The sense of safety

The more general question to ask is simply “Are we really safe?” because no matter where you live death can strike anywhere anytime. Of course what I mean by death here is one that is caused by terror spree of some reckless and irresponsible party. In America, some people are in constant fear of being victim of murder-suicide type of gunshot massacre where hopeless mad killer posed as normal acting people and then wildly shoot people one by one nearby before ending his/her own life. To me that is actually many times more dangerous than conventional terrorist act because it is quite impossible (at least for now) to detect people seamless intention to spread terror when the perpetrator is one scrupulous guy who has been known for his/her warm virtuosity or gentle act toward others. Take a look atSteven Phillip Kazmierczak, the perpetrator of the Northern Illinois University massacre on February of 2008. He was according to his girlfriend, the nicest person ever and never demonstrated any tendency toward violence. It turned out that he had been lying to everyone about a brief history of mental illness during his childhood. He whacked 5 people and injured 18 others before he met his own demise.

Though there is no national tracking system for murder-suicides in the United States, medical studies into the phenomenon estimate between 1,000 to 1,500 deaths per year in the US, with the majority occurring between spouses or intimate partners, males were the vast majority of the perpetrators, and over 90% of murder suicides involved a firearm. Depression, financial problems, and other problems are generally motivators. This is a shocking fact. Before I came back from the United States in the march of 2009, there was this notorious Geneva county massacre in Geneva county in the state of Alabama where one 26-year-old Michael McLendon massacred 11 people in the neighborhood including his mother and himself. I would never be able to comprehend the mind of a person who can really put an end to his own birth giver, burn down her house, shoot the neighbor before ending his own life brutally. It is a sad tragedy and it really happened, not just a movie or a fictional novel story.

It is at times like this, when I long for the fictional pre-crime system depicted in Steven Spielberg’s film Minority Report. In Pre-Crime with the help of pre-cogs, we could detect a mass murder or crime before it even occurred and people could be punished for any strong intention with a vivid attempt of hurting other people (which of course only existed in the mind of the pre-cogs). If only that could be concocted, at least my sense of safety would be elevated to a significance level than it is now. But the system has its own shortcoming because I would lose every aspect of my own privacy, for the 24-hour constant surveillance makes me uncomfortable with other people’s tampering my private life only to be reminded by this notion of “We do this for the sake of your own good" excuse. Referring to the movie, there is one scene where in order to track Tom cruise’s character’s whereabouts, the FBI then used spider-like mini robot to scatter around and scan people’s retina when man and wife are shouting at each other, a man is answering his natural call in the toilet, a parent is about to tuck in her children in bed, and so forth. How can you live like this? As much as I desire that sense of safety, I surely would not be pleased if my private moments interrupted in that fashion. Now, I would not be too sure if someday we will have to live like that in the future, but on the other hand, when constructing the world of Minority Report, Steven Spielberg gathered about 50 real scientists of any discipline from around the country to sit together and have a brainstorming to make a raw but realistic projection about what the future would be like 50 years from the year 2001, which is when the movie is produced. Heck that would be eerie.

Back to our initial question: “Are we really safe to live in Indonesia?” The answer would depend on the level of safety in question. If asked would we need a constant awareness over our ambience all of the time and occasionally take a peek if someone intends to hurt us. I would say that is too much. We need not be that alarmed. But that certainly never hurts, because it is always good to practice self-awareness to escape from misfortune. Wherever we are, all of us are inherently unsafe. If you live in the U.S, like described above you might be in constant state of fear of becoming innocent victim of raging gunman. And of course a 9/11-like attack is a latent threat from countries hating the country. If you live in India, you could be a victim of India-Pakistan tension where just last November 2008, ten coordinated shootings and bombings were perpetrated by Lashkar-e-Taiba militants inside Pakistan across Mumbai, one of the major cities in India where the casualties of the attack claimed the life of at least 164 civilians. So, if you think to live in Indonesia is unsafe, think again. In conclusion, we could never be assured a 100% safety wherever we are and need to realize that life and death is only separated by this invisible doorway between our world and the afterlife. Enough said, forget about death, and get back to your life, enjoy it, and live it to the fullest.

-Mulyadi Tjoa , Software Developer @ PT Switchlab Indonesia, Jakarta-