The second stanza of our national anthem has long stirred fearlessness and pride in our hearts, promising brave sacrifices in the pursuit of a bright, shared future for us all.
Yet, it is that very future of a society worth fighting for, that is facing threats today, from the shards of our own splintering communities.
Widely reported and remarkable violent incidents in recent months (including the death of the young Sabah teenager and gang-rape amongst school students), have culminated with the shocking alleged murder of a 16-year-old schoolgirl by her teenage peer.
For ignoble reasons, blood (of youth) is now chillingly being spilled on our land — and will only flow more, unless we first recognise the complex, existential wound at its gaping source.
Important advice from professionals in the public domain on this phenomena (including We All Share Responsibility For Youth Mental Health) has already been contributed.
The federal government has also introduced immediate and laudable plans aimed at enhancing mental health screening, tackling violence and modifying educational systems for students.
What has perhaps been less articulated, however, is a broader formulation of the possible social causes of such frightening violence in school-going adolescents, as well as systemic lessons we can learn from nations which have been battling these challenges in recent times.
There have been steady, significant and sustained changes in the social fabric of modern nations. Many of these of course, are widely perceived as positive, such as the increased emphasis on individual autonomy, gender equality and civil liberties.
However, there has also been a perceived breakdown in the institutions which previously provided order and structure to such societies.
Among these may be included the traditional family unit, organised religious frameworks, local community bonds, and symbols of authority (such as parents and teachers).
These changes have occurred in tandem with major shifts in gender relations, including a well-recognised deconstruction of traditional masculine notions and roles, amidst rising female empowerment (resulting in huge followings for those perceived to be addressing the problems of modern masculinity, like Jordan Peterson).
This social landscape has been further altered by the rise of social media, which (for all its prominent benefits like fostering citizen awareness and ease of communication) has amplified the avenues, frequency, and volume of angst in younger generations.
Recent reference has been made to its widening exposure to pornography and violence; there has been less attention paid however, to social media’s distortion of how individuals experience, express and cope with negative emotions, particularly shame.
Dr Tanveer Ahmed’s eye-opening book In Defence of Shame provides a window into the historical importance of this emotion (now increasingly misunderstood and maligned even in a shame-based society like ours) in regulating human behaviour — and how its experience in our age of anxiety can easily become toxic.
Amidst the lack of broader connectedness and regulation in our communities to provide social scaffolding and resilience for disaffected individuals, there are fewer adaptive ways to address shame and other difficult emotions, such as fear and anger.
The internet, in turn, provides an unprecedented platform on which individuals can be shamed mercilessly and globally by numerous faceless commentators. This can be highly damaging and destabilising for the evolving emotional regulation and identities of younger individuals, particularly when it turns into bullying (as discussed previously in Bullying And Patient Dignity: Isn’t This Everybody’s Problem).
When one recognises that unaddressed shame is often at the heart of violence, both self-afflicted and externalized (including, it seems, the recent tragic stabbing), the sheer restriction of pathways for healthy coping strategies in many young persons becomes apparent.
Accordingly there should be little surprise, in relation to the well-documented rise in loneliness, mental health conditions, illicit drug use and suicide among modern youths, both worldwide and within Malaysia. These are increasingly related not only to depressive and anxiety disorders, but complex trauma, neurodivergence and gender dysphoria. Undiagnosed and undertreated mental illnesses have played a significant role in a number of the major or mass violent incidents that have attracted media attention in developed nations. It would not be far-fetched to believe that this could also happen more frequently in Malaysia’s future, due to the aforementioned social changes and circumstances.
Therefore, a gathering storm looms—as our country modernizes further, it seems inevitable that further trends discussed here shall be magnified in our homes, classrooms and streets. We must encourage and catalyse a much-needed wider debate in understanding how such potential violence occurs, and what can be done to minimize or prevent it.
Merely focusing on punitive and didactic measures (such as increasing religious/moral education, banning social media or widening the use of caning, as has been suggested recently by commentators) would be short-sighted and ultimately futile, in the face of these complex challenges.
Our leaders, teachers, parents, and, ultimately, broader citizenry have an important role in identifying and ensuring appropriate interventions which may enhance social connectedness, improve emotional resilience, strengthen self-esteem and protect vulnerable individuals among our children from a young age.
Some of these may include fostering healthy connections and activities between neighbours, local communities and clubs; teaching distress tolerance and emotional regulation strategies at early ages to children; educating youths on adaptive sexual and non-sexual interactions between genders; educating media organisations on safe and responsible boundaries, content and language in their reporting; and consistent collaborative pathways between mental health professionals and school staff in assessing and managing needy students.
It takes an entire village to raise a child, and it will take the collaborative efforts of all members to provide a safe, healthy, and connected society for young people to grow and mature into healthy adults.
Such a vision may not prevent every tragedy amongst our youth, nor will it be easy to achieve at a wider population level. If, however, we needed any further incentive to act against child violence, it would be (as we sing Negaraku) to foster a country where blood runs only in noble sacrifices, and not in senseless tragedy.
Dr Thinesh Rajasingam is a consultant psychiatrist and senior lecturer, writing on behalf of the Psychiatry Chapter of College of Physicians, Academy of Medicine Malaysia.
- This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of CodeBlue.
