JE SUIS NOK

SOON after the Paris carnage that took the lives of so many innocent bystanders unfolded; almost the entire globe took to mouthing the French phrase Je suis this; Je suis that.

It may have begun with just two syllables in a foreign tongue for non-Francophones; but its significance was not lost to those who took to shouting it out in unison at rallies in every cobbled Rue or tree-lined Boulevard almost everywhere.

These were mounted as a show of sympathy to the innocent victims, those who happened to have been stranded at the wrong place and at the wrong time.

This nation has had its unfair share of tragedy over the past 18 months. Come March 8, it would have been a full year since MH370 disappeared off the radar scope and we are searching for all traces of the aircraft right till this very moment.

No matter how loudly the rest of us express any degree of sympathy; much less empathy; we cannot truly understand the grief experienced by the next-of-kin (NOK) of MH370. Wives have lost husbands, sons will grow up without the influence of a father figure, siblings will forever pine for an older shoulder to cry on.

We, as a nation, have singularly had the misfortune of colossal tragedy; of epic proportions piled one upon the other.

Hot on the heels of MH370 came the downing of MH17 over the troubled skies of Ukraine. Then came the massive floods for which we are still counting the cost in damage to property; and lives too.

Away from our shores, AirAsia Flight QZ8501 touched us equally even if the majority of the victims; save one; were non Malaysians.

Then the violence on the streets of Paris erupted for all to see on our TV screens; the upshot from which spawned the roots of the Je suis chorus.

But surely; the most heart-wrenching moment that drove all of humanity to the deepest troughs of despair was the torching to death of Jordanian pilot Muadh al-Kasasbeh captured over IS-controlled territory.

Je suis I say...

So heinous was the deed that even the most blood-thirsty; nothing-can-be-too-pornographic media right-wing media organisation thought twice about broadcasting the shocking video. Those who had the stomach to sneak a peek roundly were of the opinion that the images could only be described as the work of the devil incarnate – so depraved was the degree of barbarism.

Je suis...indeed.

Alas, we may be powerless to stem the tide of ill-fortune; natural or manmade.

No one is so naive as to begin to believe that any number of rallies bringing all humanity joining hands in a show of universal entente will stop bloodshed tomorrow.

Look no further than the seemingly-intractable issue of continued Zionist subjugation of the Palestinian right to statehood.

Closer to home, the monks of Myanmar appear to want to assert their brand of final homicidal solution to suppress minorities who worship a different diety.

Je suis, I say. (Aung San Su Kyi should return her Nobel Prize if she continues to turn a blind eye to the issue and not show a bit more statesmanship.)

How we conduct ourselves in the face of disaster can also have a bearing on the attempt at resolution.

This brings to mind the shambolic scenes on DOL day – when our Department of Civil Aviation mounted a press conference to announce to the world that MH370 was officially lost.

Sometimes we do open ourselves to charges of amateurism in the way we handle such exercises.

Just look at the Indonesians; at how they went about taking charge in the search and salvage operations of QZ85001.

Did they address the world in English? Enggak Pak (No siree!). They opted to stick to Indonesian knowing full well that the top ranks of their civil service are wanting when expressing themselves in anything other than the colonial Dutch.

Rather than expose themselves to ridicule should some really senior officer or minister display potentially muddled grasp of nouns, verbs and tenses; the Indonesian BASARNAS press conferences were conducted in their native tongue throughout.

This language debacle has a saving grace for their Malaysian counterpart – quite a few of those who embarrassed their English teachers now know that the power of 1 (one) NOK is as forceful as that of 100 (a hundred) NOK.

So; we hope and we pray that somehow the stars will continue to shimmer and the celestial forces align themselves so us humans here can behave in a rational manner and act decently to one another.