One way ticket to hell

During one of my weekly classes, I asked my eleven-years old student, what does she want to be when she grows up.

"A minister", she answered me.

Quite taken aback, I asked her why, and without missing a beat, she told me,

"A minister only have to do work when bad things happened, and sometimes that is also unnecessary because he can always point fingers! It's an easy job with a good pay."

And this actually came from a kid's mouth. I think she's been listening to her father's ranting while watching the nightly news.

She has got a point, really. 50 years of independence not withstanding, we are still doing things the same way as we did 100 years ago. Not that I know how we really did things way back then, I just assume it would still be the same now.

Throughout the years, there were plenty of good examples to proof this. Tragedies after tragedies, casualties and victims were highlighted by the news and medias. And yet, all these seemed to fade away after a few weeks. Life goes on, as they all say. And when something bad happened again, everybody freaked out, everybody seemed angry, and everybody wanted something to be done.

And after a few weeks, things went back to normal.

But seriously, I don't know whose fault is this in the first place. I mean, we have a good system, right? And we supposedly have good leaders. And good implementations. But somehow, all of these are lost somewhere along the line. Plans are made, laws are gazetted, and people are put into actions. But the end results are always the same, big money is spent; some might be unaccounted for, and shady end results. Then there must be something wrong with the system.

But we can never beat the system, let alone change it. It's already embedded into our lives, imbued with our blood and ingrained with our soul. Those who tried to change it always reached a dead end, or worse, ending up dead. Not that anyone I know is dead for trying to change the system, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone turns up dead.

In the end, what we can do is hope, and pray for the victims, and the victims families. The latest casualties were the 20 passengers on board the terror bus to a certain death. But was the driver the victim too? Or should he be blamed for causing the accident?

From the reports, it seems that the driver was a wanted man, with 2 arrest warrant and a long list of unpaid tickets, and if you add up the tickets for the bus, the number of summons between the two of them were more than what a whole class of school children will get in their lifetime. And considering the man had 2 wives to support, plus 6 children, it came as no surprise if the man was said to have work non-stop driving the bus northbound and southbound.

And of course, there are always the ministers, who normally materialize when this kind of things happened. And all sorts of solutions and measures are brought up by them, the demerit system, refresher courses, black box on express buses, and road blocks by JPJ, PUSPAKOM, JAS and the police to nab those errant operators and drivers. But then again, aren't these the same stuffs we heard last year when another bus accident claimed 12 souls in Nibong Tebal?

Funny thing is, we only hear about all these after such tragedies. And I bet my laurels that the papers will be covering this news for the next two weeks. No more than that. After that, we'll be lulled into a sense of security, somewhat believing that the roads are safe again, and the buses will not get into anymore accidents.

That is, until the next big accident happens. Then repeat whole process, like an infinite loop.