COMMENT It would be perfectly understandable if any Malaysian were to say that 2014 has been a truly forgettable year. The scars that this small nation of 30 million had been inflicted in a single calendar year is unlike any other calendar year we had experienced in recent memory.

As we herald the New Year, we are still left picking up the pieces from 2014 disasters - flood victims slowly rebuilding their lives which were wrecked by Malaysia’s worst inundation in 30 years, bodies being recovered from the sea following an AirAsia plane that crashed into the sea on Sunday, and of course, all the unanswered questions about MH370 still lingering in many Malaysians’ minds.

If politics didn’t grip everyone in 2013 as we went through the most closely fought general election in our history, tragedies definitely seemed to have gripped everyone last year. 2014 was the year in which we stared down at the more sombre reality beyond politics - that our lives are fragile, and that we are not so fool proof to nature’s unpredictability as we had always made it out to be...