Malaysians again have found themselves mourning another senseless death of a young man.
The case of T. Nhaveen’s extreme abuse, torture and death at the hands of his schoolmates has left many wondering how our society has strayed so far from the right path.
The attack description is gruesome. It is chilling to think that a group of young men could beat, drag and sodomize Nhaveen to the point where he died without ever regaining consciousness after the attack, beyond the repair of any doctor at Penang Hospital.
He was just getting a burger with his friend, T. Previin, early Saturday morning. However, when spotted by sick-minded local bullies, things escalated. Nhaveen was just 18, his bullies between 16 and 18.
They taunted him, called him a pondan, a word used to insult effeminate men and as hate speech towards the LGBT community. He and Previin tried to stand up to them, but they came back later, with more friends and beat Nhaveen with helmets. They dragged his body into a nearby field, and tortured him even more.
Previin managed to escape on a motorbike, and ran to get help. When he returned, Nhaveen was gone, his brain-dead body lying in a hospital. Speaking to the Straits Times, Previin said Nhaveen had confided he was bullied by the boys. Now he is haunted by his decision to stand up to them that fateful night.
Bullies. Two weeks ago, a young naval cadet Zulfarhan Osman Zulkarnain was rushed to the hospital after his tormentors subjected him to beatings and torture that included burns all over his chest, hands and feet from a steam iron. He died as a result of his injuries, and five are now charged with his murder. Their reason? A dispute over a laptop.
Just this week, reports from a boy’s home in Melaka, where a young boy was forcibly held down in the dormitory by his seniors, as they took turns sodomizing him. Bullies.
S. Pravin, forced to drink poison by a group of bullies coming home from school.
And let us not forget the first incident that shocked the nation this year: the beating and death of 11-year-old Mohamad Thaqif Amin Mohd Gaddafi. Murdered by the assistant warden at his religious boarding school, after a beating so gruesome, that while trying to save his life, doctors had to amputate both his legs, put him into an induced coma and contemplated amputating his arm, before his tiny body gave up.
Disgusting behavior, cruel, unkind, and un-Malaysian at its core. We pride ourselves as being multifarious culturally, loving to our friends and neighbors, liberal and tolerant religiously, and open to modern values.
As a group, we are disgusted by these cases, yet we find ourselves with blood on our collective hands.
International embarrassments like the promotion of a video contest to “prevent gayness” make global news, and become commonplace along these tragic stories of young lives, robbed too soon.
How many tragedies have to happen before we take stock of what we value as a society and confront the disgusting behavior we say we will not tolerate? How many embarrassing headlines before we take a stand and say we won’t let this happen any more?
Enough is enough.
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