite their parents trying their best but to no avail.

Many are free in the sense they are not enslaved or imprisoned or disabled, but they are disabled due to their poverty or their lack of education. They can’t get good paying jobs because they were not privileged enough to further their studies, or get discriminated when they applied jobs. They used to have big dreams but many don’t anymore, setting their bar low, just to eat another day.

I can’t deny that I’m utterly blessed.

But I also feel utterly guilty that I have done nothing to improve other people’s lives.