March 31 — Every few decades or so, an event changes a nation irrevocably. The profound impact of 9/11 on Americans — including a lingering fear — can still be felt a decade on. A collective sorrow from MH370 now cloaks the country. Poignant reminders of our pain appear everywhere, from message boards at malls to tweets on Twitter.

“We are all members of the big family of MH370,” said Saifuddin Abdullah, a former deputy minister. “We feel the sadness and we are together in this.” A nation often polarised and factional is now united in grief.

MH370 is stamped onto the nation’s soul. At first people prayed for a miracle. Now they hope for a bit of debris, a piece of broken plane for a broken nation. Closure depends on it. But the real question now is how we move forward from here.

We had to learn fast when MH370 landed on us. It was extraordinarily hard — hard to believe, hard to comprehend, hard to conclude. How can a 74-metre plane vanish without a trace? It immediately highlighted where we lacked expertise and resources.

The fallout from MH370 has spread far. The reputation of our national airline, which till now boasted a glowing safety record and an enviable five-star-rated status, is now shattered. Lawyers are filing suits. And the government, perhaps the whole country, is now at the epicentre of a maelstrom of global criticism; some well-deserved but some unfair or simply snide.

While 9/11 initially drew widespread global empathy, MH370 is stoking explosive anger. In China, furious netizens are calling for boycotts against Malaysian goods and tourism. Celebrities too are raging. The actress Zhang Ziyi wrote in a Weibo post: “Malaysian government, you are wrong not to take the due responsibility for the international community. You are wrong not to revere life. You are wrong not to respect the universal quest for truth.” Always, the demand for our government to release the truth persists.

They don’t trust us and we have to ask why. Never mind the fact that their distrust may reflect their own government’s great firewall, right now, we have a credibility crisis. Note to nation: openness, transparency and honesty are critical when handling a crisis, as they are, for that matter, for good governance. Ironically, China was accused of hiding information during its own crisis event, the SARS outbreak of 2003.

While the nation’s confidence in the government can often be shaky, most Malaysians seem to believe the government in this case. They’re giving what they got. Yes initially, that did involved confusion and lack of coordination.

But hey, handling vanishing airplanes is not our forte. Neither is disaster management. We’re not plagued with earthquakes, volcanoes or typhoons. Even the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean barely scathed us, although it devastated neighbouring nations.

Now, the government regularly shares what information it has. But the bitter truth is that they don’t have all the answers and may never do. Even if we ever find that elusive black box, the cockpit recorder only captures the final two hours of the flight, so we may learn nothing about that critical first hour.

So even our best intentions may lead to frustration. We need to think of the big picture in the effort to regain credibility.

9/11 exposed the vulnerability and weaknesses of American security, and the fleeting powerlessness of the world’s most powerful nation in the face of terrorism. This tragedy also exposes our weaknesses and capacity to cope. There are hard lessons here for us in security, investigations, diplomacy, public relations, transparency, monitoring and safety. For the aviation industry too, this event reveals astonishing gaps in safety and communication.

Many areas need our scrutiny now: airport security, passport control, airline safety, military radar tracking. We must counter complacency with rigour and vigilance. We can never be professional without accountability, which means we have to tackle the plague of corruption and foster a culture of transparency.

Government officials now speak of “a commitment to openness and transparency” in front of the camera, but how far does the commitment go? True commitment means it extends to every level.

Alarmingly, the government has just denied applications from FZ Daily and Malaysiakini to publish in print, saying a flood of publications “may confuse people”.  So… they still feel the need to control information? Openness means being open to all.

If we want to achieve developed nation status by 2020 — just six years away – then we need to take this opportunity to grow up. Our maturity depends on us heeding the invaluable lessons presented in this tragedy and acting responsibly. God help us if we turn the other way, and respond with fear and control.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.