Cooler heads or warmer hearts?

THE accident on Field’s Hill is just the latest example of an incredibly tragic event inspiring a great amount of public sympathy and empathy not only for the victims and their families, but also for the person whose actions led to the tragedy.

Judging by the growing number of support groups dedicated to him on social media and online petitions

calling for his release, Sanele May may be the most popular potential mass murderer the country has seen in a long time.

The tragic loss of so many lives, the heart-wrenching images of a broken May, the perceived injustice of all those murder charges the truck driver now faces: all of these factors seem to have coalesced to create a powerfully moving story.

Perhaps it’s a sign of my own cynicism that I’m surprised at how quickly so many of us have organised ourselves in support of May, whose tragic story seems to have the emotional resonance that’s been missing in recent news headlines dominated by the cynicism of political scandals and exposés.

I’ll admit that I haven’t been untouched by the wave of sympathy that’s swept across the country. My blood temperature drops a few notches when I imagine the horror experienced by all involved in the accident, May especially.

And it makes sense in a way: I haven’t seen any of the victims’ faces in the media so far, so he’s the only human face I’ve had attached to this story. Maybe it’s only natural that he should act as an the emotional lightning rod for all of my feelings of sympathy and loss.

But as someone who’s been taught to err on the side of objectivity, I haven’t been able to ignore that pesky little voice in my head which I’ve come to identify as Reason. Because reason will just not shut up!

Reason tells me that I should ignore my obviously emotional response to May’s plight and look at the facts.

Reason tells me that the massive loss of life demands that the law, however much I may disagree with it, should be allowed to take its course without interference from a member of the peanut gallery like myself.

Reason (with a little help from friend and ally Past Experience) also reminds me that developing stories tend to evolve and change as new information comes to light; by hitching myself on some bandwagon I run the risk of it dragging me down a road laid down by the Good Intentions Paving Company.

So I am torn, I suspect like many others, between my emotional response, which feels justified on so many levels, and my attachment to reason.

But I also know that one doesn’t preclude the other. I think it’s perfectly possible for the both to co-exist, but whether or not this particular case will make that possible still remains to be seen.