Have we all become so cynical ?

Out of the goodness of her heart, a young girl, Daphne Ling highlighted the plight of a little girl with Fraser Syndrome. Daphne is a member of the Star's Brats and has stood up for and spoken on a lot of moral & general issues. The story of Siti Aisya Shahidan first appeared on The Star on 24 th Dec 2006.

Through her efforts, donations in cash and kind poured in for the family of the little girl as Daphne had also posted the story in her blog along with other bloggers like Marina Mahathir etc... Every month or so, Daphne would give an update on Aisya's health, donations collected, etc... so that the story would not fizzle out and become another forgotten issue. By April the family had collected about 13k in cash and in addition, pledges for 1 year's supply of diapers, milk, Nestum etc..

Unfortunately, along with praises for her efforts, she received some emails and messages from strangers questioning her motives. All along, she had chosen to ignore these messages but Daphne has since decided to quit this effort because of a message posted in her blog from somebody called 'Melayu Jati'. It goes :

'apa yang aku tak fahem memang satu. siapa dia ni adik daphne ini? kenapa semua percaya sangat kak dia nak bagi duit nak bagi siti aisya ini? tak pernah ke dengar yang banyak orang yang tipu duit orang? mana bukti yang Siti aisya ni wujud? mana bukti dan buku akaun yang daphne ni tak ambil duit tu untuk dirinya sendiri? tak hairan ke semua orang yang budak cina yang tak kena mengena dengan keluarga si aisya ni nak tolong dia? pandailah sikit. mana ade orang yang nak tolong kalau dia tak dapat ape sendiri terutama kes macam ni. bUdak cina tolong orang melayu konon. pleese pak, bagi lah orang melayu jaga diri sendiri. kalau betul nak tolong aisya, ambil duit sendiri bagi. menyampah nak sibuk jaga kain orang. memang ku menyampah. takdak orang sebaik ni. tipu!dari, melayu jati'

Marina Mahathir had this to say in response to Melayu Jati !

Kalau 'melayu jati' ertinya menuduh orang yang baik hati mencuri, saya bukan melayu jati. Kalau melayu jati ertinya tidak percaya ada orang yang boleh membantu orang yang memerlui tanpa mengira bangsa dan ugama, saya tidak ingin menjadi melayu jati. Kerana sikap inilah, penderitaan berterusan, kerana ada orang yang sentiasa mencari alasan supaya tidak membantu sambil mengkritik orang lain. Saya kasihan kepada Melayu Jati kerana hidup dalam dunia dimana tidak ada 'orang sebaik ni'. Agaknya kalau kita tidak buat baik kepada orang lain, mereka pun tidak buat baik kepada kita. Alangkah gelap dunia kamu.

Translated : If 'melayu jati' (pure Malay) means accusing people who are goodhearted of stealing, then I am not a pure Malay. If 'pure Malay' means not believing that people can help those who need it without considering race and religion, then I don't want to be pure Malay. It is because of attitudes like these that human suffering continues, because there are people who find every excuse not to help while criticising those who do. I feel pity for Melayu Jati because he lives in a world where there are no people 'as good as this'. I guess if you are never good to people, people will never be good to you. What a dark world you live in.

It's sad because people like MJ puts others off from helping one another. And the worse part is being so racial about it . If you all want to read more about it, here are the links :
Daphne's http://daphneling.blogspot.com/
Marina Mahathir (http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com)

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