11/04/2026

SATURDAY | APR 11, 2026

18 When visibility drives outrage I T started, like most things these days, with a forwarded video. “Eh, see this,” someone texted. thought crept in. Would this have mattered as much if there was no video? Because we have been don’t even directly affect us. Some of us also lose sleep arguing in comment sections but that is another issue. P O T T U O N P O I N T

loudly it enters our lives. I wonder about the families we stop talking about – the names we once knew but can no longer recall. The stories that never had a video, never trended and never made it into our daily outrage quota. Do they hurt any less? Or are they just easier for us to forget? The Klang crash shook us; it reminded us that we are still capable of feeling deeply, reacting quickly and demanding better. That part is worth holding on to. But maybe there is something else we should hold on to as well. Not just the stories that flood our screens but the ones that don’t. Because justice should not need an audience and empathy should not depend on algorithms. Maybe, just maybe – the real test of who we are is not how loudly we react when everyone is watching… but how quietly we continue to care when they are not. Hashini Kavishtri Kannan is the assistant news editor at theSun. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

“We care louder when something is trending. We care longer when everyone else is still talking about it. Otherwise, we do what we do best – we move on, efficiently, quietly and almost professionally.

But our caring seems to have… conditions. We care more when there is a video. We care louder when something is trending. We care longer when everyone else is still talking about it. Otherwise, we do what we do best – we move on, efficiently, quietly and almost professionally. There is something almost admirable about it. This ability to carry on, to not dwell and to keep life moving. After all, we still have school runs, deadlines, laundry and that one Tupperware lid that never seems to have a matching base. But there is also something unsettling. Because somewhere along the way, tragedy has started to compete for our attention; not for justice but for visibility. And visibility, unfortunately, is a very unreliable thing. Some stories arrive with noise and never leave while others barely knock before disappearing. The difference is not always the weight of the loss but how

here before. The case involving Sam Ke Ting, where a group of teenagers riding basikal lajak lost their lives – and the country spent years arguing over who should be R I held responsible. It wasn’t just a case anymore; it became something else – something heavier. We followed every update like it was a drama series, except this one had no satisfying ending. But then, there are other stories. The explosion at a university earlier this year took a life too. There were headlines, there was concern and then… there was silence – no endless threads, no daily debates and no national soul-searching. It came, it went and that is when it starts to feel a bit strange. Because it is not that we don’t care; Malaysians care a lot. We cry over strangers, argue with relatives and lose sleep over things that A V I S H T

And just like that, the Klang crash entered my day. A car going against traffic. A motorcyclist who never stood a chance. I watched it once, then again – like somehow the ending might change if I paid closer attention. It didn’t. The comments came quickly after – anger, shock, justice. Some people turned into investigators overnight, others into lawyers and a few into moral philosophers. Malaysians, as it turns out, can do many things – multitask, make teh tarik and deliver legal opinions in the same breath. And to be fair, the outrage felt justified – a life was lost, a family changed forever and the driver now faces a murder charge. It felt, at least on the surface, like the system was responding. But somewhere between the shares and the shouting, a small, uncomfortable B Y H A S H I

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COMMENT

The art of saying no: Time for Trump to trump Netanyahu EVEN with the emerging prospect of talks between Israel and Lebanon, this week’s US Iran ceasefire is, as Vice President JD Vance described it, a “fragile truce”.

Missiles are still flying around the region, and the vital Strait of Hormuz – now the most famous and important shipping lane in the world – remains effectively closed to most traffic. However, Israel’s aggression against Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, the loss of innocent lives, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure in the weakened Lebanese state are making the difficult task of securing peace in the Gulf virtually impossible. The world is watching in dismay as Israel issues evacuation warnings in Beirut – amid fears of some kind of Gaza-level destruction. Reports suggest that negotiations between Israel and Lebanon are to begin next week at the Department of State in Washington, just as delegations from the US and Iran arrive in Pakistan for their own talks. But there will be little chance of finding consensus while Benjamin Netanyahu’s government takes its nihilistic military roadshow to Beirut and even beyond. Only the US can force Israel to join the ceasefire but Donald Trump appears as unwilling as ever to exert much pressure on his friend Bibi. Yet, he will have to do so, if only to rescue the prospect of peace with Iran, and security for the Gulf states – crucial US allies – as well as to give his own Republican Party any chance of retaining control of Congress in the November elections. It is not difficult to understand why Netanyahu is being his usual stubborn self. He is deliberately and needlessly prolonging this conflict for the same reasons he manoeuvred the Americans into it in the first place. It is in Israel’s interests to weaken Iran and its terrorist proxies and partners, in every possible way and at every possible opportunity – and where such opportunities do not exist, to create them. From Israel’s point of view, that approach is entirely rational. An Iran with nuclear weapons would be a menace to its neighbours in the Gulf, and therefore, a potent threat to the interests of the United States. But to Israel, it would be existential. Netanyahu is right to point to Iran’s constant antisemitic demonisation of the Jewish people and the malign intent of groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in

Only the US can force Israel to join the ceasefire but Trump appears as unwilling as ever to exert much pressure on his friend Netanyahu. – REUTERSPIC

Left to his own devices, Trump would probably want to deploy vast US resources on vanquishing Iran and, to borrow his favourite threat, bombing it back to the “Stone Ages”. Fortunately, he is not yet an absolute monarch, and he is not being left to follow his own appalling instincts untrammelled. He gambled and lost in Iran and now he needs to extricate himself before further economic and electoral damage is done to America, and the possibility of a successful impeachment becomes too real for comfort. He himself has admitted as much in public. Netanyahu is a determined man but much as Trump sympathises with him and wants to let him have his free hand in Lebanon, political survival after the midterms must come first. For once, he will have to say “No” to Bibi. Lebanon has suffered enough. – The Independent

renounce any stockpiles of enriched uranium. This is, in fact, what the Omani government brokered between the US and Iran just before Netanyahu persuaded Trump that war and rapid regime change in Tehran was a faster, more definitive path to the aims they shared. Whatever merits that argument had are now irrelevant. Regime change has not spontaneously occurred (as some of Trump’s advisers privately warned him it would not), and the Islamic Republic is stronger and potentially richer than before the war, even if its conventional forces have been decimated. There is not, and never has been, a military solution to the tensions in the Middle East, including the Palestine-Israel question. So that means a ceasefire and an end to Israel’s campaign in Lebanon – and, indeed, to the illegal settlement of the West Bank.

Yemen towards the state of Israel and its inhabitants. The desire of many in Tehran, and those connected to the Islamic Republic, is to wipe Israel off the map. Hence the Netanyahu government’s determination to prevent the ultimate jeopardy of a nuclear weapon on board a long-range missile. “Iron Dome” or not, that is unacceptable to Israel, and it’s obvious why. Yet, the war in the Gulf continues to destabilise the region. By continuing to attack Lebanon, Netanyahu believes he is also weakening Iran and Hezbollah. Nevertheless, his preference for direct military action is preventing a wider peace. Indeed, any deal secured would surely include an agreement that should be very much in Israel’s favour, by getting Iran to