MH17 & Gaza

Less than a month before MH17 and just a few months after MH370, my husband took long haul return flights on Malaysian Airlines – we recall seeing Donetsk on the flight map and admiring Tehran as we flew over it in a very clear sky.

We had some real annoyances with the airline – complete inability to check in online, leading us to be checked in to separate sections of the aircraft (upstairs and downstairs!), friendly but somewhat clueless customer service over the phone etc. So we would grumble to each other – geez, what an airline, no wonder they lost an airplane (wrt MH370). It felt OK to whinge about the airline and even make jokes like ‘haha, I hope they don’t lose our plane’. I guess it felt fine to say it because statistically speaking, the odds of the same airline having two major incidents within the space of a few months are very low indeed. Guess I should have paid more attend to that Black Swan book a few years ago when I read it.

The bombing of a civilian aircraft (minding its own business at 30,000 feet) as collateral damage to a pointless conflict is chilling, to say the least. The stories of a 100 AIDS researchers/campaigners etc, the 80 children, the mangled bodies…nothing is comforting.

To add to the misery of the aircrash story, there is the relentless violence in Gaza in a conflict that seems as old as time itself. I refuse to expound on my views on the topic here but that the world is willing to look away while innocent children get caught in the crossfire makes me mad. What is everyone waiting for, where’s the intervention that is happily deployed when convenience strikes?

It has been a grim week in the world recently, hope the universe is planning on tilting the balance towards a bit of positivity.