TODAY marks the fifth anniversary of the vanishing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
Its disappearance prompted one of the biggest search missions in history, but five years on the search has ended in naught.
It is one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries. The aircraft’s fate has been fodder for authors, conspiracy theorists, aviation experts and armchair sleuths.
What the conspiracies are we shall not go into, but unbelievably so, there are no less than 50 books attempting to solve the mystery, from titles such as MH370 Lost in the Dark and Life After MH370 to MH370 Solved and Eye Witness.
Much has happened since then. For one, Malaysia has taken on a new government and installed 93-year-old Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad as its seventh prime minister.
For the first time also since Merdeka, the country is no longer under Barisan Nasional.
New Malaysia is moving along as well as it can.
But five years on, closure for families and friends of passengers and crew of MH370 is still a long way.
With the final search last June coming up empty, the government has confirmed that there would be no further searches unless new evidence came to light. That perhaps, should be as it is for now.
Malaysians, however, should not despair, for the mystery of MH370 will not fade, the memory will live on in our hearts and minds.
We cannot be a grieving nation for long, we have to move on — Malaysia has to move forward.
The mysterious disappearance of MH370 may never be solved, maybe not in our lifetime. But we cannot wonder while the world turns.
Yes, grieve we must with the family and friends. Those feelings of anger, mortification and despair may never go away — despair that Malaysia Airlines, our national airlines with the best safety track record is destroyed; mortified that MAS was blamed for technical malfunction; and anger that our pilot was vilified.
It is time all these allegations are laid to rest. Because tragedies do happen, inexplicably so: the 2004 tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands, the 9/11 coordinated terrorist attacks on the United States, and the Rohingya and Bosnian massacres.
Yes, MH370 was a tragedy, but we must also embrace it, for has not MH370 opened up new horizons for us? It has brought out the best in us — we care more for the world, we donate to charities to better the world’s poor and we host the ambitions of foreign workers who repatriate much of their income home.
We also have young Malaysians venturing in humanitarian missions.
In short, MH370 has given us an image, a reputation that must be protected.
The economics of compensation demands that. Malaysia needs to be compensated for its grief.
We owe it to the dead, and their grieving families and friends, to put things right as a nation.
And so we move on, putting our best foot forward to extend our frontiers, embrace newer technologies, strengthen our universities, rebuild our airlines.
In this most economically challenging times, Malaysia must hold its head high and not look back.