I WAS sitting in a café with my computer logged on the Internet. My Kuching tennis friend Ben had just sent me a message saying that it was raining but that was not going to stop him going to the tennis courts after work.

“It might stop by the time I get there,” he wrote optimistically.

“Yeah, hope springs eternal.” I just couldn’t resist taking a dig at him.

Looking across the concourse, I could see the bold signs of universal brand names like Adidas, Gucci, Giordano etc standing like sirens enticing the shoppers. Yes, I was in a shopping mall but where? I could very well be in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila or even our very own Kuching tHe Spring Mall but I was in fact in Los Angeles, a full 15 hours’ flight away.

Ben was unaware of this so he wrote: “Let’s go for a drink if it’s too wet to play.”

When I let on that I was thousands of miles away, it took Ben a while to register that fact. Then he replied rather bemusedly: “Oh, enjoy your holiday.”

Yesterday I went to Disneyland. Being someone with a fear of heights and anything that zooms around apparently uncontrollably, all the rides were off limits to me. Hey, who wants to pay good money just to be scared witless? Finally, I found a ride which was more to my disposition — it was in a section for kids. This was where one could ride around rather sedately in a little train with an insanely sweet song playing continuously:

 
‘It’s a small world after all

There is just one moon

And one golden sun

Friendship to every one

Though the mountains divide

And the oceans are wide

It’s a small world after all.’

 
How appropriate, for such is the advancement of technology in communication and travel that it’s difficult to get away from the hackneyed expressions like ‘the world is getting smaller’ or ‘we live in a global village’. It appears that we have conquered space and distance.

Though in different locations, we can now occupy the same space in real time, even if it is only a virtual space of the cyberworld. Distance, though physically still exists, has virtually disappeared in concept.

Some time ago my daughter, who lives in America, phoned me:

“Dad, I am cooking Laksa for my friends here in LA. Can you help?”

Of course, I could. I ran through the whole process for her. I could visualise her hovering over the cooking pot, a ladle in one hand and her phone in the other as we went through the steps to culinary excellence. The long distance coaching was a success. It is a small world indeed.

It has never always been like so. I remember when I first left home to study in Britain, it was such a momentous and daunting experience. I was made acutely aware of it when a big contingent of my relatives and friends turned up at the airport. It was worthy of a send-off for soldiers going to war. We all knew it was to be a long journey. Indeed it was and in more than one sense.

It took me over 36 hours to get from Singapore to London, having transited in at least 10 cities in between.

Though long that physical journey, I finally arrived at my final destination in Scotland where psychologically I felt even farther far away from home. The fact that I was the only foreigner, apart for a Chinese family that operate a restaurant in the town, made it even more so.

The only form of communication with home then was by post. It took weeks, if not months, to get a reply. Though we didn’t appreciate it then, it was indeed snail mail. To telephone was out of question as it would have cost an arm and a leg.

I recall just before the New Year, Radio Sarawak used to send people to tape the messages of some selected students in London to be played over the radio in Sarawak on New Year’s Day. I was told that the parents would weep on hearing the voices of their estranged children.

How things have changed, technology has seen to that. Now with a click of the computer mouse we can be chatting happily with friends and loved ones half way round the world. Then of course, there is the ubiquitous mobile phone. Yesterday as I sat here in the City of Angels, I received a text message from my friend Alan in Kuching: “Breakfast at King’s Centre at 9am?” This is when my lawyer friends would say: “I rest my case.”

So it appears that those Disney cartoon characters naively singing the saccharine sweet jingle: “It’s a small small world” might be right after all. But were they? Are we living in a global village?

My take is that though science has brought us the wherewithal to be closer to each other, such is human frailty that many a time we are unable to reach out, appreciate other people’s culture and simply respect each other as fellow human beings.

The result of this divisive tendency are played out tragically on the world stage. Their most grotesque and depraved forms are screamed at us everyday by the news media.

Thus, to say that we live in a global village is to insult the term ‘village’. My view of ‘village’ is that it is more than just a group of people living in close proximity. It is much more than that, and carries with it many values, not the least one of ‘care’. A virtue which the framers of the national vision Wawasan 2020 (I wonder what happened to that?) recognised when they included ‘a caring society’ as one of the prerequisites of a developed nation.

Every regime brings its own slogan. While Wawasan 2020 was the declared aspiration of the past, the flavour of today is ‘1 Malaysia’. Given the fact that distinction among citizens in Malaysia is institutionalised in the nation’s constitution and carried out with zealousness by bureaucrats, this noble aspiration of the prime minister is a tall order indeed.

Whether we have the courage, heart and mind to make it a reality remains to be seen.

Science has made the physical construct of a ‘1 World’ a possibility but it takes man to make it a reality. For now the report card reads: “Science, you have come a long way, babe. Human, you have a long way to go, dude.”

The writer can be contacted at dunstan.desee@gmail.com