A runaway train heading for a total wreck

Forget about a judicial system that provides the cornerstone for fair and unprejudiced practice. Forget about bureaucracy being the backbone of governing.

Everything has been "subjectivised" and politicised; everybody seeks patrons because bona fide dispassionate justice, the merit system, and all the right reasons such as honesty and integrity and rewarding a job well done have taken a backseat to connections.

We have forgotten respect, care and the desire to put the national interest front and centre in our behaviour, as well as our set of core beliefs. We have forgotten that corruption is synonymous with stealing, and as such is punishable by law. These days, the corruption bulbs are being sown at the terms of reference level, not even as late as during the bidding process. Why do you think the airport trolleys at Suvarnabhumi Airport look so similar to the shopping carts at Carrefour?

We have forgotten that with authority and rights, there must be responsibilities and accountability. Nowadays, decency and shame apply only to other people. Self-righteousness is a fad that overrides civility and kindness. And forget the foggy idea of creating a new "state" for Thailand. Remember Liberia.

National reconciliation is not rocket science. Go to Google and you will find 2,130,000 such entries. Read some and we will see we are not on any of the reconciliation roads.

Look for one extreme and extraordinary case of success, and we will find Rwanda.

In 1994, Rwanda was a kingdom of death; an impossible nation. The genocide carried out by the majority Hutu tribe claimed almost a million lives among the Tutsi minority. Today, Rwanda is one of the safest and most orderly countries in Africa, with its per-capita gross domestic product almost tripled. Tourism is a boom industry, foreign direct investment has poured in. One man - the 51-year-old President Paul Kagame - was all that the country needed to heal itself.

Kagame came to power after an armed rebellion. As a Tutsi who is often accused of being a Hutu sympathiser, Kagame, once in office, put national reconciliation and reintegration of the two warring tribes as the topmost priority on his country's agenda. It has not been easy, it is far from being perfect, and it did not happen instantly; but the day he took office, the road to mending his country's vicious divisive wounds was flung open. Fifteen years on, Hutu former killers live peacefully among the Tutsi they once slaughtered with such glee and exhilaration that reading about it makes your hair stand on end.

If a country that represents the most frightening challenge to any national appeasement effort has managed to come this far and achieve this much, shouldn't it give reason for us to pause for thought about ourselves? Why do we have to continue ripping each other apart at any and all cost, at any opportunity, instead of thinking about how to bring a peaceful end to our petulant national disposition?

Talk to anybody who can still think relatively clearly or who is colour-blind, politically, and we can hardly find anybody who thinks the country is going in the direction of conflict-resolution to address the political rifts that gets deeper by the day. Talk to them. You will find no one who is not worried, not weary. But nothing is being done in any meaningful way to stop this train wreck.

Anger, hatred, revenge, double standards, disillusionment and resignation are the conductors of our national locomotive. "Wait until it's my turn" and "go for broke" are the mantras of those who are aggrieved or mistreated - in reality or in their own perception. People seem to have gladly taken the Bush dichotomy, "either you are with us, or you are with them" all the way to the "enemy combatant". And with this, the road gets more treacherous.

It's about time our leadership put reconciliation at the top of our country's "must do" list. Set up a National Reconciliation Commission, find someone with the wisdom, credibility, integrity and impartiality to head the body, and give them the legal authority, legal means and protection to shield them from devious political arm-twisting and interference, and from unsavoury reprisal.

These days, judging from the way people treat their "adversaries" and settle their scores, we should call any qualified body that is willing to take on this assignment a hero. But we must believe that there are some brave and capable souls out there to do this job right.

Meanwhile, everybody, we must stop demonising people with whom we disagree and who we dislike, even those we personally and morally find repulsive. Stop thinking "personal", think "national", for a change, so the healing process can begin. With the way things are, we hold all the losing options, and not a single winning one. So what do we have to lose?

The September 19 rally will come and go. There will be more. We have waited too long, wasted too much time, expended too much energy and too many resources pursuing a witch-hunt and heaping up retribution. If everybody insists on being in the right, soon nothing will be left. The country may have already been decimated before we come to our senses to ask ourselves, "What for?"

Are we that carnivorous and self-destructive?

Runaway train, never going back

Wrong way on a one way track

Seems like I should be getting somewhere

Somehow I'm neither here nor there

Bought a ticket for a runaway train

Like a madman laughin' at the rain

Little out of touch, little insane

Just easier than dealing with the pain

Runaway train, never comin' back

Runaway train, tearin' up the track.

("Runaway Train" by Soul Asylum.)