Boat Tragedy: Why We All Need To Look In The Mirror

By Ganzi M. Isharaza

We are in this very unfortunate place as a country, where security forces have burnt up so much of their public trust that even the good they do is interpreted through the prism of what remained undone.Some people are blaming the police for not forcibly grounding the ill-fated boat.

A Prince and several celebrities were on it.

Just take a moment and think about that. In a country where Shs20,000 can get you royalty treatment by police, actual royals were on board. In a country where red number plates or a posh car gives one the ‘right’ to run red lights, ignore a traffic officer’s signal to stop or general traffic rules such as when to overtake, what were the chances that “ordinary” policemen were going to stop the high and mighty from doing what they wanted to do?

There are reports that most people on board were not wearing life jackets and that those who did had substandard ones. And yet again, blame is being metted out. The owners were negligent. The party goers were irresponsible. Blah blah blah.

But how many of us insist on only boarding a bodaboda that has two helmets, protest when they irresponsibly overtake or wear seatbelts in our own cars? How many of us invest in car seats for our children instead of allowing them to stand at the front passenger seat? How can we be rich enough to afford a car, but not rich enough to buy car seats? Strong enough to drive but not strong enough to wear seatbelts?

The truth is, this tragedy is but a reminder of how we have all fallen short. All of us, collectively as a people. This tragedy is a sum total of everything gone bad in our nation:

The abdication of responsibility.

We have all chosen to kick the can down the road. To blame anyone but ourselves. To play victims of circumstances. And to expect others, not us, to do better and save us from ourselves. We blame the politicians for not doing enough, then actively or passively elect them back into office, perhaps in order to have someone to blame. We shout at police for incompetence, then bribe them or call our big shot friends to order them off our backs when we are in the wrong. On and on the blame game goes. Lives are lost, fingers are pointed and once the dead are buried, we quickly move on to the next blame game. And at the end of the day, when we lay awake in our beds, mourning the losses we too often have to bear, if we are brave enough to wonder who to genuinely blame, the answer is crystal clear:

Everyone in general and no one in particular.

If you find that answer unsatisfactory and don’t do anything to change it, you needn’t look further than the mirror for the source of our next national tragedy.

May God comfort all the mourning families.