Photo Essay : "Hope for a better age"

[ On a bridge at Riverhaven, New Southwales while on a roadtrip from Sydney to Melbourne. My brother and I woke up at 4am so we could take this one. It was a long exposure with my G3 on the tripod. 37mm, f/5.6, 2.50s ]

I had wanted to post another candid shot till i came across the video "A Class Divided". Somehow, it affected me enough to want to put up something a little more serious. You look at the world today and you wonder, will we ever learn to live together. It's ironic really, how we like to talk about peace and harmony in our own comfortable inner circles but when confronted with it in a real life situation, find ourselves wanting for an appropriate response.

We have become so comfortable with joking about things like Malays "relaking one corner, playing their guitar" that we don't even find it wrong. "But that's the truth! That's what they really do what!", some of us might burst out in defense. However, we know too well the connotations and hidden meanings that we convey when we say something like that. We think we are much better, only because we fail to see our own faults.

We look at Mainland Chinese in Singapore, and sometimes we think, "Better be careful of her. She might be one of those who work in the massage parlours." Hear someone speaking in a Mainland Chinese accent and straight away, our defences are up, as memories of taxi drivers and street hawkers touting their wares and trade outside Shanghai Railway Station flood back to our minds. And then we tell ourselves, "It's ok, that's normal."

Or is it? We face discrimination every day. We practice discrimination every day. We did it 50 years ago, we haven't come that far today. Somehow, it is so much easier for us to think the worst of someone than to look for the best. I am no innocent party. But I want to do better. I know I can because I have received acceptance and love from the people around me, especially one. Call me an idealist. Call me an optimist. I choose to believe there is Hope for a Better Age. Auspicium Melioris Aevi.