Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Being Civilised Is A Losing Battle

The topic was mentioned in a phone conversation I had with an old friend of mine. I think it'll be alright to repeat the story here since no one will know who he is anyway. It's a scary world to be in when, in a secured environment, you get yourself into an event that crumbles your entire trust on the so-called secured environment.

Anyway, I will tell the story directly what happened to him, to show how some management are purely interested in keeping a place calm and happy-looking, no matter what the cause. I usually will filter names of places or people in my blog, but today's post, I will filter only to a certain degree as you will see.

In respect to the establishment of this so called secured and friendly environment, I will not disclose to you that it happened in Suria KLCC. My friend, a guy dude in long-sleeve and tie was out to lunch with his girlfriend, also dressed in working attire. Moving into their path are three punkie looking teenagers (say about 16 - 19 years old) and just as they were about to pass each other, one kid extended his arm to touch my the girl's breast. There was no contact, but they laughed once they have passed by.

My friend got pissed, well, who wouldn't be?! He turned around and asked the kids to apologize. One of them (leader I suppose) challenged him to a duel outside. So begins a battle of words, with the other kids joining in saying "Don't you try to find trouble with us". As typical in Malaysia, which I hate, everyone else is just ignoring what is going on and going about their own business. The kids suddenly backed off, but my friend was not satisfied that they didn't apologizse.

What made the kids back off and head the other way is because the security guard is coming from behind my friend. In hoping that the security guard saw what happened and maybe apprehend or take some actions against the kids, he (the guard) instead held tight to my friend's shoulders and said "Don't find trouble here!". I can imagine my friend's feeling when he heard this. All sense of security, all walls to protect the innocent just crumble. My friend instead lashed out at the guard about what happened and typical for someone who don't want to be blamed, answered "Oh, I didn't see anything. I just noticed you shouting, so I thought you're causing trouble."

Ended up seeing the security manager. Under law, the intention to molest is punishable by the court. This is a serious issue, and if you readers think that it's childish to report such thing to the management, imagine if it happened to your girlfriend or wife (for male readers) or happened to you (for female readers). So, the security manager, whose main intention is to keep a calm and peaceful environment, just took down reports (which we know will go into the dustbin anyway) and left it at that.

When my friend inquired about the security cameras, so that they can appropriately apprehend the kids, this so called multi-million dollar shopping complex which I will again, not disclose to you all that it's Suria KLCC, does not have proper security camera zonings. From the horses mouth, he mentioned that some of the cameras are static, and does will not cover every inch, or even meters of the shopping complex.

There you have it folks, a beautiful illusion of security, until it is breached. And peace is to be enforced, without regards to who's wrong or who's right, just as long as there's peace and quiet. Hope this will not happen to any of you.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Lackadaisical attitude until it hits them personally. Look at our media today... only after something has happened, then only we rushed to repair it. Very reactive society that we live in. And too many people losing their common sense!