Actions speak louder than words
Quiet
minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or
misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm
- Robert Louis Stevenson Several e-mails I received following the recent
Japanese turmoil carried pictures of the disaster zones. A particular
story of a 9-year-old boy, who lost his parents and queuing up in a long
food line, was fascinating. A Policeman approaching the boy had offered
part of his food ration saying: “When it comes to your turn, they might
run out of food. So here’s my portion. I already ate. Why don’t you eat
it?”
The boy accepting the bag of food had gone and handed it over to the
food distribution point. The Policeman, naturally shocked, wanted to
know why he did not eat it, instead added to the food pile. The boy’s
response had been: ‘Because I see a lot more people hungrier than I am,
if I put it there they will distribute the food equally’. The original
author of the e-mail had summerised the action of the little boy thus:
‘A society that can produce a 9-year-old who understands the concept of
sacrifice for the greater good must be an impressive society’.
Affected people
Japanese have demonstrated from their recent tumult how to elevate
from disastrous situations to be tolerant. According to news reports,
there had not been a single visual chest - beating or wild grief.
![](z_p09-Actions.jpg)
Japan’s quick recovery in the aftermath of the March 11
earthquake. File photo |
Their dignity was displayed with disciplined queues for water and
groceries without a coarse word or a single crude gesture.
Japanese selflessness was displayed unquestionably when affected
people sparingly bought only bare necessities at a chaotic moment
thinking of others purely to share with everyone. What a graceful
gesture of humankind to emulate?
Not a single sight of any looting, wild and panicky overtaking of
vehicles with ear piercing horns was reported distinctively when roads
were sinking in an earth-shattering state. To hear about customers in a
supermarket leaving in silence after placing everything back on the
shelves what they had collected to purchase, during an electricity
failure sounds like a fairy tale.
Restaurants cutting down on charges purely to help the affected, and
how the strong cared for the weak have displayed the tenderness of
Japanese mentality during a national disaster.
Radiation exposure
Training the old, young and the children alike precisely to react and
keep calm at a time of a misfortune bolsters Japanese far thinking
qualities. Hats off to media for their magnificent restraint in news
bulletins and not finding any harebrained reporting.
Fifty odd workers sacrificing their lives to stay back at the
N-reactors just to pump sea water to save millions of lives of others
from radiation exposure speaks for itself more than words.
The two pictures taken on March 17 and 23 illustrate the gaping
chasms in a Japanese road which make evident the power of the earthquake
that hit Japan on March 11, 2011.
In a matter of six days after the adversity the crated section of the
Great Kanto Highway in Naka has been repaired and back to use.
Actions speak louder than words. Here is a valid example of Japanese
ingenuity, dexterity, courage and commitment displayed by those
responsible in Japan which opens the eyes even of ‘highly developed’ and
sophisticated western whiz children.
Sri Lanka cannot be compared with Japan by any means, yet, one has to
admit that Sri Lanka is on a rapid development programme under the
second phase of Mahinda Chinthana where hamlets are changed into new and
modernised towns and city and the rural skylines are transformed into
sophistication.
President Rajapaksa’s determination to uplift the mother country to
International standard deserves bouquets, simultaneously brickbats get
thrown at some administrators and big wigs in town and municipal
councils and all connected tentacles who are responsible for the
maintenance of roads for the benefit of movement of people and goods in
this country.
Japanese example
Laid back administrators who appear to be inactive and unprofessional
should be made answerable to the sorry state of some of the highways and
byroads in Colombo conurbation which often cause immense damage to
vehicles when spinning in and out of massive pot-holes, ruts, sharp
unfinished edges of asphalted and/ or concreted roads, which not only
cause motorists additional repair costs in terms of wheel balancing and
replacing shock-absorbers regularly, but make pedestrians and
schoolchildren too inconvenient immensely after heavy rain falls.
Those who are responsible for the maintenance of Parliament Road (to
site an example) can take a lesson from the Japanese example
illustrated. At a time escalation of road accidents has become a hot
topic, perpetual darkness that dominates for months on end, from
Welikada Police Station up to McDonalds in Borella, remains an unsolved
mystery.
Despite keeping motorists in the dark’ deploying Police officers to
control traffic at such road junctions in pitched darkness not only add
more misery to the growing problem but certainly forces Police on duty
to take their life into their hands.
One person alone, as the head of a nation, cannot resolve all the
problems in a country. He needs the collaboration, dedication and
commitment from his subordinates who have been appointed by him and
elected by the people to work for the public as ‘servants’ in the
country.
It is, therefore, an ignominy when the President is seriously
committed to a mammoth redevelopment programme the main conurbation is
turned into a ‘dark city’ in the nights.
Perhaps the photographs shown should open the eyes of those
responsible for road development and lighting of streets in the
metropolis to fathom what responsibility and commitment entail.
Let President Rajapaksa’s repeated mantra to administers and all
responsible government officials ‘to serve the public honestly and
dedicatedly’ resonate in their ears repetitively.
[email protected] |