[Opinion] If Only

“If only he had stayed away instead of jumping into the fire to save me…,” “If only I had stopped her from taking train on the day,” and “If only doctors locked the suspect in hospital when he acted violent….” There are too my `only ifs` involving the victims in Daegu subway fire, which break our hearts. We all grieve the deaths of the innocent victims, and we feel sorry about the families of the victims left behind. Facing the sudden tragic deaths of their loved ones, families now regret and even feel guilty about what they did. And there is a term referring to the state of their mind - `only if` syndrome.

▷Many Americans also went through this `only if` syndrome after the Sept. 11 attacks. A woman, who had a small argument with her husband and skipped the good-bye kiss earlier in the morning on that day not knowing what happened to him, later told her therapist. “If only I had said `I love you,` I would not feel pain like this.” A man, having lost his colleague who arrived at the building earlier than scheduled, fought back tears, “If only he had started a little later…” Dr. Yael Danieli, who founded the International Association for Research on Mental Shock and Stress, notes that the survivors suffer from feelings of guiltiness for what they did, although there was no way of controlling what would happened.

▷Experts cite the `find-meaning` therapy as a way to heal their wounds. For instance, people in Hiroshima after the World War II overcame the shock and fear by finding a meaning in that they experienced the world`s first atomic bomb. Dr. Robert Liftern at Harvard University, a psychiatrist who studied the survivors in Hiroshima, said. “By warning people across the world of the danger of atomic bombs, they could turn their personal pain into the great cause of humanity.

▷9.11 Terror Attack was carefully planned and targeting Americans, but Daegu subway fire is a different story. If only the subway corporation had acted duly in the emergency situation by taking discreet measures, if only the driver of the second train had opened the doors and if only the country had had a safety system in place, there might not have been the deaths of too many innocent people. The families of the victims may well have their `only ifs,` therefore. But the subway corporation and the government, supposed to build a safe transportation system for the public, are not entitled to talk about their `only if` stories. What they have to do instead is to take strict measures to prevent a similar accident from occurring again so that people can find meaning from the innocent deaths in Daegu.

Kim Sun-deok, Editorial Writer, yuri@donga.com