Providence or negligence?

Since time immemorial, humans have tended to look to unexplainable phenomena for answers to major calamities, particularly when they happen in seemingly endless succession.

Looking at the events of the past few weeks in this light, one may perhaps be able to understand the rather unusual comments made by various people in recent days about the series of accidents and disasters that have touched this country.

Some people, for instance, believe that the recent string of catastrophes is proof that comets -- one of which appeared in our skies some time ago -- do indeed presage disaster.

On a more practical level, Amien Rais -- a prominent modern Moslem intellectual and chairman of the executive board of Muhammadiyah, Indonesia's second-biggest Moslem organization -- was reported by one Jakarta newspaper as calling for a campaign of "national repentance" to atone for our collective sins as a nation.

And, indeed, the recent sequence of tragedies is enough to make people think.

Foremost in our minds, of course, is the conflagration that is destroying hundreds of thousands of hectares of our priceless rain forests, including the genetic resources they contain.

This tragedy, which the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has labeled a planetary disaster, is particularly sad and embarrassing as it affects not only our own country but neighboring nations and their citizens as well.

A perhaps less sensational, but nonetheless equally serious, disaster concerns the crash of our national currency, the impact of which is bound to affect the lives of millions of Indonesians.

And while our minds are still occupied with these two calamities, news of more tragedies came flooding into Jakarta from places as far apart as South Sulawesi, Irian Jaya and North Sumatra.

Even at this moment, many of us are still grieving over the loss of family members or friends who died in the Garuda plane crash near Medan, North Sumatra, late last week. Two hundred and thirty-four crew and passengers lost their lives in what has been described as this country's worst plane crash ever.

Tragic as this accident may be, an even greater number of people have reportedly died of hunger and illness in the Jayawijaya region of Irian Jaya, where crops have been destroyed and water contaminated due to a severe drought.

As if this was not enough, news came of a major earthquake in South Sulawesi which killed at least 18 people.

Consider also the various riots and fatal road accidents that have occurred recently and the only conclusion one can draw is that this, indeed, has been a particularly bad time for many of us.

Providence? Possibly. But if one cares to look at the circumstances more carefully it will be clear that at least some of these calamities were man-made and hence preventable.

In the case of those which one might classify as pure natural disasters, such as the Sulawesi earthquake, it might be that more lives could have been spared had the local people and authorities been better prepared, or better organized, to deal with emergencies.

In the case of the present forest fires, surely, a tragedy of such tremendous proportions could have been prevented, or at least confined, through better supervision and stricter enforcement of the law and regulations.

If the present spate of disasters is punishment for our sins, the biggest sin would be our laxness in matters of discipline, control and law enforcement.

If any good is to come from all this, it is that we may finally come to the realization that this is a matter that must be tackled with the greatest urgency.