A band of tourists was arrested by the Malaysian authorities when
pictures and news of their stripping naked and urinating atop Mount Kinabalu
started circulating on social media, provoking the question of the balance
between the individual’s freedom to have fun and the communal values of social
cohesion. The arrest has been portrayed differently across the wide spectrum of
foreign news channels, some more inclined to criticise the act of disrespect of the tourists, while others such as the Daily Star and the Sun seem to paint theportrait of a backwards, primitive Malaysian government casting blame of therecent Mount Kinabalu earthquake on the naked tourists.
Photographs of people committing allegedly indecent acts in public
have often landed their subjects into trouble in Malaysia, with the cases of the
balcony-sex couple and the woman who stripped in Petaling Street serving as
examples. To try to force the idea that Malaysia is prosecuting the
tourists for “causing” the earthquake – as a lot of British tabloids have
insensitively done – is entirely wrong. It is clearly stated that they are
arrested because of public indecency and for disrupting societal
peace.
The issue here, therefore, is not of angering the mountain gods,
nor one of the restricting a person’s choice in the way they dress, it is
instead the basic issue of common courtesy. Regardless of one’s beliefs, one should afford that shred of respect towards
others, especially towards the community playing host to one’s travels. It is
sad if the individualistic world we live in has made it acceptable for public
peace to be sacrificed for the “freedom” of one individual to act in whatever
way he or she likes. Freedom of individual, if attained at the cost of the peace
of society, is no freedom at all.
It is, however, terribly ill-timed that the pictures of the Mount
Kinabalu nudists should have come right before the Mount Kinabalu earthquake that
has taken the lives of nineteen people. The tourists’ act of nudity and urination,
while displaying so thoroughly their lack of consideration and respect towards
the place and its people, does not warrant an arrest. Insensitive as these pictures may be, it may not be appropriate to dedicate such scrutiny upon their allegedly obscene acts. Like the woman who
stripped in Petaling Street, or the couple who had sex on the balcony, there
are other, bigger problems to address than these
individuals.
Perhaps the best action given the current situation would be to
cease our fixation on these tourists, and to divert our attention on the
recovery process in the wake of the Mount Kinabalu disaster. If ever we were to
talk about the tourists, it must be about the importance of respecting the
local customs and traditions of other countries and communities though we may not necessarily subscribe to them ourselves, rather than how they allegedly cause the
earthquake.