More stringent safety guidelines on co-curriculum activities

There is an old Chinese proverb saying that ‘one can look down on the mountains but not the water’. From young our parents told us not to get close to the water especially river or ponds and so on and perhaps that is why most of the Asian are not good swimmers unlike the Americans or Europeans where the parents will throw their young kids into the water so that they could learn how to swim. But as the proverb clearly indicates, water is always dangerous and one should never take it lightly.

It is sad to see 5 very brilliant young men just lost their lives over a routine training for dragon boat competition. The parents especially must have gone through a great trauma. Who could have expected that a routine training can turn out to be such a tragedy? But the school authority should always be alert during such outdoor activities. Remember several pupils were drowned when a suspension bridge collapsed during the 1 Malaysia Camp outing at Kampar last October? These mishaps are of course not intended to but the question is “are we always under estimated the probable risks for outdoor activities”? Are the organizers or the people involved put in sufficient safety measures to prevent the occurrence of accidents?

I pity the parents who lost their children in the bridge collapse and dragon boat incidents. It would take a long time for parents to get over such traumatic incident. As we are mourning for the loss of the victims, it is timely for the Ministry of Education to introduce more stringent guidelines on safety aspects for co-curriculum activities.

Man made tragedy

I wonder how lucky we are, to be able to live in a land free of major natural disasters. No earthquakes so far, but we don’t know whether it could happen any time in the future. No typhoon although it floods almost every years during the monsoon periods but seldom we hear of many life casualties due to natural disasters. This land must be blessed and we must all be blessed as well.

A poor country like Haiti is already full of troubles before the earthquake. It is the poorest country in Latin Americas, a country with 50% illiteracy and extreme puberty has forced countless children into slavery, some working as unpaid household servants. As though all the difficulties are not enough, God sent them a devastating earthquake on 12 January 2010, just as all of us are happily ushering a new year. Ten of thousands were killed, and the actual figure may not even be known. These poor people were buried alive. Some may have gone through the extreme suffering under the wreckages for a few days before they eventually died. Such is the predicament of the poor Haitians who could only wonder what sins that they could have done to land them with such fate. Life isn’t fair, perhaps to them it is simply too extreme.

We are lucky to live in a place free of major natural disasters, but unfortunately there are still many man-made disasters happening now and then taking away many valuable lives. Just like the bus accident not too long ago which clearly due to the negligent of the bus driver and more recently the dragon boat incident which took away the lives of a few young students. Now everybody is pointing fingers at the school for not taking sufficient safety measures for such high risk out-door sport activity. A teacher who didn’t know how to swim was appointed the team leader and the students who didn’t know how to swim were selected as the rowers. Are Chung Ling High School not in the way creating a tragedy?

Track down the culprits fast

The authority must act fast to track down those people involved in the arson attacks on four churches in Klang Valley and must find out what are the real motives behind such cowardly actions. Are they religious extremists or just political opportunists to destabilize the peace and harmony of the country?

Tension between races is already a big threat to the stability of the country, like it or not. If religion issues are not well taken care of by the authority, it may lead to an uncontrollable disaster. The seed of hatred must be eliminated before it evolves into the raging of religious wars.

The Polis have urged the people to remain calm and reaffirmed that the arsons were the job of opportunists but not extremists. But who are the opportunists and what can they benefit from such acts? As it is now, the Polis have no clue as to who are the culprits and straight away ruled out the possibility of the religious extremists is just unprofessional.

Can we say that there are no extremists in this country? Don’t forget that Malaysian extremists were also involved in the bombing of Bali a few years ago. Instead of jumping into the conclusion of saying that the arsons were the act of opportunists which sounds as though it was politically motivated, the Polis should in fact step up investigation to ascertain the real motives of the arsonists.