Charity and Politics

By: Noor Husna Ahmad Toha

The other day I was in the living room folding the clothes with my younger sister. My hands moved from one shirt to another shirt, but my mind was away thinking about things I just read on the Internet, from one incident to another. I looked at my sister and thought about the kids her age who had been struggling just to get enough Internet connection and have a proper device for their online classes. My sister is definitely not one of them.

Whenever I see my sister taking all the technological luxuries she has for granted, I tend to compare my own life when I was 15/16 years old to hers. Usually it would go "dulu zaman akak takde pun...". Sounds familiar? I am slowly becoming my parents. But I'm aware of the generational gap between us, so I believe it would be fairer to compare with other kids her age.

"What do you feel when you read news about students having to walk for an hour just to find a place with decent Internet connection? While here we can unconcernedly wake up 10 mins before our classes start and just sit in front of our laptops/iPads?"

The government is failing all of us at the moment, but it is undeniable that some people have it worse than others. Way worse than others. My sister didn't know to what extent the government is involved in our daily lives, so with every piece of shirt I took to fold, one explanation was told. When the financially able gets involved in charity, it is never only about "I have more so I should contribute to the needy". It is also about

"What allows me to still be financially secured even after almost 2 years of pandemic?"

"If the amount of wealth possessed is merely determined by hard work, then why do people still struggle?" 

We continued folding the clothes with a lot of pauses in between. Sometimes I got too emotional and I need my hands to move as well. Body language is important right? My sister had to look at me, listen, and think at the same time that she couldn't focus on folding the clothes. I told her about the policies doctors back then had and the system that our older sister is in now. These policies determine our future, I told her. I told her about kids her age whose both parents have lost their jobs and now they have to finds ways to earn money for the family. On the Internet there are 1001 stories that shouldn't just evoke our sympathy, but also the curiosity of why these things are happening.

We were almost done with folding the clothes when another family member of ours came and told us to leave hers be and that she'd fold them herself. I reminded her (and also myself) that this conversation isn't done yet, and so are the things happening outside. People are still suffering, some children still go to sleep with hungry stomachs, so the donations must still go on. But perhaps now she is more aware how the government is failing us, and if there's one thing that shouldn't continue, it's letting this incompetent government to be in power.