2005-03-16 - 5:06 a.m.
Yesterday, I was quite stunned to hear the news from Palembang. There were so many people wanting to see the phenomenal movie "Ayat-Ayat Cinta" / The Verses of Love (from the national best-selling novel of the same title by Habiburrahman El-Shirazy). However, as they started to push forward in the queuing line to buy tickets, a local girl got accidentally slammed against the window booth --- smashing the glass. She didn't get the chance to watch the movie that day. Instead, shards of glass had sent her to the ER and given her 25 stitches!
Sympathizing her situation, one of the senior cast showed up at her home to give her free tickets from MD Entertainment (the producer of the movie.) Of course, she finally got to watch it in the end.
At first, you might think: "Lucky girl." Lucky??? Actually, I'm not that surprised by my people's (non) queuing habit. But I was still pretty much shocked (and upset) by the dangerous effect such habit can possibly cause on people themselves. Of course, as usual --- it's always started from basic ignorance.
"It's already a common habit around here," most of them will usually say. Others will also support with obvious apathy, "There's no use in trying to make things right and change them all, especially if there are already way too many of them doing-" or should I emphazise, not doing "-it."
"Everyone else is like that," I've already heard this justification too many times before, especially from those whose big-sized ego just won't allow them to take the blame and be responsible. "So, why aren't we?"
Unfortunately, most people have been already too used to it they consider it as part of normality. That's just what happens everyday here. For example, people who are using the elevators. Most of them will usually crowd in front of the double-doors, impatiently waiting for those to open. But when the doors open, they rush inside all at once --- not even bothering to give some decent space for others who want to get out first! The same thing happens at Trans-Jakarta bus corridors, train stations, and even concerts. If there are strict security guards ambling by, we're still lucky. But if not? Well, since most people still lack discipline but have too much arrogance in them, acting childish is all they do. If they're being reminded by those few who want to politely queu in line like any decent citizen in public places really should, these people usually get all defensive or even worse --- practicing true ignorance, by pretending to be deaf and dumb. (Ironically, even the 'so-called' well-educated ones do that too!)
And unfortunately, they usually keep on doing that until victims fall (like what happened in Palembang, for a perfect example.) Then they start taking it seriously, but only for a while. After that, they tend to forget such incidents easily and do it all over again. It's the same old story repeated. Old (bad) habits die hard.
These days, I wonder if a good change is too impossible to be true...
The Author
