<B>By Touria PRAYAG</B>

As human beings, we make mistakes. We take wrong decisions or are responsible for wrong decisions taken by members of our team. Some of these decisions may have unfortunate consequences. We may or may not have been directly involved in these decisions. The fault is still ours if we are in a position of responsibility.

And because we are human beings with flaws, capable of making the wrong judgement with the best intentions, there is a word in the dictionary that we learn very early during our upbringing. It is the magic word ?sorry?. As we grow up in age and importance, we learn that to remember this word, which was very familiar to us a few years back, we need to look up another word which also exists in the dictionary: ?humility?.

Now that the dust has settled a little, and although the nation is still mourning its dead and licking its wounds, it is perhaps fair to agree with Mr. Gokhool that what happened was not directly his fault nor is it perhaps that of the scientists at the meteorological station. They had to play by the archaic rules they have and could hardly afford another lashing out from us. Let us not forget, in all fairness, how hard we fell on them when they put out a Class ?3? warning, which they had to annul half an hour later, resulting in so much confusion and wasting almost half a day?s work.

So, blaming Mr. Gokhool for what happened is perhaps due to our emotions riding so high and seeking a scapegoat to soothe the grief and the outrage we felt at the irreplaceable loss of human life. The petition which circulated that dark day, apart from being a catharsis, was meaningless. Asking for Mr. Go-khool?s resignation is rather amusing. If every politician had to resign on a matter of principle, going to the polls would become a week end activity in our beautiful island.

However, Mr. Gokhool missed the opportunity, confronted with the grief of the nation, to do the only honourable thing he had to do: face the nation and say the magic word, ?sorry?. Sorry for the lives lost, sorry for the havoc wreaked, sorry for the ordeal pupils and students had to go through and sorry for the anguish of the parents, in their work place or at home, dead worried about their children caught up in bus stops with water going up to their knees. For once, we would have relished seeing Mr. Gokhool come on the MBC, look at us straight in the eye and say the magic word. Far from degrading him, such a humble act would have made him grow in our esteem and it would have soothed our grief, though not brought back those who died in the prime of their youth. What happened is not his fault but when in a position of responsibility, the buck goes no further.

Instead, he chose to trivialize the death of a child by reducing it to cynical statistics. Instead, he added salt to injury by shirking responsibility. Instead, he increased the anger of the nation and added to its sorrow.

The opposition jumping up and down with hysterical hyperbolic language is equally pathetic; its misplaced opportunism is not helping heal the wounds either. We are glad to see that the overused and abused expression of ?leker fer mal? has given way to ?boulversé? after it has been mocked so many times by a correspondent. Let?s not please demagogically use every calamity, every sign of suffering and grief to gain political mileage. The nation (lepep admirab) can see through this. Very clearly!