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Published: Jan 10, 2005 3:59 PM | Updated: Jan 29, 2008 6:21 PM
Early warning system more vital that fanciful structures
Dr Benjamin Lee
The fury of nature in the form of tsunamis has recently caused deaths and untold suffering to millions of human beings, especially Asians. Let us hope that it will not happen again.
It is not the time to engage in speculative debate on the existence or of God or otherwise. The answer is a matter of faith, not empirical or logical science. We human beings must admit that we do not know about all things on earth or how nature ultimately works.
What we do know however is that despite the many ultra-modern skyscrapers and super-highways, fanciful (or flight-of-fancy) structures like Putrajaya as well as more-Western-than-the-West shopping malls, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka still do not have a simple and not that expensive tsunami early warning system.
This is almost criminal negligence on the part of the ruling elite in these countries, considering the fact that such a system has proven to be effective for many years along the Pacific Rim. Seen from another perspective, the absence of such a system is also reflective of the mis-allocation of developmental resources.
Instead of blaming unseen beings in the heaven or hell, we should point our fingers at the ruling elites in charge of allocation of developmental resources and planning. Finger-pointing in this case is important to shame the ruling elites and to exert enough pressure on them to rethink their established attitudes and to ensure that they make amends.
Asian people must henceforth learn to be more vocal in holding our ruling elites publicly accountable for every cent they propose to spend in the name of 'development' and 'modernisation'. The so-called 'Asian values' must be buried together with the dead bodies of the tsunami victims.
The media in Asia must also be freed to allow people, opposition parties and independent experts in all fields to voice their opinions as a check and balance against those expressed by the local ruling elites.
Saving lives is more important than saving the political careers of the ruling elites. For this simple reason alone, the people must not be polite anymore when it comes to public debates with our ruling elites on developmental priorities.
Dr Benjamin Lee
The fury of nature in the form of tsunamis has recently caused deaths and untold suffering to millions of human beings, especially Asians. Let us hope that it will not happen again.
It is not the time to engage in speculative debate on the existence or of God or otherwise. The answer is a matter of faith, not empirical or logical science. We human beings must admit that we do not know about all things on earth or how nature ultimately works.
What we do know however is that despite the many ultra-modern skyscrapers and super-highways, fanciful (or flight-of-fancy) structures like Putrajaya as well as more-Western-than-the-West shopping malls, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka still do not have a simple and not that expensive tsunami early warning system.
This is almost criminal negligence on the part of the ruling elite in these countries, considering the fact that such a system has proven to be effective for many years along the Pacific Rim. Seen from another perspective, the absence of such a system is also reflective of the mis-allocation of developmental resources.
Instead of blaming unseen beings in the heaven or hell, we should point our fingers at the ruling elites in charge of allocation of developmental resources and planning. Finger-pointing in this case is important to shame the ruling elites and to exert enough pressure on them to rethink their established attitudes and to ensure that they make amends.
Asian people must henceforth learn to be more vocal in holding our ruling elites publicly accountable for every cent they propose to spend in the name of 'development' and 'modernisation'. The so-called 'Asian values' must be buried together with the dead bodies of the tsunami victims.
The media in Asia must also be freed to allow people, opposition parties and independent experts in all fields to voice their opinions as a check and balance against those expressed by the local ruling elites.
Saving lives is more important than saving the political careers of the ruling elites. For this simple reason alone, the people must not be polite anymore when it comes to public debates with our ruling elites on developmental priorities.
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