We’re walking dead as reason takes a flight

On Wednesday this past week, a cross-country bus crashed near Kericho, killing more than 50 Kenyans.

Predictably, declarations were made that the bus was not appropriately licensed for the work it was being put to, and that it was overloaded and was breaking all known laws and regulations in the public transport sector.

Government officials made sympathetic noises and offers for assistance for survivors and help with funerals for the deceased were announced, after which we all went back to business as usual.

Unfortunately, the most that will come out of this is an increase in police roadblocks aimed at arresting motorists flouting traffic rules, and perhaps construction of additional road bumps near the so-called ‘blackspot’ in an effort to curb future occurrences.

A few people may be prosecuted for peripheral offences, and we all know that they will be acquitted eventually. That is it.

RESPONSIBILITY

What else did one expect, a cynical Kenyan may ask. Did you expect flags to fly at half-mast, or our Houses of Parliament to convene for a special session?

Did you expect the Presidency to drop everything and rush to the site of the crash, to mingle with and condole with the survivors and relatives of those affected?

Above all, did you expect whoever are in charge of the National Transport Safety Authority, the traffic police, and the Cabinet secretary in charge of transport and infrastructure to tender their resignations in a show of contrition?

The average Kenyan reading this today is already counting off the excuses for all the personages named above. They wonder what the ‘accident’ has to do with Parliament, the Presidency, the Cabinet, or even the police.

Haven’t the owners of the bus company been arrested? Isn’t the driver dead? Shouldn’t the passengers have done more to prevent the ‘accident’?

Isn’t it an act of God? Why don’t we just pray and hope such an ‘accident’ doesn’t happen again?

TRIVIAL

This is the mentality that ensures that another crash will happen again at the exact same site a few months down the line.

We have such little respect for human lives, especially the lives of ‘ordinary’ Kenyans who are by definition poor and relatively anonymous in the grander scheme of things.

Their deaths are actually expected, and we regularly heave sighs of relief whenever they complete their journeys safely.

We even have the ubiquitous wish for ‘journey mercies’ whenever these ordinary folks are travelling, because we know that death is a constant companion on such journeys.

Unless we change this mentality, unless we make it such that every traveller expects to arrive safely at their destination, unless we take every single loss of life seriously and investigate its cause and take steps to prevent recurrences, we are all walking dead; only a moment away from being collateral damage in a battle between what is rational and what is wishful thinking.

Atwoli is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Dean, Moi University School of Medicine. [email protected]