AnaMarwan.com

I was in HUKM[1. UKM Medical Centre] the other day, visiting my aunt. Something happened during my trip that compelled me to publish this post.

As we were walking back from the surau[2. Prayer room], mum and I saw a young boy who looked to be about 6-10 years old, gleefully pointing to a door with a professor’s name on it and started laughing. I can’t remember the exact name of the professor but I remember that his last name (it could be his father’s name) is Mohd Tamil.

What pissed me off is how the father of said boy was laughing along with him. I mean certainly you cannot blame a young kid who probably wasn’t even aware of what his actions implied but to see his father laughing along as though the name on the door was the biggest joke he saw that day made me angry.

Why is it so funny? Is it because the word ‘Tamil’ is largely associated to people of Indian ethnicity? Still, I don’t get why it’s so funny. I mean, I know Tamil is a language. My parents could understand it, my friends speak Tamil, I can understand a little bit of it. So what’s so funny about the word ‘Tamil’? Because you’ve never seen a person with that word for a name? How is that a reason for you to openly laugh at a person’s name?

Parents, please, for the love of God, teach your kids not to make fun of a person’s name. Sure, your kid doesn’t know what he was doing but YOU do. Young kids need to be educated about respect, and the person responsible to teach them these things are the parents. I don’t blame the kid in this situation, I blame the father. It portrays a very bad image on the father when he laughed along at that professor’s name.

I mean, who are you to laugh at his name? He’s a professor, probably a lecturer teaching future doctors. The same ones that might save your kid’s life. Heck, he might be your doctor. Who are YOU?