The train ahead
Two trains race towards each other on the same tracks, their drivers unaware of the danger, nothing warns them to pull their brakes. The collision is unavoidable. This night and the dawn which reveals the magnitude of the tragedy are stamped onto the memory of us all. The wound will bleed for decades. And this is the only hope that we can have. Declarations of “Never again,” investigations into who is responsible, political clashes, the completion of works and infrastructure that have been delayed without excuse are not enough. However necessary they all are, what is needed most is a radical change of mentality.
The train crash at Tempe is an unbearably harsh lesson of the price we pay as a nation for our haphazard ways and improvisations. Although most citizens, state functionaries, members of the armed forces, and others, may be conscientious and responsible, collectively we can be irresponsible and indifferent. We have shaped a state that looks like what we want but proves insufficient at times of danger. What could be more symbolic than the fact that in 2023 the national rail network – for whatever reasons – does not have the basics of a security system? It operated on the understanding that it did not need to be 100-percent safe, that with slipshod solutions and some luck all would go well. We get used to this situation, we tolerate it, until the point when disaster is inevitable. Belatedly we realize that nothing should be moving on the network until the safety gaps are filled.
We persuade ourselves that we do the right thing. We create a positive image without doing what needs to be done to fill a vacuum, to eradicate danger, to help each other. We shape systems that we believe provide us room to maneuver, that relieve us of the consequences of our actions or inaction.
Today we see in the most tragic way that whoever we are, whatever our job, we must ask ourselves continually whether what we are doing is sufficient to keep the train of our personal and collective life on the right track.
