Spare A Thought For The Beggars Who Queue For Food

I like scanning the News Feed in Facebook, reading through the stuff that my friends post, status updates and just random thoughts. Sometimes they are quirky, some interesting and some just down right dumb. And occasionally I would add my five cents to any post that I deem wanting a comment.


This afternoon while browsing the feed, I read a post a friend of mine wrote about a Satay Celup shop in Melaka with a picture of a long queue of people waiting for a free table. I've seen this sight many times and have always wondered what would drive a person to waste an hour of their life queuing for food that they can buy at a dozen other places nearby. It's not like this place was any better than the other. So, with the picture wanting a comment, I wrote "You won't find me in line. Only beggars queue for food."


What followed was a self righteous comment by another reader who wrote something like "spare a thought for the beggars who have to queue for their food".

Well, it took me a couple of hours to realize why that comment, which drew admiration from others irritated the hell out of me. It was of how unknowingly cruel and hypocritical that comment was.


The sad part is, all of us have this streak of hypocrisy and cruelty in us. Each that we scan the local newspapers and read about a starving family and go "aw, how sad". Occasionally we watch a documentary about rhinos being de-horned or tigers skinned while they are still alive and we go "oh no, that's cruel". Every Sunday we go to church and say a prayer for the suffering and hungry. And we do nothing about it.


I've posed this question to myself and my friends many times before. The common answer I get is, "If only I were rich, I would definitely do something about it". But is our present condition so bad that we are unable to assist even a bit? Is it so important for us to maintain our current lifestyle at the expense of a suffering neighbor or the planet?


Every month or so I would receive mail from WWF or World Vision asking for a sponsorship. The amount they are asking for is so small that it would hardly dent my income. Each month I read through it, mutter something about needing to take action, toss the mail aside and forget about it as I munch my Big Mac and watch a movie on my PC.

Yes, I am irritated about the comment. Irritated that it had exposed my flaw. That like the commenter, I too am cruel and self righteous. I'm going right back home to find that mail from World Vision and sponsor a poor child's education. I just hope the pizza that I ordered does not distract me first.