I chanced upon this English proverb whilst surfing for a good phrase to slap on my article. No, this proverb was not used for article but rather provided a very good discussion on the crime rates in our country today. Seeing as the buzz word ‘economy’ is always blamed for all that happens in the country, it is also important for us to realize that the actual responsibility in building a country lies with ourselves. It lies with our very own hands and how diligent we are at doing something for material gain (not for nothing!).
It’s terrifying to know how crime rates have soared in the past one year, and increasingly so in the past few months. The community now terrorized by snatch thefts, armed robbery, blackmails, swindles, rapes, ah-longs and many more sad activities. The proverb thus finds its way into the cause of such wrongdoing. The same psychological practice on a child; when a child is in a mood to do something destructive, ask the child to do something for you that is constructive, delivers positive results. This practice converts the idle hands of the child into a productive one. Could it possible be true that the predators really have idle hands and chose to gain material goods merely by force and not work for it? If they chose to engage themselves in activities and work to gain income, could they abstain themselves from committing such crimes? It is an interesting thought and is currently practices by our Sports Ministry through sporting activities as such. But what happens to the nerds who don’t feel like joining? They would rather download pornography in the comforts of their home. Therefore, it is probably the economic system itself, which rewards the lazy and connected, whilst working the actual brains half to death, is problematic. We can’t blame the subsidized culture as non-subsidized cultures are also suffering from higher crime rates and laziness (observe kampong style Thais and sub-urban Brazilians). So what gives? Another proverb I would like to quote from a Korean Prof in a book of his (which I conveniently forgot the title), “People are not poor because they are lazy, they are lazy because they are poor”.
